Part 11 (1/2)

”You ask me about my daughter?” she once exclaimed pettishly to Monsieur Pettigrat. ”Upon my word, I really know nothing of her except one ridiculous thing. She always dreams of running water. Now, I ask you, what can you do with a daughter so absurd that she dreams of running water?”

Monsieur Pettigrat was a big, broad, uncommon man; he knew that he was uncommon, and dressed accordingly in a cloak and a brigand's hat; he saw what others did not, and spoke in a manner suitably impressive.

”I will tell you, madame, about your daughter,” he said somberly. ”To me she has a fated look.”

Mrs. Thesiger was a little consoled to think that she had a daughter with a fated look.

”I wonder if others have noticed it,” she said, cheerfully.

”No,” replied Monsieur Pettigrat. ”No others. Only I.”

”There! That's just like Sylvia,” cried Mrs. Thesiger, in exasperation.

”She has a fated look and makes nothing of it.”

But the secret of her discontent was just a woman's jealousy of a younger rival. Men were beginning to turn from her toward her daughter. That Sylvia never competed only made the sting the sharper. The grave face with its perfect oval, which smiled so rarely, but in so winning a way, its delicate color, its freshness, were points which she could not forgive her daughter. She felt faded and yellow beside her, she rouged more heavily on account of her, she looked with more apprehension at the crow's-feet which were beginning to show about the corners of her eyes, and the lines which were beginning to run from the nostrils to the corners of her mouth.

Sylvia reached the hotel in time for dinner, and as she sat with her mother, drinking her coffee in the garden afterward, Monsieur Pettigrat planted himself before the little iron table.

He shook his head, which was what his friends called ”leonine.”

”Mademoiselle,” he said, in his most impressive voice, ”I envy you.”

Sylvia looked up at him with a little smile of mischief upon her lips.

”And why, monsieur?”

He waved his arm magnificently.

”I watched you at dinner. You are of the elect, mademoiselle, for whom the snow peaks have a message.”

Sylvia's smile faded from her face.

”Perhaps so, monsieur,” she said, gravely, and her mother interposed testily:

”A message! Ridiculous! There are only two words in the message, my dear.

Cold-cream! and be sure you put it on your face before you go to bed.”

Sylvia apparently did not hear her mother's comment. At all events she disregarded it, and Monsieur Pettigrat once again shook his head at Sylvia with a kindly magnificence.

”They have no message for me, mademoiselle,” he said, with a sigh, as though he for once regretted that he was so uncommon. ”I once went up there to see.” He waved his hand generally to the chain of Mont Blanc and drifted largely away.

Mrs. Thesiger, however, was to hear more definitely of that message two days later. It was after dinner. She was sitting in the garden with her daughter on a night of moonlight; behind them rose the wall of mountains, silent and shadowed, in front were the lights of the little town, and the clatter of its crowded streets. Between the town and the mountains, at the side of the hotel this garden lay, a garden of gra.s.s and trees, where the moonlight slept in white brilliant pools of light, or dripped between the leaves of the branches. It partook alike of the silence of the hills and the noise of the town, for a murmur of voices was audible from this and that point, and under the shadows of the trees could be seen the glimmer of light-colored frocks and the glow of cigars waxing and waning. A waiter came across the garden with some letters for Mrs. Thesiger. There were none for Sylvia and she was used to none, for she had no girl friends, and though at times men wrote her letters she did not answer them.

A lamp burned near at hand. Mrs. Thesiger opened her letters and read them. She threw them on to the table when she had read them through.

But there was one which angered her, and replacing it in its envelope, she tossed it so petulantly aside that it slid off the iron table and fell at Sylvia's feet. Sylvia stooped and picked it up. It had fallen face upward.

”This is from my father.”

Mrs. Thesiger looked up startled. It was the first time that Sylvia had ever spoken of him to her. A wariness come into her eyes.