“Are you sure?”
“He never speaks of her.”
“She’s never seen him again?”
“No.”
“So much the better. I detest her. In the first place, she wasn’t so good-looking as all that. Fine eyes, yes, but she used them a little too much. And her smiles, and her sly looks, and her grimaces! She was always balancing her head, and craning her neck, and heaving her shoulders and wriggling her hips.”
She got out of her chair quickly and walked across the room in imitation of Mrs. Frasne, caricaturing the gestures and the constant play of movement by which the woman’s inner restlessness was betrayed.
“Jeanne, please stop,” cried Margaret.
“No, no,” continued the girl, fairly launched now. “I tell you brunettes can’t be compared with blondes, for colouring or for grace either. You, Margaret, with your chestnut hair, have the beauty of them all, but you don’t do anything to help yourself.... And then, I detest her anyway....”
“Detest whom, Jeanne?”
“Mrs. Frasne, of course. She’s a fatal woman, and brings bad luck. Your brother has been well punished. She has made him unhappy. She didn’t love him. She’s the one they should have put in jail. As for your brother, they’ll acquit him. You know papa and mamma are for him. Papa looked glum about it at first, but I scolded him. I should have liked to go and see the acquittal. You must congratulate him for me. It must be fine to be acquitted.”