“You may see Mr. Farron now, Mrs. Farron.”

Adelaide turned to her father and made a little bow.

“See how I am favored,” she said, and left him.

Nothing of this mood was apparent when she entered her husband’s room, though she noticed that the arrangement of the furniture had been changed, and, what she disliked even more, that they had brushed his hair in a new way.  This, with his pallor and thinness, made him look strange to her.  She bent over, and laid her cheek to his almost motionless lips.

“Well, dear,” she said, “have you seen the church-warden part they have given your hair?”

He shook his head impatiently, and she saw, she had made the mistake of trying to give the tone to an interview in which she was not the leading character.

“Who has the room above mine, Adelaide?” he asked.

“My maid.”

“Ask her not to practice the fox-trot, will you?”

“O Vincent, she is never there.”

“My mistake,” he answered, and shut his eyes.

She repented at once.

“Of course I’ll tell her.  I’m sorry that you were disturbed.”  But she was thinking only of his tone.  He was not an irritable man, and he had never used such a tone to her before.  All pleasure in the interview was over.  She was actually glad when one of the nurses came in and began to move about the room in a manner that suggested dismissal.

“Of course I’m not angry,” she said to herself.  “He’s so weak one must humor him like a child.”

She derived some satisfaction, however, from the idea of sending for her maid Lucie and making her uncomfortable; but on her way she met Mathilde in the hall.

“May I speak to you, Mama?” she said.

Mrs. Farron laughed.

“May you speak to me?” she said.  “Why, yes; you may have the unusual privilege.  What is it?”

Mathilde followed her mother into the bedroom and shut the door.

“Pete has just been here.  He has been offered a position in China.”

“In China?” said Mrs. Farron.  This was the first piece of luck that had come to her in a long time, but she did not betray the least pleasure.  “I hope it is a good one.”

“Yes, he thinks it good.  He sails in two weeks.”

“In two weeks?” And this time she could not prevent her eye lighting a little.  She thought how nicely that small complication had settled itself, and how clever she had been to have the mother to dinner and behave as if she were friendly.  She did not notice that her daughter was trembling; she couldn’t, of course, be expected to know that the girl’s hands were like ice, and that she had waited several seconds to steady her voice sufficiently to pronounce the fatal sentence: 

“He wants me to go with him, Mama.”

She watched her mother in an agony for the effect of these words.  Mrs. Farron had suddenly detected a new burn in the hearth-rug.  She bent over it.