Maria was bewildered, but nor daunted yet. “Pardon me,” she pleaded; “I fear I don’t quite understand you.”
“Then there are two of us puzzled,” the duenna remarked. “I don’t understand you. I shan’t go into that house. A Christian can’t be expected to care about beasts—but right is right all the world over. Because a monkey is a nasty creature (as I have heard, not even good to eat when he’s dead), that’s no reason for taking him out of his own country and putting him into a cage. If we are to see creatures in prison, let’s see creatures who have deserved it—men and women, rogues and sluts. The monkeys haven’t deserved it. Go in—I’ll wait for you at the door.”
Setting her bitterest emphasis on this protest, which expressed inveterate hostility to Maria (using compassion for caged animals as the readiest means at hand), Teresa seated herself in triumph on the nearest bench.
A young person, possessed of no more than ordinary knowledge, might have left the old woman to enjoy the privilege of saying the last word. Miss Minerva’s pupil, exuding information as it were at every pore in her skin, had been rudely dried up at a moment’s notice. Even earthly perfection has its weak places within reach. Maria lost her temper.
“You will allow me to remind you,” she said, “that intelligent curiosity leads us to study the habits of animals that are new to us. We place them in a cage—”
Teresa lost her temper.
“You’re an animal that’s new to me,” cried the irate duenna. “I never in all my life met with such a child before. If you please, madam governess, put this girl into a cage. My intelligent curiosity wants to study a monkey that’s new to me.”
It was fortunate for Teresa that she was Carmina’s favourite and friend, and, as such, a person to be carefully handled. Miss Minerva stopped the growing quarrel with the readiest discretion and good-feeling. She patted Teresa on the shoulder, and looked at Carmina with a pleasant smile. “Worthy old creature! how full of humour she is! The energy of the people, Miss Carmina. I often remark the quaint force with which they express their ideas. No—not a word of apology, I beg and pray. Maria, my dear, take your sister’s hand, and we will follow.” She put her arm in Carmina’s arm with the happiest mixture of familiarity and respect, and she nodded to Carmina’s old companion with the cordiality of a good-humoured friend.
Teresa was not further irritated by being kept waiting for any length of time. In a few minutes Carmina joined her on the bench.
“Tired of the beasts already, my pretty one?”