"Is she coming? Is she here?" cried Madame René, who, misinterpreting Donald's words, had risen to her feet, half expecting to see the young girl enter the room.
"No. But depend upon it, you will go there," said Don. "You must carry out the dream of your youth, and begin life in America. My uncle surely will send for you. You know, I promised that you should hear of something greatly to your advantage."
"But the ocean," she began, with a show of dread, in spite of the pleasure that shone in her eyes. "I could never venture upon the great, black ocean again!"
"It will not be the black ocean this time. It will be the blue ocean, full of light and promise," said Donald, growing poetic, "and it will bear you to comfort and prosperity. Dorothy and I will—"
"Dorothy!" cried Ellen Lee. "Yes, I feel as if I could cross two oceans to see you both together, alive and well, so I could."
At this point Madame Dubois, rousing herself, said, rather querulously, in her native tongue: "Elise, are you to talk all night? Have you forgotten that you are to take me to see the lady on the Rue St. Honoré at six?"
"Ah, I did forget," was the reply. "I will go at once, if the young gentleman will excuse me."
"Certainly," said Donald, rising; "and I shall call again to-morrow, as I have many things yet to ask you. I'll go now and cable home."
Ellen Lee looked puzzled.
"Can I be forgetting my own language?" she thought to herself. But she had resolved to be frank with Donald. Had not he and Dorothy already opened a new life to her? "Cable home?" she repeated. "I do not understand."