Madame uttered
a slumbering moan, and turned more upon her face, clasping the coverlet
faster about her.
'Madame, it is Maud and Lady Knollys. We have come to relieve your ear.
Pray let me see it. She can't be asleep, she's holding the clothes so fast.
Do, pray, allow me to see it.'
CHAPTER XI
_LADY KNOLLYS SEES THE FEATURES_
Perhaps, if Madame had murmured, 'It is quite well--pray permit me to
sleep,' she would have escaped an awkwardness. But having adopted the role
of the exhausted slumberer, she could not consistently speak at the moment;
neither would it do by main force, to hold the coverlet about her face, and
so her presence of mind forsook her. Cousin Monica drew it back and hardly
beheld the profile of the sufferer, when her good-humoured face was lined
and shadowed with a dark curiosity and a surprise by no means pleasant. She
stood erect beside the bed, with her mouth firmly shut and drawn down at
the corners, in a sort of recoil and perturbation, looking down upon the
patient.
'So that's Madame de la Rougierre?' at length exclaimed Lady Knollys, with
a very stately disdain.
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