Tatterdemalion | Page 7

the quilt. The hand moved faintly as if responding, the voice
whispered: ' The emerald ring is for you, Augustine. Is it morning?
Uncover Polly's cage and open his door."
Madame spoke no more that morning. A telegram had come. Her son
and daughter would arrive next morning early. They waited for a
moment of consciousness to tell her; but the day went by, and in spite
of oxygen and brandy it did not come. She was sinking fast; her only
movements were a tiny compression now and then of the lips, a
half-opening of the eyes, and once a smile when the parrot spoke. The
rally came at eight o'clock. Mademoiselle was sitting by the couch
when the voice came fairly strong: "Give my love to my dear soldiers,
and take them their francs out of my purse, please. Augustine, take care
of Polly. I want to see if the emerald ring fits you. Take it off, please ";
and, when it had been put on the little finger of the sobbing girl: "
There, you see, it does. That's very nice. Your sweetheart will like that
when you have one. What do you say, Mademoiselle? My son and
daughter coming? All that way? " The lips smiled a moment, and then
tears forced their way into her eyes. " My darlings! How good of them!
Oh! what a cold journey they'll have! Get my room ready, Augustine,
with a good fire! What are you crying for? Remember what Polly says:
' Keep smiling! ' Think how bad it is for the poor soldiers if we women
go crying! The Queen never cries, and she has ever so much to make
her!"
No one could tell whether she knew that she was dying, except perhaps
for those words, "Take care of Polly," and the gift of the ring.
She did not even seem anxious as to whether she would live to see her
children. Her smile moved Mademoiselle to whisper to Augustine:
"Elle a la sourire divine."

"Ah! Mademoiselle, comme elle est brave, la pauvre dame f C'est
qu'elle pense toujours aux autres." And the girl's tears dropped on the
emerald ring.
Night fell the long night; would she wake again? Both watched with
her, ready at the faintest movement to administer oxygen and brandy.
She was still breathing, but very faintly, when at six o'clock they heard
the express come in and presently the carriage stop before the house.
Mademoiselle stole down to let them in.
Still in their travelling coats her son and daughter knelt down beside the
couch, watching in the dim candle-light for a sign and cherishing her
cold hands. Daylight came; they put the shutters back and blew out the
candles. Augustine, huddled in the far corner, cried gently to herself.
Mademoiselle had withdrawn. The two still knelt, tears running down
their cheeks. The face of their mother was so transparent, so exhausted;
the least little twitching of just-opened lips showed that she breathed. A
tiny sigh escaped; her eyelids fluttered. The son, leaning forward, said:
"Sweetheart, we're here."
The eyes opened then; something more than a simple human spirit
seemed to look through it gazed for a long, long minute; then the lips
parted. They bent to catch the sound.
"My darlings don't cry; smile! " And the eyes closed again. On her face
a smile, so touching that it rent the heart, flickered and went out. Breath
had ceased to pass the faded lips.
In the long silence the French girl's helpless sobbing rose; the parrot
stirred uneasily in his still-covered cage. And the son and daughter
knelt, pressing their faces hard against the couch.
1917.

II

DEFEAT
SHE had been standing there on the pavement a quarter of an hour or
so after her shilling's worth of concert. Women of her profession are
not supposed to have redeeming points, especially when like May
Belinski, as she now preferred to dub herself they are German; but this
woman certainly had music in her soul. She often gave herself these
"music baths " when the Promenade Concerts were on, and had just
spent half her total wealth in listening to some Mozart and a Beethoven
symphony.
She was feeling almost elated, full of divine sound, and of the
wonderful summer moonlight that was filling the whole dark town.
Women "of a certain type " have, at all events, emotions and what a
comfort that is, even to themselves! To stand just there had become
rather a habit of hers. One could seem to be waiting for somebody
coming out of the concert, not yet over which, of course, was precisely
what she was doing. One need not for ever be stealthily glancing and
perpetually moving on in that peculiar way, which, while it satisfied