Floy listened with a patient attention and sincere sympathy such as the Madame, in her loneliness, was little accustomed to.
“It must be very dreadful to have so many ailments,” she said feelingly. “I don’t know how I could bear your difficulty of breathing even, without any of the others.”
The Madame started, sat upright, and looked earnestly at the girl, while tears gathered in her eyes.
“Your voice is like a half-forgotten strain of music,” she said, sighing; “and your face—ah, it seems as if I must have seen it in the long ago, the happy time when I was young and life full of sunshine and flowers. Alas, child!” she added, sinking back upon her cushions again, “as the years roll on how the sunlight gives place to clouds and darkness, and the flowers fade and die! would that I could be young again!”
“Were you always happy in your youthful days, Madame?”
There were tears in the low, sweet voice that put the question.
“No, no; indeed I believe I sometimes thought myself quite wretched!” exclaimed the Madame; “but I see now what a fool I was.”
“Supper is ready, ladies,” announced Mary, throwing open the door of communication with the dressing-room. “Shall I wheel you in, Madame?”
With a peevish reply in the negative the Madame rose and waddled to the table, preceded by Frisky, for whom a chair had been placed at her right hand.
Floy was invited to the seat opposite her hostess, and, conscious of being a lady, accepted it with no feeling of surprise that it was accorded her. In fact, her thoughts were again far away, and scarcely to be recalled by the tempting nature of the repast or the magnificence of the solid silver and rare old china.