Looking into a mirror on the wall—it had been a gift from her grandfather—she smiled at herself. Why, how foolish of her it had been to feel so much and to imagine terrible things! Her eyes were shining now, and her hair, catching the sunshine from the window, glistened like burnished copper. She turned to see how it shone on the temple and the side of her head. Philip had praised her hair. Her look lingered for a moment placidly on herself-then she started suddenly. A wave of feeling, a shiver, passed through her, her brow gathered, she flushed deeply.
Turning away from the mirror, she went and sat down again on the edge of the veille. Her mind had changed. She would go to the Dean’s—but not till it was dark. She suddenly thought it strange that the Dean had never said anything about the license. Why, again, perhaps he had. How should she know what gossip was going on in the town! But no, she was quick to feel, and if there had been gossip she would have felt it in the manner of her neighbours. Besides, gossip as to a license to marry was all on the right side. She sighed—she had sighed so often of late—to think what a tangle it all was, of how it would be smoothed out tomorrow, of what—
There was a click of the garden-gate, a footstep on the walk, a half-growl from Biribi, and the face of Carterette Mattingley appeared in the kitchen doorway. Seeing Guida seated on the veille, she came in quickly, her dancing dark eyes heralding great news.
“Don’t get up, ma couzaine,” she said, “please no. Sit just there, and I’ll sit beside you. Ah, but I have the most wonderfuls!”
Carterette was out of breath. She had hurried here from her home. As she said herself, her two feet weren’t in one shoe on the way, and that with her news made her quiver with excitement.
At first, bursting with mystery, she could do no more than sit and look in Guida’s face. Carterette was quick of instinct in her way, but yet she had not seen any marked change in her friend during the past few months. She had been so busy thinking of her own particular secret that she was not observant of others. At times she met Ranulph, and then she was uplifted, to be at once cast down again; for she saw that his old cheerfulness was gone, that a sombreness had settled on him. She flattered herself, however, that she could lighten his gravity if she had the right and the good opportunity; the more so that he no longer visited the cottage in the Place du Vier Prison.
This drew her closer to Guida also, for, in truth, Carterette had no loftiness of nature. Like most people, she was selfish enough to hold a person a little dearer for not standing in her own especial light. Long ago she had shrewdly guessed that Guida’s interest lay elsewhere than with Ranulph, and a few months back she had fastened upon Philip as the object of her favour. That seemed no weighty matter, for many sailors had made love to Carterette in her time, and knowing it was here to-day and away to-morrow with them, her heart had remained untouched. Why then should she think Guida would take the officer seriously where she herself held the sailor lightly? But at the same time she felt sure that what concerned Philip must interest Guida, she herself always cared to hear the fate of an old admirer, and this was what had brought her to the cottage to-day.
“Guess who’s wrote me a letter?” she asked of Guida, who had taken up some sewing, and was now industriously regarding the stitches.
At Carterette’s question, Guida looked up and said with a smile, “Some one you like, I see.”
Carterette laughed gaily. “Ba su, I should think I did—in a way. But what’s his name? Come, guess, Ma’m’selle Dignity.”