good care to see that the Frenchwoman was found, and at
dinner, the only meal he took with the family, he would now and then
send for the governess and Lily to come in for dessert. That, of
course, was later on, when the child was nearly ten. Then would follow
a three-cornered conversation in rapid French, Howard and Anthony and
Lily, with Mademoiselle joining in timidly, and with Grace, at the side
of the table, pretending to eat and feeling cut off, in a middle-class
world of her own, at the side of the table. Anthony Cardew had retained
the head of his table, and he had never asked her to take his dead
wife's place.

After a time Grace realized the consummate cruelty of those hours, the
fact that Lily was sent for, not only because the old man cared to
see her, but to make Grace feel the outsider that she was. She made
desperate efforts to conquer the hated language, but her accent was
atrocious. Anthony would correct her suavely, and Lily would laugh in
childish, unthinking mirth. She gave it up at last.

She never told Howard about it. He had his own difficulties with his
father, and she would not add to them. She managed the house, checked
over the bills and sent them to the office, put up a cheerful and
courageous front, and after a time sheathed herself in an armor of
smiling indifference. But she thanked heaven when the time came to
send Lily away to school. The effort of concealing the armed neutrality
between Anthony and herself was growing more wearing. The girl was
observant. And Anthony had been right, she was a Cardew. She would have
fought her grandfather out on it, defied him, accused him, hated him.
And Grace wanted peace.

Once again as she followed Lily and Mademoiselle up the stairs she felt
the barrier of language, and back of it the Cardew pride and traditions
that somehow cut her off.

But in Lily's rooms she was her sane and cheerful self again. Inside the
doorway the girl was standing, her eyes traveling over her little domain
ecstatically.

"How lovely of you not to change a thing, mother!" she said. "I was
so afraid--I know how you hate my stuff. But I might have known you
wouldn't. All the time I've been away, sleeping in a dormitory, and
taking turns at the bath, I have thought of my own little place." She
wandered around, touching her familiar possessions with caressing hands.
"I've a good notion," she declared, "to go to bed immediately, just for
the pleasure of lying in linen shee