She looked at the room through a blinding mist, so that the delicate walls and the Louis Quinze furniture all swum in a haze, and nothing stood out save the fact that the room, like her heart, was empty, and there was no one to hold out two arms ready to enfold her.
Then she strangled a sob in her throat, and the room became once more the charming, orderly room it always was, filled with sweet scented flowers and majestic palms.
“You’re a fool, Claudia, a fool! a fool! a fool!” she said through her half-closed teeth. “You want things that you will never get, that probably don’t exist except in your stupid imagination.”
Then she went quickly out of the room to her bedroom, where her outdoor clothes were lying on the bed. She rang the bell for her maid.
“Order the car for me, please. I am going to see Mrs. Iverson. Give me that box of picture-puzzles I got for her.”
Fay always wanted her. She would go where she was wanted.
CHAPTER XV
WHY NOT?
Claudia asked the usual question of the nurse who met her in the hall of the flat. It was now three weeks since Fay’s accident.