Page:Later Life (1919).djvu/154

146 "Yes. Eduard struck me . . . and insulted me . . . insulted me . . . I won't go back home . . . I shall stay here!"

"Emilie! Good heavens!"

"Unless you turn me away . . . Then I'll go into the streets, I don't know where . . . to Leiden . . . to Henri . . . I'll go to Henri. Understand what I say, Mamma: I'll never go back to Eduard."

Van Naghel appeared at the door:

"What's happened, Emilie?"

"Papa, Papa, I've run away . . ."

"Run away . . ."

"From Eduard. It's a dog's life. He's a miser. He's always bullying me, reproaching me, saying that I spend too much money . . . that my parents, yes, that you . . . that you spend too much money! He's mad with meanness. He locks up my linen-cupboard . . . because I wear too many chemises and send too many things to the wash and employ too expensive a laundress! He grudges me more than one chemise a week! He's mad . . . he's gone mad! For a whole week, I put on three fresh chemises a day, to annoy him, and I threw all those chemises into his dirty-clothes-basket, to annoy him! He found them this morning! I told him that I was the mistress of my own chemises and that I should wear just as many as I pleased. Then he flew into a passion and he struck me . . ."

She burst out laughing: