Miss Vance lifted her eyebrows. "Nothing can need a lie," she quoted calmly. Presently she said earnestly, "Frances, you are ****** a mistake. Somebody ought to tell you the truth. There is no reason why your whole being should be buried in that man. He should stand on his own feet, now. You can be all that he needs as a mother, and yet live out your own life. It is broader than his will ever be. At your age, and with your capabilities, you should marry again. Think of the many long years that are before you.""I have thought of them," said Mrs. Waldeaux slowly. "Ihave had lovers who came close to me as friends, but Inever for a moment was tempted to marry one of them.
No, Clara. When the devil drove my father to hand me over--innocent child as I was--to a man like Robert Waldeaux, he killed in me the capacity for that kind of love. It is not in me." She turned her strenuous face to the sea and was silent. "It is not in me," she repeated after a while. "I have but one feeling, and that is for my boy. It is growing on me absurdly, too."She laughed nervously. "I used to be conscious of other people in the world, but now, if I see a boy or man, Isee only what George was or will be at his age; if I read a book, it only suggests what George will say of it. Iam like one of those plants that have lost their own sap and color, and suck in their life from another. It scares me sometimes."Miss Vance smiled with polite contempt. No doubt Frances had a shrewd business faculty, but in other matters she was not ten years old.
"And George will marry some time," she said curtly.
"Oh, I hope so! And soon. Then I shall have a daughter.
I know just the kind of a wife George will choose,"she chattered on eagerly. "I understand him so thoroughly that I can understand her. But where could he find her? He is so absurdly fastidious!"Miss Vance was silent and thoughtful a moment. Then she came closer. "I will tell you where to find her," she said, in a low voice. "I have thought of it for a long time. It seems to me that Providence actually made Lucy Dunbar for George.""Really?" Mrs. Waldeaux drew her self up stiffly.
"Wait, Frances. Lucy has been with me for three years.
I know her. She is a sincere, modest, happy little thing. Not too clever. She is an heiress, too. And her family is good; and all underground, which is another advantage. You can mould her as you choose. She loves you already.""Or is it that she----?"
"You have no right to ask that!" said Miss Vance quickly.
"No, I am ashamed of myself." Mrs. Waldeaux reddened.
A group of girls came up the deck. Both women scanned the foremost one critically. "I like that wholesome, candid look of her," said Miss Vance.
"Oh, she is well enough," said Frances. "But I am sure George does not like yellow hair. Nothing but an absolutely beautiful woman will attract him.""An artist," said Miss Vance hastily, "would tell you her features were perfect. And her flesh tints----""For Heaven's sake, Clara, don't dissect the child. Who is that girl with the red cravat? Your maid?""It is not a cravat, it's an Indian scarf. If it only were clean----" Miss Vance looked uneasy and perplexed.
"She is not my maid. She is Fraulein Arpent. The Ewalts brought her as governess from Paris, don't you remember?
They sent the girls to Bryn Mawr last week and turned her adrift, almost penniless. She wished to go back to France. I engaged her as assistant chaperone for the season."Mrs. Waldeaux's eyebrows went up significantly. She never commented in words on the affairs of others, but her face always was indiscreet. George, who had come up in time to hear the last words, was not so scrupulous. He surveyed the young woman through his spectacles as she passed again, with cold disapproval.
"French or German?" he asked.
"I really don't know. She has a singular facility in tongues," said Miss Vance.
"Well, that is not the companion _I_ should have chosen for those innocent little girls," he said authoritatively, glad to be disagreeable to his cousin.
"She looks like a hawk among doves."
"The woman is harmless enough," said Miss Vance tartly.
"She speaks exquisite French."
"But what does she say in it?" persisted George. "She is vulgar from her red pompon to her boots. She has the swagger of a soubrette and she has left a trail of perfume behind her--pah! I confess I am surprised at you, Miss Vance. You do not often slip in your judgment.""Don't make yourself unpleasant, George," said his mother gently. Miss Vance smiled icily, and as the girls came near again, stopped them and stood talking to Mlle.
Arpent with an aggressive show of familiarity.
"Why do you worry Clara?" said Mrs. Waldeaux. "She knows she has made a mistake. What do you think of that little blonde girl?" she asked presently, watching him anxiously. "She has remarkable beauty, certainly; but there is something finical--precise----""Take care. She will hear you," said George. "Beauty, eh? Oh, I don't know," indifferently. "She is passably pretty. I have never seen a woman yet whose beauty satisfied ME."Mrs. Waldeaux leaned back with a comfortable little laugh. "But you must not be so hard to please, my son.
You must bring me my daughter soon," she said.
"Not very soon. I have some thing else to think of than marriage for the next ten years."Just then Dr. Watts came up and asked leave to present his friend Perry. The doctor, like all young men who knew Mrs. Waldeaux, had succumbed to her peculiar charm, which was only that of a woman past her youth who had strong personal magnetism and not a spark of coquetry.
George's friends all were sure that they would fall in love with a woman just like her--but not a man of them ever thought of falling in love with her.
