"You'll get yours."
And, showing her teeth:
"A tooth for a tooth, and an eye for an eye. . . . No, both eyes for one. . . ."
And she threw herself into the fray. Imprudent Annette! Sylvie was not hampered, as she was, by her pride: any weapon was good enough for her, so long as she won. Annette, armored in pride, would have thought herself degraded had she allowed Tullio to glimpse a shadow of her desires. Sylvie was embarrassed by no such scruples; she was going to play with the gentleman the game that flattered him most. . . .
"Which do you prefer? Do you like to inspire a fine disdain, or admiration? . . ."
She knew man: the vain animal. Tullio adored incense, and she gave him full measure. With a calm, ingenuous impudence the little rogue listed the perfections of the young Gattamelata of the Palace Hotel: body, mind, and clothing. Clothing principally, for she was right in thinking that this was his chief pride. All homage pleased him. To be sure. But that he was handsome was no credit to him; and as regarded his mind, his great name was a guarantee of that. But his dress was his individual work, and he was susceptible to the approbation of an expert Parisienne. With the eye of a connoisseur, secretly amused at certain glaring naïvetés of taste, Sylvie admired everything from top to bottom. Annette blushed from shame and anger; her small sister's ruse seemed so crude to her that she asked herself: "Can he possibly bear it?"
He bore it very well: Tullio was lapping up milk. When she had descended, step by step, from the orange cravat to the lilac belt, to the shoes of green and gold, Sylvie suddenly stopped: she had an idea. While going into raptures over the delicacy of Tullio's feet (he was very proud of them), she exhibited her own, which were decidedly pretty. With a roguish coquetry she put them next to Tullio's, she compared them, showing her leg up to the knee. Then, turning to Annette, who was disdainfully leaning back in her rocking chair, she said with a delicious smile:
"Let's see yours too, dear!"
And with a rapid gesture she uncovered them, along with Annette's thick ankles and the rather heavy columns of her legs. For two seconds only. Annette clutched at the malicious little claw, and it withdrew, contented. Tullio had seen. . . .
Nor did she stop there. All morning long she brought about apparently unpremeditated comparisons from which Annette did not emerge to advantage. Under pretext of appealing to Tullio's superior taste regarding a collar, a blouse, or a scarf, she managed to draw attention to what was certainly not her worst feature, and not Annette's best. Annette, boiling within, pretending not to understand, had to hold herself back to keep from strangling her. Between two of her tricks, Sylvie, ever charming, would press her fingers to her mouth and throw Annette a kiss. But there were times when their flashing eyes clashed. . . .