"How long does Mrs. Falchion intend remaining here, Miss Caron?" I said.
Her reply was hesitating: "I do not quite know; but I think some time.
She likes the place; it seems to amuse her."
"And you—does it amuse you?"
"It does not matter about me. I am madame's servant; but, indeed, it does not amuse me particularly."
"Do you like the place?"
The reply was somewhat hurried, and she glanced at me a little nervously.
"Oh yes," she said, "I like the place, but—"
Here Roscoe appeared at the door and said, "Mrs. Falchion wishes to see
Viking and Mr. Devlin's mills, Marmion. She will go with us."
In a little time we were on our way to Viking. I walked with Mrs. Falchion, and Roscoe with Justine. I was aware of a new element in Mrs. Falchion's manner. She seemed less powerfully attractive to me than in the old days, yet she certainly was more beautiful. It was hard to trace the new characteristic. But at last I thought I saw it in a decrease of that cold composure, that impassiveness, so fascinating in the past. In its place had come an allusive, restless something, to be found in words of troublesome vagueness, in variable moods, in an increased sensitiveness of mind and an undercurrent of emotional bitterness—she was emotional at last! She puzzled me greatly, for I saw two spirits in her: one pitiless as of old; the other human, anxious, not unlovely.
At length we became silent, and walked so side by side for a time. Then, with that old delightful egotism and selfishness—delightful in its very daring—she said: "Well, amuse me!"
"And is it still the end of your existence," I rejoined—"to be amused?"