“Why, La Rue, you are a brick; how lovely it is! I have not a word of fault to find!”
“I am glad if it suits you. Good-afternoon, Miss Ferguson,” Margery said, quietly, and then walked away, while Anna thought:
“If she were a grand duchess she could not be more airy. I wonder who she thinks she is, any way? Queenie has just spoiled her with so much attention, and she only a dressmaker!”
CHAPTER XXIX.
LETTERS FROM MENTONE.
Whether we are sorry or glad, time never stops for us, but the days and nights go on and on, until at last we wonder that so long a period has elapsed since the joy or sorrow came which marked a never-to-be-forgotten point in our lives.
And so it was with Queenie; she could not be as wretched and disconsolate always as she was during the first days of Phil’s absence. She was of too light and buoyant a temperament for that, and after a little she woke to the fact that life had still much happiness in store for her, even though Phil could not share it with her. She had received a few words from him written just before the steamer sailed—words which made her cry as if her heart would break, but which were very precious to her because of their assurance that whatever might befall the writer she would always be his queen, his love, whose image was engraven on his heart forever.
And Queenie had answered the note, for it was nothing more, and filled four sheets with her passionate longings for the naughty boy, as she called him, who was not satisfied to be her cousin, but must needs seek to be her lover, and so had made her life miserable.
This letter was sent to Rome, for Phil was to take the overland route to India and visit the Imperial City on the way. He had promised to write from every point where he stopped, and so he did not seem so very far away, and Queenie grew brighter and gayer, and consented to see Mr. Beresford, whom she had persistently ignored, and after rating him soundly for the part he had had in sending Phil away, she became very gracious to him, for Phil had forgiven him, and she must do so, too, and she rode with him one day after his fast horse, and was so bright, and coquettish, and bewitching, that Mr. Beresford forgot himself, and in lifting her from the carriage held her hand tighter in his than was at all necessary. But Queenie withdrew it quickly, and with her usual frankness, said:
“You are not to squeeze my hand that way, Mr. Beresford, or think because I rode with you, that you are on probation, as you call it, for you are not. I am not trying to reconsider, and never shall.”