"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--coarser; the hair was dead, the eyes moved sluggishly, like the glass 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.
"No, I am not hungry. Vannes, you said? I must go now.
I haven't an hour."
"You have two, exactly. You'll take the express at eight. Oh, I'm never mistaken about a train. Here is the coffee. Now, I'll make you a nice sandwich."Frances was faint with hunger. As she ate, she watched the pretty matter-of-fact little girl, and laughed with delight. When had she found any thing so wholesome? It was a year, too, since she had seen any one who knew George. Naturally, she began to empty her heart, which was full of him, to Lucy.
"I have not spoken English for months," she said, smiling over her coffee. "It is a relief! And you are a friend of my son's, too?""No. A mere acquaintance," said Lucy, with reserve.
"No one could even see George and not understand how different he is from other men.""Oh! altogether different!" said Lucy. "Yes, you understand. And there was that future before him--when his trouble came. Oh, I've thought of it, and thought of it, until my head is tired! He fell under that woman's influence, you see. It was like mesmerism, or the voodoo curse that the negroes talk of. It came on me too. Why, there was a time when I despised him.
George!" Her eyes grew full of horror. "I left him, to live my own life. He has staggered under his burden alone, and I could have rid him of it. Now there are two of them.""Two of them? " said Lucy curiously.
"There is a baby--Pauline Felix's grandson. I beg your pardon, my child, I ought not to have named her. She is not a person whom you should ever hear of. He has them both,--George. He has that weight to carry." She stood up. "That is why I am going to him. It must be taken from him.""You mean--a divorce?"
"I don't know--I can't think clearly. But God does such queer things! There are millions of men in the world, and this curse falls on--George!"Lucy put her hands on the older woman's arms and seated her. "Mrs. Waldeaux," she said, with decision, "you need sleep, or you would not talk in that way. Lisa is not a curse. Nor a voodoo witch. She came to your son instead of to any other man--because he chose her out from all other women. He had seen them." She held her curly head erect. "As he did choose her, he should make the best of her."Frances looked at her as one awakened out of a dream.
"You talk sensibly, child. Perhaps you are right. But I must go. Ring for a cab, please. No, I will wait in the station. Clara would argue and lecture. I could not stand that to-night," with her old comical shrug.
Lucy's entreaties were vain.
But as the train rushed through the valley of the Isar that night, Frances looked forward into the darkness with a nameless terror. "That child was so healthy and sane,"she said, "I wish I had stayed with her longer."
