anything she set her mind on. She had her way about being an infant
prodigy; though you were so right about that--she has often said so,
hasn't she, and how thankful she is that you were able to stop it before
it did her harm. I must show you our photographs of Tante, Mr. Jardine.
We have volumes and volumes, and boxes and boxes of them. They are far
more like her, I think, many of them, than the portrait. Some of them
too dear and quaint--when she was quite tiny."

Tea was over and Karen, rising, looked towards the shelves where,
evidently, the volumes and boxes were kept.

"I really think I'd rather see some more of this lovely place, first,"
said Gregory. "Do take me further along the cliff. I could see the
photographs, you know, the next time I come."

He, too, had risen and was smiling at her with a little constraint.

Karen, arrested on her way to the photographs, looked at him in
surprise. "Will you come again? You are to be in Cornwall so long?"

"I'm to be here about a fortnight and I should like to come often, if I
may." She was unaware, disconcertingly unaware; yet her surprise showed
the frankest pleasure.

"How very nice," she said. "I did not think that you could come all that
way more than once."

While they spoke, Mrs. Talcott's ancient, turquoise eyes were upon them,
and in her presence Gregory found it easier to say things than it would
have been to say them to Karen alone. Already, he felt sure, Mrs.
Talcott understood, and if it was easy to say things in her presence
might that not be because he guessed that she sympathised? "But I came
down to Cornwall to see you," he said, leaning on his chair back and
tilting it a little while he smiled at Karen.

Her pleasure rose in a flush to her cheek. "To see me?"

"Yes; I felt from our letters that we ought to become great friends."

She looked at him, pondering the unlooked-for possibility he put before
her. "Great friends?" she repeated. "I have never had a great friend of
my own. Friends, of course; the Lippheims and the Belots; and Strepoff;
and you, of course, Mrs. Talcott; but never, really, a great friend
quite of my own, for they are Tante's friends first and come through
Tante. Of course you have come through Tante, too," said Karen, with
evident satisfaction; "only not quite in the same way."

"Not at all in the same way," said Gregory. "Don't forget. We met at the
concert, and without any introduction! It has nothing to do with Madame