“Mamma!”
“I managed to slip away, just for a moment. My dear child!”
“Eduard is here, Mamma. He’s downstairs. He wants to take me away with him. He is waiting till the people are gone. He was shouting so....”
“I heard him.”
“We told him to be quiet. I won’t go with him, Mamma. I’ll stay with you, I’ll stay with you. He struck me!”
“The cad!” cried Henri, pale in the face.
“The dirty blackguard!” said the old nurse.
Bertha, very pale, shut her eyes, heaved a deep sigh:
“My child, my dear child ... be sensible, make it up.”
“But he is brutal to me, Mamma!”