“Come and spend it with me,” said the princess.
“Oh, if you would only come and spend it with me!” said Martha, so wistfully that her friend laughed gaily, and said:
“Why not?”
“Harold takes an early train, and will not be back until night,” said Martha; “and it would be such joy to have you in my own room, sitting in my own chair, lying on my own bed, standing on my own rugs, and giving me sweet associations with these things forever.”
“Of course I’ll come—with pleasure,” said Sonia, pausing in her work to answer Martha’s whispered words.
So, in this dream, at least, Martha was not to be disappointed; and she parted from her friend with the delightful expectation that she was to see her next as her guest.
The young girl waked early next morning, and had her first breakfast with her brother; and after he had gone she found the time long while she waited for her visitor. No definite hour had been agreed upon, and she was afraid that the princess would come far too late to suit her eager longing. Still she had not liked to urge too much upon her.
Martha had ordered heaps of flowers to make her room and the little boudoir which adjoined it look attractive; and she took Harold in to inspect them before he went away. He rushed through hurriedly, said everything was charming, gave her a hasty kiss, and was gone.
She stood at the window, which looked upon the Place de la Madeleine, and waited a long time, thinking deeply. The flower-market below was unusually rich, as the day was warm and springlike; and it presently occurred to her that among the glowing masses of bloom exposed to view there were some varieties of flowers which she did not have. She therefore determined to fill up a part of the time of waiting by going down to get some of these. Hastily putting on her hat, she ran down the winding stairway, crossed the open space, and was soon threading her way among the flower-stalls under the shadow of the beautiful great church. She kept her eye on the entrance to her apartment-house, however; and as she knew the princess’s carriage and livery, she felt that there was no danger of failing to see her friend, should she happen to arrive during her brief absence.
The princess, however, did not come in her carriage, or, rather, she sent it away after having crossed the thronged streets of the Place de la Concorde, and, wrapped in her dark cloak, she walked quickly along with the foot-passengers until she reached the house of which she was in search. Then she slipped quietly in, and mounted the steps to the third story.