Stargarde bent her beautiful head. “I am, God bless her! Not loyalty alone do I give her, but tender love and reverence. May all her descendants rule as wisely as she has done.”
Stargarde when she spoke used as many gestures as Vivienne herself. Then she was brimful of personal magnetism, catching her hearers by the electric brilliance of her bright blue eyes and holding them by the pure and silvery tones of her voice. Vivienne felt her blood stir in her veins as she listened to her. She was loth to have her visitor go, and as she saw her glance at the clock she said hurriedly, “We have wandered from the subject of your up-bringing.”
“Come and see me in my rooms,” said Stargarde rising, “and I will tell you all about myself and how I went to live with the Camperdowns when I was twelve. They are all gone now but Brian,” and she sighed. “How I miss them! Family life is such an exquisite thing. You, poor child, know little of it as yet. Some day you will marry and have a home of your own. You have a lover now, little girl, haven’t you?” and she tilted back Vivienne’s head and looked searchingly into her eyes.
“Yes,” said Vivienne gently.
Stargarde smiled. “Before he takes you away I wish you would come and stay with me for a long time. Now I must fly, I have an appointment at six.”
“Good-bye, Miss Turner,” murmured Vivienne, as her caller took her by the hand.
“Good-bye, Stargarde,” corrected her friend.
“Stargarde—it is a beautiful name,” said the girl.
“It is a great worry to people; they ask me why I was so named, and I never can tell them. I only know that it is German, and is occasionally used in Russia.”
“Are you going? are you going?” called Judy, limping briskly from the other end of the room. “Wait a minute. I want to show you some clothes that I will give you for your poor children.”