CHAPTER XXV
THE JEWEL-BOX
The next day after Raste’s sudden departure, Madame Jozain sat in her doorway looking very old and worn; her face was of a settled pallor, and her eyes had a dazed, bewildered expression, as if she had received a heavy blow that had left her numb and stupid. At times she put her hand to her head and muttered, “Who would have thought it? Who would have thought it? His mother, his own mother, and I’ve always been so good to him.”
Suddenly she seemed to have lost her interest in her business, her customers, and even her domestic affairs. Her little store was more untidy than any one had ever seen it. When a neighbor entered to buy a trifle, or to gossip for a few moments, madame made an effort to appear cheerful and chatty, but that it was an effort was evident to all. At last some one asked if she were ill.
“Well, not exactly,” she answered uneasily, “but I might as well be. The fact is I’m fretting about that boy of mine; he took it in his head yesterday to go away to his uncle’s ranch. I miss him very much. I can’t get along without him, and I shouldn’t wonder if I should go too.”
When Pepsie asked what was the matter with “Tante Pauline,” Lady Jane answered, as she had been instructed, that Tante Pauline had headaches, because Mr. Raste had gone away and wasn’t coming home for a long time.
“Madame Jozain is fretting about her son’s going away,” observed Madame Fernandez to her husband, looking across the street. “She’s been sitting there all the morning so lonesome and miserable that I’m sorry for her. But there’s some one coming to see her now. A stranger, and so well-dressed. I wonder who it can be.”
The new-comer was a stranger to Madame Fernandez, but Madame Jozain welcomed her as an old friend; she sprang up with sudden animation and shook hands warmly.
“Why, Madame Hortense,” she exclaimed, “what chance brings you to my little place?”
“A happy chance for you,” replied Madame Hortense, laughing. “I’ve come to bring you money. I’ve sold the little jewel-case you left with me the other day, and sold it very well, too.”
“Now, did you? How good of you, my dear! I’m so glad—for the child’s sake.”