im? Was
there anything she could have done that she had not done? Might she not
at least have saved him his suspicion? Behind his rages, perhaps he had
been wretched.

Could anyone else have helped him? If perhaps someone had loved him more
than she had ever pretended to do----

How strange that she should be so intimately in this room--and still so
alien. So alien that she could feel nothing but detached wonder at his
infinite loss.... _Alien_,--that was what she had always been, a
captured alien in this man's household,--a girl he had taken. Had he
ever suspected how alien? The true mourner, poor woman! was even now, in
charge of Cook's couriers and interpreters, coming by express from
London, to see with her own eyes this last still phase of the son she
had borne into the world and watched and sought to serve. She was his
nearest; she indeed was the only near thing there had ever been in his
life. Once at least he must have loved her? And even she had not been
very near. No one had ever been very near his calculating suspicious
heart. Had he ever said or thought any really sweet or tender
thing--even about her? He had been generous to her in money matters, of
course,--but out of a vast abundance....

How good it was to have a friend! How good it was to have even one
single friend!...

At the thought of his mother Lady Harman's mind began to drift slowly
from this stiff culmination of life before her. Presently she replaced
the white cloth upon his face and turned slowly away. Her imagination
had taken up the question of how that poor old lady was to be met, how
she was to be consoled, what was to be said to her....

She began to plan arrangements. The room ought to be filled with
flowers; Mrs. Harman would expect flowers, large heavy white flowers in
great abundance. That would have to be seen to soon. One might get them
in Rapallo. And afterwards,--they would have to take him to England, and
have a fine great funeral, with every black circumstance his wealth and
his position demanded. Mrs. Harman would need that, and so it must be
done. Cabinet Ministers must follow him, members of Parliament, all
Blenkerdom feeling self-consciously and, as far as possible, deeply, the
Chartersons by way of friends, unfamiliar blood relations, a vast
retinue of employees....

How could one take him? Would he have to be embalmed? Embalming!--what a
strange complement of death. She averted herself a little more from the
quiet