“I think you lost him recently?” He found his task less easy than it should have been.
“He died six months ago,” she replied, regarding him gravely. “His illness left me without means. I was penniless, when the young Princess befriended me and gave me a respite here. I am no part of this,” with a glance at the salon and the groups about them. “I teach upstairs. I am thankful for the privilege of doing so.”
“The Princess told me as much,” he said frankly. “She thought that, being English, I might advise you better than she could; that possibly I might put you in touch with your relations?”
She shook her head.
“Or your friends? You must have friends?”
“Doubtless my father had—once,” she said in a low voice. “But as his means diminished, he saw less and less of those who had known him. For the last two years I do not think that he saw an Englishman at home. Before that time I was in a convent school, and I do not know.”
“You are a Roman Catholic, then?”
“No. And for that reason—and for another, that my account was not paid”—her color rose painfully to her face—“I could not apply to the Sisters. I am very frank,” she added, her lip trembling.
“And I encroach,” he answered, bowing. “Forgive me! Your father was an artist, I believe?”
“He drew for an Atelier de Porcelaine—for the journals when he could. But he was not very successful,” she continued reluctantly. “The china factory which had employed him since he came to Paris, failed. When I returned from school he was alone and poor, living in the little street in the Quartier, where he died.”