A Fortunate Woman
Breakfast had been cleared away and Alden, with evident regret, had gone to school. Madame gave her orders for the day, attended to a bit of dusting which she would trust no one else to do, gathered up the weekly mending and came into the living-room, where the guest sat, idly, robed in a gorgeous negligée of sea-green crêpe which was fully as becoming as her dinner-gown had been the night before.
Madame had observed that Mrs. Lee was one of the rarely fortunate women who look as well in the morning as in the evening. Last night, in the glow of the pink-shaded candles, she had been beautiful, and this morning she was no less lovely, though she sat in direct sunlight that made a halo of her hair.
The thick, creamy skin, a direct legacy from Louise Lane, needed neither powder nor rouge, and the scarlet lips asked for no touch of carmine. But the big brown eyes were wistful beyond words, the dark hollows beneath spoke of sleepless nights, and the corners of the sweet mouth drooped continually, in spite of valiant efforts to smile.
Why She Came
"I think I should have known you anywhere," Madame began. "You look so much like your mother."
"Thank you. It was dear of you to put her picture on my dressing-table. It seemed like a welcome from her."
Madame asked a few questions about her old schoolmate, receiving monosyllabic answers, then waited. The silence was not awkward, but of that intimate sort which, with women, precedes confidences.
"I suppose you wonder why I came," the younger woman said, after a long pause.
"No," Madame replied, gently, "for you told me in your note that you were troubled and thought I could help you."
"I don't know why I should have thought of you especially, though I have never forgotten what mother told me about coming to you, if I were in trouble, but two or three days ago, it came to me all at once that I was wandering in a maze of darkness and that you could show me the way out."
"I hope I may," the old lady murmured. "I shall be very glad to, if I can. What has gone wrong?"
"Everything," she returned, her brown eyes filling with mist. "Of course it's my husband. It always is, isn't it?"
Running Away
"I don't know why it should be. Is he cruel to you?"