Immediately the two girls rose to go. Perhaps Mrs. Le Roy-Jones would not be pleased to have her daughter entertaining guests in this humble lodging.
Before they left, Billie parted the muslin curtains and looked across a sea of wet roofs to the real sea beyond.
“How beautiful, Marie-Jeanne!”
“Isn’t it?—and we love it. The air is splendid. Sometimes it brings a smell of heather from the moors and sometimes a salty sea smell. We are so far removed, it’s like being in a tower.”
Billie’s glance fell to the table near the window. Besides several novels and heavier-looking books, she saw a child’s book of animals. She glanced curiously at Marie-Jeanne, who was gathering up the tea things and preparing to wash them. Underneath the big chair by the table was a pair of man’s bedroom slippers almost as small as a boy’s.
The three girls embraced. Perhaps they might never meet again. Certainly it did not seem likely; for the Motor Maids were leaving the Land of the Thistle in the morning and in another week would be in Ireland.
As they were parting, Billie said to Marie-Jeanne:
“Do you remember what you said to us on London Bridge that afternoon, Marie-Jeanne, about wanting to live in a house that was all glass so that you could have no secrets? Are you living in one now?”
Marie-Jeanne shook her head.
“It’s not a glass house,” she answered. “But it’s a good deal better than Miss Rivers’, and sometimes I deceive myself into thinking it’s really a little home. It’s a kind of an imitation happiness, I suppose. Always, deep down in my heart, I know it can’t last very long, but it’s the nearest I have ever been to being really happy in my life.”