She was enraged as he had never seen her before.
“But these offerings,” he said, quite coolly: “the chickens and the little pots of jam, Nicette—or is it guava jelly? One may make a good investment of the imagination, I see.”
It was not pleasant of him; but he could be merciless to what he considered a bad example of escamoterie.
For a moment the girl looked like a very harpy. Her fingers crooked on the bosom of her dress as if she would have liked to lacerate her heart in desperate despite of its assailant. Then, suddenly, she dropped back upon her chair, and, covering her face with her hands, broke into a very pitiful convulsion of weeping.
Qui se fait brebis, le loup le mange!
Assuredly Ned had invited his own discomfiture. He had thought to operate upon this tender conscience without any right knowledge of the position of its arteries of emotion. He had bungled and let loose the flood, and straightway he was scared over the result of his own recklessness.
He let Mademoiselle Legrand cry a little while, not knowing how to compromise with his convictions. He loved truth, but was not competent to cope with its erring handmaid.
At last: “Nicette!” he whispered, and put his hand timidly on the girl’s shoulder.
She wriggled under his touch.
“No, no!” she sobbed, in a drowned voice. “It is terrible to be so hated and despised.”