"Would you like me to read to you?" she asked.
"Thank you—presently perhaps."
"Did they change those flowers this morning?"
I smiled. "There won't be any flowers left in the garden soon, I get so many."
"Then there isn't anything I can do," she said helplessly.
Poor child, I don't think that I myself was entirely the object of her concern—no, not even though I was so blest as to be a link between her and a certain young Englishman who went about in French clothes and was known by a French name. I don't think she quite knew what she wanted, except that it was exquisite to be a little mournful, and to be doing something for somebody. In spite of that impulsive little gesture, I don't think her mother had her confidence. That was rather the compounding of a secrecy than a confidence. It was an atonement, a guilty little reparation that but locked up her secret the more securely. I am aware that young girls are traditionally supposed to fly instantly to their mothers with their troubles of this sort. I can only say that that is not my experience. Far more frequently they will fly to a confidante of their own age, and even once in a while to a person like myself. Her mother would be much, oh, ever so much to her; but she would not be told about that note that had been surreptitiously slipped from hand to hand.
"Well, what have you been doing with yourself for the last three days, Jennie?" I asked.
A Brittany crock of genêts made fragrant the room. Her eyes were fixed on the flowers.
"Yesterday I went for a bicycle ride," she said.
"Oh? I didn't know you had a bicycle here."