Suddenly Louie said something to Cecile in violent French. It was to the effect that she was to hold herself up and not stoop like an idiot.
The child, who was shyly eating her tea, flushed all over, and drew herself up with painful alacrity. Louie went on with a loud account of the civility shown her by some gentlemen on the Paris boat and on the journey from Dover. In the middle of it she stopped short, her eye flamed, she bent forward with the rapidity of a cat that springs, and slapped Cecile smartly on the right cheek.
'I was watching you!' she cried. 'Are you never going to obey me—do you think I am going to drag a hunchback about with me?'
Both David and Lucy started forward. Cecile dropped her bread and butter and began to cry in a loud, shrill voice, hitting out meanwhile at her mother with her tiny hands in a frenzy of rage and fear. Sandy, frightened out of his wits, set up a loud howl also, till his mother caught him up and carried him away.
'Louie, the child is tired out!' said David, trying to quiet Cecile and dry her tears. 'What was that for?'
Louie's chest heaved.
'Because she won't do what I tell her,' she said fiercely. 'What am I to do with her when she grows up? Who'll ever look at her twice?'
She scowled at the child who had taken refuge on David's knee, then with a sudden change of expression she held out her arms, and said imperiously:
'Give her to me.'
David relinquished her, and the mother took the little trembling creature on her knee.