ice
young husband--I don't feel like I could get over it somehow." Leaning
on Karen's arm with both hands she had paused and looked intently down
at the path.

"But Mrs. Talcott," Karen's voice trembled; it was incredible, yet one
was forced by Mrs. Talcott's whole demeanour to ask the question without
indignation--"you speak as if you were blaming Tante for something. You
do not blame her, do you?"

Mrs. Talcott still paused and still looked down, as if deeply pondering.
"I've done a lot of thinking about that very point, Karen," she said.
"And I don't know as I've made up my mind yet. It's a mighty intricate
question. Perhaps we've all got only so much will-power and when most of
it is ladled out into one thing there's nothing left to ladle out into
the others. That's the way I try, sometimes, to figure it out to myself.
Mercedes has got a powerful sight of will-power; but look at all she's
got to use up in her piano-playing. There she is, working up to the last
notch all the time, taking it out of herself, getting all wrought up.
Well, to live so as you won't be spoiling things for other people needs
about as much will-power as piano-playing, I guess, when you're as big a
person as Mercedes and want as many things. And if you ain't got any
will-power left you just do the easiest thing; you just take what you've
a mind to; you just let yourself go in every other way to make up for
the one way you held yourself in. That's how it is, perhaps."

"But Mrs. Talcott," said Karen in a low voice, "all this--about me and
my husband--has come because Tante has thought too much of us and too
little of herself. It would have been much easier for her to let us
alone and not try and make Gregory like her. I do not recognise her in
what you are saying. You are saying dreadful things."

"Well, dreadful things have happened, I guess," said Mrs. Talcott. "I
want you to go back to your nice husband, Karen."

"No; no. Never. I can never go back to him," said Karen, walking on.

"Because he hates Mercedes?"

"Not only that. No. He is not what I thought. Do not ask me, Mrs.
Talcott. We do not love each other any longer. It is over."

"Well, I won't say anything about it, then," said Mrs. Talcott, who,
walking beside her, kept her hand on her arm. "Only I liked Mr. Jardine.
I took to him right off, and I don't take to people so easy. And I take
to you, Karen, more than you know, I guess. And I'll lay my bottom
dollar there's some m