Molly's wrists. The arms under her head tilted her face
so the light fell on it. It was a narrow, piquant face, with no lines
to mar its delicacy. The odd difference in the eyebrows, which had
fascinated Alexina as a child, one arched, one straight, lent laughter
to it even in repose. Yet the mouth drooped, like a child's, with
pathos and appeal. Could one say no to that mouth, it was so wistful?
It was an alluring face, and moved you so to tenderness, to do battle,
to give protection, that it hurt.

"Throw off your hat, Malise," suggested Molly. "Celeste, take her
parasol from that chair. There is so much to hear about. I asked la
femme de charge, when she was in this morning, if she'd ever heard of
the Blairs. Everybody used to know everything about everybody when I
was here before and the servants most of all, and, mon Dieu, she knew
all about them. 'Miss Blair is married,' she told me. 'I know that,'
said I, for you'd mentioned that much in your letter, Malise. 'She ran
off to get married,' said she. 'Oh, hush,' I told her."

She had retained her very colloquialisms, this Molly, too unconscious
and too indolent to know she had them, probably, or to care.

"So she told me all about it, how tall, cold, proper Harriet had run
off from Blair proprieties and Austen, to marry a Southerner and a
Catholic! It's as if the virgin in marble had stepped down and done
it!"

Molly was amused. It narrowed her eyes till they laughed through the
lashes.

"I never heard anything so funny in my life, Malise, as--as Harriet
eloping. What is it Jean Garnier would quote from his adored
Shakespeare about Diana and her icicles? Make me stop! It hurts
me--to laugh. Oh-o-h, mammy--God, mammy!"

The appeal died in a little choke, and the morsel of handkerchief
pressed to her mouth showed a spot of crimson, but Celeste was already
there, putting Alexina aside. "You can ring fo' lil' ice--yonder," she
told the girl jealously. "Then, efen I were lil' missy, I'd go in
there--that one is yo' room--an' I'd shet my do'h. When it's over
with, p'tite won't want fo' you to have been in heah."

But pushed into the adjoining room and with the door shut between,
Malise still could hear. She did not want to hear; she tried not to
hear. She was awed and frightened.

"Am I going to die this time, Celeste? I'm afraid, mammy; my hands are
cold. Don't rub them with the rings on, you fool; you hurt. No, no;
don't go away, mammy! mammy! I couldn't slee