Page:The Old Countess (1927).pdf/323

 'He called me his Undine. He kissed me good-night,' said Madame de Lamouderie, her eyes on Jill. 'He kissed me here.' She touched her forehead. 'I told him of my childhood. We talked of life and death. Never have I been so near a human soul as I was near his on that night. He had forgotten her.'

'He had not forgotten her. No. No;—that's where you were mistaken,' said Jill in her shaken voice, still holding the portrait. 'He did not need to forget her to care for you. Oh, try to see that!'

But as she spoke Madame de Lamouderie's face grew livid with rage. 'When he remembers her, he thinks of no one! When he remembers her, he sees me as a devil!—Give it to me!—Give me that portrait he has made of me! Had he come to me and spat in my face he could not have told me more plainly what he felt for me! Give it tome!—There! And there!—So I answer him!' And seizing the heavy paper-knife that lay beside her, she dashed it through the canvas again and again.

Jill could not withstand her. She, too, felt that Graham had insulted Madame de Lamouderie.

'And now!' Panting, with haggard, burning eyes, the old woman flung the canvas aside. 'Now—where shall we look for him? Shall I tell you—you complaisant wife? He ison the island! Your husband is on the island with his saint! He is in the hut with his Saint Cecilia and it is she who now receives his kisses!'

'What do you mean? You must not say such things!' said Jill, blanched with disdain and anger.