“I am, indeed. I would rather live in two rooms and cook in one of them, than stay at the best pension in all Europe. Oh, Mary, have you got a home?”
“Yes,” replied Mary. “My mother and I have to work to keep it, but we have one.”
“Oh, how I love to work,” cried Marie-Jeanne.
She then proceeded to take six handkerchiefs from an improvised clothes line hung across the stateroom. She sprinkled them with a little water, rolled them in a neat pile, and with quite a professional manner, tested a little iron heating on an alcohol stove.
“Would you like to see me iron?” she demanded. “I do the family wash in this way. It saves lots of money, and, well,—it quiets me.”
“Quiets you?”
“Yes; you see, sometimes I have a feeling I’d like to scream or break something, and when that comes on me, I just turn all the linen out of the clothes bag and wash clothes until I’m tired out.”
“What a funny girl you are,” laughed Mary. “Do you spend all your time abroad?” she added.
“Most of it. We only go back when——” the poor girl paused and wrinkled her brows, “when we have to,” she finished in a low voice. “But there is something I like better than washing, Mary,” she went on gayly. “You would never guess that it’s cooking. I have learned to make a great many dishes. I am sure I could cook an entire dinner with soup and roasted chicken and peas and potatoes and something awfully good for dessert. I know several desserts. Sometimes we take lodgings,—mamma detests them, but—well, sometimes we have to, and then I cook, oh, such good things! We are going into lodgings this time in London for a few weeks, and I shall be very busy. Perhaps you would come——” she paused. “No, mother would never consent to it. We never receive any visitors when we are in lodgings.”
Marie-Jeanne sighed. Mary thought of the difference between Marie-Jeanne’s “mamma” and her own beautiful mother, who worked so hard and was so dignified and noble. Her heart went out to the poor girl and she determined to make a friend of her if possible.