"Dear Duchess.—Thanks so much for asking me to dine to-night. I shall be delighted to come.
Yours sincerely. Brigit Mead."
Then she rang for the housemaid, who would in the absence of her half of Amélie have to help her dress, and gave her certain directions.
To-morrow might bring what it would. That one evening was hers, and she would use it. Joyselle should see her with his own eyes, as a man sees a woman, not as a father sees a daughter. And he should see her as a man sees a marvellously beautiful woman!
Satisfied with the conclusion to which she had come, she lay down and slept for an hour, after which, the enigmatic smile on her lips bringing into predominance the resemblance to the portrait in the Luxembourg, she dressed, with more care than she had ever devoted to that process in all her five-and-twenty years of life.
When she arrived at Charles Street and had shaken hands with the Duchess, who had had influenza and looked very old, the first person she saw was Gerald Carron.
"Will you speak to me, Brigit?" he said diffidently, "please do."
He, too, looked ill, and moistened his lips nervously as he spoke. She shook hands with him without answering, and he hurried on, "Haven't I been good? I knew where you were, and—I might easily have come——"
"You would not have had a flattering reception," she suggested drily.
"Or written. And I did neither. I was glad you went, though God knows——"