"You are not eating, child," the Dowager said, and her eyes were
gentle.

Valerie looked up like one suddenly awakened; and in that moment
her eyes filled with tears. It was as if the Dowager's voice had
opened the floodgates of her sorrow and let out the tears that
hitherto had been repressed. The Marquise rose and waved the page
and an attendant lackey from the room. She crossed to Valerie's
side and put her arm about the girl's shoulder.

"What ails you, child?" she asked. For a moment the girl suffered
the caress; almost she seemed to nestle closer to the Dowager's
shoulder. Then, as if understanding had come to her suddenly, she
drew back and quietly disengaged herself from the other's arms. Her
tears ceased; the quiver passed from her lip.

"You are very good, madame," she said, with a coldness that rendered
the courteous words almost insulting, "but nothing ails me save a
wish to be alone."

"You have been alone too much of late," the Dowager answered,
persisting in her wish to show kindness to Valerie; for all that,
had she looked into her own heart, she might have been puzzled to
find a reason for her mood - unless the reason lay in her own
affliction of anxiety for Marius.

"Perhaps I have," said the girl, in the same cold, almost strained
voice. "It was not by my own contriving."