"My opinion is it's Aunt Valeria's face, but sometimes—sometimes it looks like me."
Neither spoke for awhile. Val sat huddled together staring into the blaze.
"She used to lie on the rug here before the fire, too."
The girl threw back her head like one shaking off an evil dream, but her eye was suddenly arrested.
"I wonder what she thought of Mazeppa."
"Mazeppa?" echoed Julia.
"Yes." The other nodded to the iron bas-relief above the grate. "The first time I heard father talk about natural law, about lines of least resistance and all kinds of horrors (ante-natal tendencies and the rest), I used to think of Mazeppa, and feel I was being bound on the wild horse of the Past and left to the wolves. But I always knew I should escape. It troubles me when I remember that Aunt Valeria didn't. And perhaps she sat here with the same faith I have." She gave a little shiver and stood up. "No, no; of course we've been utterly different from the beginning."
"You've changed in the last two years more than anybody I ever knew."
Val turned quickly upon her friend.
"You mean, I'm getting to be like Aunt Valeria?"