He got up and left the room, afraid perhaps of saying more, for at this moment he could not afford to quarrel with Anna. Poor man, his troubles seemed to be coming on him all at once! Gladys understood very little of what they were saying, but she saw that Adolphe was not pleased with Mademoiselle Anna, and it made her fear that Anna would be still crosser to Roger or her. But she took no notice of them, and when they had finished she called Françoise, and told her to take them into the sitting-room and make up the fire.
"P'raps she's going to be kind now, Gladdie," said Roger, with the happy hopefulness of his age. But Gladys shook her head.
Monsieur Adolphe set off that afternoon.
For the first day or two things went on rather better than Gladys had expected. Anna had had a fright, and did not dare actually to neglect or ill-treat the children. So Gladys put off writing to Miss Susan, which, as you know, she had the greatest dislike to doing till she saw how things went on. Besides this same writing was no such easy matter for her. She had neither pen, ink, nor paper—she was not sure how to spell the address, and she had not a halfpenny of money! Very likely if she had spoken of her idea to Adolphe he would have been only too glad for her to write, but Anna was a very different person to deal with.
"If I asked her for paper and a pen she would very likely scold me—very likely she wouldn't like me to write while Mr. 'Dolph is away, for fear he should think she had been unkind and that that had made me do it," reflected Gladys, whose wits were much sharpened by trouble. "And I daren't make her angry while we're alone with her."
Thus the letter was deferred. Things might possibly have gone smoothly till Adolphe's return, for Anna wished to avoid any upset now she saw how strongly the Nestors felt on the subject. But unfortunately bad-tempered people cannot always control themselves to act as their common sense tells them would be best even for themselves. And Mademoiselle Anna had a very bad and violent temper, which often got quite the mastery of her.
So the calm did not last long.