CHAPTER LI
"Yes," said Eugenia at the breakfast table, "Marise was suddenly called back to France by family matters. She is her widowed father's housekeeper, you know; and then too, there is an old servant somewhere who brought her up, whom she feels it her duty to go to see every once in a while."
"What's her address in Paris?" asked Mr. Crittenden urgently.
"I can give that to you, but if you're thinking of writing her a card it wouldn't reach her, for she was to go directly on to the south, and I haven't the least idea what that address is. Some tiny village on the sea-coast, I believe. Or is it in the Pyrenees? But she will be back very soon, almost any day. It's hardly worth while trying to write her. She'll be here before a card could follow her around."
Mr. Crittenden got up, leaving his coffee untouched, and left the breakfast-room in his unceremonious American way, without a sign of decent civility.
Mr. Livingstone looked at Miss Mills eloquently, with a shrug which meant, "What can you expect?"
Eugenia waited till every one, except herself and Mr, Livingstone had left the room, and then said hesitatingly, "Mr. Livingstone, I wonder …" He was on the alert in an instant, surprised at her personal manner. "It's an outrageously big favor to ask of you, but I don't know any one else adroit enough to manage it." She paused, reflected and drew back shaking her head, "Oh, no; no! what am I thinking of?"
By this time Mr. Livingstone was in the chair beside her, assuring her warmly that if there was anything, anything he could do to be of service—"I shall consider it an honor, Miss Mills, I assure you, an honor!"
Miss Mills let her blue eyes rest on his deeply, as if sounding the depths of his sincerity, and then, with a yielding gesture of abandon, decided to trust him, "I've been foolish, and I'm so
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