“What has the wretch been doing to him?”
“Oh nothing much. She gave him a push, and he fell down.”
She wanted to see her child, and ran into the dining room, but stopped short at the sight of the table covered with spilt wine, with broken decanters and glasses and overturned saltcellars. “Who did all that mischief?” she asked.
“It was Julie, who——” But she interrupted him furiously:
“That is too much, really! Julie speaks of me as if I were a shameless woman, beats my child, breaks my plates and dishes, turns my house upside down, and it appears that you think it all quite natural.”
“Certainly not, as I have got rid of her.”
“Really! You have got rid of her! But you ought to have given her in charge. In such cases, one ought to call in the Commissary of Police!”
“But—my dear—I really could not. There was no reason. It would have been very difficult——”
She shrugged her shoulders disdainfully. “There! you will never be anything but a poor, wretched fellow, a man without a will, without any firmness or energy. Ah! she must have said some nice things to you, your Julie, to make you turn her off like that. I should like to have been here for a minute, only for a minute.” Then she opened the drawing-room door and ran to George, took him into her arms and kissed him, and said: “Georgie, what is it, my darling, my pretty one, my treasure?”
Then, suddenly turning to another idea, she said: “But the child has had no dinner? You have had nothing to eat, my pet?”