Old Rose and Silver

Madame Francesca stirred in her chair. "I've been asleep, I think."

"You're not going to wait until they come home, are you?"

"Why should I? Isabel has a key."

Rose remembered how Aunt Francesca had invariably waited for her, when some gallant cavalier had escorted her to opera or play, and was foolishly glad, for no discoverable reason.

"I was dreaming," Madame went on, drowsily, "of the little house where Love lived."

"Where was it?" asked Rose gently.

"You know. I've told you of the little house in the woods where I went as a bride, when I was no older than Isabel. When we turned the key and went away, we must have left some of our love there. I've never been back, but I like to think that some of the old-time sweetness is still in the house, shut away like a jewel of great price, safe from meddling hands."

Only once before, in the fifteen years they had lived together, had Madame Bernard spoken of her brief marriage, yet Rose knew, by a thousand little betrayals, that the past was not dead, but vitally alive.

"I can bear it," said Madame, half to herself, "because I have been his wife. If he had been taken away before we were married, I should have gone, too. But now I have only to wait until God brings us together again."

Outwardly, Rose was calm and unperturbed; inwardly, tense and unstrung. She wondered if, at last, the sorrow had been healed enough for speech. Upstairs there was a room that was always locked. No one but Aunt Francesca ever entered it, and she but rarely. Once or twice, Rose had chanced to see her coming through the open door, transfigured by some spiritual exaltation too great for words. For days afterward there was about her a certain uplift of soul, fading gradually into her usual serenity.

Mr. Boffin stalked in, jumped into Madame's lap, and began to purr industriously. She laughed as she stroked his tawny head and the purr increased rapidly in speed and volume.

"Don't let him burst himself," cautioned Rose, welcoming the change of mood. "I never knew a cat to purr so--well, so thoroughly, did you?"

"He's lost his hold of the brake," Madame answered. "Are you going to wait until Isabel comes home?"

"Of course not."

"Then let's go up and read for a little while."

Rose waited until Madame was half way up the long flight before she turned down the lights and followed her. It made a pretty picture--the little white-haired lady in grey on the long stairway, with the yellow cat upon her shoulder, looking back with the inscrutable calmness of the Sphinx.