Therese sighed deeply and put on a look of pained virtue.
"Oh, the hardness of her heart. She tried to be tender with me.
She is awful. I said to her, 'Rita, have you sold your soul to the
Devil?' and she shouted like a fiend: 'For happiness! Ha, ha,
ha!' She threw herself backwards on that couch in your room and
laughed and laughed and laughed as if I had been tickling her, and
she drummed on the floor with the heels of her shoes. She is
possessed. Oh, my dear innocent young Monsieur, you have never
seen anything like that. That wicked girl who serves her rushed in
with a tiny glass bottle and put it to her nose; but I had a mind
to run out and fetch the priest from the church where I go to early
mass. Such a nice, stout, severe man. But that false, cheating
creature (I am sure she is robbing our Rita from morning to night),
she talked to our Rita very low and quieted her down. I am sure I
don't know what she said. She must be leagued with the devil. And
then she asked me if I would go down and make a cup of chocolate
for her Madame. Madame--that's our Rita. Madame! It seems they
were going off directly to Paris and her Madame had had nothing to
eat since the morning of the day before. Fancy me being ordered to
make chocolate for our Rita! However, the poor thing looked so
exhausted and white-faced that I went. Ah! the devil can give you
an awful shake up if he likes."
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