“A storm about absolutely nothing!” she exclaimed. “The child would have been perfectly good if he had been let alone.”
“When he is good, he shall come back,” said his mother, calmly, carrying him out of the room.
“Ridiculous!” cried Mme. de Beaudrillart, as they vanished.
“It is just the way to spoil his temper,” Claire remarked, adding seltzer-water to her white wine. “But Nathalie delights in a scene, and in insisting upon her own authority.”
“Poor darling! And he will think I was the cause of it all,” cried Félicie. “I must find something for him, to make up.”
“A medal,” suggested Claire. “I am sure you have a drawer full.”
“Not for playthings,” Félicie said, reproachfully. “If he might wear one always, now, it would make me really happy; but Nathalie is so unsympathetic in those matters that I could not trust to her seeing that it was firmly secured. And as likely as not that dreadful Monsieur Bourget might say something irreverent if he discovered that it hung round the dear child’s neck.”
“He will never believe that you are not deaf,” her sister remarked, with a laugh.
“Thank Heaven, he does not come here often,” acknowledged Mme. de Beaudrillart. “I must say, I feel grateful to him for his forbearance. By-the-way, I have received a letter this morning, and I see there is another for Léon, announcing the death of old Monsieur de Cadanet.”
“Really? A cousin, is he not?”