“Why does the Governor permit his return?”
“He cannot help it. Brugnon wrote that he would take ship at once.”
“Who is his mother?” was the next question.
“Ah, who knows?” And Miss Ann peaked up her sharp shoulders under their gay flowered silk covering and wagged her oriental headgear until the filigree silver ornaments in the lobes of her large ears jingled audibly.
“I think I could guess,” she added, with a wizened smile at her companion, “but what difference? Society here, my dear Nadège, as you have already discovered, is in the hands of the men. We women are the vases on the mantelpiece.” She grinned in Mistress Geoffrey’s face: “Some of us are particularly decorative. Mistress Grantham, for example.”
The younger woman eyed meditatively the sharp yellow face under the resplendent turban.
“One has a good view from the mantelpiece,” she began, when a young man entered the room and advanced to the fireplace.
[To be continued.]
WHEN NELLIE SMILES.
By D’Arcy Moore.