“But if I am neither tired nor hungry. Can I not go to mamma now?”
“No, miladie is engaged. Miladie writes letters. She will see Meess Alma later. She will send when she wants her child.”
“Go on then, Madelon, I can go through the form of dinner, at least,” said Alma, looking anxiously at her watch.
It was five o’clock, and she had promised to meet her father at six. There was an hour left. There might yet be time to keep her appointment. She hoped to dispatch her meal, hurry through her interview with her mother, and then hasten to the wood.
She followed old Madelon down into the dining-room, where a delicate little repast had been prepared for her. She ate a piece of chicken and a jelly, and was picking a bunch of grapes when the lady’s bell rang for Madelon, who hastened to answer it, but soon returned with a message summoning Alma to her mother’s apartments.
Alma immediately hurried thither. She found the beautiful, majestic, pale-faced lady seated in the luxurious chair beside the elegant table in the midst of the gloom and glow of that crimson and golden room. That still woman was the picture of which the boudoir was but the back ground and frame.
As her daughter entered, the lady lifted her languid eyes from the book she was reading, and silently motioned Alma to take the chair on the other side of the table.
The young girl obeyed, and waited for her mother to speak. But the lady’s large eyes had again fallen upon her book, and in a few moments she seemed to have forgotten the presence of her daughter.
Alma stole a glance at her watch. It was half-past five. Her heart throbbed with anxiety. She ventured to break the silence by saying:
“I did your errand faithfully and successfully, dear mother.”