“Will you let me take your bonnet for a few minutes? This room is so warm.”
“Thank you—thank you!” was the answer, spoken gratefully, though in the same hurried, faltering manner. “You are very kind! But my hair—I’m afraid my hair is scarcely——” And then she made an awkward pause, but went on again in another minute: “I think I’ll loosen my shawl while I stay.”
And her fluttering hands began to drag at the brooch that secured it, but with such evident obliviousness of where the fastening began and ended that Florence stooped down and took it off for her.
This simple action did much toward restoring the lady’s equanimity, and when Florence proceeded to put a stool under her feet and arrange the window curtains so that the sun should not shine too fully into the flushed face of her visitor, she was thanked quite warmly.
“My dear, I’m giving you a great deal of trouble. And at such a time as this, too!”
And the lady’s troubled, sympathetic look rested on Florence’s black dress.
“It does me good to forget myself a while,” she answered gently. “Will you have a little water, or a glass of wine?”
“No, thank you. Pray sit down; I cannot bear to see you stand. You are so different to what I expected to find you that I think I shall be able to talk quite freely to you.”
Florence smiled faintly at this frank confession.
“What did you expect me to be like?”