"Believe me, let us be frank with each other. You do not know me well. You have travelled so much. I astonish you. You will see that I have great faults. I am proud and selfish, hardly capable of making sacrifices; something of a flirt, but I have no roundabout ways. Lately, when I was looking forward to your arrival, I promised myself a lasting joy, the joy of having your youth near mine to understand it. I will tell you all that is important in my life, all that I am resolved to do—I have no one here whom I can trust absolutely. You cannot know what I have suffered. Will you?"
"Oh yes."
"You will tell me your thoughts, but above all I shall have spoken to you. I shall not suffocate, as I have often done in this house. I shall have many things to tell you. It will be some way of regaining the intimacy we have almost lost, and will give us a little tardy fraternal companionship. What are you thinking about?"
"About this poor house."
Lucienne lifted her eyes above the slate roof which rose in front. She wished to say, "If you knew how sad it really is," then she embraced her brother, and said:
"I am not so bad as you think me, brother, nor so ungrateful to mamma. I am going to find her to talk about your return. She certainly wants to speak of her happiness to some one."
Lucienne left her brother, turning again to smile at him, and walking as a goddess might, with steps free and finely poised, with her hand replacing the pins which held up her hair so badly, disarranged as it was by the walk and blown about by the wind, she took the fifty steps which separated her from the staircase, and disappeared.
CHAPTER IV
THE GUARDIANS OF THE HEARTH