Page:The Old Countess (1927).pdf/205

 to you while he paints.—He gets so absorbed when he paints.' It was not the truth. The colour came into her face as she said it.

'It does not make her cheerful,' said Marthe Ludérac quickly. 'It makes her very unhappy. Very angry, too—very angry with me, though she tries to hide it.'

'But what have you to do with it!' What had she to do with it? As Jill heard her own unguarded question the blood mounted hotly in her cheeks.

'I am in the way. She is very much discomposed. She does not know what to do,' Mademoiselle Ludérac murmured, and, as if the warmth of Jill's flush had touched her own pale cheeks, the faint, intense colour rose to them. 'It is as if a toy had been given to a child, and then withdrawn from it. It is not kind to treat her so! Not kind!' said Marthe with a sudden startling vehemence.

'He doesn't mean to be unkind.' All sorts of thoughts were racing through Jill's mind. Why not tell Marthe, boldly, that Dick went up to see her? But at the mere thought of such an avowal her flush deepened. 'He is full of caprices, you know. All artists are, I suppose; and he probably felt that he could work more peacefully—more happily, if there was reading going on.—But of course I'll tell him. He won't dream of going when you are there when he knows it gives you pain.'

She had not helped her friend. She had, indeed, for a moment, reduced her to speechlessness. She stood