"The Lippheims? So?"
"The others, Tante, would have talked to me; and questioned me. I could not have borne that. The Lippheims were so kind."
"I can believe it. They have hearts of gold, those Lippheims. They would cut themselves in four to help one. And the good Lise? How is she? I am sorry to have missed Lise."
"And she was, oh, so sorry to have missed you, Tante. She is well, I think, though tired; she is always tired, you remember. She has too much to do."
"Indeed, yes; poor Lise. She might have been an artist of the first rank if she had not given herself over to the making of children. Why did she not stop at Franz and Lotta and Minna? That would have given her the quartette,"—Madame von Marwitz smiled—she was in a mildly merry mood. "But on they go—four, five, six, seven, eight—how many are there—bon Dieu! of how many am I the god-mother? One grows bewildered. It is almost a rat's family. Lise is not unlike a white mother-rat, with the small round eye and the fat body."
"Oh—not a rat, Tante," Karen protested, a little pained.
"A rabbit, you think? And a rabbit, too, is prolific. No; for the rabbit has not the sharpness, not the pointed nose, the anxious, eager look—is not so the mother, indeed. Rat it is, my Karen; and rat with a golden heart. How do you find Tallie? She has been with you all the morning? You have not talked with Tallie of our calamities?"
"Oh, no, Tante."
"She is a wise person, Tallie; wise, silent, discreet. And I find her looking well; but very, very well; this air preserves her. And how old is Tallie now?" she mused.
Though she talked so sweetly there was, Karen felt it now, a perfunctoriness in Tante's remarks. She was, for all the play of her nimble fancy, preoccupied, and the sound of the motor-horn below seemed a signal for release. "Tallie is, mon Dieu," she computed, rising—"she was twenty-three when I was born—and I am nearly fifty"—Madame von Marwitz was as far above cowardly reticences about her age as a timeless goddess—"Tallie is actually seventy-two. Well, I must be off, ma chérie. We have a long trip to make to-day. We go to Fowey. He wishes to see Fowey. I pray the weather may continue fine. You will be with us this evening? You will get up? You will come to dinner?"