ndeed. Rat it is, my Karen; and rat with a golden
heart. How do you find Tallie? She has been with you all the morning?
You have not talked with Tallie of our calamities?"

"Oh, no, Tante."

"She is a wise person, Tallie; wise, silent, discreet. And I find her
looking well; but very, very well; this air preserves her. And how old
is Tallie now?" she mused.

Though she talked so sweetly there was, Karen felt it now, a
perfunctoriness in Tante's remarks. She was, for all the play of her
nimble fancy, preoccupied, and the sound of the motor-horn below seemed
a signal for release. "Tallie is, _mon Dieu_," she computed,
rising--"she was twenty-three when I was born--and I am nearly
fifty"--Madame von Marwitz was as far above cowardly reticences about
her age as a timeless goddess--"Tallie is actually seventy-two. Well, I
must be off, _ma cherie_. We have a long trip to make to-day. We go to
Fowey. He wishes to see Fowey. I pray the weather may continue fine. You
will be with us this evening? You will get up? You will come to dinner?"

She paused at the mantelpiece to adjust her veil, and Karen, in the
glass, saw that her eyes were fixed on hers with a certain intentness.

"Yes, I will get up this morning, Tante," she said. "I will help Mrs.
Talcott with the garden. But dinner? Mrs. Talcott says that she has
supper now. Shall I not have my supper with her? Perhaps she would like
that?"

"That would perhaps be well," said Madame von Marwitz. "That is perhaps
well thought." Still she paused and still, in the glass, she fixed
cogitating eyes on Karen. She turned, then, abruptly. "But no; I do not
think so. On second thoughts I do not think so. You will dine with us.
Tallie is quite happy alone. She is pleased with the early supper. I
shall see you, then, this evening."

A slight irritation lay on her brows; but she leaned with all her
tenderness to kiss Karen, murmuring, "_Adieu, mon enfant_."

When the sound of the motor had died away Karen got up, dressed and went
downstairs.

The music-room, its windows open to the sea, was full of the signs of
occupancy.

The great piano stood open. Karen went to it and, standing over it,
played softly the dearly loved notes of the prelude in D flat.

She practised, always, on the upright piano in the morning-room; but
when Tante was at home and left the grand piano open she often played on
that. It was a privilege rarely to be resisted and to-day she sat down
and played the fu