'Some of her color has come back,' at the same time passed through poor Mrs. Diggs's anxious and agitated thoughts. 'I knew she wouldn't faint; it isn't in her. She will see that I'm right, in a minute. Her wits will begin to work. She will go.'
Claire did go. She had no after-recollection of how she left the great dining-room. But she had indeed moved from it in so silent and yet so swift a way that her chair had been vacant several seconds, and her skirts were sweeping one of the thresholds of exit, before the fact of her departure became even half perceived among the guests.
Once in the large, empty drawing-room immediately beyond that which she had quitted, she felt her leaping heart grow quiet, and her bewildered brain clear. It took only seconds, now, to restore in a great measure her self-possession and her courage.
She passed into the further drawing-room. Both were as void of human occupant as they were rich and stately in their countless beauties of adornment. Her visitor was evidently not here. Then she remembered the smaller reception-room which opened off from the main hall. She directed her steps thither. They were firm steps; she had grown sensible of this, and of her newly acquired composure as well.
Two breadths of Turkish tapestry hung down over the doorway of the reception-room, thus obscuring its interior. As Claire softly parted them and entered, she saw her mother.
Mrs. Twining stood near a white-and-gilt table that was loaded with choice ornaments. The chamber was one of great elegance and charm. It was all white and gilt and pink; there were cherubs on its ceiling throwing roses at each other; its hangings were of rose-color, and its two or three mirrors were framed in porcelain of rare design. A connoisseur who was among Claire's admirers had once assured her that this little room was exquisite enough to stir the dust of Pompadour.
Mrs. Twining did not at all look as though she might have been any such famous ghost. Not that she did not present a ghostly appearance. Her black eyes seemed to be of twice their former size, so lean and haggard was her altered face. Its cheek-bones stood out with a sharp prominence. You saw at once that some serious illness had wrought this wan havoc. Her garments were dark and decent; she did not seem to be a beggar; no rusty and shabby poverty was manifest on her person. She had refused stoutly to wait in the hall, and the servant who had admitted her, being hurried with other matters, had yielded to her insistence, yet deputed an underling to keep watch on the reception-room after showing her thither. Claire had not seen the sentinel, who was stationed at a little distance up the hall, and who joined his fellows when sure that the lady of the house had condescended to meet this troublesome intruder.
Mrs. Twining looked boldly and severely at her daughter. The drapery had fallen behind Claire's advancing figure. The two faced each other in silence for a lapse of time that both no doubt thought longer than it really was. Each, in her different way, had an acute change to confront. Claire scarcely recognized her mother at first. Mrs. Twining, on her own side, had good reasons to be prepared for a difference, and the superb house had in a way told her, too, what she might expect. But still, for all that, this was Claire! This was her Claire, whom she had last seen not far removed from slums and gutters—who had gone forth from the little Greenpoint home, not two years since, to follow her father's charity-buried corpse! And here she stood, clad in her white-and-purple vestments, a shape of more lovely and high-bred elegance than any she had ever looked upon. The face was the same—there could be no doubt of that. But everything else—the figure, the attire, the jewels, the velvets, the laces, the movement, the posture, the mien ... it was all like some fabulous, incredible enchantment.
Forewarned and forearmed as she had been, Mrs. Twining stood wonder-stricken and confused. The soft strains of the near music seemed to speak to her instead of Claire's own voice, and with a disdain in their melody. She saw no disdain on Claire's face, however, as her eyes scanned it. But it was quite inflexible, though very pale.
Claire broke the silence—if that could be called mere silence which was for both so electric and pregnant an interval.