She proffered that advice in a most matter-of-fact tone as if it were a precaution against a cold, compressed her lips, then returning to her fixed idea, “But the house is mine,” she insisted very quietly with an accent which made me feel that Satan himself would never manage to tear it out of her hands.
“And so I told the great lady in grey. I told her that my sister had given it to me and that surely God would not let her take it away again.”
“You told that grey-headed lady, an utter stranger! You are getting more crazy every day. You have neither good sense nor good feeling, Mademoiselle Therese, let me tell you. Do you talk about your sister to the butcher and the greengrocer, too? A downright savage would have more restraint. What’s your object? What do you expect from it? What pleasure do you get from it? Do you think you please God by abusing your sister? What do you think you are?”
“A poor lone girl amongst a lot of wicked people. Do you think I wanted to go forth amongst those abominations? it’s that poor sinful Rita that wouldn’t let me be where I was, serving a holy man, next door to a church, and sure of my share of Paradise. I simply obeyed my uncle. It’s he who told me to go forth and attempt to save her soul, bring her back to us, to a virtuous life. But what would be the good of that? She is given over to worldly, carnal thoughts. Of course we are a good family and my uncle is a great man in the country, but where is the reputable farmer or God-fearing man of that kind that would dare to bring such a girl into his house to his mother and sisters. No, let her give her ill-gotten wealth up to the deserving and devote the rest of her life to repentance.”
She uttered these righteous reflections and presented this programme for the salvation of her sister’s soul in a reasonable convinced tone which was enough to give goose flesh to one all over.
“Mademoiselle Therese,” I said, “you are nothing less than a monster.”
She received that true expression of my opinion as though I had given her a sweet of a particularly delicious kind. She liked to be abused. It pleased her to be called names. I did let her have that satisfaction to her heart’s content. At last I stopped because I could do no more, unless I got out of bed to beat her. I have a vague notion that she would have liked that, too, but I didn’t try. After I had stopped she waited a little before she raised her downcast eyes.
“You are a dear, ignorant, flighty young gentleman,” she said. “Nobody can tell what a cross my sister is to me except the good priest in the church where I go every day.”
“And the mysterious lady in grey,” I suggested sarcastically.
“Such a person might have guessed it,” answered Therese, seriously, “but I told her nothing except that this house had been given me in full property by our Rita. And I wouldn’t have done that if she hadn’t spoken to me of my sister first. I can’t tell too many people about that. One can’t trust Rita. I know she doesn’t fear God but perhaps human respect may keep her from taking this house back from me. If she doesn’t want me to talk about her to people why doesn’t she give me a properly stamped piece of paper for it?”