Page:Haworth's.djvu/283

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A SUMMER AFTERNOON.
257

it and felt that she would like to revenge herself upon it quietly. She had merely meant to try the effect of these people and their surroundings upon herself as a fine experiment, but the effect was stronger than she had anticipated. When she went away Christian accompanied her to the door.

In the narrow passage Rachel Ffrench turned and looked at her—giving her a glance from head to foot.

"I think I have seen you before," she said.

"You know you have seen me," the girl answered.

"I have seen you on the Continent. Your apartment was opposite to ours in Paris—when you were with your mother. I used to watch the people go in and out. You are very like your mother."

And she left her, not looking back once,—as if there was no living creature behind, or as if she had forgotten that there was one.

Christian went back to the room within. She sat down but did not take up her work again.

"Do you know why she came?" she asked.

"Yes."

"Why?"

"She came to look at us—to see what manner of people we were—to see how we lived—to measure the distance between our life and hers. As she went away," she went on, "she remembered that she had seen me before. She told me that I was very like my mother."

She leaned forward, her hands clasped palm to palm between her knees.

"There was a man who did my mother a great wrong once," she said. "They had loved each other in a mad sort of way for a long time, but in the end, I suppose, he got tired, for suddenly he went away. When he was