Then, when the two were seated side by side in one of the comfortable, shabby, open French cabs, of which even Mrs. Mote recognized the charm, Penelope added suddenly: 'Motey—you don't think—do you doubt he is really ill? It would be a shabby trick——'
'All gentlemen, as far as I'm aware, ma'am, do shabby tricks sometimes. There's that saying, "All's fair in love and war"; it's very advantageous to them. I don't suppose the Count's heard it, though; he knew very little English, poor young fellow!' But Motey might have spoken more strongly had she realized how very passive was to be on this occasion her rôle of duenna.
At last the fiacre stopped opposite a narrow door let into a high blank wall forming the side of one of those lonely quiet streets, almost ghostly in their sunny stillness, which may yet be found in certain quarters of modern Paris. Penelope gave her companion the choice of waiting for her in the carriage or of walking up and down. Mrs. Mote did not remonstrate with her mistress; she simply and sulkily expressed great distrust of Paris cabmen in general, and her preference for the pavement in particular. Then, with some misgiving, she saw Mrs. Robinson ring the bell. The door in the wall swung back, framing a green lawn, edged with bushes of blossoming lilac, against which Penelope's white serge gown was silhouetted for a brief moment, before the bright vision was shut out.
First walking, then standing, on the other side of the street, finally actually sitting on the edge of the pavement, but not before she had assured herself even in the midst of her perturbation of spirit that it was spotlessly clean, the old nurse waited during what seemed to her an eternity of time, and went through what was certainly an agony of fright.
The worst kind of fear is unreasoning. Mrs. Mote's imagination conjured up every horror; and nothing but the curious lack of initiative which seems common to those who have lived in servitude held her back from doing something undoubtedly foolish.
At last, when she was making up her mind to something very desperate indeed, though what form this desperate something should take she could not determine, there fell on her ears, coming nearer and nearer, the sound of deep sobbing. A few moments later the little green door, opening slowly, revealed two figures, that of Mrs. Robinson, pale and moved, but otherwise looking much as usual, and that of a stout, middle-aged woman, dressed in black, who, crying bitterly, clung to her, seeming loth to let her go.
Very gently, and not till they were actually standing on the pavement outside the open door, did Penelope disengage herself from the trembling hands which sought to keep her. Motey did not understand the words, 'Mon pauvre enfant, il vous aime tant! Vous reviendrez demain, n'est ce pas, madame?' but she understood enough to say no word of her long waiting, to give voice to no grumbling, as she and her mistress walked slowly down the sunny street, after having seen the little green door shut behind the short, homely figure, lacking all dignity save that of grief.
In those days, as Mrs. Mote, sitting up there remembering in the darkness, recalled with bitterness, Mrs. Robinson had had no confidante but her old nurse, and Penelope had instantly begun pouring out, as was her wont, the tale of all that had happened in the hour she had been away.
'Oh, Motey, that is his poor mother! It is so horribly sad. He is her only child. Her husband was killed in the Franco-Prussian War when she was quite a young woman, and she has given up her whole life to him. Now the poor fellow is dying'—Penelope shuddered—'and I have promised to go and see him every day till he does die.'