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And while the words that Richard was reading beat monotonously upon her ear, and her fingers played with the locks of Elly's hair she resisted for the last time; she resolved that she would be steadfast that she would do no more than see Emil once again, and that, like her own mother who had died long ago, and like all the other good women she knew her cousin in Vienna, Frau Mahlmann, Frau Martin, her sister-in-law, and ... yes, certainly Frau Rupius as well she would belong only to him who made her his wife.
She darted up to the door and stood there, poised like a swallow, looking in. "What does she want?" asked Mr. Welles with the naïve conviction of the elderly bachelor that the mother must know everything in the child's mind. "I don't know," admitted Marise. "Nobody ever knows exactly what is in Elly's mind when she does things. Maybe she is looking to see that her kitten is safe."
Perhaps if he had been wakened by Elly he would drowse off again at once as she felt herself doing now, conscious sleepily and happily of Elly's dear tender limbs on one side of her and of Neale's dear strong body on the other. The strong March wind chanted loudly outside in the leafless maple-boughs.
But it suddenly occurred to her that this was the time for Elly's hour at the piano, and she heard no sound. She hastily laid out the clean clothes for Paul, saw him started on the scrub in the bath-tub, and ran downstairs to see if she could find Elly, before the storm broke, turning over in her mind Elly's favorite nooks.
Elly's hand was hot and clasped her mother's very tightly. Marise bent over the little girl and divined in the darkness that she was crying. "Why, Elly darling, what's the matter?" she asked. The child cried out passionately, on a mounting note, "Nothing, nothing! Nothing!" She flung her arms around her mother's neck, straining her close in a wild embrace.
Marise reached over beyond Elly and tucked the covers in with one arm, drew the child closer to her, and herself drew closer to Neale. She wondered if he had been awakened by Elly's voice, and the little stir in the room, and hoped he had not. He had been off on a very long hard tramp over mountain trails the day before, and had been tired at night.
Bayweather had rushed away to tell Frank's mother. Frank's mother. His mother! Suppose that were to happen to Mark, or Paul? No, not such thoughts. They mustn't be let in at all, or you went mad. Was it true that Elly cared nothing about her, that children didn't, for grown-ups, that she was nothing in Elly's life? She was glad that Touclé had come back.
Looking deep, deep into Elly's eyes, she said firmly with a certainty as profound as it was new to her, "No, Elly, I don't believe we do die like that . . . all in a moment . . . nothing."
Elly's golden head, the background of austere French Protestants, is sketched with a flowing water-colour brush, I do not know if it is true, but true or false in reality, it is true in art.
When out of her window she saw him step back across the grass to Mr. Welles' house, Elly came downstairs at once. The light in the living-room made her blink, after all that outdoor twilight and the indoor darkness of her room upstairs. Mother was still at the piano, her hands on the keys, but not playing. At the sight of her, Elly's heart filled and brightened.
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