“I suppose he has every reason to, Angèle, from a brother’s point of view, and most other people’s, too.”
“If any other person said that to me,” she rejoined quietly, “I should be very angry with them indeed. You have given me all that I have had worth having in life—more than I ever dared to hope for. You give me now what keeps me alive.”
He took her fingers in his and held them. They were interrupted by the entrance of a maid who brought a little tea table to her mistress’ side; a very dainty affair, with a Queen Anne silver teapot and two Sèvres cups, thin bread and butter, cream and lemon.
“Miss Besant still going on all right?” he enquired, as soon as they were alone again.
“She is good after her fashion,” Madame acknowledged. “She is a discontented creature with queer humours, and the usual moodiness of the unmarried girl of thirty. God knows I’m trying enough! One can’t blame her if she gets jumpy sometimes. She does her best.”
“And Sir James,” he enquired; “has he been down this week?”
“He comes again on Monday,” she answered. “I am keeping up everything—massage, baths and diet. As a matter of fact, I think I’m getting fat. Anna and Miss Besant were quite out of breath when they carried me to my room last night. What do you think?”
She threw on one side the beautiful lace wrap which had covered her, and her eyes looked towards him with faint, provocative enquiry. He passed his hand along her arms, and gently over her body. She had the figure of a thin but graceful child of fourteen, except that her feet and ankles were more beautiful.
“I see no change in you,” he assured her, “during all these years. Illness seems to have kept you young. Do you know that you are still very beautiful, Angèle?”
Again the faint flush, the gleam of softening happiness in her face.