“Allowed? Ah, madame, there are plenty of worse workrooms than that in Paris. I wonder what you would say if you could see your dresses made! We liked it very well in the winter, for there were no stairs, and it was agreeable then to shut the window and profit by the warmth from the kitchen. That was all long ago, before I married that poor Eugène and came to live in London. They were, all the same, not so bad, those days. Ah, la jeunesse, la belle jeunesse, which one does not know how to enjoy when one has it.”
Madame Querterot crossed over to the table and laid her hands on the block of ice, casting a glance over her shoulder to the window where Barbara sat at her sentry post. The motionless, silent figure annoyed Madame Querterot. To be conscious that all her chatter was overheard by that quiet listener got on her nerves and sometimes made her, as she said, feel as if her own words would suffocate her. There was so much she could have said to Mrs. Vanderstein from time to time if they had been alone—much that she instinctively felt would have been very acceptable to that lady—but in the presence of Miss Turner, even though nothing of her were visible except the back of her head, there were, it appeared, lengths of flattery to which Madame Querterot found herself incapable of proceeding. Thus did a feeling of awkwardness, some sense of restraint, cast a certain gloom over hours that should have been the brightest in the day.
“These roses, madame, how fine they are,” she murmured, bending towards a bowl that stood on the table, and unconsciously her voice took on a note of defiance as she faced the window. “They are as beautiful as if they were artificial. One would say they were made of silk!”
Mrs. Vanderstein laughed tolerantly, but Barbara, her face turned to the street, made a naughty face.
Madame Querterot, with hands ice cool, went back to her massage, and for a little while again no one spoke.
Suddenly Barbara turned.
“Here comes a Royal carriage,” she said. “I think it is Prince Felipe of Targona and his mother.”
“Oh I must see them,” cried Mrs. Vanderstein, jumping up, and brushing Madame Querterot unceremoniously aside. “Where are they?” She ran to the window.
The masseuse followed more slowly, and three heads were thrust out over the street.