Bravely, and without flinching, she sustained his look; and, in a firm voice:
"I shall always be indisposed," she replied, "when M. Costeclar calls. You hear me, don't you, father - always!"
But the cashier of the Credit Mutual was not one of those men whose wrath finds vent in mere sarcasms. Rising suddenly to his feet:
"By the holy heavens!" he screamed forth, "you are wrong to trifle thus with my will; for, all of you here, I shall crush you as I do this glass."
And, with a frenzied gesture, he dashed the glass he held in his hand against the wall, where it broke in a thousand pieces. Trembling like a leaf, Mme. Favoral staggered upon her chair.
"Better kill her at once," said Mlle. Gilberte coldly. "She would suffer less."
It was by a torrent of invective that M. Favoral replied. His rage, dammed up for the past four days, finding at last an outlet, flowed in gross insults and insane threats. He spoke of throwing out in the street his wife and children, or starving them out, or shutting up his daughter in a house of correction; until at last, language failing his fury, beside himself, he left, swearing that he would bring M. Costeclar home himself, and then they would see.
"Very well, we shall see," said Mlle. Gilberte.
