Then she went back to Rue St. Servan, and sought Madame Roulleau. Madame was sitting in the office, with a pen behind her ear, and her thin hair drawn up tighter, doing her husband’s work with considerable acerbity. She would not in the least have minded bearing its whole weight upon her shoulders had it not been that certain foolish legal impediments in the way of women cut her off from the most lucrative part of his profession. It was a folly, but it was undeniable. And Ignace’s cowardice just now stood in the way of golden gains. No wonder that madame was sharp in the midst of her astonishment at seeing Thérèse before her.
“You were speaking yesterday of the children having their vacation, madame,” said Thérèse quietly. “I am thinking of taking advantage of it to leave you for the present.”
Madame laid down her papers, stood up behind the bureau, and resting her hands on it said, in a low furious voice, “You are going?”
“For a time only, I repeat, madame.”
“Oh, I comprehend. It is the fever-fright that has hold of you,” she said, contemptuously. “Understand, however, mademoiselle, that by leaving Charville you lose even the pitiful sum provided for your support.”
Thérèse winced under the scorn as the young do wince. She grew very red, and said quickly, “You are mistaken, madame. What I propose doing is to offer myself as a nurse at the hospital. I have no intention of leaving Charville.”
“You! A nurse!”
“Exactly so, madame.”
“See then,” cried madame, volubly, sinking back among her papers,—“see then how the ingratitude I knew would come to pass, has come! We take her in when no one else would do so, nourish her as a daughter, disarrange ourselves, slave,—when I think of it, there is nothing we have not done. Ah, my poor Ignace, what will it not cost you to learn that I was right!”
“What have I said?” asked Thérèse, appalled at the storm.