Eve, with her dislike of all painful feeling, all quarrelling and bitter words, was already regretting her attack. So she sought to make a retreat, particularly as time was flying and they would soon be expected downstairs: “Come, be quiet, and don’t show your bad temper when all those people can hear us. I have loved you—”
But with a quiet yet terrible laugh Camille interrupted her. “You’ve loved me! Oh! my poor mamma, what a comical thing to say! Have you ever loved anybody? You want others to love you, but that’s another matter. As for your child, any child, do you even know how it ought to be loved? You have always neglected me, thrust me on one side, deeming me so ugly, so unworthy of you! And besides, you have not had days and nights enough to love yourself! Oh! don’t deny it, my poor mamma; but even now you’re looking at me as if I were some loathsome monster that’s in your way.”
From that moment the abominable scene was bound to continue to the end. With their teeth set, their faces close together, the two women went on speaking in feverish whispers.
“Be quiet, Camille, I tell you! I will not allow such language!”
“But I won’t be quiet when you do all you can to wound me. If it’s wrong of me to dress like an old woman, perhaps another is rather ridiculous in dressing like a girl, like a bride.”
“Like a bride? I don’t understand you.”
“Oh! yes, you do. However, I would have you know that everybody doesn’t find me so ugly as you try to make them believe.”
“If you look amiss, it is because you don’t dress properly; that is all I said.”
“I dress as I please, and no doubt I do so well enough, since I’m loved as I am.”
“What, really! Does someone love you? Well, let him inform us of it and marry you.”