“What in the name of God are you doing here, Félise?”
“I came to see my mother.”
The fleshy, benign face of the man fell into the sags of old age. His lower lip hung loose. His mild blue eyes, lamping out from beneath noble brows, stared agony.
“Your mother?”
“Yes. Where is she?”
He drew a deep breath. “Your mother—well—she is in a nursing home, dear. No one, not even I, can see her.” He took her by the arm and hurried her to the staircase. “Come, come, dear, we must get away from this. You understand. I did not tell you your mother was so ill, for fear of making you unhappy.”
“But that dreadful woman, father?” she cried. And the Alpine flower from which honey is made looked like a poor little frost-bitten lily of the valley. She faced him on the landing.
“That woman—that——” he waved an arm. “That,” said he, quoting bitterly, “is a woman of no importance.”
“Ah!” cried Félise.
With some of the elemental grossnesses of life she was acquainted. You cannot manage a hotel in France which is a free, non-Puritanical country, and remain in imbecile ignorance. She was shocked to the depths of her being.