governess of Aimée, returned now to her old room in the palace for
the wedding preparations.

There was history behind madame's sculptured face. In an incredibly
impulsive youth she had fled from France with a handsome captain of
Algerian dragoons; after a certain matter at cards he had ceased to
be a captain and became petty official in a Cairo importing house;
later yet, he became an invalid.

Life, for the Frenchwoman, was a matter of paying for her husband's
illness, then for his funeral expenses, and then of continuing to
pay for the little one which the climate had required them to send
to a convent in France.

There was, at first, the hope of reunion, extinguished by each
added year. What could madame, unknown, unfriended, unaccredited,
accomplish in France? The mere getting there was impossible--the
little one required so much. Her daughter was no dependent upon
charity. And in Cairo madame had a clientèle, she commanded a price.
And so for the child's sake she taught and saved, concentrating now
upon a dot, and feeding her heart with the dutifully phrased letters
arriving each week of the years, and the occasional photographs of
an ever-growing, unknown young creature.

It was to madame's care that Aimée had been given when the
motherless girl had grown beyond old Miriam's ministrations, and for
nearly nine years in the palace madame had maintained her courteous
and tactful supervision. Indeed, it was only this last year that
madame had undertaken new relations with the world outside,
perceiving that Aimée would not longer require her.