"It has been rather sad and hard," she said. "I have had the house to clear out and close, and all manner of things to do, and I was pretty tired when I finished. But I am getting rested now, and by and by I want to talk over my affairs with you."
"Plans?" asked Mrs. St. John.
"Not exactly. I have no plans as yet; but I must have some soon. Now tell me what you have been doing."
Mrs. St. John was never averse to talking about herself. She always had a mass of experiences and adventures to relate, which though insignificant enough when you came to analyze them, were so deeply interesting to herself that somehow her auditors got interested in them also. Georgie, used to her ways, listened and sympathized without effort, keeping her eyes fixed meanwhile on the shining, shifting horizon of the sea, and the lovely arch of clear morning sky. How wide and free and satisfactory it was; how different from the cramped outlook into which she had perforce been gazing for days back!
"If life could all be like that!" she thought.
The St. John house seemed a model of winter comfort, bright, flower-scented, and deliciously warm, as they entered it after their drive. Mrs. St. John rang for her maid to take off their wraps, and led Georgie through the drawing-room and the library to a smaller room beyond, which was her favorite sitting-place of a morning.
"We will have luncheon here close to the fire," she said, "and be as cosey as possible."
It was a pretty room, not over-large, fitted up by a professional decorator in a good scheme of color, and crowded with ornaments of all sorts, after the modern fashion. It was many weeks since Georgie had seen it, and its profusion and costliness of detail struck her as it never had done before. Perhaps she was in the mood to observe closely.
They were still sipping their hot bouillon in great comfort, when a sudden crash was heard in the distance.
"There!" said Mrs. St. John, resignedly; "that's the second since Monday! What is it now, Pierre?"