"Thank you!" said Kitty, hastily. "I got your letter—thank you very much. Where are you staying? We've got rooms on the Grand Canal."
"Oh, but, Kitty!" cried Madame d'Estrées—"I was so sorry for you!"
"Were you?" said Kitty, under her breath. "Then, please, never speak of him to me again!"
Startled and offended, Madame d'Estrées looked at her daughter. But what she saw disarmed her. For once even she felt something like the pang of a mother. "You're dreadfully thin, Kitty!"
Kitty frowned with annoyance.
"It's not my fault," she said, pettishly. "I live on cream, and it's no good. Of course, I know I'm an object and a scarecrow; but I'd rather people didn't tell me."
"What nonsense, chére enfant! You're much prettier than you ever were."
A wild and fugitive radiance swept across the face beside her.
"Am I?" said Kitty, smiling. "That's all right! If I had died it wouldn't matter, of course. But—"
"Died! What do you mean, Kitty?" said Madame d'Estrées, in bewilderment. "When William wrote to me I thought he meant you had overtired yourself."