It was late in the afternoon when the carriages drove off. Olivia said truly she had had a very happy day. Not so truly said Madame Koller.
CHAPTER XI.
The winter had lapsed into spring. It was April—the May of colder climates. In a week—a day—Nature had rushed into bloom. Even Madame Koller, who cared little for these things, was awakened to the beauty surrounding her. She spent hours walking in the fresh morning air and thinking—thinking. The few times she saw Pembroke, and the quiet, formal courtesy with which he treated her was as wind to flame. In his absence she was perpetually thinking of him, devising wild and extravagant methods of winning him. It was her pride, she now persuaded herself, that needed to be avenged. Again throwing prudence wildly aside, she boldly acknowledged to herself that it was love. For the first time in her life she was thrown upon herself—and a very dangerous and undisciplined self it was. Sometimes she blamed him less than he deserved for whatever folly he had been a party to—and again she blamed him more. Madame Koller was fast working herself up to the point of an explosion.
Toward dusk one evening, as Olivia Berkeley sat in the dim drawing-room where a little fire crackled on the hearth, although the windows were opened to the purple twilight outside, she heard a light step upon the portico—and the next moment, Madame Koller walked in.
Olivia received a kind of shock when she recognized her. Madame Koller’s manner to her had been queer of late, but she spoke to her very cordially. Very likely she was wearied and ennuyéd at home—and had to come to Olivia in the desperation of loneliness.
Madame Koller, in response to Olivia’s hospitable offer, allowed her to remove the long furred mantle, and place it on a chair. She looked at Olivia fixedly. Her eyes were large and very bright.
“You are surprised that I should come here at this time, Miss Berkeley?”
“I am very pleased, Madame Koller.”
“You are surprised. However, is it not strange how in moments of great agitation, trifles will come to one’s mind? It reminds me even now, how all the people in this county are amazed at simple—very simple things. There is nothing in my walking a mile or two to see you—I have a servant outside—but you, like the rest, regard it as very queer.”
“As you please, Madame Koller,” answered Olivia.