“Where have you been, Geneviève? I have been looking for you everywhere,” she exclaimed. Then without waiting for an answer, “Mother wants you,” she went on, “she is upstairs in her dressing room.”
“I will go at once,” replied Geneviève readily. Something in her bright manner and tone caught Cicely’s attention.
“How happy you look this morning, Geneviève!” she observed with a touch of kindly envy. “You look so fresh and rosy, and yet you were up so late, you naughty girl. Is it your letter from home that has pleased you so? At breakfast time I thought you looked pale.”
“I had good news from home,” replied Geneviève. “I am glad I look well.” She turned to her cousin affectionately; Cicely’s remark had gratified her, and a half impulse came over her to confide to her the cause of her bright looks. But Cicely’s face seemed pale and sad—unusually pale and sad, and the inclination to appeal to her for sympathy died away.
“You don’t look well, Cicely,” said Geneviève, “is anything the matter? It is nothing wrong my aunt wants to see me about?”
Cicely smiled—“a smile beneath a cloud”—afterwards Geneviève wondered to herself how it could be that she of all women in the world could look sad—and the faint light of the smile seemed to make her face still paler.
“Oh! no,” she said, “it is nothing wrong, but mother wants to have a little talk with you.” She was silent for a moment, hesitating seemingly as if she should say more. “Geneviève,” she went on, “you must not think I have treated you like a stranger. It was only that I wanted you to feel quite easy and unconstrained with me that—that I did not tell you what mother is going to tell you. Don’t let it make any difference in your feelings to me. Kiss me, dear.”
A little surprised but nothing loth, Geneviève held up her bright face for Cicely’s kiss. She was pleased that her cousin should feel so kindly to her this morning of all mornings, and her pleasure, in turn, gratified Cicely. She stood watching Geneviève as she ran off, carolling in her clear high voice a little patois ballad she had been teaching Cicely.
“Escoutto d’ Jeannetto
Veux-tu d’biaux habits, laridetto
Escoutto d’ Jeannetto
Pour aller à Paris?”
“Laridetto, laridetto,
Baille me unbaiser, laridetto.”
rang Geneviève’s voice, then died away in the distance.