Then his lips tightened suddenly.
"In that case, madame," he said, after a pause, and speaking as if he were still without revelation of her meaning, "I can but regret that you are not in my place.

For, as it is, I am thinking we shall have to make the best of the hovel in Touraine." She bit her lip in the intensity of her chagrin and shame.

She was no fool, nor did she imagine from his words that her meaning had been lost upon him.

She knew that he had understood, and that he chose to pretend that he had not.

She looked up suddenly, her dark eyes blazing, a splash of colour in either cheek.
"Fool!" she snapped at him; "you lily-livered fool! Are you indeed my son?
Are you--by God!--that you talk so lightly of yielding ?" She advanced a step in his direction.