"I'll try," Hugh said. "Let me think, what story shall I tell?"
"I won't speak while you're remembering," Rosemary promised, leaning her head confidingly against his shoulder. "I always keep quiet, while Angel puts on her thinking cap."
Hugh laughed, and was silent. But his head was too hot to wear a thinking cap, and no story would come at his half-hearted call.
Rosemary waited in patience for him to begin. "One, two, three," she counted under her breath; for she had learned to count up to fifty, and it was good practice when one wished to make the time pass. She had just come to forty-nine, and was wondering if she might remind the fairy father of his duty, when the door opened.
It was Angel, of course; but Angel did not come in. She stopped on the threshold, talking to somebody, or rather somebody was talking to her. Rosemary could not see the person, but she recognised the voice. It was that of Mademoiselle de Lavalette.
"You are not to write my mother letters, and trouble us about that money, madame," said the voice, as shrill now as it could be sweet. "Once for all, I will not have it. I have followed you to tell you this. You will be paid soon; that is enough. I am engaged to be married to a rich man, an American. He will be glad to pay all our debts by and by; but meantime, madame, you are to let us alone."
"I have done nothing, except to write and say that I needed the money,—which you promised to return weeks ago, or I couldn't possibly have spared it," protested a voice which Hugh had heard in dreams three nights out of every six, in as many years.
"Well, if you write any more letters, we shall burn them unread, so it is no use to trouble us; and we will pay when we choose."
With the last words, the other voice died into distance. Mademoiselle had said what she came to say, and was retreating with dignity down the corridor.
Now the figure of a slender woman was silhouetted in the doorway. Hugh heard a sigh, and saw a hand that glimmered white in the dusk against the dark paper on the wall, as it groped for the button of the electric light. Then, suddenly the room was filled with a white radiance, and she stood in the midst of it, young and beautiful, the woman he had loved for seven years.