“There is some one knocking. Perhaps ma-dame's cousin.”
As she spoke, she opened it and Mrs. Perkins asked from the threshold: “May I come in?”
For answer Margaret, turning in her chair, extended her hand, a smile upon her lips: “If you don't mind my dressing. I fear you will think me lazy. It must be late.”
Mrs. Perkins bustled to her side. A very becoming morning toilet contributed its due proportion to that lady's ease and comfort. “Really, my dear, I never felt so strongly drawn to any one as I am to you.” As she spoke she bent and kissed Margaret with great stateliness and ceremony. “You are not at all like the Ballards who were military people and much given to combativeness. Your poor dear mother and I used to hold most violent controversies. We had such a capacity for differences; it always came to the surface when we were thrown much together. But then it was a family trait and I suppose I should revere it accordingly. To be sure, your mother was a Ballard only by marriage, but she was an active partaker in the traditional characteristics. Dear! dear! how antagonistic we were, and yet, a real affection existed between us. Now, can't you tell me something about yourself?”
Mrs. Perkins drew up a chair and Margaret took one of her hands caressingly in her own: “But what shall I tell you?”
“About yourself, my dear. About yourself, by all means.”
“Ah!”—and she made a little depreciative gesture—“I am such an ordinary person. There is nothing more to tell.”
Mrs. Perkins shifted her position: “You can't fancy how amazed I was when I saw you. I had understood always that Monsieur Dennie, your late husband, was a man of very—what shall I say?”—she paused looking into Margaret's eyes, seeking earnestly for the right word, but the allusion to Monsieur Dennie did not stimulate any great burst of animation on the part of his widow, and she was forced to finish her incomplete sentence with, “a man of very advanced age.”
“He was seventy years old when we were married,” Margaret said quietly.
Mrs. Perkins elevated her eyebrows. “Why, you are young enough to be his granddaughter!”