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He walked unsteadily past this new-found son of his, and took up the sheet that lay beside the candlebranch. A long moment he stood reading it, none heeding him. Aline's eyes were all on Andre-Louis, full of wonder and commiseration, whilst Andre-Louis was staring down, in stupefied fascination, at his mother. M. de La Tour d'Azyr read the letter slowly through. Then very quietly he replaced it.
Hope you in person will bring her back to me. Now, dear Mr. Somerled, the little girl is your protégée. It's for you to say what's to be done with her." Somerled did not reply at once. He sat thinking, his hands thrust deep in his pockets, making a jingling noise with keys or silver, which in her present mood got upon Aline's nerves extraordinarily.
Though he accepted Aline's father as a necessary evil and recognized that his position entitled him to look at people as sharply as he liked, whatever their feelings, he would be hanged if he was going to extend this privilege to Mr. Peters' valet.
He quite frankly declared himself, and begged, implored to be taken back into Aline's good graces, to be admitted at least to the hope that one day before very long she would bring herself to consider him in a nearer relationship. "Mademoiselle," he told her, his voice vibrating with a feeling that admitted of no doubt, "you cannot lack conviction of my utter sincerity.
"That's just what I don't know," Harry answered rather dismally. "Sometimes I hope so, and sometimes I've a cold fear that she won't. But now that I've told you, I'll ask her this very evening. You'll wish me Godspeed, won't you?" I looked at him with sympathy, for I knew the feeling, and I had some experience of Aline's moods.
At the very moment when Paul was doubting Aline's sensibility, in announcing to his friends that he was about to start on a journey which would occupy several days, perhaps several weeks, did not remark the girl's sudden paleness, did not hear the distressed cry that escaped her lips: "You are going away?"
By her side stood Ursula, who was dressed, as became her age, in lighter colours, which, in cut and material, resembled those of Aline's new attire. "Dear sirs," she said, as her husband presented the visitors to her, "with what words can I thank you for the service that you have rendered me. But for you I should have been widowed and childless to-day!"
A question trembled on Aline's blanched lips. "Say it," permitted Virginia. "Do you mean that you are engaged to him that you are going to marry Mr. Ridgway without caring for him?" "I don't mean that at all. I like him immensely." "But do you love him?" It was almost a cry these low words wrung from the tortured heart. "No fair," warned her friend smilingly.
And if he is, I don't think you and I are capable of coping with him. We must let things shape themselves, I'm afraid." Aline's eyes, well again now, sent out a flash such as Basil knew. "You're not going to fail me, are you?" she exclaimed. Her impulse was to add shrilly, "Now that you've made your own market, and don't care a rap what happens to any one else!" As she was Mrs.
All the servants of the household, drawn by Aline's screams, now crowded upon the steps and looked on with frightened faces. From them issued a confusion of hazarded explanations, all wide of the truth. Madame had started to go out and had had a stroke of some sort; Madame had shot herself; Madame had been lured outside by a bandit and struck with a club, the object being to secure her pearls.
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