"Louise Lane," murmured Madame, reminiscently. "My old schoolmate! I didn't even know that she had a daughter, or that she was dead. How strangely we lose track of one another in this world!"
"Yes?" said Alden, encouragingly.
"Louise was a beautiful girl," continued Madame, half to herself. "She had big brown eyes, with long lashes, a thick, creamy skin that someway reminded you of white rose-petals, and the most glorious red hair you ever saw. She married an actor, and I heard indirectly that she had gone on the stage, then I lost her entirely."
"Yes?" said Alden, again.
"Edith Archer Lee," Madame went on. "She must be married. Think of Louise Lane having a daughter old enough to be married! And yet--my Virginia would have been thirty-two now. Dear me, how the time goes by!"
In Trouble
The tall clock on the landing chimed five deep musical strokes, the canary hopped restlessly about his gilt cage, and the last light of the sweet Spring afternoon, searching the soft shadows of the room, found the crystal ball on the table and made merry with it.
"Time is still going by," Alden reminded her. "What are you going to do?"
Madame started from her reverie. "Do? Why, she must come, of course!"
"I don't see why," Alden objected, gloomily. "I don't like strange women."
"It is not a question of what we like or don't like, my son," she returned, in gentle reproof. "She is in trouble and she needs something we can give her."
"When people are in trouble, they usually want either money or sympathy, or both."
"Sometimes they only need advice."
"There are lots of places where they can get it. Advice is as free as salvation is said to be."
Madame sighed. Then she crossed the room, and put her hands upon his shoulders. "Dear, are you going to be cross?"
His face softened. "Never to you, if I know it, but why should strange women invade the peace of a man's home? Why should a woman who writes like that come here?"
"Don't blame her for her handwriting--she can't help it."
"I don't blame her; far from it. On the contrary, I take off my hat to her. A woman who can take a plain pen, and plain ink, and do such dazzling wonders on plain paper, is entitled to sincere respect, if not admiration."