‘’Tis foolish to rouse one’s spleen, and waste one’s strength over trifles, for ’twill not make nor mend them, and it works sadly on your health.’
Madeleine had been waiting for this. She ground her teeth and gave a series of short, sharp screams of tearless rage.
‘For my sake, my angel, for my sake, forbear!’ implored her mother.
‘I shall scream and scream all my life,’ she hissed. ‘’Tis my concern and no one else’s. Ba-ah, ou-ow,’ and it ended off in a series of shrill, nervous, persistent ‘ee’s.’
Madame Troqueville sighed wearily, and sat silent for some minutes.
There was a lull in the sobbing, and then Madame Troqueville began, very gently, ‘Dear, dear child, if you could but learn the great art of indifference. I know that....’
But Madeleine interrupted with a shrill scream of despair.
‘Hush, dear one, hush! Oh, my pretty one, if I could but make life for you, but ’tis not in my power. All I can do is to love you. But if only you would believe me ... hush! my sweet, let me say my say ... if only you would believe me, to cultivate indifference is the one means of handselling life.’
‘But I can’t!’
‘Try, my dearest heart, try. My dear, I have but little to give you in any way, for I cannot help you with religion, in that—you may think this strange, and it may be wicked—I have always had but little faith in these matters; and I am not wise nor learned, so I cannot help you with the balm of Philosophy, which they say is most powerful to heal, but one thing I have learned and that is to be supremely indifferent—in most matters. Oh, dear treasure....’