Sylvie sat down
and thought no more of Pierrette,--an indifference which surprised no
one. When the game was over, about half past nine o'clock, she flung
herself into an easy chair at the corner of the fireplace and did not
even rise as her guests departed. The colonel was torturing her; she
did not know what to think of him.
"Men are so false!" she cried, as she went to bed.
Pierrette had given herself a frightful blow on the head, just above
the ear, at the spot where young girls part their hair when they put
their "front hair" in curlpapers. The next day there was a large
swelling.
"God has punished you," said Sylvie at the breakfast table. "You
disobeyed me; you treated me with disrespect in leaving the room
before I had finished my sentence; you got what you deserved."
"Nevertheless," said Rogron, "she ought to put on a compress of salt
and water."
"Oh, it is nothing at all, cousin," said Pierrette.
The poor child had reached a point where even such a remark seemed to
her a proof of kindness.
VIII
THE LOVES OF JACQUES AND PIERRETTE
The week ended as it had begun, in continual torture. Sylvie grew
ingenious, and found refinements of tyranny with almost savage
cruelty; the red Indians might have taken a lesson from her.
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