"Well, I don't know as I am," Mrs. Talcott, who had a genius it seemed for non-committal statements, varied; and then, as though aware that her answers might seem ungracious, she added: "All my folks are dead. There's no reason for my wanting to go home that I can think of."
"Besides, Mrs. Talcott," Karen now helped her on, "home to you is where Tante is, isn't it. Mrs. Talcott has lived with Tante ever since Tante was born. No one in the world knows her as well as she does. It is rather wonderful to think about." She had the air, finding Mrs. Talcott appreciated, of putting forward for her her great claim to distinction.
"Yes; I know Mercedes pretty well," Mrs. Talcott conceded.
"How I love to hear about it," said Karen; "about her first concert, you know, Mrs. Talcott, when you curled her hair—such long, bright brown hair, she had, and so thick, falling below her waist, didn't it?" Mrs. Talcott nodded with a certain complacency. "And she wore a little white muslin frock and white shoes and a blue sash; she was only nine years old; it was a great concert in Warsaw. And she didn't want her hair curled, and combed it all out with her fingers just before going on to the platform—didn't she?"
Mrs. Talcott was slightly smiling over these reminiscences. "Smart little thing," she commented. "She did it the last minute so as it was too late for me to fix it again. It made me feel dreadful her going on to the platform with her head all mussed up like that. She looked mighty pretty all the same."
"And she was right, too, wasn't she?" said Karen, elated, evidently, at having so successfully drawn Mrs. Talcott out. "Her hair was never curly, was it. It looked better straight, I'm sure."
"Well, I don't know about that," said Mrs. Talcott. "I always like it curled best, when she was little. But I had to own to myself she looked mighty pretty, though I was so mad at her."
"Tante has always had her own way, I imagine," said Karen, "about anything she set her mind on. She had her way about being an infant prodigy; though you were so right about that—she has often said so, hasn't she, and how thankful she is that you were able to stop it before it did her harm. I must show you our photographs of Tante, Mr. Jardine. We have volumes and volumes, and boxes and boxes of them. They are far more like her, I think, many of them, than the portrait. Some of them too dear and quaint—when she was quite tiny."
Tea was over and Karen, rising, looked towards the shelves where, evidently, the volumes and boxes were kept.
"I really think I'd rather see some more of this lovely place, first," said Gregory. "Do take me further along the cliff. I could see the photographs, you know, the next time I come."