If only Marise would go away, would go _away_ and give her a chance,
thought Eugenia despairingly, coming slowly into her sitting-room where
Mlle. Vallet sat writing in her journal. Josephine heard the door close
and hurried in with her quick silent step to take off her mistress'
wraps.
"Mademoiselle looks so _tired_ after these long walks!" she said
solicitously, scrutinizing with a professional expertness the color of
the young face. "I don't think they agree with Mademoiselle at all. This
climate is too soft to walk about so. Nobody does. Mademoiselle
might--without presuming to advise--Mademoiselle might be wiser to go in
cabs."
Eugenia held out her arms as Josephine slipped off her pretty,
fawn-colored silk coat and then let them fall at her sides. She was
thinking, "_Cabs!_ What would he say to some one who went everywhere in
cabs!"
"Oh!" cried Josephine. "Those abominable ruins! Mademoiselle's dear
little bronze shoes! Cut to pieces! Oh, Mlle. Vallet, just look at our
poor Mademoiselle's shoes, the beautiful bronze ones. And there's no
replacing them in the shops of _this_ country!"
Mlle. Vallet tipped her head forward to look seriously over her
steel-rimmed spectacles, agreed seriously that there was certainly very
little left of the pretty bronze shoes, and went seriously back to
writing with her sharp steel pen a detailed description of her
expedition to the Catacombs. Mlle. Vallet was a very happy woman in
those days. To be in Rome, after years of grinding drudgery in the
class-room, to be free to look and wander and observe at her leisure for
so much of the day--she often told Eugenia that she had never in her
wildest dreams supposed she would have such an opportunity! She studied
and sight-saw with conscientious and absorbed exactitude, and wrote down
voluminous accounts of every day's sights and the thoughts they aroused
in her. "It will be the treasure-book of my old age!" she said. "I shall
take it down from the shelf when I am old, and live myself back into
this wonderful experience!"
"Her old age!" Eugenia wondered when she thought old age would begin.
She looked a thousand years old already to Eugenia. Heavens! Think of
ever being old like that, yourself. What use _could_ there be in living
if you were old and reduced for your amusement to writing down dates and
things in a journal!
"If Mademoiselle will step into her own room," said Josephine. Eugenia
came to herself with a start. She had been standing in the middle of the
room staring at Mlle. Vallet's back. But she had been thinking about
Neale Crittenden, about those deep-set eyes of his, and how his face was
lighted up when he smiled. When he smiled at her, Eugenia felt like
moving from wherever she was and going to stand close beside him. What
made her feel so? It was like a black-art. There was that girl at school
who had been bewitched by the Breton mission-priest,--bewitched so that
she fell into a fever if she could not see him every day.
"There! Sit there!" said Josephine, pressing her competently into an
easy chair, and beginning to undo her hooks and eyes. "I haven't much
time. Mademoiselle is so late in coming in. Just a little
cold-cream--this horrible southern sun burns so! Oh, I can feel this
awful Roman dust thick on every hair! I do wish--without seeming to
presume--I do _wish_ that Mademoiselle would consent to wear a
veil--everybody does."
Eugenia moved her head from one side to the other wearily. How Josephine
did chatter! She never had a quiet moment, _never_, and she was so
_tired_. Feeling the supple, smooth professional fingers beginning to
put on the cold cream, she held her head still and thought.
Very bitter thoughts and bewildered ... of a person betrayed. She _was_
betrayed! She had done everything ... everything that she had known how
to do. She had spared neither time nor money nor effort. She had worked
(and she hated to work) she had _worked_ to learn all the things she
should know. She had beaten Marise at her own game. She talked better
French than she, so her diction teacher said; and ever so much more
distinguished English--she _never_ made those slips into Americanisms or
Gallicisms that Marise did. At least not in conversation, sometimes she
still thought in American. She knew ever so much more about dressing
than Marise, and about lace, and about manners. She had come to the
point at last of being sure of her manners, of being able to sit down,
instinctively composing herself so that she would look well from all
angles, of not having to think of how to shake hands or leave a room,
any more than she thought of the adjustment of a gown that Josephine had
put on her. Whereas Marise still fumbled at the back of her neck at
times to make sure of a hook, or had that common trick of feeling her
hair to see if it were in order. Marise had stood still in all that, and
she had gone forward to the goal. But as she reached it...!
How could she have thought for a moment that she cared a thing about
him--he was horrible and rough and as American as--as--a typewriter!
What _made_ her care about such a man? She wouldn't have, if it had not
been for Marise. It was Marise's fault. She never would have dreamed of
looking at him if she hadn't seen that first evening at Donna Antonia
Pierleoni's soiree that Marise had lost her head over him. That made her
curious about him of course, and somehow before she knew it something
about his eyes or smile--oh, it _was_ as if she were bewitched that he
should make her feel so, make her want and want and want till she ached,
to have him look at her--and all the time he never looked away from
Marise.
