Sylvia could not bear any longer this mockery of her mother’s love, and, bursting into the kitchen, she began to abuse Valentine with all the vulgar words she had learned from Blanche.
Valentine caught her sister by the shoulders and shook her violently:
“Tu seras bien avec ton père, sale gosse!”
Then she smacked her cheek several times and left the house.
Sylvia flung her arms round her father.
“Take me with you,” she cried. “You hate her, don’t you? Take me, father.”
Henry rose and, in rising, upset the bottle of brandy.
“Thank God,” he said, fervently. “My own daughter still loves me.”
Sylvia perceived nothing ludicrous in the tone of her father’s speech, and happy tears rose to her eyes.
“See! here is the time-table. Must we go to-night? Sha’n’t we go to-night?”