Читать книгу All This and Heaven Too - Rachel Field - Страница 9

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She entered the schoolroom refreshed and positively reckless with good will towards the world. It was well that she did so, for gloom pervaded the east wing. The younger children's nurse, Maxine, reported that Raynald's cold had turned into chills and fever during the night; and Berthe, taking advantage of this complication, had contrived to get herself into her best dress and then stumbled against the grate and smudged the front breadth with black. Her small, energetic figure darted about the corridors while the harassed nursemaid followed hot in pursuit.

"Very well, Maxine." Henriette signalled to the puffing maid to stop the chase. "Leave Mademoiselle Berthe alone. If she wishes to go through the day looking like a little pig, we must let her. Go back to Raynald now, and make him as comfortable as you can. I will be with you soon."

"Mademoiselle Maillard has already gone to notify the Duchesse," Maxine explained.

"In the future, Maxine, come to me immediately about the children." Henriette managed to keep the annoyance out of her voice.

"But we always reported to Mademoiselle Maillard first." The maid's shoulders were set square and stubborn under her cotton dress, and her eyes had a look of resentment that Henriette knew only too well.

"I am speaking of what you will do from now on," Henriette told her evenly. "There must be no more misunderstandings, so please be good enough to remember."

She greeted Isabella and Louise and saw them embarked upon breakfast. Mademoiselle Maillard's place remained conspicuously empty, and Berthe made no move to take hers. Henriette ignored the little girl and motioned the sisters to do likewise, knowing that the high-spirited child would soon tire of a tantrum that won her no audience. In a week Henriette had learned the best tactics for dealing with her four charges. She understood Isabella's cautious, practical mind that responded to quiet reasoning, as she knew that careless, good-natured Louise could be reached only through an appeal to her sentiments. Berthe, volatile and shifting of mood as quicksilver, could be handled by the method of example or outwitted with tactics as clever as her own, while the sensitive Raynald must not be confused by too sudden commands, but rather gently persuaded by appeals to his affection.

She found the little boy flushed and heavy-eyed, protesting hoarsely that he could not swallow even one spoonful of his morning chocolate. Henriette took the tray from Maxine and motioned the maid to set the room to rights while she dealt with the small invalid.

"Never mind about the chocolate, Raynald," she told him. "Here is a tangerine, and when I peel it you must guess how many pieces it has."

"Do you know how many?"

"No, but we'll soon see, and then you can suck the juice." He watched gravely as she peeled the fruit. She felt the dry heat of his hand on hers and noted the quick beat of the little pulse in his delicate neck. "There, let's count: one, two, three, four, five, six." She spread out the segments for him to see as she spoke. "Twelve. Try this one first. It's nice and cool. Just let the juice go down your throat. There, it didn't hurt much, did it?"

"Not very much." His eyes grew moist with the effort to swallow.

"Now another," she persuaded gently. "There, you'll have three down, and then four and then perhaps five."

"My head feels very loose, mademoiselle," he sighed plaintively, leaning against her between swallows. "You don't think it will fall off like Berthe's doll that got left out in the rain and all the sawdust ran out?"

"No, we'll hold it on tight." She brushed back the damp, dark hair from the moist forehead soothingly. "Besides, Raynald, your head isn't stuffed with sawdust. Now one more piece of tangerine, and then half will be gone."

"You eat the other half, mademoiselle, please." His head dropped against her, and his breath came short and difficult.

To her relief the door opened; but it was the Duchesse, not the Duc, who entered. Mademoiselle Maillard followed, and Henriette might have been a piece of the bedroom furniture for all the notice they paid her. Raynald winced at the sudden violence of his mother's embrace. He pulled away from the pressure of her arms and burrowed deeper into the pillows.

"Raynald, my darling," the Duchesse cried, once more straining him to her. "My poor little boy, you are burning with fever. Mademoiselle, feel his head and his hands."

The older woman bent over to comply, but the child pushed her away with all the strength he could muster.

"No, no," he insisted hoarsely, "the other mademoiselle."

Henriette felt a rush of satisfaction at his spontaneous call for her, but she knew too much to come forward until the Duchesse gave her permission. She waited quietly at the foot of the bed, hoping that she might be left alone with the boy and his mother. But Mademoiselle Maillard had no intention of leaving the Duchesse's side. Her back had stiffened at Raynald's call for Mademoiselle Deluzy, though she gave no other sign of having heard it.

