Page:The Old Countess (1927).pdf/89

 who lighted her pale tapers in a chamber dedicated to early Christian rites.

And while he saw all this, he seemed not to see her face at all; though he was aware of it as a whiteness, inaccessible to analogy; and it seemed to drift like a soft but dazzling light at which one could not look fixedly.

He heard Madame de Lamouderie's precipitate heels tapping down the stairs. They paused outside the door and it was almost, Graham felt, as if the enamoured old lady stood there for a moment to quiet the strong beating of her heart. Then she entered, with outstretched hands.

'Is it possible! You have come to do my portrait! Though it does not rain!' she cried, and she cast a glance at Mademoiselle Ludérac, but did not speak to her. If Mademoiselle Ludérac consented to remain in the place of the mere landlady, Madame de Lamouderie would leave her there. And she seemed, with her tranquillity, to consent; she carried two vases into a little alcove at the end of the room.

'I have not met your friend,' said Graham. He had felt, subconsciously, a sense of resentment while he watched Mademoiselle Ludérac, and he did not know, now that he became aware of it, whether it attached itself more to her or to her old protector.

'You have not met Marthe!' cried Madame de Lamouderie, as if it surprised her.  ' Mais comment donc! She has not introduced herself! Come here, Marthe; come, ma cherie. I wish you to know Monsieur