Page:The Green Bay Tree (1926).pdf/72

 cate chiffons and laces until at last she came upon a small photograph of a handsome gentleman in the ornate uniform of the cuirassiers. He was swarthy and dark-eyed with a crisp vigorous mustache, waxed and turned up smartly at the ends. For a second she held it under the light of the bed amp.

"Who is this?" she asked, and Lily, busy with her unpacking, looked up for an instant and then continued her task. "It is the Baron," she replied. "Madame Gigon's cousin . . . the one who supports her."

"He is handsome," observed Irene in a strange shrewd voice.

"He is a friend. . . . We ride together in the country. Naturally I see a great deal of him. We live at his château in the summer."

The younger sister dropped the conversation. She became silent and withdrawn, and the queer frightened look showed itself in her pale blue eyes. Presently she excused herself on the pretense that she was tired and withdrew to the chaste darkness of her own room where she knelt down before a plaster virgin, all pink and gilt and sometimes tawdry, to pray.