"Why was I not told before?" The Duchesse, still pressing the boy to her with frantic and undisciplined affection, turned accusing dark eyes first upon the hovering Maxine and then upon Mademoiselle Deluzy. "Do you think I would have stirred a step from this room last night if I had known? He was ill, and you deliberately kept it from me, his mother."

"I told them he had a bad cough." Maxine hastened to acquit herself. "I told both mesdemoiselles yesterday morning that they should keep him indoors; but of course I'm only his nurse. I'm good enough to dress and undress him and tend him if he wakes; but a governess has to decide whether he's fit to be out in a freezing wind, and then you ask me why he's ill to-day. He's always ailing, the poor little thing. It's a wonder he's lived this long with that delicate chest of his and the fever he can raise if a summer breeze blows on him, and you think I'm nothing but a cackling hen when I tell you."

"Maxine, in heaven's name be quiet." Henriette's voice cut low and sharp into the nurse's shrill recital. "You will only give Raynald more fever. Yes, you did tell me about his cough, and I advised against his going out yesterday."

"You advised every one except his mother, Mademoiselle Deluzy." The Duchesse turned black and accusing eyes towards the foot of the bed while the child still struggled to be free of her enveloping arms. "I have no doubt you and the Duc decided the matter between you. In this house a mother is the last to be consulted on matters that concern her children."

Henriette gripped the bedpost with a hand that shook at this sudden outburst. But her voice was calm and even when she spoke. "The Duc noticed that Raynald had a cold," she answered, "when he visited the schoolroom yesterday morning. He came again last night to ask about him."

A triumphant look passed from Mademoiselle Maillard to the Duchesse, but the child's high, plaintive wailing made further discussion impossible. Between his tears and struggles to be free of frantic embraces, the boy was working himself into a state of hysteria.

"Go back to the schoolroom." The Duchesse motioned Henriette away. "The doctor will be here presently."

Raynald's cries grew more frightened at mention of a doctor. She longed to stay and reassure him as she left the room. A fine state he would be in when the physician arrived. Poor little fellow, he was really ill—no doubt of that.

She settled Isabella and Louise at their geography lessons and turned to Berthe, whose earlier tantrum had been forgotten except for tell-talc smudges on her dress.

"Is Raynald very ill, mademoiselle?" she inquired cheerfully between the sentences she spelled out from an English primer. "Will he die and have to take nasty medicine?"

"Hush, Berthe, go on with your reading. Raynald probably will have to take medicine to make him better, but we don't talk about people dying like that. You've lost your place—here: 'The two boys with the kite are running to the garden.' Now you can go on."

"But, mademoiselle, people do die. My white rabbit died, and I loved it more than the brown one that didn't."

"Do you think we can go to Melun just the same, mademoiselle?" Louise put in from her place across the schoolroom table. "Papa said we'd he going next week, but if Raynald is ill—"

"Maybe we'll all be ill," interrupted Isabella.

"What an idea!" Henriette urged them back to the maps they were copying. "Louise, you've been careless and put North America below the equator line."

"Oh, America! What does that matter? It's so far off, and only queer people live there anyway. You wouldn't like to live in America, would you, mademoiselle?"

Henriette smiled at the girl's intolerant shrug.

"Why," she admitted, "I've never given it much thought, but it might not be as bad as you think. I'm not afraid of new places."

She turned back to Berthe and the two boys with their kite. An hour passed during which she tried not to be aware of hurrying footsteps in the corridor and muffled wailing when the sick-room door opened and shut. Presently Mademoiselle Maillard appeared looking glum and important.

"You are wanted"—she flung the order at Henriette without further comment—"in there."

The girls' faces grew sullen as the governesses exchanged places. Berthe flung down her book and tried to follow. Henriette turned her about firmly and shut the door. To her surprise the Duc was pacing the long hall, evidently waiting for her. She was quick to notice a mixture of concern and annoyance in his face as he greeted her.

"Yes," he said without preliminaries, "he is a very sick child. We fear it may be diphtheria."

Another hoarse, hurt cry came from the sick-room. They both winced involuntarily at the sound.

"The doctor's treatments are painful," he told her, "and Raynald hasn't learned to be brave. Four is too young to have courage. Besides, he was badly frightened."

Henriette opened her lips to speak, but he cut her short.

"I know," he hurried on, "it was not your doing; but his mother was alarmed. She is far from well and easily unstrung. You understand—" He broke off and continued his quick pacing while the cries behind the closed door broke out afresh.

