Maud stood there a moment after Lucia had passed out of sight. Then she heard the opening of the door, and Lucia's voice spoke. She could not hear the words; probably she said good-night to the footman, for she was always charming with servants. Certainly a man's voice answered her, also indistinguishable. Then the motor throbbed and whirred outside, and then came the thud of the front door.
It was already late, but she felt no desire for sleep, and went back into the window-seat where she had sat with Lucia. Some faint fragrance, some reminiscence of Lucia, still lingered there—a fallen petal, perhaps, of flowers she had worn, though it scarcely needed that to send her thoughts homing back to her. Somehow, when Lucia was with her, she was incapable of coming to conclusions about her; all judgment, all possible criticism, all appreciation even, was dazzled by her presence. If Lucia gave vent, as she sometimes did, to an abominable sentiment, Maud quite honestly labelled it as nonsense. But now, as sometimes before, when Lucia had gone, she could look at her as through a smoked glass, and regard steadily what was uncriticizable when she was there.
A hundred times during this last year Maud had checked herself from doing this, but now and then Lucia so puzzled her that it was necessary to sit down and think, after she had gone, what she meant. One of the things, for instance, which she had thought about before to-night was that disastrous visit, and more disastrous disappearance, of Aunt Cathie from Brayton. Maud could be convinced on this point: she knew that if Lucia had been really glad to see her, Aunt Cathie would have been blissfully happy—absurd, perhaps, because it was the old darling's nature to be absurd—but happy. Whatever she might or might not have overheard—it was known that Mouse and Harry had discussed her on that wet afternoon, and the door into the drawing-room from the library had inexplicably opened and shut—Aunt Cathie would never have fled the house, had she felt that her hostess welcomed her, was glad to have her there. In self-justification, Lucia pointed out that she had sat with her the evening before in her room, had said not a word to her on the subject of the puce dress, had warned her ever so gently on the subject of "Salome," but Maud's instinct still shook its head to those arguments.
And (this question about Aunt Cathie was an affair of detail, though the detail was consistent with the main idea) Lucia
