“I’m truly glad to see you, Miss Adair,” said Miss Lucas in that unforgettable sweet voice of hers. “And to see you so happy here. Uncle Wilmer has been telling me that he is grateful to father and me for sending you to him.”
The two girls stood, their hands still clasped, looking at each other, both remembering where and how they had parted, the singular bond that united them, all that had come to pass since they had met.
Jeanette Lucas looked years older; her face had lost its sweetness; it was as beautiful as ever—Cis thought that she had forgotten how lovely it was—but older lines, which barely escaped being bitter ones, had been graven on each side of her delicate lips, and her eyes were introspective, no longer meeting other eyes with ready sympathy. Her wound had gone deep, the cruel wound of finding unworthy someone whom one has utterly trusted, and of learning to unlove. She had withdrawn into herself to hide her hurt.
Jeanette Lucas saw the girl who had been merry, frank and free, grown older, too, but in every way bettered by it. Never precisely pretty, Cis’s face had sweetened and softened; its whole effect was of a face that had been clarified and ennobled. Dressed in soft dull gold and brown, her wonderful hair topped the harmony of color like an aureole; in undefined motions, intonations, Cis had refined, become one of the world in which Jeanette Lucas had been born and always lived.
Miss Braithwaite, hurrying in, interrupted this unconscious scrutiny of each other which absorbed the girls in oblivion to all else. She welcomed Jeanette cordially, even affectionately, putting her at once into Cicely’s chair close to hers before the fire.
Anselm Lancaster dropped into his usual place; Mr. Lucas, in a capacious chair in the middle. For a moment Cis hesitated, then she took a low stool and put herself close on the other side of Jeanette. It seemed to her that Anselm Lancaster found Miss Lucas interesting, and instantly Cis’s busy brain began to weave a plot to which the happy ending was intrinsic.
“Father is perfectly well, thank you, Miss Braithwaite,” Jeanette was replying to Miss Lucas. “We went abroad on my account, but he profited from it more than I—except as it added to my knowledge. Father already had enough knowledge of pictures and architecture. We had a delightful trip, yes, thanks; England, France, Italy; Spain, to a limited extent. I’d like to go back. Why not go with me, Miss Adair?”
“I am going; I’m saving up to go,” said Cis unexpectedly; Jeannette had not been in earnest. “I’m getting ready for it in other ways; Miss Braithwaite and Mr. Lancaster talk about Europe so much that I almost know which corner to turn to buy shoe-strings, or to see the best pictures in the gallery! I’ll show you the way around Europe, Miss Lucas, if you will let me go with you.”
“Miss Adair can show you many other things besides the way around Europe, Jeanette!” Mr. Lucas corroborated Cis. “If ever the day dawns that I’m not involved in crises of several corporations and public affairs, simultaneously, I’ll take you both abroad; Miss Braithwaite shall go as duenna and Mr. Lancaster as cicerone.”
“A contract, before witnesses!” cried Mr. Lancaster. “I want to show you a picture in Florence for which you might have sat as model, Miss Lucas.”