I must acknowledge that I was beginning to share her surprise; and I began to turn over in my old head the singular thought of this young girl—“One is uneasy about what one cannot understand.”
But, with a fresh burst of merriment, she cried out,
“She asked me...guess! I will give you a hundred guesses—a thousand guesses. You give it up?... She asked me if you liked good eating.”
“And how did you receive this shower of interrogations, Jeanne?”
“I replied, ‘I don’t know, Mademoiselle.’ And Mademoiselle then said to me, ‘You are a little fool. The least details of the life of an eminent man ought to be observed. Please to know, Mademoiselle, that Monsieur Sylvestre Bonnard is one of the glories of France!’”
“Stuff!” I exclaimed. “And what did YOU think about it, Mademoiselle?”
“I thought that Mademoiselle Prefere was right. But I don’t care at all...(I know it is naughty what I am going to say)...I don’t care a bit, not a bit, whether Mademoiselle Prefere is or is not right about anything.”
“Well, then, content yourself, Jeanne, Mademoiselle Prefere was not right.”
“Yes, yes, she was quite right that time; but I wanted to love everybody who loved you—everybody without exception—and I cannot do it, because it would never be possible for me to love Mademoiselle Prefere.”
“Listen, Jeanne,” I answered, very seriously, “Mademoiselle Prefere has become good to you; try now to be good to her.”