"Remember, mamma, how you and I, with one small assistant in Cara, ate whole baskets of cakes, or big, big boxes of confectionery. Now that is past. I notice this long time that you eat almost nothing, and that you dress richly only because you must do so. At times, were it possible, you would put on haircloth instead of rich silks, would you not? Have I guessed rightly?"
While a faint blush covered her forehead and cheeks again,
Malvina answered:
"Rightly."
Irene grew thoughtful; without raising her eyes to her mother she inquired in a low voice:
"What is the cause of this?"
"Returning currents of life are the cause," answered Malvina after a rather long silence, and she continued, thoughtfully: "You see, my child, currents of a river when once they have passed never come back again, but currents of life come hack. My early youth was poor, as you know, calm, laborious, brightened by ideals, from which I have deviated much! That was long ago, but it happened. In life so many years pass sometimes, that events which precede those years seem a dream, but they are real and come back to us."
Irene listened to this hesitating, low conversation with drooping eyelids and forehead resting on her hand. She made no answer. Malvina, sunk in thought, was silent also.
A few minutes later the tea things vanished from the table, removed without a sound almost, and borne out by the young waiting-maid.
With eyelids still drooping, as if she were finishing an idea circling stubbornly in her head, Irene said with pensive lips:
"A haircloth!" She rose then, and, suppressing a yawn, said: "I am sleepy. Good-night, mamma, dear!" She placed a brief kiss on her mother's hand: "Shall I call Kosalia?"