Both looked up in some slight confusion at
Clarissa's entrance. They had been talking about her, she thought, but with
a supreme indifference. No petty household slander could trouble her in her
great sorrow. She went on towards the inner room, where her darling slept,
the head-nurse following obsequiously with a candle. In the night-nursery
there was only the subdued light of a shaded lamp.
"Thank you, Mrs. Brobson, but I don't want any more light," Clarissa said
quietly. "I am going to sit with baby for a little while. Take the candle
away, please; it may wake him."
It was the first time she had spoken since she had left the Rue du
Chevalier Bayard. Her own voice sounded strange to her; and yet its tone
could scarcely have betrayed less agitation.
"The second dinner-bell has rung, ma'am," Mrs. Brobson said, with a
timorously-suggestive air; "I don't know whether you are aware."
"Yes, I know, but I am not going down to dinner; I have a wretched
headache. You can tell Target to say so, if they send for me."
"Yes, ma'am; but you'll have something sent up, won't you?"
"Not yet; by and by, perhaps, I'll take a cup of tea in my dressing-room.
Go and tell Target, please, Mrs. Brobson; Mr. Granger may be waiting
dinner."
She was so anxious to get rid of the woman, to be alone with her baby. She
sat down by the cot. O, inestimable treasure! had she held him so lightly
as to give any other a place in her heart? To harbour any guilty thought
was to have sinned against this white-souled innocent.
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