Part 31 (2/2)
”Perhaps--Madame. Good-by.”
The great lady went out of the room and closed the door behind her. The sound of her high-heeled footsteps tapped in sharp staccato down the uncarpeted stairs, and died away into the stillness. The long-drawn creak of rusty hinges and then the m.u.f.fled thud of the front door swinging to. In the street the soft diminis.h.i.+ng whirr of a motor grew fainter and was gone.
Silence.
The woman sank into a chair and buried her face between her two shaking hands.
Shadows crept up against the uncurtained window and pressed, quivering, against the pane. Shadows came into the room and stretched themselves along the floor. Shadows reached up across the wall and over the chairs and the table. Shadows spread in a gray, moving ma.s.s over the still figure of the woman.
A young girl came quickly and silently through the curtain that part.i.tioned the room off from the kitchen.
”Maman--”
The woman did not move.
”I had not thought, Maman, that you were alone.”
The woman slowly drew her face from out between her hands. She looked up uncertainly, her eyes only half open.
”Leave me, Angele.”
”But, Maman, supper is ready.”
”Let it wait, Angele.”
The girl came over to the table and put her hand on the woman's shoulder.
”Was she then horrid, Maman?”
The woman sighed softly.
”It is not that, Angele. She was like the others. They come because they are curious. Something, perhaps, brings them here, but they do not know that. They are only curious. They do not believe. I tell them the truth.
They are shocked for a little moment. They do not believe, Angele.”
”Pauvre pet.i.te Maman, you are tired.”
”Non, non, Angele.”
”Will you have Jean see you tired, Maman?”
The woman stared up into the girl's small, white face that was dimmed with s.h.i.+fting shadows. The woman's heavily lidded eyes met the girl's wide, dark eyes.
”Jean--”
”He will be home to eat, Maman. Soon, now, he will be home.”
The woman pa.s.sed her hands again and again over her forehead and then she held them with the tips of her fingers pressed tight to her temples.
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