“Madame Suzanne,” said Giovanna, “one must think of one’s self first; what you call sin does not trouble me. I did not begin it. I did what I was told. If it is wrong, it is for the belle-mère and you; I am safe; and I must think of myself. It pleases me to be here, and I have my plans. But I should like to show de l’amitié for you, Madame Suzanne--when I have thought first of myself.”
“But it will be no better for yourself, staying here,” cried Miss Susan, subduing herself forcibly. “I will give you money--you shall live where you please--”
“Pardon,” said Giovanna, with a smile; “it is to me to know. I have mes idées à moi. You all think of yourselves first. I will be good friends if you will; but, first of all, there is _me_.”
“And the child?” said Miss Susan, with strange forgetfulness, and a bizarre recollection, in her despair, of the conventional self-devotion to be expected from a mother.
“The child, bah! probably what will be for my advantage will be also for his; but you do not think, Madame Suzanne,” said Giovanna with a laugh, regarding her closely with a look which, but for its perfect good humor, would have been sarcastic, “that I will sacrifice myself, me, for the child?”
“Then why should you make a pretence of loving him? loving him! if you are capable of love!” cried Miss Susan, in dismay.
Giovanna laughed. She took the little fellow up in her arms, and put his little rosy cheek against the fair oval of her own. “Tu m’aimes à présent,” she said; “that is as it ought to be. One cannot have a baby and not have de l’amitié for him; but, naturally, first of all I will think of myself.”
“It is all pretence, then, your love,” cried Miss Susan, once more starting up wildly, with a sense that the talk, and the sight of her, and the situation altogether, were intolerable. “Oh, it is like you foreigners! You pretend to love the child because it is comme il faut. You want to be friendly with me because it is comme il faut. And you expect me, an honest Englishwoman, to accept this? Oh!” she cried, hiding her face in her hands, with a pang of recollection, “I was that at least before I knew you!”
Curious perversity of nature! For the moment Miss Susan felt bitterly that the loss of her honesty and her innocence was Giovanna’s fault. The young woman laughed, in spite of herself, and it was not wonderful that she did so. She got up for the first time from the carpet, raising the child to her shoulder. But she wanted to conciliate, not to offend; and suppressed the inappropriate laughter. She went up to where Miss Susan had placed herself--thrown back in a great chair, with her face covered by her hands--and touched her arm softly, not without a certain respect for her trouble.