"Certainly." She caught the plea he had flung her. "It is an ordeal to see a child suffering, and if he is your own—Well, I cannot think how that might be."

He thanked her with his eyes, though his words gave no sign that he had snatched at her sympathy.

"We must send the others away at once," he was going on. "We cannot run the risk of three more invalids. They will leave for Melun this afternoon."

"Very well, monsieur. They will be ready. I will see to that."

"Good." He nodded, but he still stayed by the door as if it were a comfort to unburden his mind to her.

"The doctor has forbidden the Duchesse to go in there. She is not strong, so for her sake and the boy's it would be dangerous. And Raynald must have absolute quiet and skilful care. More scenes like this morning's might do serious harm. He will need all the strength he can muster, poor child."

"Raynald has spirit for all his frailness. He's a reasonable little fellow, too, if he's not frightened or confused." She hesitated; then the anxiety in his face moved her to go on. "I know all about diphtheria, monsieur. There was an epidemic at the convent years ago. I, myself, recovered from it, so there would be no risk if I stayed in the sick-room. Of course, it's not my place to suggest, but I should be glad to do anything in my power at such a time."

"You mean you're offering to stay here with him, Mademoiselle Deluzy?"

"That's what I meant. I may not be a skilled nurse, but I know how to keep him quiet and amused."

His face lighted suddenly in a relieved smile.

"That's what he needs most. Maxine and others can do the nursing, but he's taken a fancy to you. He was calling for you just now. Still it's sure to be a long siege at best, and at the worst—" He broke off.

"We must not think of the worst, monsieur, only of the best."

His smile answered her—sudden and grateful. At the same moment the sick-room door opened on the doctor and his ominous black bag. Tactfully Henriette stood apart while the two men talked in low voices. She caught fragments from one or the other as she waited for permission to go to the child.

"The throat is badly inflamed. Two days ago we might have kept it from spreading. Now all we can do is continue the treatments every hour."

"They seem to be very painful from the way he resists them."

"It's important that he should resist as little as possible. We cannot afford to have the fever rise. Above all things he must not be frightened as he was this morning."

"You will speak to the Duchesse yourself, doctor? She is very much upset."

"Naturally. Now as to the child's nourishment: his strength must be kept up, but he can only take a small amount at a time."

"And if he refuses?"

"He must be made to take food if we are to fight this infection. I have left instructions with his nurse, but I hardly think she's the person to take charge of a serious case."

"There will be some one who is equal to it."

Henriette felt the Duc's eyes meet hers in quick appeal. She came forward at his summons, and presently all her attention was bent upon following the doctor's directions.

"Yes," she repeated after him. "I understand. The throat must be swabbed every hour unless he is sleeping. The medicine every two hours; food as we can persuade him to take it—milk and sherry, broth and an egg. He must be kept well covered. And if he should be taken with chills, what then?"

"I was coining to that." The doctor eyed her with respect as he continued. "But quiet is the main thing now. These tantrums are too exhausting. Yes, by all means go in and see if you can distract him. I will return later this afternoon."

The two men started along the corridor towards the other wing and the Duchesse's apartments. Henriette reached for the door-knob, but before she turned it the Duc wheeled about.

"Mademoiselle Deluzy!" He stood beside her again. "You must know the thanks I feel for what you are doing." He spoke impulsively, with a naturalness that was altogether disarming. The hand he held out felt warm as it closed over hers in firm vitality. "When the Duchesse knows of it she will be grateful, too."

"As to that," she thought, watching him as he rejoined the doctor in long strides, "we shall see. Her gratefulness strikes me as rather unpredictable; however—" She shrugged and lingered a moment with her hand on the door, remembering the Duc's spontaneous gesture. He had not snubbed her offer or spoken in the impersonal tone, reserved for maids and governesses, to which she had grown accustomed. He had accepted her help as simply as if she had been a friend coming to his aid. It was pleasant and stimulating to be treated like an equal. She would prove that his confidence had not been misplaced. It was grave responsibility, but responsibility was what she throve on. Already new energy and resourcefulness flowed through her at the prospect of that small world beyond the sick-room door—a world of which she had suddenly been put in command.

"No—no—no!" Raynald's hoarse, fretful tones rose shrill. She roused herself and stepped across the threshold. "Mademoiselle!" The child's voice grew less complaining at sight of her. "Why did you go away? They hurt me—see."

