blood flamed suddenly over Claire’s face, for it seemed to her that she divined what was in her mother’s mind. “I expected that you would marry. I have done my best to educate you and give you a happy youth. I expected that you would accept your first good offer, and look after me!”

That was what a French mother would naturally say to her daughter; that was what Claire Gifford believed that her own mother was saying to her at that moment, and the accusation brought little of the revolt which an English girl would have experienced. Claire had been educated at a Parisian boarding school, and during the last three years had associated almost entirely with French-speaking Andrées and Maries and Celestes, who took for granted that their husbands should be chosen for them by their parents. Claire had assisted at betrothal feasts, and played demoiselle d’honneur at subsequent weddings, and had witnessed an astonishing degree of happiness as an outcome of these business-like unions. At this moment she felt no anger against her own mother for having tried to follow a similar course. Her prevailing sensation was annoyance with herself for having been so difficult to lead.

“It must be my English blood. Somehow, when it came to the point, I never could. But Mr Judge is different from most men. He is so good and generous and unmercenary. He’d be kind to mother, and let her live with us, and make no fuss. He is as charming to her as he is to me. Oh, dear, I am selfish! I am a wretch! It isn’t as if I were in love with anyone else. I’m not. Perhaps I never shall be. I’ll never have the chance if I live in lodgings and spend my life teaching irregular verbs. Why can’t I be sensible and French, and marry him and live happily ever after? Pauvre petite mère! Why can’t I think of her?”

Suddenly Claire swooped down upon her mother’s drooping figure, wrapped her in loving arms, and swung her gently to and fro. She was a tall, strikingly graceful girl, with a face less regularly beautiful than her mother’s, but infinitely more piquant and attractive. She was more plump and rounded than the modern English girl, and her complexion less pink and white, but she was very neat and dainty and smart, possessed deep-set, heavily-lashed grey eyes, red lips which curled mischievously upward at the corner, and a pair of dimples on her soft left cheek.

The dimples were in full play at this moment; the large one was just on the level with the upward curl of the lips, the smaller one nestled close to its side. In repose they were almost unnoticed, but at the slightest lighting of expression, 

 Prev. P 5/221 next