No, her character, her nature refused such obedience. If there was trouble between the owner of the unusually sweet voice and Mr. Barres, it was their affair, not hers, not her father’s.
This settled in her mind, she opened another book and turned the pages slowly until she came to the lesson to be learned.
It was hard to concentrate; her thoughts were straying, now, to Barres.
And, as she leaned there, musing above her dingy school book, through the grilled door at the further end of the hall stepped a young girl in a light summer gown—a beautiful girl, lithe, graceful, exquisitely groomed—who came swiftly up to the desk, a trifle pale and breathless:
“Mr. Barres? He lives here?”
“Yes.”
“Please announce Miss Dunois.”
Dulcie flushed deeply under the shock:
“Mr.—Mr. Barres is still out——”
“Oh. Was it you I talked to over the telephone?” asked Thessalie Dunois.