Sara awoke that same morning with a foreboding heart. She wrote a letter to Reckage postponing his call, and another to Pensée Fitz Rewes, asking her to be at home that afternoon. At half-past two the young lady drove up, in her brougham, to the widow's door in Curzon Street. The blinds were down, and the house gave every indication that its owner was not in London. Sara, however, was admitted, and Pensée received her in a little room, hung with lilac chintz and full of porcelain, at the back of the house. Pensée, wearing a loose blue robe, seemed over-excited and sad--with that sadness which seems to fall upon the soul as snow upon water. She was reclining on the sofa, reading a worn copy of Law's _Serious Call_ which had belonged to the late Viscount, and bore many of his pencil-marks. This in itself was to Sara a sign of some unusual melancholy in her friend.
"Why," she said, kissing her soft, pale cheek, "why didn't you let me know that you had returned? I thought you were still in Paris."
"My dear," said Pensée, sitting up with a sudden movement and supporting herself on her two hands. "I am no longer my own mistress. I have become a puppet--a marionette: a kind of lady-in-waiting--a person to whom women talk when they have nothing to say, and to whom men talk when they have nothing to do."
Sara chose a seat and studied the speaker with a new curiosity. She was charming; vexation gave humanity to her waxen features, and the flash in her eyes suggested hitherto unsuspected fires in her temperament, "She has more spirit than I gave her credit for," thought Sara, and she added, "Darling!" aloud.
"Darling, indeed!" said Pensée. "I can tell you I am tired of being a darling. There are limits.... I have no patience with Brigit, and Robert drives me to the conclusion that good men are fools--fools! I suppose he told you that I was in town again?"
"Well, he won't come and see me himself because _she_ is here."
"That is merely a decision on principle. He longs to come."
"Quite so. But the girl does not deserve him."
Sara showed no astonishment; she maintained her thoughtful air, and replied with tranquillity--
"I find no vulgar faults in her, myself, although there seems no foolish thing left that she hasn't done. I am sure that every one will think her light, worldly, and frivolous. Let me say what I have been through. After the first terrible day and night at St. Malo, there was no more crying. There was not another tear. We went to Paris. She spent all her mornings at Notre Dame, all her afternoons with old Monsieur Lanitaux of the Conservatoire, all her evenings at the theatre. She found many of her mother's old friends. In the theatrical world I find much loyalty toward those actually born in the profession. They treated her as though she were a young queen. Lanitaux managed to get her privately before the Empress Eugénie. She sang for the Empress: the Empress cried and gave her an emerald ring."