The prelude between them resembled a game of chess in which one player made tentative moves to which the other blankly refused to respond. A series of challenges provoked nothing but monosyllabic answers. Hortense had no difficulty, as a rule, in persuading even dull or frightened people to talk. There were the many mundane topics to be invoked when necessary: clothes, music, books, men, amusements—and other women. “Mère de Dieu!” she confessed to herself, at last, “the child is impenetrable. There is a magic spring in every mortal. I have not touched it—here—as yet.” She studied Barbara with the easy air of the woman of the world who does not betray the glance behind the eyes. “And who is your great friend—in England, cara mia? We women must always have a confidential mirror, though it does not always tell us the truth. When I was quite young I used to write down all my thoughts and adventures in a book. Some of us make friends with our own souls—in our diaries.” Barbara looked at her as though all the Italian’s subtle suggestiveness beat on nothing more intelligent than the blank surface of a wall. “Do you keep a diary, madam?” Hortense laughed. “Oh, life is my diary, and then—I write on the faces of those I meet.” “Do you—how?” “You must guess my meaning.” “I can never guess anything.” “How dull! Have you travelled much—with your mother?” “My mother?” “Yes. Is she not charming? so young—and Junelike! She should promise you a long youth.” “I do not care whether she does or not.” “Then you have not learned to envy her?” “What have I to envy?” Hortense paused, with a momentary gleam of impatience in her eyes. “Has the child any enthusiasm? Let us try her on another surface. Do you remember your father, cara mia?” Barbara’s eyes met the Mancini’s with a sudden intense stare. “My father?” “He was a great scholar, was he not?” “Yes.” “Books become such friends to us! Did he teach you—at all?” “Oh, sometimes. He was very patient. How dark the sky looks!” Hortense smiled. She had a suspicion that she was no longer fumbling in the dark. She had touched the girl beneath her apathy and her reserve. “Have you your father’s books—still?” “They are in the library—covered with dust.” “Why do you not keep the dust away by reading them. You could fancy yourself talking with him when you turned the pages he had turned.” “Could I?” Hortense became silent suddenly, her face turned with an expression of sadness toward the night. “Of course. It is in our memories that we live again. The past may become a kind of religion to us.” She did not look at the girl, but her brilliant and sensitive consciousness waited for impressions. Barbara remained motionless, with stolid, morose face. “What clever things you think of!” she said, abruptly. “But the books are nearly all in Latin. I wish I had not eaten so much supper. It always makes me sleepy and stupid.”