He stopped and inquired:

"What is your command?"

She bowed her head and began:

"I require; I wish to speak with you at length and positively."

He smiled.

"For what purpose? We have nothing pleasant to say to each other,
and unpleasant conversation injures the nerves more than--black
coffee."

She raised her head, and with an effort, to which she brought
herself with difficulty, said:

"Things cannot remain as they are. My position--"

With an expression of profoundest astonishment on his face, he
interrupted:

"Your position! But your position is brilliant!"

He made a gesture which seemed to indicate everything which was
in that drawing-room, and in the whole house; but she blushed
deeply, and like one in whom the sensitive place is touched,
exclaimed:

"But this is just what--what I do not wish any longer. I have the
right to desire to be free, to withdraw, to cast from myself this
glitter, and go somewhere."

With all her strength she struggled against the tears which were
overpowering her. He repeated with the profoundest astonishment:

"You do not wish? You have the right?"

Everything in him--cheeks, wrinkles on his forehead, pale
lips--trembled with excitement now beyond restraint. But he was
master of his voice yet. He spoke in low tones, but with a hiss:

"What right? You have no right! You have lost every right! You do
not wish? You have no right to wish, or not to wish. You must
live as it happens you, and as is needed. As to conversations and
serious theatrical scenes, I want none of them--I, who have not
lost the right to wish. I am silent, and I will enforce silence.
That is, and will always be, our modus vivendi, which, moreover,
should be for you the easiest thing in the world to preserve. You
have everything: a high position, luxury, brilliancy, even the
love of your children as it seems. You have everything
except--except--"

He hesitated. His habit of preserving in all cases correctness of
form, struggled with the excitement which had overcome him, and
these words hissed through his lips in a low though envenomed
voice:

"Except--the lover whom you have dismissed, on which deed I
congratulate you, and--my respect, which you have lost, but
without which you must live on to the end. On this subject we are
talking now for the first and last time. We are talking too long.
I am in a hurry to my work. I wish you good-night."

The bow which he made before his wife might seem