‘Have I, petite? I don’t know why not. We women have secret places where our life runs out. At home I wear rouge; that makes all right; but I don’t put it on for you, Mary; you see me just as I am.’
Mary could not but notice the want of that brilliant colour and roundness in the cheek, that made so glowing a picture; the eyes seemed larger and tremulous with a pathetic depth, and around them those bluish circles that speak of languor and pain; yet still, changed as she was, Madame de Frontignac seemed only more strikingly interesting and fascinating than ever. Still she had those thousand pretty movements, those nameless graces of manner, those wavering shades of expression, that irresistibly enchained the eye and the imagination; true Frenchwoman as she was, always in one rainbow shimmer of fancy, and feeling like one of those cloud-spotted April days, which give you flowers and rain, sun and shadow, and snatches of bird-singing all at once.
‘I have sent away my carriage, Mary, and come to stay with you. You want me, n’est-ce pas?’ she said, coaxingly, with her arms round Mary’s neck; ‘if you don’t, tant pis; for I am the bad penny you English speak of, you cannot get me off.’
‘I am sure, dear friend,’ said Mary, earnestly, ‘we don’t want to put you off.’
‘I know it; you are true, you mean what you say; you are all good real gold, down to your hearts; that is why I love you; but you, my poor Mary, your cheeks are very white; poor little heart, you suffer.’
‘No,’ said Mary; ‘I do not suffer now. Christ has given me the victory over sorrow.’
There was something sadly sublime in the manner in which this was said, and something so sacred in the expression of Mary’s face, that Madame de Frontignac crossed herself, as she had been wont before a shrine; and then said, ‘Sweet Mary, pray for me; I am not at peace; I cannot get the victory over sorrow.’
‘What sorrow can you have?’ said Mary; ‘you, so beautiful, so rich, so admired; whom everybody must love.’
‘That is what I came to tell you; I came to confess to you. But you must sit down there,’ she said, placing Mary on a low seat in the garret window, ‘and Verginie will sit here,’ she said, drawing a bundle of uncarded wool towards her, and sitting down at Mary’s feet.
‘Dear Madame,’ said Mary, ‘let me get you a better seat.’