"Monsieur," she answered him at last, "I speak as a woman who has been outraged in her honour, that is to say, in what she holds most precious."
Madame de Rênal preserved an unalterable sang-froid during all this painful conversation on the result of which depended the possibility of still living under the same roof as Julien. She sought for the ideas which she thought most adapted to guide her husband's blind anger into a safe channel. She had been insensible to all the insulting imputations which he had addressed to her. She was not listening to them, she was then thinking about Julien. "Will he be pleased with me?"
"This little peasant whom we have loaded with attentions, and even with presents, may be innocent," she said to him at last, "but he is none the less the occasion of the first affront that I have ever received. Monsieur, when I read this abominable paper, I vowed to myself that either he or I should leave your house."
"Do you want to make a scandal so as to dishonour me and yourself as well? You will make things hum in Verrières I can assure you."
"It is true, the degree of prosperity in which your prudent management has succeeded in placing you yourself, your family and the town is the subject of general envy.… Well, I will urge Julien to ask you for a holiday to go and spend the month with that wood-merchant of the mountains, a fit friend to be sure for this little labourer."
"Mind you do nothing at all," resumed M. de Rênal with a fair amount of tranquillity. "I particularly insist on your not speaking to him. You will put him into a temper and make him quarrel with me. You know to what extent this little gentleman is always spoiling for a quarrel."
"That young man has no tact," resumed Madame de Rênal. "He may be learned, you know all about that, but at bottom he is only a peasant. For my own part I never thought much of him since he refused to marry Elisa. It was an assured fortune; and that on the pretext that sometimes she had made secret visits to M. Valenod."
"Ah," said M. de Rênal, lifting up his eyebrows inordinately. "What, did Julien tell you that?"
"Not exactly, he always talked of the vocation which calls
