Page:The Old Countess (1927).pdf/161

 Mademoiselle Ludérac smiled faintly, too, at that.

'Or is it,' Jill went on, since she received no answer, 'that you have suffered more than most people?'

At this question a deep flush swept over Mademoiselle Ludérac's face, a flush deep, yet pale; intense, yet faint. To see it was like hearing the notes of the harp whispering together after they had been struck. Jill was almost frightened; but then all their strange, sudden talk, spoken in such low tones while they stood alone together, almost frightened her.

'I think it is like that,' said Mademoiselle Ludérac. Her flush had faded and she looked at Jill quietly. 'I think it is true that if I know more than others it is because I may have suffered more.' Her gaze was like the hand in the darkness, and after a moment she added, smiling with a singular sweetness, 'You have never suffered. Yet it was to you I played. You understand so much.'

'May I look at your harp?' Dick's voice broke in suddenly, very strangely, upon them, and they both started as they heard it and saw him standing there beside them. 'What a beautiful instrument it is.—May I look at it?'

 ' Volontiers, '  said Mademoiselle Ludérac. She stood aside as if her harp were a prize dog or cat, at a show, that a stranger had asked to examine. But now they might talk to each other; Dick might now come to know her a little. Jill left them standing there and went over to the abandoned old lady.

'We must be going, I think,' she said, bending down