She walked nervously, and with her right hand twisted a gold chain which she wore on her mauve bodice.
"If you knew, Jean, what I have suffered by this want of liberty in the house, to find our parents so different from what they have had us trained to be. For I ask, why did they give it to me?"
The young man took the cigar he was smoking from his lips:
"Our education, Lucienne? It was only our father who wished it."
"He alone is intelligent."
"Oh, how can you speak like that of your mother?"
"Understand clearly," she answered, embarrassed. "I am not of those who hide one half of their thoughts and who make the others unrecognisable because of the flowery language they are wrapped up in. I love mamma very much more than you think, but I judge her also. She is possessed of intelligence as regards household affairs; she is refined; she has some little taste for literature, but she cannot deal intelligently with general questions. She does not see farther than Alsheim. My father has understood far better the position which is given us in Alsace; he has been enlightened by his intercourse, which is very wide and of all kinds, by his commercial interest and by his ambition...."
And as Jean made a questioning movement: "What ambition do you mean?"
Lucienne continued: "I surprise you; yes, for a young girl, as you said, I seem audacious and even irreverent. Is it not true?"
"A little."