“Hush, mon ange,” said Giovanna; “hush, here is something else that is pretty for thee--hush! and do not make the bonne maman angry. Ah, pardon, Madame Suzanne, you are not the bonne maman--but you look almost like her when you look like that!”
“You are very impertinent,” said Miss Susan, blushing high; for to compare her to Madame Austin of Bruges was more than she could bear.
“That is still more like her!” said Giovanna; “the belle-mère often tells me I am impertinent. Can I help it then? if I say what I think, that cannot be wrong. But you are not really like the bonne maman, Madame Suzanne,” she added, subduing the malice in her eyes. “You hate me, but you do not try to make me unhappy. You give me everything I want. You do not grudge; you do not make me work. Ah, what a life she would have made to one who came like me!”
This silenced Miss Susan, in spite of herself; for she herself felt and knew that she was not at all kind to Giovanna, and she was quite unaware that Giovanna was inaccessible to those unkindnesses which more refined natures feel, and having the substantial advantages of her reception at Whiteladies undisturbed by any practical hardship, had no further requirements in a sentimental sort. Miss Susan felt that she was not kind, but Giovanna did not feel it; and as the elder woman could not understand the bluntness of feeling in the younger, which produced this toleration, she was obliged, against her will, to see in it some indication of a higher nature. She thought reluctantly, and for the moment, that the woman whom she loathed was better than herself. She came back to the chair as this thought forced itself upon her, and sat down there and fixed her eyes upon the intruder, who still held her place on the carpet at her feet.
“Why do you not go away?” she said, tempted once more to make a last effort for her own relief. “If you think it good of me to receive you as I do, why will you not listen to my entreaties, and go away? I will give you enough to live on; I will not grudge money; but I cannot bear the sight of you, you know that. It brings my sin, my great sin, to my mind. I repent it; but I cannot undo it,” cried Miss Susan. “Oh, God forgive me! But you, Giovanna, listen! You have done wrong, too, as well as I--but it has been for your benefit, not for your punishment. You should not have done it any more than me.”