Bathilde went straight to the fireplace, took off her hat, looked at herself in the glass, and put her pretty foot on the bar of the fender to display it to Rogron.
“What ails you, monsieur?” said she, looking at him. “You give me no greeting? Well, indeed! I may put on a velvet frock for your benefit …”
She stopped Pierrette, bidding her put her hat on a chair, and the girl took it from her, Bathilde resigning it to her as though Pierrette had been the housemaid.
Men are thought very fierce, and so are tigers; but neither tigers, nor vipers, nor diplomats, nor men of law, nor executioners, nor kings, can in their utmost atrocities come near the gentle cruelty, the poisoned sweetness, the savage scorn of young ladies to each other when certain of them think themselves superior to others in birth, fortune, or grace, and when marriage is in question, or precedence, or, in short, any feminine rivalry. The “Thank you, mademoiselle,” spoken by Bathilde to Pierrette, was a poem in twelve cantos.
Her name was Bathilde, the other’s was Pierrette; she was a Chargeboeuf, the other a Lorrain! Pierrette was undersized and fragile, Bathilde was tall and full of vitality! Pierrette was fed by charity, Bathilde and her mother lived on their own money! Pierrette wore a stuff frock with a deep tucker, Bathilde dragged the serpentine folds of her blue velvet; Bathilde had the finest shoulders in the department, and an arm like a queen’s, Pierrette’s shoulder-blades and arms were skinny; Pierrette was Cinderella, Bathilde the fairy; Bathilde would get married, Pierrette would die a maid! Bathilde was worshiped, Pierrette had no one to love her! Bathilde had her hair dressed—she had taste, Pierrette hid her hair under a little cap, and knew nothing of the fashions! Epilogue—Bathilde was everything, Pierrette was nothing. The proud little Bretonne perfectly understood this cruel poem.
“Good evening, child,” said Madame de Chargeboeuf from the summit of her grandeur, and with an accent given by her narrow pinched nose.
Vinet put the crowning touch to these insulting civilities by looking at Pierrette and saying, on three notes, “Oh, oh, oh! How fine we are this evening, Pierrette!”
“I!” said the poor child. “You should say that to your cousin, not to me. She is beautiful!”
“Oh, my cousin is always beautiful,” replied the lawyer. “Do not you say so, Père Rogron?” he added, turning to the master of the house, and shaking hands with him.
“Yes,” said Rogron.
“Why force him to say what he does not think? I never was to his taste,” replied Bathilde, placing herself in front of Rogron. “Is not that the truth?—Look at me.”
Rogron looked at her from head to foot, and gently closed his eyes, like a cat when its poll is scratched.
“You are too beautiful,” said he, “too dangerous to look at.”
“Why?”
Rogron gazed at the fire-logs and said nothing.
At this moment Mademoiselle Habert came, followed by the Colonel. Céleste Habert, everybody’s enemy now, had none but Sylvie on her side; but each one showed her all the greater consideration, politeness, and amiable attention because all were undermining her, so that she doubted between this display of civil interest and the distrust which her brother had implanted in her. The priest, though standing apart from the theatre of war, guessed everything; and so, when he perceived that his sister’s hopes were at an end, he became one of the Rogrons’ most formidable antagonists.
The reader can at once imagine what Mademoiselle Habert was like on being told that even if she had not been mistress—arch-mistress—of a school, she would still always have looked like a governess. Governesses have a particular way of putting on their caps. Just as elderly Englishwomen have monopolized the fashion of turbans, so governesses have the monopoly of these caps; the crown of the cap towers above the flowers, the flowers are more than artificial; stored carefully in a wardrobe, this cap is always new and always old, even on the first day. These old maids make it a point of honor to be like a painter’s lay-figure; they sit on their haunches, not on their chairs. When they are spoken to they turn their whole body; and when their gowns creak, we are tempted to believe that the springs of the machinery are out of order. Mademoiselle Habert, a type of her kind, had a hard eye, a set mouth, and under her chin, furrowed with wrinkles, the limp and crumpled cap-strings wagged and frisked as she moved. She had an added charm in two moles, rather large and rather brown, with hairs that she left to grow like untied clematis. Finally, she took snuff, and without grace.
They sat down to the toil of boston. Sylvie had opposite to her Mademoiselle Habert, and the Colonel sat on one side, opposite Madame de Chargeboeuf. Bathilde placed herself near her mother and Rogron. Sylvie put Pierrette between herself and the Colonel. Rogron opened another card-table in case Monsieur Néraud should come, and Monsieur Cournant and his wife. Vinet and Bathilde could both play whist, which was Monsieur and Madame Cournant’s game. Ever since the Chargeboeuf ladies—as they say in Provins—had been in the habit of coming to the Rogrons’, the two lamps blazed on the chimneypiece between the candelabra and the clock, and the tables were lighted by wax lights at two francs a pound, which, however, was paid by winnings at cards.
“Now, Pierrette, my child, take your sewing,” said Sylvie with treacherous gentleness, seeing her watch the Colonel’s play.
In public she always pretended to treat Pierrette very kindly. This mean deceit irritated the honest Bretonne, and made her despise her cousin. Pierrette fetched her embroidery; but as she set the stitches, she looked now and then at the Colonel’s game. Gouraud seemed not to know that there was a little girl at his side. Sylvie began to think this indifference extremely suspicious. At a certain moment in the game the old maid declared misère
