The E. M. Delafield Boxed Set - 6 Novels in One Edition - E. M. Delafield

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thus be forced to recognize her unselfishness. She would yield to the generous impulse.

      She did so.

      Then, with a quiet that was artistic in its restraint, she put the telegram into Aunt Marianne's hand.

      "I was selfish," she observed with a beautiful simplicity, "but that is all over now."

      Aunt Marianne, largely responsible for having wrought Zella to this pitch, disconcertingly failed to rise to the occasion.

      "You must have put more than twelve words, dear, which is very extravagant, especially with these foreign telegrams. Still, that is very nice."

      "It cost me something, but I'm glad I did it," untruly observed Zella, determined to rouse Aunt Marianne to a fitting perception of her niece's virtue.

      This time she did not miss her effect.

      Mrs. Lloyd-Evans was recalled to more solemn issues.

      "Yes, Zella dear, and I am very, very glad, too. Do you know that Aunt Marianne actually said a little prayer for you to decide rightly—just a few words, since I always think the best prayers are really those one makes up for oneself—asking that you should see how unkind it would be to disappoint poor Aunt Stéphanie, and should make a little effort, and then write a really nicely worded welcoming telegram," said Mrs. Lloyd-Evans, in the carefully explanatory rhetoric reserved by her for directions issued to the Almighty and to any painstaking but obtuse official at the Army and Navy Stores.

      "The prayer was answered, you see," said Zella, anxious to direct the conversation back into a more personal channel.

      "Yes, dear; but Aunt Marianne always thinks that the best way to end up all prayers—give me the telegram, and I will put it in my little bag, so as not to forget it— the best way to end up a prayer, dear, is always 'Thy will be done.'"

      XXIV

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      ON this last pious truism Mrs. Lloyd-Evans took her leave, saying to Zella at the drawing-room door:

      "No, dear, don't come downstairs with Aunt Marianne; you would rather keep quiet to-day, one knows." She appeared further to make herself clear in some subtle manner by adding: "I mean, one knows that you would rather keep quiet to-day."

      Having thus elucidated her meaning, Mrs. Lloyd-Evans went slowly downstairs, adjusted to her face the expression that the butler would consider suitable to one in grief, and was let out at the hall door.

      "My dear Henry, how did you get here?" she demanded in a tone of such astonishment that it almost sounded shocked, when at the corner of South Audley Street she encountered her husband.

      "I lunched at the club, dear, and meant to walk back across the Park. Are you going home now?"

      "Yes."

      At the unwonted brevity of this reply, Henry suddenly bethought himself of his wife's recent errand, and the appropriate inquiry sprang almost automatically to his lips:

      "How did you find poor little Zella?"

      "Poor little thing! I am very glad I went to her," which immediately impressed on Henry's mind a doleful conviction that his wife had found Zella inconsolable at the loss of the Baronne.

      "Has she heard from Louis?"

      "Yes, he telegraphed; although I cannot help feeling that it was a very extravagant thing to do, when a letter would have cost so much less and explained a great deal better. However, it was really to tell Zella that he has arranged for her Aunt Stéphanie, as she calls herself, to come and live with them at Villetswood," said Mrs. Lloyd-Evans, believing herself to be stating the case accurately.

      Henry Lloyd-Evans whistled softly.

      "That's rather hard luck on Zella, isn't it?"

      "No, dear, why should it be? That little dog is positively trying to follow us, Henry; I wish you would not whistle. You must remember we are in London. And why should it be hard luck on Zella? On the contrary, what one has always felt is that she needs someone to mother her, and to look after that great house at Villetswood and all those servants. That old housekeeper has always seemed to me both careless and artful. Besides, it will no doubt be a real blessing to the poor woman herself."

      "I dare say," said Henry, rightly concluding that the poor woman referred to was Mdlle. de Kervoyou. "Will she be very badly off?"

      "Practically penniless," Mrs. Lloyd-Evans's inventive genius prompted her mournfully to reply. "These foreigners, poor things, very seldom save anything, and have not our safe investments, either, for what little money they may scrape together. I always think that system of francs and centimes is very fishy, to say the least of it."

      "The decimal system is used practically all over the Continent, Marianne, and, in fact, it is only supposed to be a question of time before we take to it ourselves."

      "You may call it by any grand name you please, dear," inexorably returned his wife, "but that does not make it any safer or more practical; and the result of it all is that poor Miss de Kervoyou, the moment her mother dies, has to go and live on her half-brother's charity, which is what it really amounts to."

      Henry, well inured to the reasoning peculiar to Mrs. Lloyd-Evans, did not dispute the logic of her present conclusion, and merely inquired:

      "Then, she is going, is she?"

      "Oh yes; the whole thing is practically settled. I think poor little Zella was rather upset for the first moment or two at its having been arranged so quickly; but one was able to show her how selfish any objection would be, and she wrote quite a nice cordial answer. No, Henry, don't cross until that motor-bus is out of the way. The policeman will make us a sign. We must stop at a post-office, dear, though a telegram seems to me a foolish and unnecessary expense."

      "Then, why send one, my dear? What do you want to telegraph about?"

      "My dear Henry, you are not attending to a word I say. I have just told you that Louis sent Zella a prepaid telegram, and she begged me to send the answer for her. I have it in my little bag. We can stop in Sloane Street."

      "I see. Well, I hope they'll hit it off. It seems a sensible arrangement enough."

      Across the Park and down the length of Sloane Street Mrs. Lloyd-Evans demonstrated that it was, and only drew attention in the merest aside to the blackness of the London trees and the indisputable difference between the green of London and the green of the country. But Mrs. Lloyd-Evans, like the majority of humanity, was to discover that there lies an unexpected difference between a sensible arrangement in theory and that same sensible arrangement carried into practice.

      A week later Louis de Kervoyou brought his sister, in all the crepe-shrouded blackness prescribed by the laws of French mourning, to Villetswood.

      Zella, in her inmost heart thinking it a gross injustice on the part of Providence that she should be plunged into an atmosphere of grief on the very threshold of her coming out, travelled with her father and aunt from London, and was relieved to find that both appeared perfectly capable of sustaining an ordinary conversation and of behaving very much as usual.

      Tante Stéphanie, indeed, almost scandalized her by the perfect calm with which she remarked, on establishing herself at Villetswood:

      "Maman serait ravie de me voir avec une si belle chambre. Elle regrettait toujours ce vilain mur sur lequel je donnais dans l'appartement Rue des Ecoles. Esperons que le bon Dieu l'appelera vite au Paradis, d'où elle pourra voir comme je suis bien logée."

      Zella did not know what to reply, and felt awkward. Finally she said rather haltingly, "Grand'mére can see you from heaven, I am sure, dear Aunt Stéphanie," and immediately felt as though she had impertinently tried to interfere with the judgments of the Almighty, the more especially when Mdlle. de Kervoyou returned calmly:

      "Maman was very good, a saint if you will, but

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