arpet like a shepherdess in the fields, and was about
to repair, at the hem of the skirt, her mistress's old black dress.
Her tone and her attitude showed the objectionable familiarity of the
under-paid maid-of-all-work.

No, Paul would not stay to breakfast. He was expected elsewhere. He had
his buggy below; he had only come to say a word to his mother.

'Your new English cart? Let me look,' said Madame Astier. She went to
the open window, and parted the Venetian blinds, on which the bright May
sunlight lay in stripes, just far enough to see the neat little vehicle,
shining with new leather and polished pinewood, and the servant in
spotless livery standing at the horse's head.

'Oh, ma'am, how beautiful!' murmured Coren-tine, who was also at the
window. 'How nice M. Paul must look in it!'

The mother's face shone. But windows were opening opposite, and people
were stopping before the equipage, which was creating quite a sensation
at this end of the Rue de Beaune. Madame Astier sent away the servant,
seated herself on the edge of a folding-chair, and finished mending her
skirt for herself, while she waited for what her son had to say to her,
not without a suspicion what it would be, though her attention seemed
to be absorbed in her sewing. Paul Astier was equally silent. He leaned
back in an arm-chair and played with an ivory fan, an old thing which
he had known for his mother's ever since he was born. Seen thus, the
likeness between them was striking; the same Creole skin, pink over a
delicate duskiness, the same supple figure, the same impenetrable
grey eye, and in both faces a slight defect hardly to be noticed;
the finely-cut nose was a little out of line, giving an expression of
slyness, of something not to be trusted. While each watched and
waited for the other, the pause was filled by the distant brushing of
Teyssedre.

'Rather good, that,' said Paul.

His mother looked up. 'What is rather good?'

He raised the fan and pointed, like an artist, at the bare arms and the
line of the falling shoulders under the fine cambric bodice. She began
to laugh.

'Yes, but look here.' She pointed to her long neck, where the fine
wrinkles marked her age. 'But after all,'... you have the good looks, so
what does it matter? Such was her thought, but she did not express it.
A brilliant talker, perfectly trained in the fibs and commonplaces of
society, a perfect adept in expression and suggestion, she was left
without word