Rather was her mood charitable, no doubt because she felt herself the need of charity, the want of sympathy.
She was tormented by fears altogether disproportionate to their cause.
A hundred times she told herself that no ill could befall Marius.
Florimond was a sick man, and were he otherwise, there was still Fortunio to stand by and see to it that the right sword pierced the right heart, else would his pistoles be lost to him.
Nevertheless she was fretted by anxiety, and she waited impatiently for news, fuming at the delay, yet knowing full well that news could not yet reach her.
Once she reproved Valerie for her lack of appetite, and there was in her voice a kindness Valerie had not heard for months--not since the old Marquis died, nor did she hear it now, or, hearing it, she did not heed it.
"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.