If her existence was troubled, it was with the discontent of a child who cries for the moon which it regards as a pretty material plaything, rather than the trouble of a woman to whom the moon is a symbol of the rare, the exquisite things of life, which she weeps to find beyond her reach.
Yet her next remark pleased her companion.
“I think what you said about the rose describes her much better,” she ventured, rather timidly.
He smiled. “You’re quite right. I see you understand our sweet Anne Page. She doesn’t belong to the Mona Lisa type. She’s made up of all the beautiful natural things; of the sunlight and the roses, and the dew. Tiens! Don’t say I’m ignorant of your poets. One of them has come rather near it when he says, ‘And beauty born of murmuring sound has passed into her face.’”
Mrs. Dakin had never heard the lines before, and hurriedly wondered how she could find them. She felt flattered, shy, and troubled at the same moment. It was rather a fearful joy to be talked to by this Frenchman, who was evidently so used to what she called “clever” people, that he quite naturally assumed her comprehension of his language. She wondered who Mona Lisa was, and half thought of asking Harry. It occurred to her that Harry read a great deal; that his study was lined with books into which she had never thought of looking. He never talked to her about them.
“I suppose that’s because he thinks me too stupid,” was her impatiently scornful reflection.
She was half relieved, half sorry when Mrs. Carfax, with a conventional exclamation upon the lateness of the hour, rose to go.
“Good-bye,” she said, holding out her hand to her companion.
She hesitated, and then, shyness making the words a little brusque—
“If you are ever here again, I hope Miss Page will bring you to see us,” she added.