"Cara's remark is precocious but pointed," said Maryan, with the edges of his lips.
Malvina, too, began to speak. Giving a small cup to her son, she inquired:
"You like black coffee so well that I ought to reserve another cup, ought I not?"
Maryan made no answer; with a wrinkle on her forehead, and a smile on her lips, she continued quickly and hurriedly:
"I share your taste for coffee, Maryan. Some time ago I drank much coffee, but I saw that it injured my nerves and deprived me of sleep. It is very disagreeable not to sleep, and better to give up a favorite luxury than suffer from insomnia."
Smiling and moving her head she talked, and talked on with great charm, and with a sweetness which always filled the tones of her voice. She mentioned mere nothings, connecting opinion with opinion, just to talk, to kill time, or avoid other topics. Darvid raised his head somewhat and looked at her through the glasses with which he had shaded his eyes until she bent her head before the gleam in those glasses, and her face sank very low over the cup, and was covered with an expression not to be hidden by a woman who wants to vanish through the earth, dissolve in air, become a shade, become dust, become a corpse; if she can only escape from where she is and from being what she is. Then Irene, with a light tap, dropping her cup on the saucer, began:
"You must know well, father, how they make coffee in the Orient?"
He knew, for he had been in the Orient; and, in a way which was picturesque enough, he told about the Turks; how, sitting around in a circle, they put the favorite drink into their mouths slowly.
"They delight themselves with it, as dignified as Magi, and silent as fish. The time in which they give themselves to this absolute rest, composed of black coffee and silence, bears with them the name 'keif.'"
This word called laughter to the lips of all. Darvid laughed, too. On all faces weariness grew evident. Cara's thin voice called out: