Mrs. l’Estrange was lying in an invalid’s chair drawn up by a table on which stood a bowl of oranges and a glass vase of flowers. She was a small, slender woman, much like Virginia, only more beautiful, with quantities of pale gold hair and sad blue eyes. A ray of light falling across her thin white face gave her a look of one of the early saints, resigned and gentle, sorrowful and happy, all at once.
“I am so happy to meet my little girl’s friends,” she said, stretching out a small transparent hand through which they could see the pink light shining. “She has told me how kind you have been to her.”
“But she was very kind to us, Mrs. l’Estrange,” replied Elinor. “I don’t know what we would have done if she had not taken us in and given us supper one night when our launch was wrecked in the lake.”
“Ah, but that was nothing,” continued the poor, pretty invalid. “Think how many times she has visited you at the hotel.”
“Oh——” began Billie, and broke off quickly, for Virginia, standing back of her mother’s chair, had put her finger to her lips, and the truth now dawned upon the Motor Maids.
The young girl had told a brave falsehood to her mother to explain her frequent absences from home.
“It’s what might be called a ‘noble lie’,” thought Billie, “but how can they keep it up? And now there’s Edward gone off and left it all to Virginia,” her thoughts continued, but she stifled the notion immediately. “It’s impossible. I believe he will come back, I do, no matter how strange it seems.”
“I am so sorry that Edward, my son, has gone away on a trip with some friends,” went on Mrs. l’Estrange. “But he writes he is having such a beautiful time, I don’t begrudge the boy a change. It is very dull for him here. I wish you could help me persuade him to go to college next year. He should go North and see something of the world, but he will not leave Virginia and me, and as you see, I am quite helpless.”
She spread out her pink hands and smiled faintly.
Presently Virginia, seeing that the girls understood, passed into the next room to change her dress.