Page:Dorothy Canfield - Rough-hewn.djvu/469

 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 Joséphine. 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 Joséphine, 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 Joséphine 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