On her way to her room that night Grace Cardew encountered Mademoiselle, a pale, unhappy Mademoiselle, who seemed to spend her time mostly in Lily's empty rooms or wandering about corridors. Whenever the three members of the family were together she would retire to her own quarters, and there feverishly with her rosary would pray for a softening of hearts. She did not comprehend these Americans, who were so kind to those beneath them and so hard to each other.
“I wanted to see you, Mademoiselle,” Grace said, not very steadily. “I have good news for you.”
Mademoiselle began to tremble. “She is coming? Lily is coming?”
“Yes. Will you have some fresh flowers put in her rooms in the morning?”
Suddenly Mademoiselle forgot her years of repression, and flinging her arms around Grace's neck she kissed her. Grace held her for a moment, patting her shoulder gently.
“We must try to make her very happy, Mademoiselle. I think things will be different now.”
Mademoiselle stood back and wiped her eyes.
“But she must be different, too,” she said. “She is sweet and good, but she is strong of will, too. The will to do, to achieve, that is one thing, and very good. But the will to go one's own way, that is another.”
“The young are always headstrong, Mademoiselle.”
But, alone later on, her rosary on her knee, Mademoiselle wondered. If youth were the indictment against Lily, was she not still young? It took years, or suffering, or sometimes both, to break the will of youth and chasten its spirit. God grant Lily might not have suffering.