"Leave the room," said Madame von Marwitz, now raising herself on her elbow and pointing to the door. "Leave the room at once. I refuse to lie here and be threatened and insulted and brow-beaten by you. Out of my sight."
Mrs. Talcott looked at the sea for a moment longer, in no provocative manner, but rather as if she had hardly heard the words addressed to her; and then she looked at Mercedes, who, still raised on her elbow, still held her arm very effectively outstretched. This, too, was no doubt a scene to which she was fully accustomed.
"All right," she said, "I'm going." She moved towards the door. At the door she halted, turned and faced Madame von Marwitz again. "But don't you forget, Mercedes Okraska," she said, "that I'll make it my affair if you ain't careful."
CHAPTER XXXIV
Karen, during the two or three days that followed her strange conversation with Mrs. Talcott, felt that while she pitied and cared for Mrs. Talcott as she had never yet pitied and cared for her, she was also afraid of her. Mrs. Talcott had spoken no further word and her eyes rested on her with no more than their customary steadiness; but Karen knew that there were many words she could speak. What were they? What was it that Mrs. Talcott knew? What secrets were they that she carried about in her lonely, ancient heart?
Mrs. Talcott loomed before her like a veiled figure of destiny bearing an urn within which lay the ashes of dead hopes. Mrs. Talcott's eyes looked at her above the urn. It was always with them. When they gardened together it was as if Mrs. Talcott set it down on the ground between them and as if she took it up again with a sigh of fatigue—it was heavy—when they turned to go. Karen felt herself tremble as she scrutinized the funereal shape. There was no refuge with Mrs. Talcott. Mrs. Talcott holding her urn was worse than the lonely fears.
And, for those two or three days of balmy, melancholy spring, the lonely fears did not press so closely. They wheeled far away against the blue. Tante was kinder to her and was more aware of her. She almost seemed a little ashamed of the scene with the piano. She spoke to Karen of it, flushing a little, explaining that she had slept badly and that Karen's rendering of the Bach had made her nervous, emphasizing, too, the rule, new in its explicitness, that the grand piano was only to be played on by Karen when it was left open. "You did not understand. But it is well to understand rules, is it not, my child?" said Madame von Marwitz. "And this one, I know, you will not transgress again."
Karen said that she understood. She had something of her rocky manner in receiving these implicit apologies and commands, yet her guardian could see an almost sick relief rising in her jaded young eyes.
Other things were different. Tante seemed now to wish very constantly to have her there when Mr. Drew was with her. She made much of her to Mr. Drew. She called his attention to her skill in gardening, to her directness of speech, to her individuality of taste in dress. These expositions made Karen uncomfortable, yet they seemed an expression of Tante's desire to make amends. And Mr. Drew, with his vague, impenetrable regard, helped her to bear them. It was as if, a clumsy child, she were continually pushed forward by a fond, tactless mother, and as if, mildly shaking her hand, the guest before whom she was displayed showed her, by kind, inattentive eyes, that he was paying very little attention to her. Mr. Drew put her at her ease and Tante embarrassed her. She became, even, a little grateful to Mr. Drew. But now, aware of this strange bond, it was more difficult to talk to him when they were alone and when, once or twice, he met her in the garden or house, she made always an excuse to leave him. She and Mr. Drew could have nothing to say to each other when Tante was not there.