“This is but a ruse,” She turned to Lucie. “I desire to know how this young person came to find her way in here.”
“It is as she said; she came by the window,” Lucie told her with a smile.
“But this is too ridiculous,” declared Paulette, walking off with a troubled look.
“Come back! Come back, and we will tell you all about it.” Lucie ran after her. “She was lonely, this poor little Odette, shut up, locked in indeed. We saw each other from the window, and when we learned that we were both refugees and both from Picardy, figure to yourself how easy it was to become acquainted. I might not open my door; she could not unlock hers, for her aunt has taken the key. Oh, she is clever and very brave, this Odette. What do you think she did? She climbed through a trap door upon the roof, and dropped as easily as a bird upon the balcony. She tapped upon the window; I heard her and let her in.” Then before Paulette could censure, Lucie hastened to continue her story. “And, Paulette, it is so sad; there is her father dead upon the battlefield, her home burned to the ground. Her poor mother with her little baby died on the way when they were escaping from the Germans. Think of being shut up alone with such memories. Do you wonder that she longed for some one to speak to?”
Paulette sighed. “It was a great risk and altogether wrong,” she said, “but I do not wonder, and since she is here she must stay till she can get back.” In her secret heart she admired the reckless deed quite as much as she did the expert way in which Odette handled the knitting needles. Therefore back she went to speak more graciously to the little neighbor, and to bid her welcome.
This was the beginning of an acquaintance, the result of which none of them foresaw, nor did they dream of the part little Odette should have in their lives.
CHAPTER IX
SHOES
AFTER this there was not a day passed that Lucie and Odette were not together, for while Odette belonged to the peasant class and Lucie to the bourgeois, this was no time for distinctions, and Paulette countenanced the acquaintance not only because Odette was a well-behaved young person, but because the two little girls were lonely and were companions in misery. Besides all this Odette was so alert and capable, knew so much of domestic affairs, that Paulette was convinced in time that she could trust the two girls to cook a meal, and to do many of the things which heretofore she had never admitted could be done by any one but herself. Like most in her walk of life, Paulette was suspicious, and must satisfy herself as to the character of those neighbors with whom Odette lived.
“They are old, those two next door,” she reported to Lucie the day after Odette’s first visit.
“As old as you, Paulette?” asked Lucie innocently.