Page:Death Comes for the Archbishop.pdf/204

 blue eyes focused and gathered light, as she became intensely, rigidly animated in her corner,—her back against the wall, as it were.

“Fifty-three!” she cried in a voice of horrified amazement. “Why, I never heard of anything so outrageous! I was forty-two my last birthday. It was in December, the fourth of December. If Antonio were here, he would tell you! And he wouldn’t let you scold me and talk about business to me, either, Father Joseph. He never let anybody talk about business to me!” She hid her face in her little handkerchief and began to cry.

Father Latour checked his impetuous Vicar, and sat down on the sofa beside Madame Olivares, feeling very sorry for her and speaking very gently. “Forty-two to your friends, dear Madame Olivares, and to the world. In heart and face you are younger than that. But to the Law and the Church there must be a literal reckoning. A formal statement in court will not make you any older to your friends; it will not add one line to your face. A woman, you know, is as old as she looks.”

“That’s very sweet of you to say, Bishop Latour,” the lady quavered, looking up at him with tear-bright eyes. “But I never could hold up my head again. Let the Olivares have that old money. I don’t want it.”

Father Vaillant sprang up and glared down at her