Her daughter repeated, still sobbing: "Oh! mamma! Oh! mamma!" Madame Obardi, whose fear and embarrassment turned to anger, shrugged her shoulders and turned to go. "I really believe that you are crazy. When this ends, you will let me know." But the young girl, suddenly took her hands from her face, which was streaming with tears. "No, listen, I must speak to you, listen. You must promise me--we must both go, away, very far off, into the country, and we must live like the country people; and no one must know what has become of us. Say you will, mamma; I beg you, I implore you; will you?" The Marquise, confused, stood in the middle of the room. She had in her veins the irascible blood of the common people. Then a sense of shame, a mother's modesty, mingled with a vague sentiment of fear and the exasperation of a passionate woman whose love is threatened, and she shuddered, ready to ask for pardon, or to yield to some violence. "I don't understand you," she said. Yvette replied: "I saw you, mamma, last night. You cannot--if you knew--we will both go away. I will love you so much that you will forget--" Madame Obardi said in a trembling voice: "Listen, my daughter, there are some things which you do not yet understand. Well, don't forget--don't forget-that I forbid you ever to speak to me about those things." But the young girl, brusquely taking the role of savior which she had imposed upon herself, rejoined: "No, mamma, I am no longer a child, and I have the right to know. I know that we receive persons of bad repute, adventurers, and I know that, on that account, people do not respect us. I know more. Well, it must not be, any longer, do you hear? I do not wish it. We will go away: you will sell your jewels; we will work, if need be, and we will live as honest women, somewhere very far away. And if I can marry, so much the better." She answered: "You are crazy. You will do me the favor to rise and come down to breakfast with all the rest." "No, mamma. There is some one whom I shall never see again, you understand me. I want him to leave, or I shall leave. You shall choose between him and me." She was sitting up in bed, and she raised her voice, speaking as they do on the stage, playing, finally, the drama which she had dreamed, almost forgetting her grief in the effort to fulfill her mission. The Marquise, stupefied, again repeated: "You are crazy--" not finding anything else to say. Yvette replied with a theatrical energy: "No, mamma, that man shall leave the house, or I shall go myself, for I will not weaken." "And where will you go? What will you do?" "I do not know, it matters little--I want you to be an honest woman." These words which recurred, aroused in the Marquise a perfect fury, and she cried: "Be silent. I do not permit you to talk to me like that. I am as good as anybody else, do you understand? I lead a certain sort of life, it is true, and I am proud of it; the 'honest women' are not as good as I am."