“Take me with you this time,” she exclaimed suddenly. “I will kiss you if you will.”
I glanced at my mother, rather embarrassed.
“Oh, take her,” she said, “for she is unbearable!”
Régina jumped down again and began to dance a jig, muttering the rudest, silliest things at the same time. She then nearly stifled me with kisses, sprang on to my mother’s armchair and kissed her hair, her eyes, her cheeks, saying:
“You are glad I am going, aren’t you? You can give everything to your Jenny.”
My mother colored slightly, but as her eyes fell on Jeanne her expression changed, and a look of unspeakable affection came over her face. She pushed Régina gently aside, and the child went on with her jig.
“We two will stay together,” said my mother, leaning her head back on Jeanne’s shoulder, and she said this quite unconscious of the full force of her words, just in the same way as she had gazed at my sister. I was perfectly stupefied and closed my eyes so that I should not see. I could only hear my little sister dancing her jig and emphasizing every stamp on the floor with the words: “And we two, as well, we two, we two!”
It was a very painful little drama that was stirring our four hearts in this little bourgeois home, and the result of it was that I settled down finally with my little sister in the flat in Rue Duphot. I kept Caroline with me and engaged a cook. My petite dame, Mme. Guérard, was with me nearly all day and I dined every evening with my mother.
CHAPTER IX
I RETURN TO THE STAGE