He pointed to the bandage about his throat.

"Why, now you're wearing a high stock like Papa's." She pretended to admire the affect. "Bring Raynald a mirror, Maxine, so he can see for himself how grown-up he looks. He'll be getting a cane and a tall hat before we know it."

The game worked like magic. Raynald regarded his image with satisfaction while Henriette propped the pillows at his back and drew the covers closer about him. He was flushed with fever, and his eyes looked enormous and far too bright. His lips smiled faintly now, but she knew they could close in stubborn resistance at any moment. It was going to take infinite patience and all her powers of strategy to deal with this intricate bit of human machinery.

"Now, Raynald"—she took both his hot, small hands, noticing as she held them how plainly the blue veins showed under the delicate skin—"I'm going to stay here with you, and Maxine will bring your déjeuner." His eyes darkened and his lips opened to begin a protest, but she hurried on. "Déjeuner on a tray, the way your Mamma has hers, with a flower folded in the napkin. Be sure to remember the flower, Maxine," she cautioned the maid. "That's the most important part, because Raynald and I will try to guess what it will be while you're gone. You shall have the first guess, chéri. What kind of flower do you think we'll find in the napkin?"

"A rose?" Raynald forgot his objections to food in delighted curiosity.

"Perhaps. But it's early for roses. I guess a lily of the valley. Now, it's your turn again."

"Those yellow flowers in the garden."

"Daffodils? Oh, but they're all gone. Try another."

"A violet?"

"It might be. They're selling violets in the Bois, and primroses. Suppose I say a yellow primrose."

"Pink are nicer. I'll say pink."

And so began those days and nights of tireless manoeuvres to keep a four-year-old boy unaware of his own grave plight. Henriette's brain and hands had never been so active; and while she soothed and watched, cut pictures or spun endless tales till her head ached and her voice grew almost as hoarse as the sick child's, spring marched through Paris, taking the city's stone and brick by storm. Beyond the window sills she could feel that heady stir sweep past like a warm tide mounting into summer. She had never been so conscious of a season before; so quickened by unseen natural forces. Because she was shut away from the strong sunshine, she felt its will to renew all life with power. Her own senses responded. Even in a darkened sick-room she felt exhilarated as if a tangible current charged every vein and nerve in her body.

In country places spring was something one saw, a changing miracle before the eyes. But in the city it was something subtly felt. It seemed to her that a different quality crept into the voices of street vendors crying their wares through the morning hours; a bustle of hopeful activity that vibrated in the beat of horses' hoofs on those afternoons when smartly fitted carriages took ladies shopping or for airings in the Bois and Champs-Elysées; an added quickness to the wheels speeding to dinner and theatre and opera each warm May evening. She came to know the very rhythm of the city, and yet she was no more a part of it than if she and her small charge had been marooned at the bottom of a deep well where pain kept them grim company.

Other people came and went: Maxine and her assistant bringing fresh linen, food and flowers; the dreaded spectre of the doctor with his bag which had become for Raynald the symbol of pain and the signal for tears; the Abbé Gallard in his black robes; the Duchesse hovering on the threshold she had been forbidden to cross, wringing her white hands and weeping ineffectual tears; the Duc, tiptoeing nearer in his shiny boots, his eyes anxious and his arms and pockets full of presents that Mademoiselle Deluzy must unwrap for a child whose hands had grown too weak to hold them.

"See, Raynald," she would hear her own voice trying to distract both the Duc and her patient. "New soldiers. A whole regiment of cavalry with a general on a white horse. They're climbing the Alps where the coverlet's humped over your knees."

Sometimes she could coax the drooping mouth into a smile, and the Duc would answer with a grateful one as he bent over the bed and helped encourage the taking of medicine or food.

"Yes, monsieur, we will show you how the eggnog goes down. This way, chéri, the head tipped far back. Now, as the hen drinks. Once more. Another swallow. Ah, that was not so good. The hen forgot to tilt the head. This time it will be better."

She urged the child with praise and playful strategy, but her eyes and the Duc's would meet in unspoken question and answer above the boy's head.

Raynald watched for his father's visits and even stretched out weak hands in welcome. But at sight of his mother he grew restive and hid his face. If she came while he slept he seemed to be aware of her disturbing presence. He would toss feverishly or wake and cry for "Papa" and "Mademoiselle." Henriette came to dread that dark, uneasy shadow that appeared without warning a dozen times in a single forenoon. She spoke to the doctor discreetly, but he only shrugged and raised a professional eyebrow.

