“What would you have done?” asked Mrs. Stapleton.
“I should have consoled myself—en attendant. Oh, yes, I should have gone on writing; but I would not have let myself become a poor old maid for any man in the world. That is one thing I admire about Frâulein Klinkhardt. You were asking where she was to-night. I know, but I won't be indiscreet. She is fiancee too. She is not getting less young—mais elle s'amuse, elle—en attendant.”
Felicia did not grasp the full significance of Mme. Popea's insinuations, but she caught enough to set her cheeks burning, and she cast an appealing glance at Mrs. Stapleton.
“Won't you play us something?” said the latter, kindly, in response to the appeal.
“Ah, do!” said Mme. Popea, serenely. “You play so charmingly.”
Felicia went to the piano, and ran her fingers over the keys. She did not feel in a mood for playing; music with her was an accomplishment, not an art to which she could instinctively bring bruised and quivering fibres to be soothed. She played mechanically, thinking of other things.
Once she struck a false note, and her ear caught a little indrawn hiss from Madame Popea, which brought her wandering attention sharply back. But her heart was not in it. She was thinking of poor little Miss Bunter, and the weary years of waiting, and how sad she must have been as, year by year, she had seen the youth dying out of her eyes and the bloom fading from her cheek. Frâulein Klinkhardt, too, who was amusing herself—en attendant; she felt as if something impure had touched her.
At the next false note, Mme. Popea rose softly, and went to Mrs. Stapleton.
“I am going to bed,” she whispered. “These English girls are charming; but they should have dumb pianos made for them, that would speak only to their own souls.”
When Felicia heard the click of the closing door, she started round on the music-stool.