"Have you been wronging him in your heart all this while, ma tante?" asked Crystal, and there was a slight tone of reproach in her voices "you used not to be so cynical once upon a time."
"Cynical!" exclaimed the Duchesse, "bless the child's heart! Of course I am cynical—at my age what can you expect?—and what can I expect? But there, don't distress yourself, I am not wronging your father—far from it—only this grandeur—the state dinner last night—his gracious manner—all that upset me. I am not used to it, my dear, you see. Twenty years in that diminutive house in Worcester have altered my tastes, I see, more than they did your father's . . . and these last ten months which he seems to have spent in reviving the old grandeur of his ancestral home, I spent, remember, with the dear little Sisters of Mercy at Boulogne, praying amidst very humble surroundings that the future may not become more unendurable than the past."
"But you are glad to be back at Brestalou again? and you will remain here with us—always?" queried Crystal, and with tender eagerness she clasped the older woman's hands closely in her own.
"Yes, dear," replied Madame gently. "I am glad to be back in the old château—my dear old home—where I was very happy and very young once—oh, so very long ago! And I will remain with your father and look after him all the time that his young bird is absent from the nest."
Again she stroked her niece's soft, wavy hair with a gesture which apparently was habitual with her, and it seemed as if a note of sadness had crept into her brisk, sharp voice. Over Crystal's cheeks a wave of crimson had quickly swept at her aunt's last words: and the eyes which she now raised to Madame's kindly face were full of tears.
"It seems so terribly soon now, ma tante," she said wistfully.
"Hm, yes!" quoth Mme. la Duchesse drily, "time has a knack now and then of flying faster than we wish. Well, my dear, so long as this day brings you happiness, the old folk who stay at home have no right to grumble."
Then as Crystal made no reply and held her little head resolutely away, Madame said more insistently:
"You are happy, Crystal, are you not?"
"Of course I am happy, ma tante," replied Crystal quickly, "why should you ask?"