"And that makes me happy, for it helps me to realize that so far as my children are concerned I have not been a complete failure. I wish I could stay here longer, but I've left my little cat in London with only my maid to look after her, and I think I ought to be getting back."
Mary perceived that an obligation to a cat was something utterly incomprehensible to her daughter, and when she kissed her good-by, kissed those cheeks cold and faintly flushed like the petals of a Christmas rose, she felt that she was parting from a creature more remote than either of her dead sons.
"Flesh of my flesh," Mary thought. "And yet my little cat is nearer to me. Those are the kind of puzzles that really do make human life a riddle."
Mary remembered how sometimes her grandmother had tried to draw near to herself, because the two of them were all that was left of a family.
"She must have supposed that my remoteness came from my mother's blood. But it probably would not have made much difference if I had been her own daughter. I suppose that we all grow to resent those first years of dependence upon other people. I suppose we all care only to think of ourselves as complete personalities. And is there anything more to come? Is there? Is there? Or do we instinctively know that this life is the whole of our individual life and for that reason do we cling so hard to being ourselves while we live it? And when we are growing old, do we crave for the contact of youth in order to delude ourselves with the belief that we shall grow young again in death?"
When Mary reached the hotel, she was met by Célestine with a grave and frightened countenance.
In a moment Mary guessed what had happened. "Pierrette is ill."
The maid burst into tears.
"Very ill?"
"Madame, Pierrette est morte. J'ai télégraphié ce matin. Le medicin était très brave pour elle, mais la grippe, Madame, la grippe! Elle a souffert beaucoup, la pauvre petite!"