your hands.

NAPOLEON. Why has it been sent to me?

LADY. Because it compromises the director Barras.

NAPOLEON (frowning, evidently startled). Barras! (Haughtily.)
Take care, madame. The director Barras is my attached personal
friend.

LADY (nodding placidly). Yes. You became friends through your
wife.

NAPOLEON. Again! Have I not forbidden you to speak of my wife?
(She keeps looking curiously at him, taking no account of the
rebuke. More and more irritated, he drops his haughty manner, of
which he is himself somewhat impatient, and says suspiciously,
lowering his voice) Who is this woman with whom you sympathize so
deeply?

LADY. Oh, General! How could I tell you that?

NAPOLEON (ill-humoredly, beginning to walk about again in angry
perplexity). Ay, ay: stand by one another. You are all the same,
you women.

LADY (indignantly). We are not all the same, any more than you
are. Do you think that if _I_ loved another man, I should pretend
to go on loving my husband, or be afraid to tell him or all the
world? But this woman is not made that way. She governs men by