"Goodbye, mother dear. Have all sorts of a good time, won't you?"
"It will be a very interesting trip—with a man as clever and cultivated as your father... If only you could have come with us! But you'll promise to join us in Egypt?"
"Don't ask me to promise anything yet, mother."
Pauline raised herself to her full height and stood looking down intently at her daughter. Under her smooth new face Nona again seemed to see the flicker of anxiety pass back and forward, like a light moving from window to window in a long-uninhabited house. The glimpse startled the girl and caught her by the heart. Suddenly something within her broke up. Her lips tightened like a child's, and she felt the tears running down her cheeks.
"Nona! You're not crying?" Pauline was kneeling at her side.
"It's nothing, mother—nothing. Go! Please go!"
"Darling—if I could only see you happy one of these days."
"Happy?"
"Well, I mean like other people. Married—" the mother hastily ventured.
Nona had brushed away her tears. She raised her head and looked straight at Pauline.