Part 13 (2/2)

”Your temper is contradictory to-day,” said Clara coldly. ”Did you know,” she said presently, ”that the princesses will be at the Countess von Amte's to-morrow?”

”Then we shall meet them!” cried Jean. ”Then something will be settled.”

Lucy locked the door of her chamber after her. She found much comfort in the tiny bare room with its white walls and blue stove, and the table where lay her worn Bible and a picture of her old home. The room seemed a warm home to her now. Above the wall she had hung photographs of the great Madonnas, and lately she had placed one of Frances Waldeaux among them. That was the face on which she looked last at night. When Clara had noticed it, Lucy had said, ”I am as fond of the dear lady as if she were my own mother.”

She sat down before it now, and taking out her sewing began to work, glancing up at it, half smiling as to a friend who talked to her. She thought of Furst Hugo boiling soap, with a gentle pity, and of Jean with hot disdain. What had Jean to do with it? The prince was her own lover, as her gloves were her own.

But indeed, the prince and love were but shadows on the far sky line to the little girl; the real things were her work and her Bible, and George's mother talking to her. She often traced remembered expressions on Mrs. Waldeaux's face; the gayety, the sympathy, a strange foreboding in the eyes. Finer meanings, surely, than any in the features of these immortal insipid Madonnas!

Sometimes Lucy could not decide whether she had seen these meanings on Frances Waldeaux's face, or on her son's.

She sewed until late in the afternoon. There came a tap at the door.

She opened it, and there stood Mrs. Waldeaux, wrapped in a heavy cloak.

Lucy jumped at her, trembling, and hugged her.

”Oh, come in! Come in!” she cried shrilly. ”I have just been thinking of you and talking to you!”

Frances laughed, bewildered. ”Oh, it is Miss Dunbar? The man sent me here by mistake to wait. Miss Vance is out, he said.”

”Yes, I suppose so. But I--I am here.” Lucy threw her arms around her again, laying her head down on her shoulder. She felt as if something that she had waited for a long time was coming to her. ”Sit by the stove. Your hands are like ice,” she said.

”Yes, I am usually cold now; I don't know why.”

Lucy then saw a curious change in her face. The fine meanings were not in it now. It was fatter--coa.r.s.er; the hair was dead, the eyes moved sluggishly, like the gla.s.s eyes of a doll.

”You are always cold? Your blood is thin, perhaps. You are overtired, dear. Have you travelled much?”

”Oh, yes! all of the time. I have seen whole tracts of pictures, and no end of palaces and hotels--hotels--hotels!” Frances said, awakening to the necessity of being talkative and vivacious with the young girl.

She threw off her cloak. There was a rip in the fur, and the dirty lining hung out. Lucy shuddered. Mrs. Waldeaux's blood must have turned to water, or she would never have permitted that!

”You must rest now. I will take care of you,” she said, with a little nod of authority. Frances looked at her perplexed. Why should this pretty creature mother her with such tenderness?

Oh! It was the girl that George should have married!

She glanced at the white room with its dainty bibelots, the Bible, the Madonnas, watching, benign. Poor little nun, waiting for the love that never could come to her!

”I am glad you are here, my child. You can tell me what I want to know. I have not an hour to spare. I am going to my son--to George.

Do you know where he is?”

”At Vannes, in Brittany.”

”Brittany--that is a long way.” Frances rose uncertainly. ”I hoped he was near. I was in a Russian village, and Clara's letter was long in finding me. When I got it, I travelled night and day. I somehow thought I should meet him on the way. I fancied he would come to meet me.”

Lucy's blue eyes watched her keenly a moment. Then she rang the bell.

”You must eat, first of all,” she said.

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