"There," said Josephine, slipping out the hairpins, and taking up a
handful of the bright hair to inspect it, "I believe--I _believe_," she
pondered the matter profoundly, her dark, sharp intelligent face
selflessly focussed on the problem, "I _wonder_ if we ought to wash it a
little oftener here than in Paris? There is more dust. But washing it
takes the oil out so. Perhaps a little more of the Meylan dressing.
That has a little fine oil in it. I know the recipe."
Josephine knew everything there was to know about toilet-preparations,
and about how to use them. She adored her profession and adored Mlle.
Mills for being such a beautiful subject. There were times, when she had
pinned the last shining curl in place, put the last breath of invisible
powder on the rounded young white neck, fastened the last hook in the
exquisitely fitting gown, and got down on her knees to straighten the
gleaming silk of the fine silk stockings, when she wondered what she had
done to deserve such good fortune.
She often watched Eugenia out of the door, as tenderly, impersonally
proud of her as a painter of his canvas, as a patissier of his tart; and
then feeling somewhat worn with activity and emotion, stepped back, took
off her corsets, got into the rumpled untidy wrapper which was her
personal favorite, put carpet slippers on her tired feet, and sat down
with a novel of high-life to rest.
Eugenia occasionally thought seeing her thus, that _she_ never was
allowed to relax in unpicturesque ease. It seemed to her that Mlle.
Vallet and Josephine were the ones who were _really_ enjoying Rome! She
worked so hard, she had paid the full price--and somehow the coin was of
no value in this new country to which she was now transported, where she
had not wanted to come, from which she would give anything to get away.
She did not _like_ Mr. Crittenden--she never had liked him--oh, why
wouldn't he just once look at her and see what was there, instead of
talking over her head that queer talk of his? She put on her loveliest
toilettes, things that made Josephine almost weep for pleasure, while
Marise wore that same old gray dress day after day--she ruined her
bronze shoes for him, stumbling around on foot over those horrible old
ruins--how she loathed ruins! Why on earth did any one want to _pretend_
to like to look at them!
History! That was what he was always talking about--history that she had
always hated. Here it was again to plague her! How could she have
guessed that he would care about history? She sat up now till all hours
reading it, till Mlle. Vallet was afraid for her eyes, and yet he didn't
seem to notice when she said something about it. He just took it for
granted, as if she were a man.
What did Marise _want_ of him anyhow? She couldn't possibly expect to
_marry_ him ... neither of them had a cent of money. She ought to think
of that, to think what was best for him. It was selfish, self-centered
of Marise. A man like Neale ought of course to marry money. When she
thought what _she_ could do for him! Married to her he could have
exactly the life he was meant for--travel, leisure, ease--! What was it
about Marise that he liked? She could do everything better than Marise
now, except play the piano, and it evidently wasn't _that_ he cared for
in her, because the afternoon they had all gone to the Visconti recital,
he had listened just as intently to the men students and the other girls
as to Marise. And when Marise asked him afterwards what music he liked
best he told her bluntly the Bach that Professor Visconti himself had
played, and Marise had said she did too. She hadn't seemed to realize
what an affront to her that was. _Why_ did Marise care so much about
him? Why did anybody? Eugenia couldn't understand. She couldn't
understand. Her throat had a hard aching lump in it because she couldn't
understand.
"A loose soft coiffure for to-night," murmured Josephine dreamily to
herself, happily twisting together the beautiful golden strands, "and
the pale-blue mousseline de soie--not the evening-dress!" she was
shocked at the idea, though nobody had suggested it, "the high-necked
one with the little myosotis embroidered on the ruffles." Josephine
worshipped that dress.
Her strong dark flexible fingers hovered around the golden head as
though she were calling down blessings on it. As a matter of fact she
was. She slipped off the silk peignoir, washed with almond-scented water
the white arms and neck, and the white tired feet. She dried them with a
fine linen towel by gentle pattings, not to coarsen the skin. She put on
the white silk stockings and white high-heeled slippers, and a white
satin underslip. She stood a moment to be sure she had thought of
everything. Then carefully, carefully she slipped on the pale blue
mousseline-de-soie. "A-ah!" it _was_ as sweet as she remembered it!
Eugenia had submitted to all this with a forlorn patience. That was all
the good it would do. He would look at her as if she were dressed in a
meal-sack, never even notice that she had changed her dress. What _else_
could she do, could any one do? What more did he want? She was betrayed;
somehow life had played her false, a callous heartless dishonest trick!
Why _should_ she care so much? She didn't want to care. Why did she long
to have him look kindly at her, till her heart ached? Why every day,
every day, should the disappointment _hurt_ her so? She hadn't done
anything wrong to deserve to be hurt so. If she could only stop caring.
If only Marise would go away.
Eugenia sat very still, while Josephine set a jeweled comb at exactly
the right angle in the golden hair. One lovely little hand was at her
heart as if by pressing hard on it she could stop the ache, the other
held the fresh, scented handkerchief clutched tightly, in case this time
she could not keep back the tears. She mustn't cry. She mustn't cry,
because Josephine would have to do her face all over.