“Why, of course, right at Versailles, he wouldn’t have taken her hand, or anything like that. A gaze can speak volumes, I’ll have you to know. But when we sailed from Havre, and he stayed to study at the Sorbonne, he put his arms around her and kissed her. It was thrilling!”
This new piece of information was indisputable proof, which, placed by the side of the strange disappearance of the said Mr. Taylor’s picture, and the strange and unwonted sadness of Miss Wallace, formed a bulk of evidence, to disbelieve which was folly.
“Oh, I’m afraid it’s true,” said Virginia, echoing the misgivings of her room-mate. “She looks so quiet and sad, it just breaks my heart. I actually know she’d been crying the other day when I saw her coming out of the Retreat. Probably she went there for comfort. Poor thing! How could he have been so cruel?”
“Why, maybe it wasn’t he. Maybe he’s suffering, and pacing the streets of Paris this moment, preferring death to life.” Lucile’s imagination, so fruitless in the channels of academic thought, was certainly prolific in the flowery paths of Romance. “Perhaps Miss Wallace felt the call to service, broke her engagement, and has decided to give her very life to help others.”
“I don’t think Miss Wallace would do that,” Virginia said thoughtfully. “Not that it isn’t a wonderful thing to do; but I feel some way as though she’d rather be a mother. One evening last Thanksgiving I was in her room, and we were talking about the things girls could do in the world. I asked her what she thought was the noblest thing; and she said in the sweetest voice, ‘A real mother, Virginia.’”
“And she is just a born mother,” added Priscilla. “Mother said so at Thanksgiving. Oh, dear! Why did it have to happen?”
No one pretended to know. Lucile was inclined to attribute it to Fate; while Dorothy advanced the thought that it might be a trial sent to prove Miss Wallace’s strength.
“And it’s wonderful how strong she is,” she said. “She’s usually so jolly at table; and last night she was the very life of the party. One would never have known.”
“Yes, and she probably went home to a sleepless night,” suggested Lucile, “and tossed about till morning.”
“It seems to me she’s been happier lately.”