Mrs. Talcott soon returned with a tray on which were set out hot consommée and chicken and salad, a peach beside them. Hot-house fruit was never wanting when Madame von Marwitz was at Les Solitudes.
"Lie back. I'll feed it to you," said Mrs. Talcott. "It's good and strong. You know Adolphe can make as good a consommée as anybody, if he's a mind to."
"Is Adolphe here?" Karen asked as she swallowed the spoonfuls.
"Yes, I sent for Adolphe to Paris a week ago," said Mrs. Talcott. "Mercedes wrote that she'd soon be coming with friends and wanted him. He'd just taken a situation, but he dropped it. Her new motor's here, too, down from London. The chauffeur seems a mighty nice man, a sight nicer than Hammond." Hammond had been Madame von Marwitz's recent coachman. Mrs. Talcott talked on mildly while she fed Karen who, in the whirl of trivial thoughts, turning and turning like midges over a deep pool, questioned herself, with a vague wonder that she was too tired to follow: "Did Tante say anything to me about coming to Cornwall?"
Mrs. Talcott, meanwhile, as Madame von Marwitz had prophesied, asked no questions.
"Now you have a good long sleep," she said, when she rose to go. "That's what you need."
She needed it very much. The midges turned more and more slowly, then sank into the pool; mist enveloped everything, and darkness.
CHAPTER XXX
Karen was waked next morning by the familiar sound of the Wohltemperirtes Clavier.