This hope, the necessity for such hope, was the final
depth of her gloomy mood, and she found herself looking at something
very dark as she stood holding Miss Robinson's expensive roses. For,
after all, what was going to become of her? The final depth shaped
itself to-day in more grimly realistic fashion than ever before: what
was she going to do with herself, in the last resort, unless something
happened? Her mind dwelt upon all the visible alternatives. There was
philanthropic lunch-going and lunch-giving spinsterhood in Boston; there
was spinsterhood in Europe, semi-social, semi-intellectual, and
monotonous in its very variety, for Althea had come to feel change as
monotonous; or there was spinsterhood in England established near her
friend, Miss Buckston, who raised poultry in the country, and went up to
London for Bach choir practices and Woman's Suffrage meetings. Althea
couldn't see herself as taking an interest in poultry or in Woman's
Suffrage, nor did she feel herself fitted for patriotic duties in
Boston. There was nothing for it, then, but to continue her present
nomadic life. After seeing herself shut in to this conclusion, it was a
real relief to her to hear the tea-tray chink outside, and to see it
enter, high on the garcon's shoulder, as if with a trivial but cheerful
reply to her dreary questionings. Tea, at all events, would always
happen and always be pleasant. Althea smiled sadly as she made the
reflection, for she was not of an Epicurean temperament. After she had
drunk her tea she felt strengthened to go in and ask Amelie about her
clothes. She might have to get a great many new ones, especially if she
went home for the autumn and winter, as she half intended to do. She
took up the roses, as she passed them, to show to Amelie. Amelie was a
bony, efficient Frenchwoman, with high cheek-bones and sleek black hair.
She had come to Althea first, many years ago, as a courier-maid, to take
her back to America. Althea's mother had died in Dresden, and Althea had
been equipped by anxious friends with this competent attendant for her
sad return journey. Amelie had proved intelligent and reliable in the
highest degree, and though she had made herself rather disagreeable
during her first year in Boston, she had stayed on ever since. She still
made herself disagreeable from time to time, and Althea had sometimes
lacked only the courage to dismiss her; but she could hardly imagine
herself existing without Amelie,