ou, but you ain't a stupid woman, and you know precious well what
you're about all the time. I don't say you intended to blow up the whole
concern like you've done; but you wanted to get even with Mr. Jardine
and show him that Karen cared as much for you as she did for him, and
you didn't mind two straws what happened to Karen while you were doing
it."

Madame von Marwitz had listened, turning on her back and with her eyes
still on the ceiling, and the calm of her face might have been that of
indifference or meditation. But now, after a moment of receptive
silence, indignation again seemed to seize her. "It's false!" she
exclaimed.

"No it ain't false, Mercedes, and you know it ain't," said Mrs. Talcott
gloomily.

"False, and absolutely false!" Madame von Marwitz repeated. "How could I
keep my mouth shut--as you delicately put it--when I saw that Karen saw?
How keep my mouth shut without warping her relation to me? I spoke to
her with lightest, most tender understanding, so that she should know
that my heart was with her while never dreaming of the chasms that I saw
in her happiness. It was he who forced me to an open declaration and he
who forced me to leave; for how was happiness possible for Karen if I
remained with them? No. He hated me, and was devoured by jealousy of
Karen's love for me."

"I guess if it comes to jealousy you've got enough for two in any
situation. It don't do for you to talk to me about jealousy, Mercedes,"
Mrs. Talcott returned, "I've seen too much of you. You can't persuade me
it wasn't your fault, not if you were to talk till the cows come home. I
don't deny but what it was pretty hard for you to see that Mr. Jardine
didn't admire you. I make allowances for that; but my gracious me," said
Mrs. Talcott with melancholy emphasis, "was that any reason for a big
middle-aged woman like you behaving like a spiteful child? Was it any
reason for your setting to work to spoil Karen's life? No, Mercedes,
you've done about as mean a thing as any I've seen you up to and what I
want to know now is what you're going to do about it."

"Do about it?" Madame von Marwitz wrathfully repeated. "What more can I
do? I open my house and my heart to the child. I take her back. I mend
the life that he has broken. What more do you expect of me?"

"Don't talk that sort of stage talk to me, Mercedes. What I want you to
do is to make it possible so as he can get her back."

"He is welcome to get her back if he can.