Page:The Old Countess (1927).pdf/79

 The old lady looked at her with a sort of astonishment. Then she struggled suddenly to her feet. 'Dieu—Dieu—Dieu!' she uttered.  ' Non! It is not possible!' She seized Jill's outstretched hands. '' ' Que vous êtes bons! Que vous êtes charmanis! Je ne sais pas où je suis—tellement vous me rendez heureuse! ' '' She did not know where she was. It was evident. She held them by their hands and looked from one to the other with ecstatic eyes. '' ' Que vous êtes bons! ' '' she repeated. 'You have come back! and I did not think that I should ever see you again.—It seems to me that decades have passed since you were last here;—as if you came to me from far, far away; from my youth.—''Mais asseyez-vous donc; asseyez-vous;—que je vous regarde bien. ' ''

They could see, when they had taken the chairs, one on either side of her, which her trembling hand indicated, that the poor old lady had not worn well. She looked very much older than they remembered her as looking and had something of the dreadful aspect of a waxen image galvanized suddenly to precarious life. But as they talked to her, and told her that they were to stay in Buissac for weeks—perhaps for months, the banked fires crept forth again; the smiles came, arch, provocative; the light of hope, of zest, of avidity, flickered in her great black eyes. They could note, too, that though taken unaware and somewhat dishevelled by her siesta, she was yet much neater and fresher than in the autumn. Her hair was carefully dressed in large puffs on the top of her head; the black lace fichu at her