But the girls took the part of their friend.
“No, she hasn’t made mischief,” cried Babs. “She’s quite right, and whatever she says we’ll listen to. Mrs. Angmering, do you think we ought to go away to Paris with our aunt, without knowing where she is going to take us to?”
But at these words the storm of Mademoiselle’s rage grew so violent that, whatever they might have thought of her as a guardian of youth before, all doubts on the subject melted away as she clenched her fists, and gnashed her teeth, and stamping her foot declared that they must and should go away with her, that their father wished it, and that they had no choice.
“You are under age, both of you,” she said, “and until you are twenty-one, you are not able to choose for yourself. It is for your father to choose what is best for you.”
“Well, then, let us see papa, and ask him to say whether we are unreasonable,” said Pamela, who was as daring as she was pretty. “He knows that it’s natural we should want to see our own mother, and even if he and she didn’t get on well together——”
“Who has been telling you that?” snapped their aunt. “Madame Rocada, I suppose!”
Pamela went on:—
“Even if, as I say, they quarrelled, and haven’t seen each other for years, that’s no reason why we shouldn’t see her, now we know she’s alive, and know too that she is as sane as we are!”
“Oh, that is saying very little!” sneered Mademoiselle Laure, who seemed to have lost all sense of self-control, and to be crazy with rage at the girls’ opposition to her wishes.
Audrey grew anxious to put an end to the painful scene.