"But, Mrs. Talcott," said Karen, rising and looking down at the old woman, whose face, in the dim light, had assumed to her reeling mind an aspect of dangerous infatuation—"I do not think you know what you are saying. What do I want of a man who only loves me when I cease to love my guardian?"
"Well, say you give up love, then," Mrs. Talcott persisted, and a panic seized Karen as she heard the unmoved tones. "Say you don't love him and he don't love you. You can have conventions, then—he wants that you say, and so can you—and a good home and a nice husband who won't treat you bad in any way. That's better than batting about the world all by yourself, Karen; you take my word for it. And you can take my word for it, too, that if you behave sensible and do as I say, you'll find out that all this is just a miserable mistake and that he loves you just as much as ever. Now, see here," Mrs. Talcott, also, had risen, and stood in her habitual attitude, resting heavily on one hip, "you're not fit to talk and I'm not going to worry you any more. You go to sleep and we'll see about what to do to-morrow. You go right to sleep, Karen," she patted the girl's shoulder.
The panic was deepening in Karen. She saw guile on Mrs. Talcott's storm-beaten and immutable face; and she heard specious reassurance in her voice. Mrs. Talcott was dangerous. She had set her heart on this last desire of her passionless, impersonal life and had determined that she and Gregory should come together again. It was this desire that had unsealed her lips: she would never relinquish, it. She might write to Gregory; she might appeal to him and put before him the desperate plight in which his wife was placed. And he might come. What were a wife's powers if she was homeless and penniless, and a husband claimed her? Karen did not know; but panic breathed upon her, and she felt that she must fly. She, too, could use guile. "Yes," she said. "I will go to sleep. And to-morrow we will talk. But what you hope cannot be. Good-night, Mrs. Talcott."
"Good-night, child," said Mrs. Talcott.
They had joined hands and the strangeness of this farewell, the knowledge that she might never see Mrs. Talcott again, and that she was leaving her to a life empty of all that she had believed it to contain, rose up in Karen so strongly that it blotted out for a moment her own terror.
"You have been so good to me," she said, in a trembling voice. "Never shall I forget what you have done for me, Mrs. Talcott. May I kiss you good-night?"
They had never kissed.
Mrs. Talcott's eyes blinked rapidly, and a curious contortion puckered her mouth and chin. Karen thought that she was going to cry and her own eyes filled with tears.
But Mrs. Talcott in another moment had mastered her emotion, or, more probably, it could find no outlet. The silent, stoic years had sealed the fount of weeping. Only that dry contortion of her face spoke of her deep feeling. Karen put her arms around her and they kissed each other.
"Good-night, child," Mrs. Talcott then said in a muffled voice, and disengaging herself she went out quickly.