Page:The Old Countess (1927).pdf/273

 dinner and read poetry aloud to Maman and Grand'mère and the aunts and cousins, while they embroidered. It was one of the great-aunts, always in black satin with lace falling from a black cap on her portly shoulders, who found a young wife for him, and they had been married from the château. Their son had made a great name for himself; and their daughter had been called after her—who was the great-aunt's favourite—Cécile Léonore. In the salon Maman had a golden cage full of tiny tropical birds, piping, chirruping, trilling, like mice, like tinkling, thread-like brooks. Tempted beyond her strength one day, small Cécile put a hand into the fluttering rainbow and seized a cordon-bleu. Maman found her holding it. There was a penitence that day of bread and water. But the penitence was nothing to the horror that had shot through her little chest as she had stood looking at the bright, warm, still creature lying dead on her palm.

In the garden on a soft June morning, Papa led her by the hand; so tall, so elegant; with favoris, and close-fitting trousers strapped under his shining shoes, and high stock collar. He named all the roses to her and picked a small pink bud and gave it to her and kissed her and said, 'It is like my little Cécile.'

And as the old lady talked, by the dying fire, the radiance of those vanished days rested on her. Her eyes were soft; her lips sweet. She was happy, happy and self-forgetting, Graham saw, and almost forgetful of him, though it was for him she wove her spell; so that, for the first time, beauty came to him from her. He