By way of the glass, Catherine smiled at her, the short upper lip which
was a piquant flaw in otherwise perfect features lifting over her
gleaming, mouselike teeth.
“Oh, Dr. Shayle has remarkable powers! I discovered him, you know. No
wonder he admires me and feels--well----”
For once Dolores interrupted. She did not wish to be told first-hand
of the likable young osteopath’s devotion, concerning which she had
heard considerable gossip from the servants. She felt that it would not
be just loyal to Dr. Shayle. Although fearful for her temerity, she
changed the subject.
“That day you engaged me, the Marquis d’Elie spoke of other needs of
your household in which I might help. You have been very kind to me and
I want to do all I can in return. Won’t you tell me what they are--the
other needs?”
Relieved that her beautiful employer showed no resentment, she did not
try to analyze the confused look turned into the mirror.
“The need the marquis meant----” Catherine spoke readily enough after
the moment’s pause--“is mine for someone congenial to talk with in this
great barn of a house--someone refined, you know, with a mind more the
quality of my own. That’s all, really, just someone to lift the heavy
moments. D’Elie feels a deep sympathy for me.”
So pathetic did she sound and look that Dolores, too, felt sympathetic.
That the enviable Mrs. Cabot might have a secret sorrow had not
occurred to her. This time she did not check the tendency toward
confidence; waited rather in silence, lest she seem inquisitive, for
whatsoever might be entrusted to her. But before Catherine could
continue, someone entered the boudoir that opened off the dressing
room. It was the Marquis d’Elie.
That was the early afternoon when he, like the oft-mentioned “angel” of
the old saw, startled them both by an unannounced appearance. Dolores
was sitting out of his line of vision, but she could see him plainly
in the pier glass. She rose, outraged at the Frenchman’s presumption
with the wife of John Cabot; turned toward Catherine; waited for her to
reprimand him as he deserved.
Catherine, who had been in the act of tying a ribbon at her breast,
stiffened as if turned to the marble she looked and stared into the
glass at the reflection of the smiling alien. A hurried glance she
spared for the confections of silk crepe and lace in the open drawer,
then bit her lip. When at last she spoke, her voice was one of utter
exasperation.
“And me in a cotton chemise!”
“But lovely--ah--as a lily of _la belle France_!” the Marquis enthused.
“I have slip’ up for that small talk of confidence about the amount of
the dot, _mon ange_. I feel distress that you must sue for so much. But
the responsibility is on me to assure that my queen have those comfort
to which----”
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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