"I'm sorry," answered Margery, "very sorry. But I'm sure that I could never love Monsieur de Boussac, and sure that I could never even believe in his love unless he himself should tell me of it. I think we understand each other now, mother. If I'd had any idea of this before, I might have spared you this talk. But, painful as it has been, it has, at all events, brought us nearer together. Don't let us speak of it again."
Then Madame Palffy unaccountably touched her zenith.
"No," she agreed, rising majestically from the divan, "no, we'll not speak of it again. It must make no change between us. I love you very dearly, Margery, and I wish I could have seen you his wife, but if it cannot be, that's all there is to it. Let's dress for dinner, my dear," and, bending over, she kissed the air affectionately, a half-inch from her daughter's cheek. "You're a strange girl," she added, "and I don't pretend to understand you. But choose your own husband. I shall like him for your sake."
As Margery left the room, Madame Palffy turned to the mirror, and surveyed with a sigh the ravages which this emotional half-hour had made in her appearance. For the three following days she was a mute martyr, and relished the rôle immeasurably.
Margery, dressing for dinner, hummed softly to herself, smiling as no one of her Paris friends had ever seen her smile.
"'Ah, Moon of my Delight, that knows no wane,
The Moon of Heav'n is rising once again'"—
Andrew Vane had played an accompaniment to that a hundred times, in her aunt's big shore house at Beverly.