Missy colored; she had forgotten that her mother could seem old to any one, and then she saw how very young her companion really was—younger than herself, no doubt.
"It is very hard," she said. "Can't you interest yourself in the children at all? They would be such a diversion if you could."
"My little Gabrielle, yes. But Jay is—so different, you know—so noisy; I believe he makes me ill every time he comes near me."
"Gabrielle looks like you," said Missy. "I have seen her on the beach sometimes."
Then the beautiful eyes lighted up, and Missy began to be enchanted. She did not know that she had produced the illumination, and that the beautiful creature was made happy by an opportunity to talk about herself. She gradually—sweetly slid into it, and Missy was wrapt in admiration. Her companion talked well about herself, con amore, but delicately and like a true artist. A beautiful picture was growing up before Missy. She would have been at a loss to say who painted it. She did not even think her egotistic, though she would have pardoned egotism in one who seemed so much better worth talking of than ordinary people. Her loneliness, her suffering, her youth, her exile from her own people, her uncongenial surroundings—how had Missy learned so much in one-half hour? And yet Mrs. Andrews had not seemed to talk about herself. It was sketchy; but Missy was imaginative, and when a carriage driving to the gate made her start up, she was surprised to find it was half an hour instead of half a life-time since she had come into the room.
"It is Mr. Andrews," she said, glancing from the window, "and I must go."
"Don't!" said the invalid, earnestly.
"O, it would be better," said Missy, "it is so awkward. I know husbands hate to find tiresome friends always in their wives' rooms when they come home."
"Yes, perhaps so, when they come to their wives' rooms when they get home."
There was a slight distension of the nostril and a slight compression of the lips when this was said. Missy flushed between embarrassment and indignation. Was it possible that Mr. Andrews was a brute, and was not at this moment on the stairs on his way to this lonely lovely sufferer?