She often traced remembered expressions on Mrs.
Waldeaux's face; the gayety, the sympathy, a strange
foreboding in the eyes. Finer meanings, surely, than any
in the features of these immortal insipid Madonnas!
Sometimes Lucy could not decide whether she had seen
these meanings on Frances Waldeaux's face, or on her
son's.
She sewed until late in the afternoon. There came a tap
at the door. She opened it, and there stood Mrs.
Waldeaux, wrapped in a heavy cloak. Lucy jumped at her,
trembling, and hugged her.
"Oh, come in! Come in!" she cried shrilly. "I have just
been thinking of you and talking to you!"
Frances laughed, bewildered. "Oh, it is Miss
Dunbar? The man sent me here by mistake to wait. Miss
Vance is out, he said."
"Yes, I suppose so. But I--I am here." Lucy threw her
arms around her again, laying her head down on her
shoulder. She felt as if something that she had waited
for a long time was coming to her. "Sit by the stove.
Your hands are like ice," she said.
"Yes, I am usually cold now; I don't know why."
Lucy then saw a curious change in her face. The fine
meanings were not in it now. It was fatter--coarser; the
hair was dead, the eyes moved sluggishly, like the glass
eyes of a doll.
"You are always cold? Your blood is thin, perhaps. You
are overtired, dear. Have you travelled much?"
"Oh, yes! all of the time. I have seen whole tracts of
pictures, and no end of palaces and
hotels--hotels--hotels!" Frances said, awakening to the
necessity of being talkative and vivacious with the young
girl.
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