“I interrupted you. Please go on.”
“I was only about to say that while Mme. Bender was recovering I used
to go and see her every afternoon. She seemed so alone, so helpless
and so crushed. You know, she had always depended on Cousin Harry for
everything, gone everywhere with him, let him act for her, think for
her even. Why, she’s never bothered to learn English properly. There
was no need, her husband spoke such beautiful French.”
“I recall that he did.”
“She was so overwhelmed by grief and shock that she was utterly
incapable of making any plans. She even turned to me for advice, like
a little child, perhaps because I could talk French with her, and
scarcely anyone else could. She wanted me to go back to Paris with her
then, but it wasn’t possible.”
There was a far-away look in her eyes as she thought of her broken
engagement, rejoicing that the ring she had worn for a year--its stone
cut like a piece of rock quartz because her fiancé had thought it bad
taste for diamonds to sparkle--was no longer on her finger.
He was watching her closely.
“But was Mme. Bender entirely alone in Boston?”
“Oh, no! There was a maid, a most excellent woman, who had been with
her for years and understood her perfectly. Indeed, there were two
servants, a man and a woman, who used to travel with the Benders
wherever they went--Egypt, Biarritz, Cannes, all those places. The man
was a sort of courier-valet, spoke a dozen languages--very efficient.…
I wonder if those same servants are still looking after her?” she
added, “because, poor dear, she had such a horror of strangers!”
“The servants? Oh, yes, they are still there,” he assured her quickly;
then in reply to her look of surprised inquiry continued by way of
explanation, “At least I saw them at her apartment a few months ago.
Mme. Bender sent for me on a business matter, but when I arrived she
was too ill to see me, so that the maid you mention had to speak to me
instead.”
Inexplicably Catherine felt that he was withholding some item of
importance. Moreover his interest in her had become so pointed that
she grew positively ill at ease, and saying no more, resolutely
directed her attention to the flying landscape.
They were in the heart of Normandy, which early spring had garnished
with rainwashed tints delicate and vague. Through a mist of green,
thatched cottages appeared, each with its little rectangle of
farmyard, walled in by slender poplars. There was a flush upon the
budding hedges, and here and there showed the pink bouquet of a
flowering almond.
Catherine feasted her eyes, but her soul was troubled. The letter in
her bag suggested anew such alarming possibilities that she was
impelled to run through it again, hoping to fathom the writer’s real
meaning.
No use. It was a tangled mass of contradictions, framed in extravagant
phraseology which left her baffled and irritated. She sat staring at
the blue pages as though they contained some strange hieroglyph she
had not the wit to decipher.
Minutes passed. The other occupants of the carriage had lapsed into
whole or partial somnolence, with the exception of the Englishman, who
having donned a pair of horn-rimmed spectacles was frowning sternly at
the cover of his magazine.
Suddenly Catherine addressed him.
“Do you happen to know anyone in Paris by the name of
Cushing--Hermione Cushing?” she inquired.
He started violently, the copy of _The Bystander_ sliding to the
floor.
“Hermione Cushing?” he echoed, obviously to gain time.
Their eyes met, and in a flash Catherine realized that there was
something in the letter after all.