"Perhaps he's gone where things are unsettled because everything is too much settled here," replied Fanny, with her satirical smile.
"But Cornie!"
"Oh," said Fanny, luxuriously stretching herself like a cat that needs exercise, "if one of these timid souls is hit hard enough, there's no telling what he'll do."
CHAPTER XIV
Before the end of summer Lilla returned to the house on lower Fifth Avenue.
In the hall paved with black and white tiles, the chasteness of the ivory-colored wainscot set off two stately consoles, on which lamps with cylindrical shades of painted parchment were reflected in antique mirrors. The drawing-room furniture, from the eighteenth century, displayed its discreet elegance against the sage green walls and the formal folds of the mulberry-colored curtains; while over the chimney piece, which was ornamented with three vases of the Renaissance in silver gilt, a painting by Bronzino focused the gaze upon a triumph of romance over formality. This painting, in this room, was like a gesture of Aunt Althea's real self.
"How well she kept her secret," Lilla thought "She was rather heroic, it seems."
And she felt as surprised a sadness as though she were the first who had not quite appreciated the departed.
"The departed!"