Clara Vance had her faults, but nobody could deny that, in this crisis, she acted with feeling and tact. She ignored mademoiselle and her lover, whose bliss was in evidence on deck all day, and took possession of Mrs.
Waldeaux, caring for her as tenderly as if she had been some poor wretch sentenced to death. "She has no intellect left except her ideas about George," she told herself, "and if he turns his back on her for life in this way---- She never was too sane!" shaking her head ominously.
She thought it best to talk frankly of the matter to little Lucy Dunbar, and was relieved to find her ready to joke and laugh at it. "No bruise in that tender heart!"thought Clara, who was anxious as a mother for her girls.
"We all worshipped Mr. George," said Lucy saucily. "I, most of all. He is so cold, so exalted and ah--h, so good-looking! Like a Greek god. But he never gave a look to poor little me! The fraulein came on deck as soon as we all went down with sea-sickness, and bewitched him with her eyes. It must have been her eyes; they are yellow--witch's eyes. Or maybe that cheap smell about her is a love-philter! Or was it just soul calling to soul? I should have said the fraulein had the soul of a milliner. She put great ideas into the hat that she altered for me," Lucy added, with an unsteady laugh.
"I care nothing for them or their souls," said Miss Vance crossly. "It is his mother that I think of.""But really," said Lucy, "mademoiselle is quite raw material. No ideas--no manners whatever. Mrs. Waldeaux may mould her into something good and fine.""She will not try. She will never accept that creature as a daughter.""She seems to me to be indifferent," said Lucy. "She does not see how terrible it is. She was leaning over the bulwark just now, laughing at the queer gossoons selling their shillalahs.""Oh, she will laugh at Death himself when he comes to fetch her, and see something `queer'in him," said Clara.
But her little confidence with Lucy had relieved her.
The child cared nothing for George, that was plain.
Mademoiselle, watching Mrs. Waldeaux closely all day, was not deceived by her laugh. "The old lady, your mother,"she said to George, "is what you men call `game.' She has blood and breeding. More than you, monsieur. That keeps her up. I did not count on that," said the young woman thoughtfully.
George took off his glasses and rubbed them nervously as he talked. "I don't understand my mother at all! She has always been very considerate and kind. I never thought that she would receive my wife, when I brought her to her, with calm civility. Not a kiss nor a blessing!""A kiss? A blessing for me?" Lisa laughed and nodded meaningly to the sea and world at large. "She could hardly have blessed a woman lolling full length in her chair," she thought. "It IS her chair. And I have unseated her for life curling herself up in the rugs.
Yet she had a twinge of pity for the old lady. Even the wild boar has its affections and moments of gentleness.
A week ago Lisa could have trampled the life out of this woman who had slandered her dead mother, with the fury of any wild beast.
For she was Pauline Felix's daughter. It was her mother's name that Mrs. Waldeaux had said could not be spoken by any decent woman. Lisa had been but a child, but she had held her mother's head close to her stout little heart as she lay dying--that awful mysterious death of which the young man had tried to make a telling story. The girl crossed herself now and closed her tired eyes as she thought of it. She had been a wicked child and a wicked woman, but she knew certainly that the Virgin and her Son had come near to her that day, and had helped her.
George, who was poring fondly on her face, exclaimed:
"Your eyes are wet. You are in trouble!"
"I was thinking of my mother," she said gently, holding out her hand to him.
He took it and said presently, "Will you not talk to me about her, Lisa? You have not told me any thing of your people, my darling. Nor of yourself. Why, I don't even know whether you are French or German.""Oh, you shall hear the whole story when we are married,"she replied softly, a wicked glitter in her eyes. "Some of the noblest blood in Europe is in my veins. I will give you my genealogical tree to hang up in that old homestead of yours. It will interest the people of Weir--and please your mother.""It is good in you to think of her," he said, tenderly looking down at her.
He was not blind. He saw the muddy skin, the thick lips, the soiled, ragged lace. They would have disgusted him in another woman.
But this was--Lisa. There was no more to be said.
These outside trifles would fall off when she came into his life. Even with them she was the breath and soul of it.
She saw the difference between them more sharply than he did. She had been cast for a low part in the play, and knew it. Sometimes she had earned the food which kept her alive in ways of which this untempted young priest had never even heard. There was something in this clean past of his, in his cold patrician face and luxurious habits new to her, and she had a greedy relish for it all.
She had been loved before, caressed as men caress a dog, kicking it off when it becomes troublesome. George's boyish shyness, his reverent awe of her, startled her.
"He thinks Lisa Arpent a jeune fille--like these others. A little white rose!" she thought, and laughed.
She would not tell him why she laughed, and muttered an oath when he stupidly insisted on knowing.
He was the first lover who had ever believed in her.
She had begun this affair simply to punish the "old woman"; the man in it had counted for nothing. But now, as they crossed the gangway, she looked up at him with eyes that for the moment were honest and true as a child's, and her firm hand suddenly trembled in his.
Three weeks later Mrs. Waldeaux came into Miss Vance's little parlor on Half Moon Street. Her face was red from the wind, her eyes sparkled, and she hummed some gay air which an organ ground outside. Clara laid down her pen.
