THE COLLECTED NOVELS OF E. M. DELAFIELD (6 Titles in One Edition). E. M. Delafield

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THE COLLECTED NOVELS OF E. M. DELAFIELD (6 Titles in One Edition) - E. M. Delafield

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      "I quite see that for the first moment or two the idea may seem rather strange, but you should overcome that, and only think of what is right, dear. Now, Aunt Marianne does not want to influence you in any way, so you shall make up your mind quite quietly and give me the telegram to take away when I go. Think over what I have been saying, dear, and remember that verse of poetry I am always so fond of:

      "'He prayeth best who loveth best.'"

      And Mrs. Lloyd-Evans, to mark the earnestness of her determination not to influence Zella, went to the window and gazed into the street below, having first placed the telegraph form and a pencil at her niece's elbow.

      Zella sat wrestling with her own weakness and the old insidious dread of being disapproved of. She did not really want Tante Stéphanie at Villetswood, and she felt certain that her father had, according to his wont, meant exactly what he said in asking her to telegraph her wishes. If she wrote, "Ask Tante Stéphanie for a long visit," he would understand, and would not make the invitation a permanent one.

      Aunt Marianne, from the window, sighed heavily, and shifted her weight patiently from one foot to the other.

      How selfish it would seem not to want poor Tante Stéphanie, who was all alone in the world, old and poor, Zella mentally phrased it, with more pathos than accuracy, to share her home at Villetswood! This was an opportunity for one of those sacrifices that only God would know about, reflected Zella with a distinct recollection of Reverend Mother, and an undercurrent of satisfaction at the thought that Aunt Marianne as well as God would thus be forced to recognize her unselfishness. She would yield to the generous impulse.

      She did so.

      Then, with a quiet that was artistic in its restraint, she put the telegram into Aunt Marianne's hand.

      "I was selfish," she observed with a beautiful simplicity, "but that is all over now."

      Aunt Marianne, largely responsible for having wrought Zella to this pitch, disconcertingly failed to rise to the occasion.

      "You must have put more than twelve words, dear, which is very extravagant, especially with these foreign telegrams. Still, that is very nice."

      "It cost me something, but I'm glad I did it," untruly observed Zella, determined to rouse Aunt Marianne to a fitting perception of her niece's virtue.

      This time she did not miss her effect.

      Mrs. Lloyd-Evans was recalled to more solemn issues.

      "Yes, Zella dear, and I am very, very glad, too. Do you know that Aunt Marianne actually said a little prayer for you to decide rightly—just a few words, since I always think the best prayers are really those one makes up for oneself—asking that you should see how unkind it would be to disappoint poor Aunt Stéphanie, and should make a little effort, and then write a really nicely worded welcoming telegram," said Mrs. Lloyd-Evans, in the carefully explanatory rhetoric reserved by her for directions issued to the Almighty and to any painstaking but obtuse official at the Army and Navy Stores.

      "The prayer was answered, you see," said Zella, anxious to direct the conversation back into a more personal channel.

      "Yes, dear; but Aunt Marianne always thinks that the best way to end up all prayers—give me the telegram, and I will put it in my little bag, so as not to forget it— the best way to end up a prayer, dear, is always 'Thy will be done.'"

      XXIV

       Table of Contents

      ON this last pious truism Mrs. Lloyd-Evans took her leave, saying to Zella at the drawing-room door:

      "No, dear, don't come downstairs with Aunt Marianne; you would rather keep quiet to-day, one knows." She appeared further to make herself clear in some subtle manner by adding: "I mean, one knows that you would rather keep quiet to-day."

      Having thus elucidated her meaning, Mrs. Lloyd-Evans went slowly downstairs, adjusted to her face the expression that the butler would consider suitable to one in grief, and was let out at the hall door.

      "My dear Henry, how did you get here?" she demanded in a tone of such astonishment that it almost sounded shocked, when at the corner of South Audley Street she encountered her husband.

      "I lunched at the club, dear, and meant to walk back across the Park. Are you going home now?"

      "Yes."

      At the unwonted brevity of this reply, Henry suddenly bethought himself of his wife's recent errand, and the appropriate inquiry sprang almost automatically to his lips:

      "How did you find poor little Zella?"

      "Poor little thing! I am very glad I went to her," which immediately impressed on Henry's mind a doleful conviction that his wife had found Zella inconsolable at the loss of the Baronne.

      "Has she heard from Louis?"

      "Yes, he telegraphed; although I cannot help feeling that it was a very extravagant thing to do, when a letter would have cost so much less and explained a great deal better. However, it was really to tell Zella that he has arranged for her Aunt Stéphanie, as she calls herself, to come and live with them at Villetswood," said Mrs. Lloyd-Evans, believing herself to be stating the case accurately.

      Henry Lloyd-Evans whistled softly.

      "That's rather hard luck on Zella, isn't it?"

      "No, dear, why should it be? That little dog is positively trying to follow us, Henry; I wish you would not whistle. You must remember we are in London. And why should it be hard luck on Zella? On the contrary, what one has always felt is that she needs someone to mother her, and to look after that great house at Villetswood and all those servants. That old housekeeper has always seemed to me both careless and artful. Besides, it will no doubt be a real blessing to the poor woman herself."

      "I dare say," said Henry, rightly concluding that the poor woman referred to was Mdlle. de Kervoyou. "Will she be very badly off?"

      "Practically penniless," Mrs. Lloyd-Evans's inventive genius prompted her mournfully to reply. "These foreigners, poor things, very seldom save anything, and have not our safe investments, either, for what little money they may scrape together. I always think that system of francs and centimes is very fishy, to say the least of it."

      "The decimal system is used practically all over the Continent, Marianne, and, in fact, it is only supposed to be a question of time before we take to it ourselves."

      "You may call it by any grand name you please, dear," inexorably returned his wife, "but that does not make it any safer or more practical; and the result of it all is that poor Miss de Kervoyou, the moment her mother dies, has to go and live on her half-brother's charity, which is what it really amounts to."

      Henry, well inured to the reasoning peculiar to Mrs. Lloyd-Evans, did not dispute the logic of her present conclusion, and merely inquired:

      "Then, she is going, is she?"

      "Oh yes; the whole thing is practically settled. I think poor little Zella was rather upset for the first moment or two at its having been arranged so quickly; but one was able to show her how selfish

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