They went down together and into the immaculate kitchen, where Jeanne, busily compounding a pie, turned a little cross, sallow face upon them, and rose, grumbling audibly, to fetch eggs and the pan.
"That good Jeanne," said Ange in an undertone, "she has all the virtues except a good temper. Marthe says she is like food without salt—all very good and wholesome, but so nasty; but she is really attached to us and after twenty years thinks she has a right to her temper."
Here, the returning Jeanne banged down a dish, and clattered with a small pile of spoons and forks.
Ange Desaix broke an egg delicately, and watched the white drip from the splintered shell.
"Things are beautiful, are they not, little niece? Just see this gold and white, and the speckled shell of this one, and the pink glow shining here. One could swear one saw the life brooding within, and here I break it, and its little embryo miracle, in order to please a taste which Jeanne considers the direct temptation of some imp who delights to plague her."
She laughed softly, and putting the egg-shells on one side, began to chop up a little bunch of herbs.
"An omelette is very much like a life, I think," she said after a moment. "No two are alike, though all are made with eggs. One puts in too many herbs, and the dish is bitter; another too few, and it is tasteless. Or we are impatient, and snatch at life in the raw; or idle, and burn our mixture. It is only one here and there who gets both matter and circumstance right."
Jeanne was hovering like an angry bird, and as Mlle Desaix' voice became more dreamy, and her eyes looked farther and farther away into space, she twitched out a small, vicious claw of a hand, and stealthily drew away the bowl that held the eggs.
"One must just make the most of what one has," Ange was saying. Was she thinking of that sudden blush and pallor of a few hours back, or of her sister's words the night before?
"If one's lot is tasteless, one must flavour it with cheerfulness; and if it is bitter, drink clear water after it, and forget."