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She had just driven up in a pretty, light carriage, and was still muffled in a soft fleecy wrap that fell around her like a cloud. The face that looked out from it was sweet and pale as a star. It brightened into radiance as Polly, a veritable fairy now in her party fluffs and ruffs and ribbons, sprang out on the porch and flung herself into Miss Stella's arms. "Marraine!
Proud that her sister's school had moulded a celebrity, Mademoiselle chatted away about Ellaline, saying what a dear child she was, how sorry Madame was to part from her, and how Madame de Blanchemain, Ellaline's chère marraine, at St. Cloud, must be missing her mignonne at this very moment. It goes without saying that Mr. Dick's next step took him at a single stride to St. Cloud.
"In England," said Tamara, "what may be given to young girls seems to rule everything, no one is allowed a thought for herself, every idea almost is brought down to that dead level one rebels after a while but tell me, Marraine, if I may ask, what makes them all so tired and gray looking, the people I have seen tonight I mean. Do they sit up very late at parties, or what is it?"
"Oh, lots of things!" said Polly, perching in her lap. "First first of all, I wish that I could keep you here forever and forever, darling Marraine!" "Well, you have me for six weeks every summer," laughed Marraine. "But that isn't forever and forever," sighed Polly. "And mamma and dad and grandmamma and everybody else want you, too."
"Are you sure of that?" asked the lady, kissing the upturned face. "Oh, very sure!" replied Polly, positively. "They say it's all nonsense for you to go to the hospital and take care of sick people. It's it's something I don't remember what." "Stubborn pride?" suggested Marraine, with a merry sparkle in her eyes. "Yes," said Polly, "that's just what grandmamma said.
"As it happens, Golliwog darling, I had a letter from Marraine yesterday, asking me to let you go out to her in Cairo for the winter and see as much as possible of the ordinary sights. We'll talk it over with Mother to-morrow." "Oh, Dads how wonderful! And can't you and Mother come? And oh! can I take Wellington?"
"Tamara, dear," she said, as she joined them, "I am so very tired after last night, for once shall we go home reasonably early?" And Tamara rose gladly to her feet. "Of course, Marraine, I too am dropping with fatigue," she said. The Prince spoke a few words to Stephen Strong, and Jack joined in; so that the three were a pace or so to one side when the two ladies wished them goodnight.
"Tamara, dearest, could you at least try to keep the peace on our trip?" she asked. "Be gentle with him, and do not excite him in any way." Tamara buried her face in her pillows, she was too English to be dramatic and sob; but when she spoke her soft voice trembled a little and her eyes glistened with tears. "He is horribly cruel, Marraine," she said. "Why should he treat me as he does.
She clasped her hands with a movement of anguish. "Oh! Marraine, I am too unhappy," she wailed. "Indeed, indeed, I did nothing to cause this. You heard me, I only said to Count Varishkine I was looking forward to the dance. He is impossible, Gritzko. Oh! let me go home!" "Alas! my child, what would be the good of that?
"Will you never learn wisdom, Magda?" she asked, subsiding into a chair and extending a pair of neatly shod feet to the fire's warmth. Magda laughed a little. "Well, it won't be the fault of my friends if I don't!" she returned ruefully. "Marraine expended a heap of eloquence over my misdeeds this afternoon." "Lady Arabella? I'm glad to hear it.
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