“That you will win. Your father adores you.”
“You don’t know,” said Beatrice, shaking her head in a decided negative. “And I can’t tell you.”
XV
WADE’S LOST FORTUNE
Beatrice had selected Valentine as her maid after trying more than a score of various nationalities. She had selected her because Valentine was a lady, and she could not endure servility or veneer manners in the close relations that must exist between mistress and maid. In calling Valentine a lady Beatrice did not mean that she was a “high-toned” lady, or a fine lady, or a fashionable lady, or any of the other qualified ladies, but that she was just a lady—well mannered, with delicate instincts, intelligent, simple and sincere. Valentine acted as Beatrice liked to believe she herself would act if she had to work for her living and happened to find being lady’s maid the most convenient way to do it.
At the Wolcott Beatrice registered beneath her own name that of Miss Valentine Clermont. When the two were in the little inside suite Beatrice took by way of making a beginning in the direction of the practice of economy, she said:
“For the present, at least, you are to be my companion. I can’t live here alone or just with a maid. So, the parlor is to be changed into a bedroom for you.”
“Very well, mademoiselle,” promptly acquiesced the intelligent Valentine, showing how rightly Beatrice had judged her.
“Miss Richmond,” corrected Beatrice with a smile.
“Pardon—certainly,” said Valentine.
“We are rather cramped here,” Beatrice went on. “But I guess I’ll be looking back on this as spacious luxury before long.”