"She is his mother," he answered. "It's all I can do to keep her away from his bed. If I forbid her to look in the room she'll work herself into another sort of fever, and there'll be two invalids. I've tended the Duchesse before, mademoiselle."

There came a day when the fever had reached its height, and when no amount of persuasion could force anything down the inflamed throat. The doctor looked grave after his morning visit.

"We can do little now but watch and wait," he told Henriette before he left to report to the parents: "We've done everything in our power for him, and now we shall see if his strength will carry him through the crisis. Yes, I expect a change before night, for better or worse. Keep him quiet and well covered and guard against draughts of fresh air."

"But, doctor!" Henriette followed him to the door. "He complains of the dark and closeness. Surely a breath of sun and air would do no harm if he were not exposed to it directly. He asks about the garden, and perhaps if he saw it had come into bloom—"

"Mademoiselle, have you lost your senses this morning?" The middle-aged medical man regarded her as if she had spoken treason. "He is a desperately sick child; a breath of air might be fatal at this stage."

She said no more, but the staleness of the room seemed even more oppressive as she turned back to it again.

"Sick or well," she told herself, "we were not meant to suffocate in this world."

A screen had been placed about the one window where the shutters were not closed and curtains drawn. Seeing that Maxine was busy rearranging the sickbed, Henriette seized the chance to draw a few breaths of fresh air. Cautiously pushing the shutters wider, she stood in a shaft of May sunshine with the screen between her and the room. She supposed herself hidden when suddenly a step and a voice at her elbow made her turn from the green glimpse beyond the window sill. The Duc stood beside her, and she saw instantly that the doctor had alarmed him. His face looked drawn, and a mask of apprehension had settled over the fair, handsome features she was beginning to know so well.

"Monsieur"—she no longer addressed him by his full title, and she spoke as if he had told her what was in his mind—"don't be too despairing. Raynald will recover. I can't help feeling it. He'll be picking daisies a month from now, and all this will be forgotten."

"You almost make me believe that, Mademoiselle Deluzy"—he attempted a smile as he spoke; "but after what the doctor said just now, and with the crisis coming to-night—" He could not go on.

"It must come some time. Let it be to-night. And you forget that spring is a doctor, too. We cannot resist the spring, monsieur. It finds us whether we will or no. Can you look out there and deny it?"

His eyes followed hers to the half-closed shutters, where the air came up fresh and sunny from the enclosed garden and from the more distant spaces of the adjoining Champs-Elysées. Early green of young leaves and vines and grass blades filled the narrow space, and in the midst of the little square court a flowering almond tree stood up stiff and small, as if it were astonished by the rosy cloud of its own bloom. Perhaps it was because she had been unable to sleep except in broken snatches for the last few nights, and because her eyes had been fixed too long on nearer things, that Henriette felt stirred by that vista of sun and bloom. In one of those sudden flashes which all of us experience without warning, she knew that she would never be able to forget the very shape and colour of that flowering bush in its grass plot. It took on a significance all the more keen because she could not explain why it had moved her.

His voice brought her back to the sick-room.

"I don't know why I should have more confidence in your words than the doctor's, Mademoiselle Deluzy, and yet I have. You're not giving me false hope because you have a kind heart?"

"No, I'm too fond of Raynald for that," she told him. "And governesses are seldom reminded of their hearts. You'll find I've learned to keep mine well in hand. I meant what I said just now, only I wish—"

She broke off at the sound of choking from the bed. After the spasm passed Raynald lay back limply among the pillows. His lips moved so faintly that she had to put her ear beside them to catch the whisper.

"No, chéri, the doctor thinks not yet. Perhaps, if you are better to-morrow." She turned to the Duc with a little futile gesture.

"What is it he wants so much? Can't we manage it somehow?" She sighed and shook her head.

"It's against the doctor's orders," she explained in low tones. "Raynald won't believe me when I tell him how green the garden has grown, and that the almond tree is really in bloom. He begs so to look out, and if I had my way I'd let him. After all, the sun and air are good for every other living thing."

They had spoken in low tones, but the child chimed in plaintively as if he had heard.

"I want to see the spring, Papa. Now, please."

His voice was scarcely more than a tiny thread of sound from the bed, but it brought his father closer. Concern and pity spread over the big blond face.

