Eugenia said in a loud, quavering voice, "I should think not! I have had enough of their hatefulness for one day!" She went on, her voice shaken by suppressed sobs which did not at all fit what she was saying, "And I h-have an appointment w-with the hairdresser anyhow." She fumbled with a desperate haste in her little gold-beaded hand-bag, jerked out a lacy handkerchief and wiped her eyes angrily. But more tears came, a flood of nervous, excited tears, which ran down in big drops. She flung her arms around Marise's neck and hiding her face on her shoulder, cried out pitifully, "Oh, Marise, don't you ever just want to go back home?"
Marise's heart was very full of compassion, very barren of consolation. "I haven't any home to go back to, any more than you," she said in a whisper.
Eugenia reached up, pulled her head down and kissed her, still sobbing. Marise kept her cheek pressed against the other's tear-wet face, aching with her helplessness, burning to find some word of comfort, finding nothing but loving silence to express her tenderness and pity.
A door opened upstairs, laughing voices sounded on the landing above. The two girls drew apart and moved towards the door hand in hand.
II
Mme. de la Cueva had been crying and Marise guessed that she was getting ready to have a new husband. She seemed to have had bad luck in husbands. The one who had just been put to the door was the second Marise had known in the four years of her study with the pianist, and there had been at least two before that. It was a terrible grief to her always to find out that she no longer cared for the one she had; but she faced the facts with courage, allowing herself no dissembling, no bourgeoise timidity. The old one disappeared, and in a few months a new one was there.
"Good-day, my child," said the pianist affectionately, pulling Marise down to kiss her on both cheeks. "No lesson to-day nor to-morrow," she spoke solemnly, the tears in her eyes.
She began to cry openly.
Marise sat down by her, startled out of her own mood of resentment. "Why, dear Madame de la Cueva, why?" she asked, "What has happened?"
"I am going to America," said the older woman. "Georges Noel and I are booked for a concert tour of the world. We will be married in Australia."