Читать книгу Madeleine: One of Love's Jansenists онлайн

55 страница из 60

Then she heard the Reverend Mother telling her that it would be a sign of grace if she were to disclose the names of her companions.

In a flash she realised that she was supposed to have done whatever it was that Jeanne and Julie had done on Wednesday evening.

‘But, Madame, I didn’t ... ’twas only——’

‘Mademoiselle, excuses and denials will avail you nothing. Who was the other lady with you?’

‘Oh, it isn’t that ... there were no others, at least ... ah! I am at a loss how I can best make it clear, but we are, methinks, at cross-purposes.’

But her case was hopeless. She could not betray Jeanne and Julie, and even if she had wished to, she was incapable just then of doing so, feeling too light-headed and rudderless to make explanations. Finally she was dismissed, and walked out of the room as if in a trance.

She was greeted by a clamour of questions and reproaches from the girls. Jeanne and Julie were in hysterics. When they discovered that she had not betrayed them, they muttered some sheepish expressions of gratitude, and to save their faces they started badgering her in a half-kindly way for having got herself into trouble so unnecessarily; why could she not have said ‘No’ like the rest of them? Madeleine had no satisfactory answer to give, because she did not know why herself. In sudden crises it seemed as if something stepped out from behind her personality and took matters into its own hands, and spite of all her good-will it would not allow her to give a false answer to a direct question. And this although, as we have seen, she could suddenly find herself telling gratuitous falsehoods by the gross.