She fought fierce battles with herself during the next few weeks. If she were ever going to see him again, there would have been a fearful joy, a strange mingling of shame and dizzying hope to keep her heart excited. But as he had gone for ever out of her path, her common sense coming to the aid of her ashamedness strove to crush her futile fancies. They took a great deal of killing, however, especially as she found the friendship between Raine's father and herself growing daily stronger. She longed for the day of her release to come, when she could join her uncle and aunt in Bermuda.
CHAPTER IV.--“WHERE THE BROOK AND RIVER MEET.”
|Will you come for a walk this beautiful morning, Miss Graves?” asked Frau Schultz.
Felicia had intended to pursue her study of scientific dressmaking under Mrs. Stapleton's tuition, but she acceded graciously enough. She had considered it her duty to like Frau Schultz; yet Frau Schultz remained her pet aversion. Although she still winced under Mme. Popea's innuendoes and Fraulein Klinkhardt's pretty free theories of life, yet she managed to find something likeable in each. But Frau Schultz's red, weather-beaten face, coarse habits and spiteful tongue, jarred upon her. She smiled pleasantly, however, when she came down in her fur-trimmed jacket, hat and muff, and met Frau Schultz on the landing outside the salon.
“It will do you good. You sit too much in the house,” said Frau Schultz magisterially.
It seemed a lovely day when the sunshine was looked at from the windows of a warm room, but outside, the _bise_ was blowing, and caught the face like a million razor-edges. Felicia put up her muff with a little cry, as soon as they emerged into the open air. “Oh! this dreadful _bise!_”
“Ach! It is nothing,” said the other, who prided herself on her pachydermaty. “You English girls would sacrifice everything to your complexions. If your skin cracks you can put on some cold cream. But you will have had your exercise.”
Frau Schultz wore an imitation sealskin jacket, a new crape hat with broad strings tied under her chin, and thick grey woollen gloves. Felicia wondered, with not unpardonable vindictiveness, how many cracks would do her appreciable damage.