“Tha right! Tha right! Cry! Quiet your nerves!” Mme. Chambannes encouraged her.
This vulgar solicitude merely exasperated Thérèse. She mastered herself suddenly, stood up, and in a rage began to fasten her dress again.
In the mirror she shunned the eyes of her mother and of Mme. Chambannes. A growing anger put fresh speed into her fingers. Yes! They might well look at her! She had indeed the look of a woman who had just fainted. She could not have jumped up in worse disorder and less command of herself had a man seen her thus undressed and disheveled. Her eyes shone bigger; her eyelids showed a dark shadow as if she had spent a sleepless night. Perspiration had laid oily tints on the wings of her nostrils and marked her powdered cheeks with greasy lines. Her bunch of carnations had fallen down; there was a deep gap in her hair, just over her forehead, like a dark-edged wound. In her haste she had hooked her corsage awry and the gauze gaped over her breast, a loose, transparent cord.
“Poor girl!” Mme. Chambannes risked.... “Do you feel better?”
Thérèse coldly replied:
“Much better, madame, thank you.”
She turned to her mother and asked in a tone of command:
“Well, mother, are we going?”
“Just as you say, dear,” Mme. Raindal replied.
They went to the anteroom where the men were waiting.