as well as English—but like most people, she fell into the vernacular when under the influence of strong emotion. Volkonsky glanced up at her.
"What is it now?" he asked, peevishly.
His wife turned two blazing eyes on him. The fact that she was not upon a very high plane herself did not prevent her from being indignant at his baseness—and wounded pride drove home the thrust.
"That you should dare, that any man should dare—to propose that a wife should work on a man's past liking for her to serve her husband's ends. Ahlberg, every day that I have lived with you has shown me new baseness in you."
This was not the first time Volkonsky had heard this—but it was none the less unpleasant. Also, he rather dreaded Madame Volkonsky's occasional outbursts of temper—and he had had enough for one night.
"It is no time for us to quarrel—and particularly do not call me Ahlberg. My name is now legally Volkonsky, and I would wish to forget it ever was anything else. We should better design how to keep this Pembroke at bay. I am sure," continued Volkonsky plaintively, "I have never sought to injure him. Why should he try to ruin me for a little scene at a card table that occurred five years ago? I wonder if that ferocious Cave will turn up soon?"
Madame Volkonsky turned and left him in disgust. In spite of her cosmopolitan education, and
