Frances Waldeaux | Page 8

affairs of others, but her face always was
indiscreet. George, who had come up in time to hear the last words,
was not so scrupulous. He surveyed the young woman through his

spectacles as she passed again, with cold disapproval.
"French or German?" he asked.
"I really don't know. She has a singular facility in tongues," said Miss
Vance.
"Well, that is not the companion I should have chosen for those
innocent little girls," he said authoritatively, glad to be disagreeable to
his cousin. "She looks like a hawk among doves."
"The woman is harmless enough," said Miss Vance tartly. "She speaks
exquisite French."
"But what does she say in it?" persisted George. "She is vulgar from
her red pompon to her boots. She has the swagger of a soubrette and
she has left a trail of perfume behind her--pah! I confess I am surprised
at you, Miss Vance. You do not often slip in your judgment."
"Don't make yourself unpleasant, George," said his mother gently. Miss
Vance smiled icily, and as the girls came near again, stopped them and
stood talking to Mlle. Arpent with an aggressive show of familiarity.
"Why do you worry Clara?" said Mrs. Waldeaux. "She knows she has
made a mistake. What do you think of that little blonde girl?" she asked
presently, watching him anxiously. "She has remarkable beauty,
certainly; but there is something finical--precise----"
"Take care. She will hear you," said George. "Beauty, eh? Oh, I don't
know," indifferently. "She is passably pretty. I have never seen a
woman yet whose beauty satisfied ME."
Mrs. Waldeaux leaned back with a comfortable little laugh. "But you
must not be so hard to please, my son. You must bring me my daughter
soon," she said.
"Not very soon. I have some thing else to think of than marriage for the
next ten years."

Just then Dr. Watts came up and asked leave to present his friend Perry.
The doctor, like all young men who knew Mrs. Waldeaux, had
succumbed to her peculiar charm, which was only that of a woman past
her youth who had strong personal magnetism and not a spark of
coquetry. George's friends all were sure that they would fall in love
with a woman just like her--but not a man of them ever thought of
falling in love with her.
Young Perry, in twenty minutes, decided that she was the most brilliant
and agreeable of companions. He had talked, and she had spoken only
with her listening, sympathetic eyes. He was always apt to be voluble.
On this occasion he was too voluble. "You are from Weir, I think, in
Delaware, Mrs. Waldeaux?" he asked. "I must have seen the name of
the town with yours on the list of passengers, for the story of a woman
who once lived there has been haunting me all day. I have not seen nor
thought of her for years, and I could not account for my sudden
remembrance of her."
"Who was she?" asked George, trying to save his mother from Perry,
who threatened to be a bore.
"Her name was Pauline Felix. You have heard her story, Mrs.
Waldeaux?"
"Yes" said Frances coldly. "I have heard her story. Can you find my
shawl, George?"
But Perry was conscious of no rebuff, and turned cheerfully to George.
"It was one of those dramas of real life, too unlikely to put into a novel.
She was the daughter of a poor clergyman in Weir, a devout, good man,
I believe. She had marvellous beauty and a devilish disposition. She ran
away, lived a wild life in Paris, and became the mistress of a Russian
Grand Duke. Her death----"
He could not have told why he stopped. Mrs. Waldeaux still watched
him, attentive, but the sympathetic smile had frozen into icy civility.
She had the old-fashioned modesty of her generation. What right had
this young man to speak of "mistresses" to her? Clara's girls within

hearing too! She rose when he paused, bowed, and hurried to them, like
a hen fluttering to protect her chicks.
"He was talking to me of a woman," she said excitedly to Clara, "who
is never mentioned by decent people."
"Yes, I heard him," said Miss Vance. "Poor Pauline! Her career was
always a mystery to me. I was at school with her, and she was the most
generous, lovable girl! Yet she came to a wretched end," turning to her
flock, her tone growing didactic. "One is never safe, you see. One must
always be on guard."
"Oh, my dear!" cried Frances impatiently. "You surely don't mean to
class these girls and me with Pauline Felix! Come, come!"
"None of us is safe," repeated Clara stiffly. "Somebody says there is a
possible vice in the purest soul, and it may lie perdu