im. "You, too, think it a perfect likeness?" he
asked her. Her old blue eyes, old in the antique tranquillity of their
regard, yet still of such a vivid, unfaded turquoise, turned on him and
again he had that impression of an impassive piercing.

"It seems to me about as good a picture as anyone's likely to get," said
Mrs. Talcott.

"Yes, but, oh Mrs. Talcott"--with controlled impatience Karen took her
up--"surely you see,--it isn't Tante. It is a genius, a great woman, a
beautiful woman, a beautiful and poetic creature, of course;--he has
seen all that--who wouldn't? but it is almost a woman without a heart.
There is something heartless there. I always feel it. And when one
thinks of Tante!" And Mrs. Talcott remaining silent, she insisted: "Can
you really say you don't see what I mean?"

"Well, I never cared much about pictures anyway," Mrs. Talcott now
remarked.

"Well, but you care for this one more than I do!" Karen returned, with a
laugh of vexation. "It isn't a question of pictures; it's a question of
a likeness. You really think that this does Tante justice? It's that I
can't understand."

Mrs. Talcott, thus pursued, again looked up at the portrait, and
continued, now, to look at it for several moments. And as she stood
there, looking up, she suddenly and comically reminded Gregory of the
Frog gardener before the door in "Alice," with his stubborn and
deliberate misunderstanding. He could almost have expected to see Mrs.
Talcott advance her thumb and rub the portrait, as if to probe the cause
of her questioner's persistence. When she finally spoke it was only to
vary her former judgment: "It seems to me about as good a picture as
Mercedes is likely to get taken," she said. She pronounced the Spanish
name: "Mursadees."

Karen, after this, abandoned her attempt to convince Mrs. Talcott. Tea
was ready, and they went into the morning-room. Here Mrs. Talcott
presided at the tea-table, and for all his dominating preoccupation she
continued to engage a large part of Gregory's attention. She sat,
leaning back in her chair, slowly eating, her eyes, like tiny, blue
stones, immeasurably remote, immeasurably sad, fixed on the sea.

"Is it long since you were in America?" he asked her. He felt drawn to
Mrs. Talcott.

"Why, I guess it's getting on for twenty-five years now," she replied,
after considering for a moment; "since I've lived there. I've been over
three or four times with Mercedes; on tours."

"Twenty-fi