The entrance of a servant restored her to some self-command. The man, after one inquisitive furtive look, dropped his eyes and abased himself.
He deprecated Madonna’s resentment; he had hesitated before intruding himself; but these young women! they were so persistent, so full of self-assurance, so convinced that their missions were imperative. He had done his best to get rid of her, but in vain.
“Of her? of whom?” demands Madonna, quieting her lips with her handkerchief.
He shrugs his shoulders and his eyebrows. The young woman would give no name. She had been waiting for hours. But now, vouchsafed the assurance of Madonna’s refusal, he will go and dismiss her at once and finally.
“Show her in to me here,” says the Marchesa, and the man bows and withdraws.
The little interval, the necessity of self-control in it, brought her to herself. When the visitor was ushered in, she was seated—to all appearance a lovely waxen image of serenity. She lifted her eyes and saw a fair young girl, cloaked and hooded, standing before her. The servant closed the door and shut them in together.
“Well, my child,” she said, affectedly incurious: and indeed it was a child, like herself, whom she addressed. “What do you want with me?”
The glow and splendour of her surroundings must have their foremost influence on Molly, petted loveling as she was. Her senses must gape a little, before the woe and despair in her could find their way to utterance. Then, all in a moment, the shock of an unforeseen difficulty had overwhelmed her on the threshold of her mission. She uttered an exclamation—“Alack-a-day! she can’t speak English!” and fell a little away, in consternation.
“English!” Yolande frowned. The word was curiously ill-timed. She looked intently at her visitor. “English?” she repeated: “Are you an English girl? So? Well, you see I understand you. What is it you want of me?”
“My man.”