The days went on for Thérèse very much as they had done at the hospital. She had but one patient instead of many, it is true, but that one absorbed all her care. Octavie had been sent from the house; the file, who was in the habit of coming for a certain number of hours daily, took fright and kept away. Nannon took her place, but she was not permitted to enter the sick-room, and madame was utterly incapable of those little feminine cares which nursing demands. So it all rested upon Thérèse, and even when the child was unconscious there seemed to be an increase of disquietude if she was not close at hand. She thought it a bad case, and longed for M. Deshoulières’ swift perception to be brought to bear upon it, and she could not help remembering Nannon’s irreverent simile when little Pinot came into the room, with his little attempt at imitation of the other’s manner. But madame broke out violently when she suggested that M. Deshoulières should be sent for. And so there was nothing for it but to remember his injunctions, and patiently to do what was needed for the poor little man, whose naughtinesses and obstinacies were forgotten now, or recalled only with shame at her own want of forbearance.
She wondered sometimes at madame’s strange ways. It was impossible to say in what mood the next hour would find her, fierce or remorseful, snappish or affectionate. Thérèse would have understood better had she known what coals of fire her unconscious hands were heaping and shovelling upon madame’s head just then. Nothing could have been so terrible to her as to see this girl whom she had injured sitting with the little hot hand in hers which the mother loved above all others in the world, and longed to tear away out of her clasp. Nothing. It almost maddened her.
At last one morning M. Pinot also told her that he would suggest her sending for M. Deshoulières. “It would be a satisfaction to himself,” he said. Thérèse, who knew what those words meant, turned a little pale, and looked tenderly down upon the little ugly brown face, now so pinched and wizened and changed, which kept slipping down from the pillow.
“M. Deshoulières shall not come,” answered madame, in her strange defiant tone. “The child is no worse.”
“Pardon, madame. It grieves me to say—”
“He is not worse, I tell you. The fever must run its course, and I have heard you say it is now only weakness.”
“Madame, at this stage—”
“He is not worse, I repeat again. I do not choose that M. Deshoulières should come.”
“In that case—Is Monsieur Roulleau aware of the extent of this illness, may I inquire of madame?”
“My husband comes to-day.”