“You have done me a world of good, Martha. My headache is gone, and also its cause. Sometimes, do you know,--I’m going to let you see just how weak I am,--sometimes I succumb for days to a mood like this. Nobody knows that tears have anything to do with the headaches that I suffer from--at least nobody but Félicie, and she gives no information. My aunt loves me dearly, but is no more acquainted with the real _me_ than if I were a stranger; and yet she adores me--perhaps for that reason. I tell her nothing, because the feelings that I have are quite outside her comprehension, while the headaches are quite within it. She recommends various powders and pellets, and is constantly getting new prescriptions for me. She says my headaches are of a very obstinate type, and I agree with her. To show you how completely you’ve cured me,” she added, rising to her feet, with an entire change of tone, “I am going to work this afternoon. You will stay and take your lunch with me, and then we’ll be there in time for the second model’s pose.” “I can’t stay,” said Martha, rising too; “but I will meet you there promptly. I am keeping my cab below, so that I may be back at the atelier by the time the carriage comes for me. You know how very quiet I am keeping my little escapades with you.” “Oh, to be sure!” exclaimed the other, smiling. “I had forgotten the necessity of that precaution. What _would_ ‘mama and the girls’ say? I think I shall write them an anonymous letter, saying that if madame had been under the impression that her eldest daughter devoted herself wholly to the pursuit of art during the hours of her absence from home, it might have surprised her had she seen the aforesaid young lady this morning come out of the atelier, call a cab, give a number, go to a distant apartment (where she was evidently well known to the concierge, who passed her on to a servant in Russian livery, who as evidently knew her well), enter, by a special passage, a certain room, where she remained shut in for a long time, emerging finally in great haste to drive rapidly in the cab, which she had kept waiting, back to the atelier in time to meet her own carriage, and come innocently home to join the family circle at lunch! Couldn’t I make out a case? And what _would_ the mother and the little sisters say?” Martha, too, laughed at the picture; but in spite of some discomfiture of feeling to which it gave rise, she had no idea of changing her tactics. The very thought of her mother’s going to work to investigate the princess, and ascertain if she were a proper friend for her daughter, smote the girl to the heart, and she resolved to guard her secret more carefully than ever. She determined that she would ease her conscience for the deception by confessing everything to her brother when he came. This would make it all right.