Page:The Old Countess (1927).pdf/127

 first impulse, and then that she laid the hand, thus softly clenched, against her breast. 'But you do not know me,' she repeated.

'But if I don't, I want to,' said Jill, standing perplexed, with her outstretched hand.

'You are like a child, chère Madame. You grasp at something because it is new to you. My life,' said Mademoiselle Ludérac, and her voice had found its way to a deep conviction, 'is not one in which you could please yourself. We do not belong to the same world.'

'Damn worlds! What on earth has that to do with it! Do you mean you won't be friends with me because you're French and I'm English?'

'' ' Mais non! Mais non! ' ''

'Then why not? Is it because you're poor? So am I. But it can't be anything so silly as that.'

'You do not know what you are saying when you say that you are poor. But it is not that,' said Mademoiselle Ludérac, almost with severity, as though to the charming but stubborn child. 'I have no friends. My life has been too hard for friends. I have nothing to give a friend. You are kind, but romantic, chère Madame, to imagine otherwise.'

'Do you really mean you don't want to see me any more? All it comes to is that you don't like me!' cried Jill, amazed herself to feel how deep was the wound inflicted by this refusal.

But rising to her feet Mademoiselle Ludérac said quickly, her eyes darkened in their look of suffering,