"I wish I felt happier about leaving you, darling. I know you're all right, of course; but the idea of your staying in this house all by yourself—"
"It's just what I shall like. And on father's account you ought to get away."
"It's what I feel," Pauline assented, brightening.
"You must be awfully busy with all the last things to be done. I'm as comfortable as possible; I wish you'd just go off and forget about me."
"Well, Maisie is clamouring for me," Pauline confessed from the threshold.
The door shut, and Nona closed her eyes with a sigh. Tomorrow—tomorrow she would be alone! And in a week, perhaps, she would get back to Cedarledge, and lie on the terrace with the dogs about her, and no one to ask questions, to hint and sympathize, or be discreet and evasive... Yes, in spite of everything, the idea of returning to Cedarledge now seemed more bearable than any other...
In a restless attempt to ease her position she stretched her hand out, and it came in contact with the bundle of newspaper cuttings. She shrank back with a little grimace; then she smiled. After the night at Cedarledge every one had supposed—even Maisie and Powder had—that the Cardinal's reception would have to be given up, since, owing to his Eminence's impending departure, it could not be deferred. But it had come off on the appointed day—only the fourth after the burglary—and Pauline had made it a success. The girl really admired her mother for that. Something in her own composition responded to the energy with which the older woman could meet an emergency when there was no way of turning it. The party had been not only brilliant but entertaining. Every one had been there, all the official and ecclesiastical dignitaries, including the Bishop of New York and the Chief Rabbi—yes, even the Scientific Initiate, looking colossal and Siberian in some half-priestly dress that added its note to the general picturesqueness; and yet there had been no crush, no confusion, nothing to detract from the dignity and amenity of the evening. Nona suspected her mother of longing to invite the Mahatma, whose Oriental garb would have been so effective, and who would have been so flattered, poor man! But she had not risked it, and her chief lion, after the great ecclesiastics, had turned out to be Michelangelo, the newly arrived, with the film-glamour enhancing his noble Roman beauty, and his mother at his side, explaining and parading him.
"The pity is that dear Jim and Lita have sailed," the Marchesa declared to all who would give ear. "That's really a great disappointment. I did hope Lita would have been here tonight. She and my Michelangelo would have made such a glorious couple: the Old World and the New. Or as Antony and Cleopatra—only fancy! My boy tells me that Klawhammer is looking for a Cleopatra. But dear Lita will be back before long—." And she mingled her hopes and regrets with Mrs. Percy Landish's.
XXXII
