"Oh, come in! Come in!" she cried shrilly. "I have just been thinking of you and talking to you!"
Frances laughed, bewildered. "Oh, it is Miss Dunbar? The man sent me here by mistake to wait. Miss Vance is out, he said."
"Yes, I suppose so. But I—I am here." Lucy threw her arms around her again, laying her head down on her shoulder. She felt as if something that she had waited for a long time was coming to her. "Sit by the stove. Your hands are like ice," she said.
"Yes, I am usually cold now; I don't know why."
Lucy then saw a curious change in her face. The fine meanings were not in it now. It was fatter—coarser; the hair was dead, the eyes moved sluggishly, like the glass eyes of a doll.
"You are always cold? Your blood is thin, perhaps. You are overtired, dear. Have you travelled much?"
"Oh, yes! all of the time. I have seen whole tracts of pictures, and no end of palaces and hotels—hotels—hotels!" Frances said, awakening to the necessity of being talkative and vivacious with the young girl. She threw off her cloak. There was a rip in the fur, and the dirty lining hung out. Lucy shuddered. Mrs. Waldeaux's blood must have turned to water, or she would never have permitted that!
"You must rest now. I will take care of you," she said, with a little nod of authority. Frances looked at her perplexed. Why should this pretty creature mother her with such tenderness?
Oh! It was the girl that George should have married!
She glanced at the white room with its dainty bibelots, the Bible, the Madonnas, watching, benign. Poor little nun, waiting for the love that never could come to her!