“Mamma is alone in her room,” she thought. She ran there but came out quickly, for her mother was busy writing.
“It will be better to come back presently,” she said to herself.
With some color in her cheeks she started at once to look for her father.
“Papa is going round the garden,” she said. But he was talking to the gardener. Thus she found a hundred weak reasons for keeping back her confidence. At last she made up her mind to speak after lunch.
“That is the time when one feels best disposed,” she assured herself, to find an excuse for her cowardice.
Unhappily for her plans, Madame Orlandi came to lunch. On the stroke of twelve she arrived, carrying her pug Pistache, which she never left behind her, and she began her mild and friendly Italian prattle.
“I am not putting you out? You are so kind. I hate lunching by myself. Isabelle and the maid have gone to Lyons to see about her trousseau, you know. A wedding makes such a fuss. My poor head is splitting.”
“What a good idea to come to us,” said the extremely bored Madame Dulaurens. And M. Dulaurens gravely agreed:
“The preparations for a wedding are certainly very disturbing to the peace of the house. But it is in keeping with social usage that this ceremony should remain in our memories if only on account of all the trouble it gives us.”
“You don’t mind the darling lunching with us?” said Madame Orlandi, pointing to the pug as they entered the dining-room.