Cecilia kissed her governess, and closed the door softly. Her mood was a strange one. She no longer feared her mother. Something had escaped from her nature, as if she had been touched by fire. It was that subtle, perishable essence of being—childhood.
“I will play that I am a ghost, and walk through all the rooms,” she said to herself.
Mrs. Denvil found her standing in her dressing-room, calmly regarding her, as she made her toilet for a ball at the Quirinal Palace.
“Why are you not in bed? It is ten o’clock,” she said.
Cecilia made no reply. She was gazing at the picture reflected in the cheval-glass of a very pretty woman in cream-tinted satin robe scarcely retained on her dimpled shoulders by a strap, diamonds and pearls twinkling about her throat and in her hair. The face of the mother, round, soft, with small weak chin and bright eyes, appeared more youthful than that of her child at the moment. The dressing-room was littered with a rainbow of colors, wraps, dresses, cashmere, laces, and jewelry. It smelled of mingled perfumes and singed hair. Beauty, the poodle, lay coiled up in a tiny white ball on a velvet cushion. How fashionable had Mrs. Denvil become! She never drove out or received company without Beauty tucked under her left arm. At length the daughter inquired in an odd, abrupt way: “Is it very delightful to attend so many balls?”
Mrs. Denvil laughed nervously and adjusted a bracelet.
“I attend very few balls, my dear. You will like the dancing, I dare say, when you come out as a young lady.” Her tone was propitiatory, even deprecating.
Cecilia did not smile.
“Why does not papa live here with us?” she pursued, steadily, after a pause.