She said, speaking in French: ‘Very well, then, today she may take the children to try their new shoes.’ ‘That would hardly be a holiday for her. She must be free of them now and again. How would you like never a moment to yourself?’ ‘I am not a servant, mon cher. Et plus que ça, two of them at a time, they give me the headache, it is too much for me.’ ‘A governess may have a headache as well as another.’ ‘If she is so delicate, she had better not take such a position. After all, is it such a penance,’ said Tante Louise, somewhat shifting her ground, ‘to sit quietly and read to two children on a wet afternoon?’ ‘No, and that’s what I myself will do, on this particular wet afternoon. Owain is driving her in the dog-cart wherever she wishes to go.’ ‘Yes, well you had better look out for this Owain,’ said Madame, her speech increasing in rapidity as her irritation irrationally grew, ‘and see that your treasure doesn’t go making a fool of herself. What else is she good for, poor scarred creature, with no dot to bring to a marriage, nothing but a few false pretensions to gentility?
