'No;' she said, looking up into his face as though watching for the personal attack which would be made upon her; 'no, I won't.'
'Marie!' exclaimed Madame Melmotte.
She glanced round for a moment at her pseudo-mother with contempt. 'No;' she said. 'I don't think I ought,--and I won't.'
'You won't!' shouted Melmotte. She merely shook her head. 'Do you mean that you, my own child, will attempt to rob your father just at the moment you can destroy him by your wickedness?' She shook her head but said no other word.
'Nec pueros coram populo Medea trucidet.'
'Let not Medea with unnatural rage Slaughter her mangled infants on the stage.'
Nor will I attempt to harrow my readers by a close description of the scene which followed. Poor Marie. That cutting her up into pieces was commenced after a most savage fashion. Marie crouching down hardly uttered a sound. But Madame Melmotte frightened beyond endurance screamed at the top of her voice,--'Ah, Melmotte, tu la tueras!' And then she tried to drag him from his prey. 'Will you sign them now?' said Melmotte, panting. At that moment Croll, frightened by the screams, burst into the room. It was perhaps not the first time that he had interfered to save Melmotte from the effects of his own wrath.
'Oh, Mr Melmotte, vat is de matter?' asked the clerk. Melmotte was out of breath and could hardly tell his story. Marie gradually recovered herself; and crouched, cowering, in the corner of a sofa, by no means vanquished in spirit, but with a feeling that the very life had been crushed out of her body. Madame Melmotte was standing weeping copiously, with her handkerchief up to her eyes. 'Will you sign the papers?' Melmotte demanded. Marie, lying as she was, all in a heap, merely shook her head. 'Pig!' said Melmotte,--'wicked, ungrateful pig.'
'Ah, Ma'am-moiselle,' said Croll, 'you should oblige your fader.'
'Wretched, wicked girl' said Melmotte, collecting the papers together. Then he left the room, and followed by Croll descended to the study, whence the Longestaffes and Mr Bideawhile had long since taken their departure.
Madame Melmotte came and stood over the girl, but for some minutes spoke never a word. Marie lay on the sofa, all in a heap, with her hair dishevelled and her dress disordered, breathing hard, but uttering no sobs and shedding no tears. The stepmother,--if she might so be called,--did not think of attempting to persuade where her husband had failed. She feared Melmotte so thoroughly, and was so timid in regard to her own person, that she could not understand the girl's courage. Melmotte was to her an awful being, powerful as Satan,--whom she never openly disobeyed, though she daily deceived him, and was constantly detected in her deceptions. Marie seemed to her to have all her father's stubborn, wicked courage, and very much of his power. At the present moment she did not dare to tell the girl that she had been wrong. But she had believed her husband when he had said that destruction was coming, and had partly believed him when he declared that the destruction might be averted by Marie's obedience. Her life had been passed in almost daily fear of destruction. To Marie the last two years of splendour had been so long that they had produced a feeling of security. But to the elder woman the two years had not sufficed to eradicate the remembrance of former reverses, and never for a moment had she felt herself to be secure. At last she asked the girl what she would like to have done for her. 'I wish he had killed me,' Marie said, slowly dragging herself up from the sofa, and retreating without another word to her own room.