As soon as the train drew up to the platform, Mademoiselle poked out her head and uttered a little shriek when she beheld Pauline and Nellie Hungerford, as well as Honora herself and a tall footman waiting on the platform. Mademoiselle rushed up to Honora, taking both her hands and shaking them up and down while she burst into an eager volley of French, in which she informed that “pupil best beloved” that the desire to be near her had brought her to Marshlands-on-the-Sea, and that she was even now going with her humble belongings to seek apartments appropriate to her means.
“I meet you, my pupil,” she said, “with a joy which almost ravishes my breast, for sincere and true are my feelings towards you. And now I stay not, but perhaps some day you will think of the governess in her humble appartements by the lone sea, and allow her to pay you a little visit.”
Honora murmured something which scarcely amounted to an invitation. Mademoiselle turned to the little girls, and Honora ran to Penelope’s side.
“I am so glad to see you! I hope you are not frightfully tired. Oh, you do look hot and dusty, but we shall have a delicious drive up to the Castle. My home is quite outside the town, which is somewhat noisy. Ah, I see Dan has collected your luggage; shall we come at once? Good-bye, Mademoiselle. I hope you will secure nice rooms.”
Mademoiselle was flattering, and full of charm to the end. She insisted on marching down the platform with Pauline’s hand clasped in one of hers, and her humble little bag in the other. She did not part from her pupils until she saw them all ensconced in the luxurious carriage which was to bear them rapidly into the pleasant country. But, when that same carriage had turned the corner and she found herself alone, an ugly expression crossed her face.
“It is not good to have these feelings,” she murmured to herself. “I like not the jealousies when they come to devour; but why should Penelope with her schemes and her behaviour the most strange be taken to the very heart of the best of all my pupils? I will see into this by-and-by. Meanwhile—ma foi—how hot it is!”