Page:Angna Enters - Among the Daughters.djvu/472

 "I don't believe that's it at all!" She refused the implication angrily.

"One never can be that certain, my dear Boswell, of anyone's predilections. I wash my hands of her. Now—do tell me all the gossip at Hector's."

"You seem to me extremely worldly in your interests as yet for one who is about to be taken into the arms of the Faith," she said caustically.

"Not at all—if you had listened carefully to my observation concerning the multiplicities of pain you would have comprehended that I am preparing myself properly—besides, I must have something to confess. I adore the ceremony of absolution."

At three o'clock on a bleak March afternoon Lucy pulled a plain black felt cloche over her ears, arranging her hair to cover an inflamed burn on her cheek. When she was ready to leave she sat in the bedroom, lighted a cigarette with trembling fingers, and planned an excuse to give the new English maid, Lily.

"If Mr. Wickham calls," she said, trying to seem calm, "I've gone to have a prescription filled, and then to Bloomingdale's for gloves and one or two things. I'll be back at five sharp."

"Certainly, madame," Lily said, with her sly doubting smile.

She set off quickly in the direction of the drugstore because she knew Hugh was paying Lily to spy on her. Out of sight of Lily's eyes she got into a cab and went to Hector's.

"Let's go to the washroom, I don't want anyone to see me here. I can only stay a minute," she said urgently to Vida.

"What's the trouble?" Vida asked frightened, seeing what looked like a bad cigarette burn on Lucy's ashen cheek.

"Nothing, I'm fine," Lucy brushed aside the question. "I just came to ask you not to phone any more. Hugh is so jealous he has hired an English maid to tell him everything I do. He never believes me when I say where I've been so I almost never go out. I'm doing a lot of reading though to kill time. I can get through a Maupassant story in French now if I use my French lesson books and dictionary, but right now I'm reading Pepys' Diary. I've been trying to write too to pass the time. I think up all sorts of stories but they never look the same on paper. It's hard, isn't it? I don't blame you for giving up writing."

Lucy kept looking at her watch nervously as Vida, rankled at 460