Page:The Old Countess (1927).pdf/215

 She has withered on the branch of life. Better that she should not draw attention to herself.'

Jill sat opposite the grim old creature. Her happy, tilted lips, her smiling eyes, were strangely hardened as she tried to think out a way of escape from these problems that she saw, for the first time, as menacing, yet that her heart so deeply contradicted. Unconsciously, as she pondered, she unknotted her silk scarf and threw it back over her shoulder, and the old lady, observing the gesture, raised her eyes and examined her, with a cold, profound scrutiny. Jill did not see it. Her eyes were on the fire.

'No; it's not true—' she said at last. 'It's not true, when people love each other. People do love each other. They do, often, sacrifice themselves for the sake of love. Even in Marthe's case, I don't believe they meant to be so cruel. It just happened so.'

'It would so happen—to the daughter of a murderess.'

'Her mother wasn't a common murderess. It was a pitiful crime. I expect lots of people were dreadfully sorry for her.'

'Ah, I do not blame her mother.' The old lady was terse indeed to-day.

'Well, I blame her. I'm dreadfully sorry for her; but I blame her. You ought not to kill your husband—even if he has been unfaithful to you!'

'Ought not!' Madame de Lamouderie laughed. 'Such "oughts" are straws in a conflagration when jealousy flames. It is precisely as I was telling you