Marise was about to say something about the flower in her hair, but her antennæ-like sensitiveness to what other people were feeling, made her shut her lips. She looked hard at her mother, who made herself opaque, looking back at Marise, her face and eyes and mouth firmly closed over what was in her mind. Being able to see only the surface, Marise took that in with a fresh impression of not having looked at Maman for some time. How pretty she was, with her hair like gold threads, catching the light, and how different from her crinkly hair like a golden mist around her head, were the thick, thick petals of the camellia, with their dense, close, fine-grained surface.
Jeanne came to the door. "Madame is served," she said in a correct tone, standing aside as they came out. She did not look at Marise at all, but Marise knew perfectly well that she too was wondering about the evening dress and the flower. Marise began to try to invent some plausible explanation for it which she could let drop in talk to-morrow as they walked to school.
Marise had lessons to get that evening, lots of them, and hard ones, as usual. After dinner, she went back to her room, opened her history and began. It was very still in the apartment. No sound at all from Maman in the salon. Of course, Jeanne and Isabelle were both across the landing in the other kitchen, doing the work as they always were unless Maman expected callers.
Marise leaned over her table and concentrated with all her might on the rôle played by Colbert in the economic organization of the seventeenth century. She was trying to memorize the outline of his introduction of sounder account-keeping in government administration, when all at once, there in her mind, instead of Louis XIV and his court, was the picture of Maman standing beside the window, looking out. If Marise were now to step quickly into the salon, would she again find Maman...?
Marise tossed her head angrily at the possibility of her doing such a sneaky thing as to go to see.... Like some nasty idea of Jeanne's that was! She drew her history closer to her, changed her position and went on studying. "Colbert a souvent répété que c'est par le commerce qu'un pays s'enrichit...."
Although she had not meant to, she started up and went to the window, opening the heavy curtains a tiny crack, to look out.
Yes, he was still there, two hours after they had left him. He had not even gone home for dinner. But old Madeleine, the flower seller must have passed by on her way home, after shutting up her flower-stand, for now he had a white rose bud in his hands, looking down at it fixedly, turning it about between his fingers, once in a while touching a petal delicately, or holding it up to draw in its fragrance.
Marise pulled the curtain shut, and hurried back to the improvement of the French army from 1680 on. She felt very miserable, as though she'd eaten something she ought not to ... was it a headache? She had heard ladies talk so much about headaches, and had never had one. Yes, it must be a headache. That was it, her first headache. By thinking about it she felt it very distinctly now in the back of her head—like a great weight there drawing her head back. She tried to think of Colbert; she looked hard at the familiar picture of Colbert rubbing his hands in glee over all the work piled up on his desk, but what she saw was Maman standing at one side of the window looking out. Was that Maman she heard moving about in the salon?
What time was it? Wasn't it time for her to go to bed? The soapy dark green clock on her mantel piece showed only half past eight. Too early. She started at a sudden sound, her hand beginning to tremble. The door-bell rang. Jeanne and Isabelle were both on the other side of the landing and would not hear. She listened, her hands and feet cold, heard Maman go to the door herself and Jean-Pierre Garnier's voice asking if Monsieur and Madame and Mademoiselle Allen were at home. Maman laughed and said that Monsieur was away on business and Mademoiselle was, of course, busy with her lessons, but Madame was there!