THE GRANDMOTHER
Chapter Seven: The Grandmother
Mary's visitors had left early that December afternoon, and when François came in to turn on the light and draw the curtains, she told him that she would ring for him presently, because she had a slight headache and preferred to sit for a while quietly dans la crépuscule. The butler, who had a grave, ecclesiastical dignity, bowed and left Madame to her choice. In the door he turned for a moment and in a tone which deprecated anything that might savor of officiousness in the suggestion begged leave to ask if Madame would like her maid summoned. She shook her head, and he withdrew with another bow that sought to express his perfect comprehension of Madame's desire to be left entirely alone.
Paris was unusually still this afternoon, so still that one seemed to hear the twilight falling upon the world in blue waves of silence. Usually at this hour the salon was crowded with voluble women drinking tea or with men sipping port wine and nibbling ratafias. It was lucky that this afternoon when she had a headache they should all have gone so early. What was the time? Only a little after four. She ought to have told François that she would not be at home to anybody else who called. She made a movement to ring the bell; but even so slight an action was seeming a bore, and she sank back again in the arm-chair, telling herself that François, most accomplished of servants, would know instinctively that she desired to receive no more this afternoon. She hoped that the headache would vanish before dinner, because it was so difficult to have a satisfactory séance unless one was feeling in just the right mood to concentrate. Madame de Sarlovèze had been so emphatic about the abilities of the new crystal-gazer who with remarkable predictions of her clients' futures and even more remarkable knowledge of her clients' pasts had deeply impressed all Paris this autumn. The success of a personality like this Sicilian fortune-teller helped one to realize that the war was over. Not that fortune-tellers had not flourished during the war. Indeed, they could never have been so prosperous; but it was like old times to hear one's friends talking about the latest crystal-gazer, the latest dancer, the latest tenor, the latest nerve-doctor as if until one had fallen in with the fashion and succumbed to their performances one was hopelessly démodée.
From some shadowy corner of the inner salon a Siamese cat advanced with outwardly an air of the most supercilious indifference, which was contradicted by miaows of greeting that were to the miaows of ordinary cats as a violoncello to a violin.
"Pierrette!" Mary exclaimed gladly.
The small cat flirted her kinked tail in response, but lest she might seem to have displayed too much dependence upon a poor human being at once sat down and began to clean a slim chocolate paw.
"Pierrette! Aren't you coming to talk to me?"