“Good morning, Your Highness” to me.
Say it at once.
Did you sleep well?’
I stroked her hair roughly. This did not seem to displease her and she smiled at me with her green eyes that were exactly like those of Fanchette, my beautiful cat.
‘Yes, Your Highness, I slept well.’
‘Where do you sleep?’
‘Up there.’
‘With your sister Aimee, of course?’
‘No, she has a bed in Mademoiselle Sergent’s room.’
‘A bed?
Have you seen it?’
‘No … I mean, yes … it’s a divan.
Apparently it can be opened up into a bed. She told me so.’
‘She told you so?
Fathead!
Dim donkey!
Nameless object!
Scum of the human race!’
She was terror-stricken for I had punctuated my abuse with lashes with a book-strap (oh, not very hard lashes!) and, when she vanished up the stairs, I shouted this crowning insult after her:
‘Twirp of a female!
You deserve to be like your sister!’
A divan that opened up!
It would be easier for me to open up this wall!
Upon my word, kids like that don’t notice anything!
Yet she looks vicious enough, that child, with those eyes that slant up at the corners …
The gawky Anais arrived while I was still painting and asked what was the matter with me.
‘Nothing at all. I’ve merely beaten little Luce to teach her a thing or two.’
‘Is there any news?’
‘None at all. No one’s come down yet.
D’you want to play marbles?’
‘What game?
Haven’t got nine alleys to play “Square”.’
‘But I’ve got the two I won off you.
Come on, we’ll have a chase.’
We had a very lively chase: the marbles received knocks hard enough to splinter them.
While I was taking a long aim for a difficult shot, Anais exclaimed
‘Ssh! Look there!’
It was Rabastens who was coming into the playground.
Moreover the handsomest of Antonins was already got up to kill and radiant – far too radiant.
His face lit up at the sight of me and he came straight up to us.
‘Young ladies! … How the excitement of the game makes you glow with lovely colour, Mademoiselle Claudine!’
The lout could hardly be more absurd!
But, all the same, just to annoy Anais, I looked at him complacently and thrust out my chest and fluttered my eyelashes.
‘What brings you over to us so early, Sir?
Those ladies, our mistresses, are still up in their rooms.’
‘The fact is, I don’t quite know what I have come to say, except that Mademoiselle Aimee’s fiance didn’t dine with us last night.
Some people declare that they met him, looking ill; anyhow he still hasn’t returned.
I think he’s in a bad way and I should like to warn Mademoiselle Lanthenay of the disturrbing state of her fiance’s health.’
‘The disturbing state of her fiance’s health …’ He expresses himself well, that Marseillais!
He ought to set himself as ‘announcer of deaths and serious accidents’.