, perhaps, a little lost her temper with him;
and his manner was, Karen reflected, by no means assiduous: At the
table, however, Tante showed herself suave and sweet.

One reason why things seemed a little strange, Karen further reflected,
was that Mrs. Talcott came no longer to dinner; and she was vaguely
sorry for this.

CHAPTER XXXI

Karen's boxes arrived next day, neatly packed by Mrs. Barker. And not
only her clothes were in them. She had left behind her the jewel-box
with the pearl necklace that Gregory had given her, the pearl and
sapphire ring, the old enamel brooch and clasp and chain, his presents
all. The box was kept locked, and in a cupboard of which Gregory had the
key; so that he must have given it to Mrs. Barker. The photographs, too,
from their room, not those of him, but those of Tante; of her father;
and a half a dozen little porcelain and silver trinkets from the
drawing-room, presents and purchases particularly hers.

It was right, quite right, that he should send them. She knew it. It was
right that he should accept their parting as final. Yet that he should
so accurately select and send to her everything that could remind him of
her seemed to roll the stone before the tomb.

She looked at the necklace, the ring, all the pretty things, and shut
the box. Impossible that she should keep them yet impossible to send
them back as if in a bandying of rebuffs. She would wait for some years
to pass and then they should be returned without comment.

And the clothes, all these dear clothes of her married life; every dress
and hat was associated with Gregory. She could never wear them again.
And it felt, not so much that she was locking them away, as that Gregory
had locked her out into darkness and loneliness. She took up the round
of the days. She practised; she gardened, she walked and read. Of Tante
she saw little.

She was accustomed to seeing little of Tante, even when Tante was there;
quite accustomed to Tante's preoccupations. Yet, through the fog of her
own unhappiness, it came to her, like an object dimly perceived, that in
this preoccupation of Tante's there was a difference. It showed, itself
in a high-pitched restlessness, verging now and again on irritation--not
with her, Karen, but with Mr. Drew. To Karen she was brightly,
punctually tender, yet it was a tenderness that held her away rather
than drew her near.

Karen did not need to be put aside. She had always known how to eff