“No,” answered Dolly, simply; and the next minute, as she drew her hand away, there fluttered from her lips a sigh.
She managed to change the turn of conversation after this. Miss MacDowlas had good-naturedly left them alone, and so she began to ask Phemie questions,—questions about school and lessons and companions, about the lady principal and the under-teachers and about the professor with the lumpy face; and, despite appearances being against her, there was still the old ring in her girl's jests.
“Has madame got a new bonnet yet,” she asked, “or does she still wear the old one with those aggressive-looking spikes of wheat in it? The lean ears ought to have eaten up the fat ones by this time.”
“But they have n't,” returned Phemie. “They are there yet, Dolly. Just the same spikes in the same bonnet, only she has had new saffron-colored ribbon put on it, just the shade of her skin.”
Dolly shuddered,—Lady Augusta's own semi-tragic shudder, if Phemie had only recognized it.
“Phemie,” she said, with a touch of pardonable anxiety, “ill as I look, I am not that color, am I? To lose one's figure and grow thin is bad enough, but to become like Madame Pillet—dear me!” shaking her head. “I scarcely think I could reconcile myself to existence.”
Phemie laughed. “You are not changed in one respect, Dolly,” she said. “When I hear you talk it makes me feel quite—quite safe.”
“Safe!” Dolly echoed. “You mean to say that so long as I preserve my constitutional vanity, your anxiety won't overpower you. But—but,” looking at her curiously, “did you think at first that I was not safe, as you call it?”
“You looked so ill,” faltered Phemie. “And—I was so startled.”
“Were you?” asked Dolly. “Did I shock you?”