She did not care.
And, although she did not know it, this unformulated mental attitude was
the first sign in her of any approach to an unselfish love.
Through the long hours she sat in her brilliantly lighted little
sitting-room, waiting for day. At five o'clock she switched off the
electricity and opened the blinds. A wan light came in.
"It is day. It is _to-day_," she told herself aloud, her beautiful mouth
quivering with happiness. "In four hours he will come."
She made herself a cup of tea and then lay down on the sofa where her
mother had lain the day before, and went to sleep.
She dreamed that she stood in a sloping, very green meadow; in the
distance a flock of dingy sheep browsed, and some invisible person was
playing a pipe! "_Il etait une bergere he ron, ron, ron_,"--it was the
nursery song Joyselle had played to Tommy when the little boy was ill.
She smiled and moved her head.
Then suddenly she was awake, and Theo stood before her. "Brigit," he
said quietly, "my mother is dead. Will you come to father?"
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
Felicite had died in her sleep beside her husband. An hour before he had
waked, and, lying quietly by her, thinking no doubt of the woman for
whom he was going to desert her, he had by chance touched her hand as it
lay on the counterpane, with the shabby black rosary in it, and--the
hand was cold.
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