Ever since Rogron had been in love,--but let us not profane the word,
--ever since he had desired to marry Mademoiselle de Chargeboeuf, he
was very uneasy about himself and his health. At this moment Pierrette
came down the garden steps and called to them from a distance that
breakfast was ready. At sight of her cousin, Sylvie's skin turned
green and yellow, her bile was in commotion. She looked at the floor
of the corridor and declared that Pierrette ought to rub it.
"I will rub it now if you wish," said the little angel, not aware of
the injury such work may do to a young girl.
The dining-room was irreproachably in order. Sylvie sat down and
pretended all through breakfast to want this, that, and the other
thing which she would never have thought of in a quieter moment, and
which she now asked for only to make Pierrette rise again and again
just as the child was beginning to eat her food. But such mere teasing
was not enough; she wanted a subject on which to find fault, and was
angry with herself for not finding one. She scarcely answered her
brother's silly remarks, yet she looked at him only; her eyes avoided
Pierrette. Pierrette was deeply conscious of all this. She brought the
milk mixed with cream for each cousin in a large silver goblet, after
heating it carefully in the _bain-marie_. The brother and sister
poured in the coffee made by Sylvie herself on the table. When Sylvie
had carefully prepared hers, she saw an atom of coffee-grounds
floating on the surface.
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