Part 10 (2/2)
Poor Mademoiselle Therese! After all, when she enjoyed such things so much, it was a pity, Barbara thought, that she could not have them at home.
She was enjoying, too, discussing various matters with the lawyer, for discussion was to her like the very breath of life.
”She will discuss with the cat if there is no one else by,” her sister had once said dryly, ”and will argue with Death when he comes to fetch her.”
At present the topic was schools, and Barbara and Madame Dubois sat quietly by, listening.
”I am not learned,” madame whispered to the girl, with a little shrug, ”and I know that nothing she can say will shake my husband's opinion--therefore, I let her speak.”
Mademoiselle was very anxious that his little girl should go to school, and was pointing out the advantages of such education to the lawyer.
The latter smiled incredulously. ”Would you have me send her to the convent school, where they use the same-knife and fork all the week round, and wash them only once a week?” he asked contemptuously.
”No,” mademoiselle agreed. ”As you know, Marie used to be there, and learned very little--nothing much, except to sew. No, I would not send her to the convent school. But there are others. A young English friend of mine, now--Mademoiselle Barbara knows her too--she is at a very select establishment--just about six girls--and so well watched and cared for.”
Barbara looked up quickly. She wondered if she dared interrupt and say she did not think it was such an ideal place, when the lawyer spoke before her.
”_Parbleu!_” he said with a laugh, ”I should prefer the convent! There at least the religion is honest, but--with those ladies you mention--there is deceit. They pretend to be what they are not.”
”Oh, but no!” Mademoiselle Therese exclaimed. ”Why, they _are_ Protestants.”
The lawyer shrugged his shoulders.
”Believe it if you will, my dear friend, but we lawyers know most things, and I know that what I say is true. When my little Helene goes to school she shall not go to such. Meanwhile, I am content to keep her at home.”
”So am I,” murmured Madame Dubois. ”Schools are such vulgar places, are they not?”
But Barbara, to whom the remark was addressed, was too much interested in this last piece of news to do more than answer shortly. For if what the lawyer said were true--and he did not seem a man likely to make mistakes--then Alice Meynell might really have sufficient cause to be miserable, and Barbara wondered when she would see her again, which was to be sooner than she expected.
CHAPTER XI.
BARBARA TURNS PLOTTER.
The day after her expedition to Dol, Barbara saw Alice Meynell again, and in rather a strange meeting-place--namely, the public bath-house.
The house in which the Loires lived was an old-fas.h.i.+oned one, and had no bath, and at first Barbara had looked with horror upon the bath-house. She had become more reconciled to it of late, and, as it was the only means of obtaining a hot bath, had tried to make the best of it. It was a funny little place, entered by a narrow pa.s.sage, at one end of which there was a booking-office, and a swing door, where you could buy a ”season-ticket,” or pay for each visit separately.
On one side of the pa.s.sage there were rows of little bathrooms, containing what Barbara thought the narrowest most uncomfortable baths imaginable. A boy in felt slippers ran up and down, turning on the water, and a woman sat working at a little table at one end--”to see you did not steal the towels,” Barbara declared. It was here she met Alice Meynell, under the care of an old attendant, whom the girl said she knew was a spy sent to report everything she said or did.
”Mademoiselle, who came with me to call the other day, has taken a great dislike to you,” Alice whispered hurriedly in pa.s.sing; ”and when I asked if I might go to see you again, said, 'No, it was such a pity to talk English when I was here to learn French.' I am _quite_ determined to run away.”
The boy announced that the bath was ready, and the old attendant, putting her watch on the table, said--
”Be quick, mademoiselle. Only twenty minutes, you know.”
Before leaving the place, Barbara managed to get a moment's speech, in which she begged Alice not to do anything until they met again, and meanwhile she would try hard to think of some plan to make things easier; for the girl really looked very desperate, and Barbara had so often acted as the confidante of her own brother and sister that she was accustomed to playing the part of comforter.
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