"And you shall see it, Raynald," he promised with sudden decision. "Wait a moment." Once more he turned to the governess as if he were asking for reassurance. "You think it cannot hurt him?"

"It's a very mild day and such a little thing to ask. He'll be satisfied once he's seen the garden, but I couldn't take the responsibility alone."

"Well, wrap the quilt close then. Now, Raynald, lie very still while I lift you. Mon Dieu, but he's no weight at all. I might be carrying a shadow."

They moved like a pair of conspirators with the child between them. Neither spoke, and it was only when they reached the window and the square oasis of green was revealed through the half-opened shutters that they dared to exchange a look across the dark head muffled by bedclothes. For a moment Raynald seemed dazzled by the sudden brightness; then, as if some magnet drew him towards it, he stretched a hand to the blossoming tree. In that clear shaft of sunlight he seemed even more fragile. Watching him with solicitous eyes, Henriette was reminded of those pale shoots brought out of dark places to be set in pots on window sills and turned first this way and then that to catch the sun. Gently she took his hand that was like a bird's claw and held it out to the golden warmth.

At the same instant she and the Duc knew that they were being watched. The Duchesse was bearing down upon them with hostile eyes and a defiant rush of satin and lace.

"Theo, are you mad?" Her voice filled the room with frightened accusations. "Do you want to kill him, mademoiselle!"

Raynald buried his head against his father's shoulder as the Duc reached the bed once more and laid him on it.

"Hush, Fanny. I'll explain in a moment. Don't speak so loud. You'll upset him."

"I'll upset him!" the Duchesse's voice vibrated through the whole room.

Henriette, trying to quiet the boy and get him safely back between the bedclothes, could feel the tension behind those words. A tumult of bitterness and jealousy and fright began to gather and take shape in a storm of protest which the Duc was trying vainly to quiet.

"Fanny, please, not now, not here!"

"And why not now and here in this room you are all set against my entering? I have a right to know what goes on here. I'm not going to be shut out while my child, my little boy, is helpless in the hands of a stranger."

"But I tell you I can explain. Listen, Fanny! It may have looked strange to you, but it was a fancy he had to see the garden, and when Mademoiselle Deluzy told me, I thought—"

"Oh, it was Mademoiselle Deluzy's idea. I see. She knows more than the doctor. What's one child more or less to her so long as she gets her way in this house? Not a month since she came, and already a mother is nothing but a nuisance to her, someone to be swept out like a broken dish. But I won't stand here and see Raynald harmed before my eyes. The doctor shall hear of this, and if he dies tonight—" Her voice rose shrilly before it broke into wild weeping.

"Fanny, you mustn't say such things. You mustn't blame mademoiselle. Come, you're ill. You can't stay here now. Maxine, here, help me get Madame to her room."

His voice which had been soothing at first had grown cold. It was as if each word he uttered were held taut. Henriette could almost feel the words straining at some invisible leash. It was impossible not to listen; not to be humiliated for both husband and wife.

"My darling!" The Duchesse broke away and reached the other side of the bed. Henriette saw the large white arms reach out. She saw that the eyes were dark and tortured, that the tears pouring down those cheeks were real. This was certainly no feigned anguish. The Duchesse's full bosom rose and fell with emotion as she strained the little boy to her in a spasm of despairing affection.

"Mademoiselle! Mademoiselle!"

The child summoned all his strength in that appeal to save him from the tempestuous embraces. Tears and lamentations enveloped him. He struggled against them as he might have resisted an avalanche of honey.

Henriette leaned across the bed to answer his appeal. But as quickly she restrained the impulse and turned to the Duc with lifted brows. After all, she must take her cue from him. He met her eyes without flinching, yet she saw that his mouth had taken on a grim set. There was a half-shamed appeal in the look which answered hers. He seemed in that moment to be another Raynald asking her aid, begging her not to fail him. With a quick gesture he motioned her away.

"Come, Fanny, no more of this." Firmly he began to disentangle the Duchesse from her shrinking child. "Come with me."

Henriette busied herself at the bureau. She would not humiliate him by watching their exit. She had seen and heard enough for one day. The room grew suddenly quiet again, and she turned to pacify her patient. He soon lapsed into weary sleep, but she could not rid herself of the vibrant bitterness of that accusing voice; of the gleam in those dark, Corsican eyes that had rested on her so jealously.

