She turned a high-backed rocker toward the fire and Madame Bernard leaned back luxuriously, stretching her tiny feet to the blaze. She wore grey satin slippers with high French heels and silver buckles. A bit of grey silk stocking was visible between the buckle and the hem of her grey gown.
Rose smiled at her in affectionate appreciation. The little old lady seemed like a bit of Dresden china; she was so dainty and so frail. Her hair was lustreless, snowy white, and beautifully, though simply, dressed in a bygone fashion. Her blue eyes were so deep in colour as to seem almost purple in certain lights, and the years had been kind to her, leaving few lines. Her hands, resting on the arms of her chair, had not lost their youthful contour, but around her eyes and the corners of her mouth were the faint prints of many smiles.
"Rose," said Madame Bernard, suddenly, "you are very lovely to-night."
"I was thinking the same of you," responded the younger woman, flushing.
"Shall we organise ourselves into a mutual admiration society?"
"We might as well, I think. There seems to be nobody else."
A shadow crossed Rose's face and her beauty took on an appealing wistfulness. She had been sheltered always and she hungered for Life as the sheltered often do. Madame Bernard, for the thousandth time, looked at her curiously. From the shapely foot that tapped restlessly on the rug beneath her white lace gown, to the crown of dusky hair with red- gold lights in it, Rose was made for love—and Madame wondered how she had happened to miss it.
"Aunt Francesca," said Rose, with a whimsical sadness, "do you realise that I'm forty to-day?"
"That's nothing," returned the other, serenely. "Everybody has been forty, or will be, if they live."
"I haven't lived yet," Rose objected. "I've only been alive."
"'While there's life there's hope,'" quoted Madame lightly. "What do you want, dear child? Battle, murder, and sudden death?"