“Very natural,” said Miss Susan. “If you had any heart, you would not beat a baby like that.”
Giovanna’s eyes flashed. She lifted her hand quickly, as if to give a blow of recollection now; but, changing her mind, she caught the child up in her arms, and laid his little flushed cheek to hers. “A présent, tu m’aimes!” she said. “When I saw how the others did, I knew I could do it too. Also, Madame Suzanne, I recollected that a mother should have de l’amitié for her child.”
Miss Susan gave a short contemptuous laugh. “It is a fine thing to have found that out at last,” she said.
“And I have reflected further,” said Giovanna--“Yes, darling, thou shalt have these jolies choses;” and with this, she took calmly from the table one of a very finely-carved set of chessmen, Indian work, which ornamented it. Miss Susan started, and put out her hand to save the ivory knight, but the little fellow had already grasped it, and a sudden scream arose.
“For shame! Madame Suzanne,” cried Giovanna, with fun sparkling in her eyes. “You, too, then, have no heart!”
“This is totally different from kindness, this is spoiling the child,” cried Miss Susan. “My ivory chessmen, which were my mother’s! Take it away from him at once.”
Giovanna wavered a moment between fun and prudence, then coaxing the child, adroitly with something else less valuable, got the knight from him, and replaced it on the table. Then she resumed where she had broken off. “I have reflected further that it is bad to fight in a house. You take me for your enemy, Madame Suzanne?--eh bien, I am not your enemy. I do nothing against you. I seek what is good for me, as all do.”
“All don’t do it at the cost of other people’s comfort--at the cost of everything that is worth caring for in another’s life.”
This Miss Susan said low, with her eyes bent on the fire, to herself rather than to Giovanna; from whom, indeed, she expected no response.
“Mon Dieu! it is not like that,” cried the young woman; “what is it that I do to you? Nothing! I do not trouble, nor tease, nor ask for anything. I am contented with what you give me. I have come here, and I find it well; but you, what is it that I do to you? I do not interfere. It is but to see me one time in a day, two times, perhaps. Listen, it cannot be so bad for you to see me even two times in a day as it would be for me to go back to my belle-mère.”