and the results of their interplay with environment.
The languors, the feverish indolences, the caprice of generations of
Spanish exiles were there, and the ambiguity, the fierceness of Slav
ancestry. And, subtly interwoven, were the marks of her public life upon
her. The face, so moulded to indifference, was yet so aware of
observation, so adjusted to it, so insatiable of it, that, sitting
there, absorbed and brooding, lovely with her looped pearls and
diamonds, her silver broideries and silken fringes, she was a product of
the public, a creature reared on adulation, breathing it in softly,
peacefully, as the white flowers beside her breathed in light and air.
Her craftsmanship, her genius, though indicated, were submerged in this
pervasive quality of an indifference based securely on the ever present
consciousness that none could be indifferent to her. And more than the
passive acceptance and security was indicated. Strange, sleeping
potentialities lurked in the face; as at the turn of a kaleidoscope,
Gregory could fancy it suddenly transformed, by some hostile touch, some
menace, to a savage violence and rapacity. He was aware, standing
between the girl who worshipped her and the devoted old woman, of the
pang of a curious anxiety.

"Well," said Karen at last, and she looked from the picture to him.
"What do you think of it?"

"It's splendid," said Gregory. "It's very fine. And beautiful."

"But does it altogether satisfy you?" Her eyes were again on the
portrait. "What is lacking, I cannot say; but it seems to me that it is
painted with intelligence only, not with love. It is Madame Okraska, the
great genius; but it is not Tante; it is not even Madame von Marwitz."

The portrait seemed to Gregory to go so much further and so much deeper
than what he had himself seen that it was difficult to believe that hers
might be the deepest vision, but he was glad to take refuge in the
possibility. "It does seem to me wonderfully like," he said. "But then I
don't know 'Tante.'"

Karen now glanced at Mrs. Talcott. "It is a great bone of contention
between us," she said, smiling at the old lady, yet smiling, Gregory
observed, with a touch of challenge. "She feels it quite complete. That,
in someone who does know Tante, I cannot understand."

Mrs. Talcott, making no reply, glanced up at the portrait and then,
again, out at the sea.

Gregory looked at her with awakened curiosity. This agreement was an
unexpected prop for h