“Kent! Don’t sit by yourself. We”—her voice was for him alone—“we’re talking about—her. I was going to show them—Kent, stay here with us.” He waited while she talked to him. And she talked very sweetly and kindly. She was the quiet, chiffony little creature again with the pretty, pure voice. _I_ couldn’t make her out. She looked up at him and said something too low for me to catch, and then— “There’s your chair. Isn’t that always your chair?” And so left him and turned to the table and the box and the others. But he did not take the saddle-bag near Anita’s own seat. He looked irresolutely from one to another of the group that watched Anita fumbling with her keys. He looked, and his face softened, at Great-aunt, muttering over her needles. He looked at the empty chair beside me. He looked at me and found me watching him. Then, as I smiled at him just a little, he came to me and sat down. But he said nothing to me, and so I was quiet too. But Anita was busy, hands and eyes and tongue all busy. “When she married, you know, in that hole-and-corner fashion——” Then, as if in answer, though nobody had spoken—“Well, what else was it, when nobody knew?—when even I didn’t know——” There was a movement in the chair beside me, and turning, I caught the ending of a glance towards my cousin. A new look, I found it, on that passive face, a roused and wondering and scornful look that transformed it. But, even as I caught it, it faded again to that other look of bleak indifference, a look to know and dread on any creature’s face, a look that must not stay on any fellow-creature’s face. I knew that well enough. So I said the first words that came, in my lowest voice, lest they should hear. But they were talking. They did not hear. “I’m sure that Great-aunt knew.” Indeed I thought so. I think that Great-aunt would always be kind and guessing with a girl. Then I wondered at myself for daring it and thought nervously—‘He’ll snub me. He’ll be right to snub me——’ But he looked across at Great-aunt kindly and said, in just such a withdrawn voice as mine— “Yes, of course, if ever there was a time when——” Then he half smiled. “Poor old lady! But she’s changed. She used to be so brisk and managing, more like fifty than seventy. But this year’s aged her. She wanted, you know, to give some pearls—her own pearls. But pearls spell sorrow. And Anita would have objected. She told me all about it.” “She was speaking of them tonight.” We both turned again and looked at her. She had dropped her knitting, or it had slipped from her knee, and she sat in her chair staring down at it with a terrible, comical air of helplessness. Then she caught his eye and forgot the knitting and nodded at him.