She knocked on the window softly, and passed through it.... That was a curious contrast in the dim, shaded room, into which the brilliant light filtered through the closed shutters—the dark-haired girl standing gracefully and pliantly erect in her yellow dress, shyly twisting the soft-petalled roses in her hands, and the shrunken, weary woman, in her white draperies on the couch, all the life that remained to her seeming to lie in her eyes alone; black eyes, with that peculiar mournful look seen in monkeys’ faces, and yet with the steadfast faith of martyrs in them—eyes that differed from most, in that they were always alight, always expressionful.
To the immense physical difference between the two was added a vast disparity—that between the mind of disciplined and the mind of undisciplined impulse—and yet, each was conscious of a great liking, somewhat shyly expressed, for the other.
Irma had a free and unenvious admiration for the girl’s supple life and beauty; Jocelyn could not help being attracted by the elder woman’s wit, and she had a sincere compassion for her weary suffering. They had always a sense of pleasure in each other’s company, though, in spite of having lived for two months in the same hotel, they had not seen much of one another. The Legards’ villa was some five miles distant, but Mrs. Legard always wintered in Mentone to be near her doctor.
Jocelyn bent down over the couch, and laid the saffron-centred roses against the breast of the white dress.
“How good of you to bring me these,” came in the softest, slightly-foreign, staccato English. “I am so glad to see you, I thought perhaps you would not be coming to-day, and I am going away, you know—has not Giles told you? Yes,” and she laughed almost gleefully, “I have got my liberty from Dr. Lamotte; the spring cure is over, he cannot do any more for me now, it seems; so I may go back to my little villa, and my flowers and books, and my singing birds. I miss them so here. Mon Dieu! How I miss them! So, I am going to-morrow; but you will come and see me, will you not, Jocelyn? It is not far, you know, only about five miles. I will tell Giles he must bring you.”
“Of course I will come, I want to see the villa so much, but I am sorry you are going.”
“Yes?” The faintest mockery seemed to ring in the word, but she put out her hand, and took the girl’s with a caressing gesture. “I do not like to ask your dear aunt; there is no roulette there, you know; she will perhaps be bored. Yes, I will tell Giles; he will bring you; I do not know if he is coming too—perhaps not.” Again in the voice and the black eyes fixed so steadily on the girl’s, there was that indefinable spirit of fleeting mockery; Jocelyn flushed slowly, her sensitive mind was aware of something unpleasant, which she did not understand. There was a light tap on the window.
“That is auntie,” she said, “I must go, I’m afraid; we are going over to ‘Monte.’”
“Good-bye, Jocelyn. Will you kiss me?” She gave the girl a look of mingled tenderness and admiration. “You are so pretty to-day.”
Jocelyn stooped for a kiss.