"She is half crazy with worry," Henriette tried to reason. "It's only natural she should want to stay with her sick child, that she should resent my doing for him. If she were not such a fool with this undisciplined affection, he would not turn from her as he does. Poor darling, I can't blame him for that."

She would not own to herself what had been revealed so clearly. She had felt a clash of temperaments, a suppressed tension, between husband and wife from her first meeting with them. Something was wrong there, so seriously wrong that she dared not let herself think of it. She had a distinct impression that this other woman was staring at her out of hell; that those great, anguished eyes distorted whatever they looked upon. Yes, she had been aware that morning of what she had dimly guessed before. The Duchesse saw those about her only in relation to the Duc. He was her world, and she must already be feeling it slip away from her clutching fingers.

"That woman would be jealous if he caressed a kitten," she decided. "I believe she would order it killed or sent away, and if he turned from her to admire a rose, I'm sure she would trample it underfoot at the first opportunity. God, what must their nights be like if scenes like this can happen in broad daylight!"

All through the next hours, while she gave orders to Maxine, while her brain and hands carried out the intricate details with which she had been entrusted, the unhappy Duchesse continued to stalk her mind like a violent ghost.

"But there is no reason for her to hate me," she argued inwardly. "I've done nothing to hurt her."

Yet she knew the answer. She, Henriette, had won a child's affection and a father's confidence. That was crime enough to stir the antagonism of an already unhappy woman. The governess had become a symbol rather than a personality. Yes, she was beginning to understand the reason for that word most often used to describe the household Praslin: "Difficult, mademoiselle, very difficult."

Raynald was all too quiet by late afternoon. He could seldom be roused from his apathy. That small, weak body scarcely changed the contour of the smooth bedcovers. He might have been the shrunken mummy of a child lying there except for the painful breathing and flushed face. Without protest he allowed the doctor's treatments. Henriette felt her earlier hopefulness waning as she tried not to see how the boy's strength had failed since morning.

Towards twilight she was aware of an unusual stir at the door. Suppressed whispers and hurrying footsteps sounded in the corridor. It was the time of day when the Abbé Gallard had been in the habit of making his visit to the sick child. The appearance of this black-robed spiritual adviser had come to be her signal to retire. Having no part in these prayers, she was free to leave the house and take the air with those who walked the boulevards. So while they called on Heaven in that darkened room in the east wing, Henriette's brief contacts with the world took place. Rather ironical, she had thought, that it should be so, yet she had welcomed these excursions into life and light. She could not help feeling that she brought back something of all that to the child on the bed whether he waked or slept upon her return.

But to-day she had no heart to set foot on the streets and mingle with unconcerned crowds. She knew even before the Abbé stood at the door in his vestments with the young altar boy he had brought with him, even before she heard Marine's smothered exclamation and saw her lift reverent hands to cross herself and then reach for her rosary, that this was no ordinary visit. The last rites of the church were about to be administered.

"He is too little to be frightened."

Her first thought was for Raynald who lay staring at the Abbé with glazed, apathetic eyes. But she saw that he made no outcry and seemed hardly aware of the altar being improvised across the room.

"No," she thought, "he cannot know what it means. Perhaps he will like to hear the little bell, and think it's some Heaven-sent toy."

She made her way through the group gathered by the door; the Duc and Duchesse, the valet and lady's maid, and two other house servants. They waited with their rosaries in hand. The Duc's blond head was bent too low for her to see his face as she passed, but his shoulders had a dejected droop. She knew that he despaired of his child's life.

Her feet carried her along the corridor and on down the stone staircase till she came to the door that opened on the garden. She let herself out into the square of green, which seemed greener because of the late light and because her eyes were still accustomed to dimness. Her knees shook as she crossed the flagstones to a bench by the wall, where a jet of water splashed from a bronze dolphin's mouth into a shallow pool below. Now that others had taken the welfare of her charge into their keeping, she felt lost and lonely. A great weariness and fear possessed her in place of the earlier energy and confidence that had been hers since the illness began.

The springing freshness and fragrance of the small garden seemed suddenly a mockery in the face of what she knew was going on in that upper room. Overhead the sky showed bright with gathering sunset. A long flare of rosy light was filling the place with a false glow that would soon fade. The little almond tree stood its ground, still flushed with the fever of spring. But the sweetness of bloom all about her was not strong enough to overcome the incense drifting down from that window above. The hum of life on the Rue du Faubourg-Saint-Honoré could not quite drown out the sound of a ringing bell.