"Lie back. I'll feed it to you," said Mrs. Talcott. "It's good and strong. You know Adolphe can make as good a _consommée_ as anybody, if he's a mind to." "Is Adolphe here?" Karen asked as she swallowed the spoonfuls. "Yes, I sent for Adolphe to Paris a week ago," said Mrs. Talcott. "Mercedes wrote that she'd soon be coming with friends and wanted him. He'd just taken a situation, but he dropped it. Her new motor's here, too, down from London. The chauffeur seems a mighty nice man, a sight nicer than Hammond." Hammond had been Madame von Marwitz's recent coachman. Mrs. Talcott talked on mildly while she fed Karen who, in the whirl of trivial thoughts, turning and turning like midges over a deep pool, questioned herself, with a vague wonder that she was too tired to follow: "Did Tante say anything to me about coming to Cornwall?" Mrs. Talcott, meanwhile, as Madame von Marwitz had prophesied, asked no questions. "Now you have a good long sleep," she said, when she rose to go. "That's what you need." She needed it very much. The midges turned more and more slowly, then sank into the pool; mist enveloped everything, and darkness. CHAPTER XXX Karen was waked next morning by the familiar sound of the _Wohltemperirtes Clavier_. Tante was at work in the music-room and was playing the prelude in D flat, a special favourite of Karen's. She lay and listened with a curious, cautious pleasure, like that with which, half awake, one may guide a charming dream, knowing it to be a dream. There was so much waiting to be remembered; so much waiting to be thought. Tante's beautiful notes, rising to her like the bubbles of a spring through clear water, seemed to encircle her, ringing her in from the wider consciousness. While she listened she looked out at the branches of young leaves, softly stirring against the morning sky. There was her wall-paper, with the little pink flower creeping up it. She was in her own little bed. Tante was practising. How sweet, how safe, it was. A drowsy peace filled her. It was slowly that memory, lapping in, like the sinister, dark waters of a flood under doors and through crevices, made its way into her mind, obliterating peace, at first, rather than revealing pain. There was a fear formless and featureless; and there was loss, dreadful loss. And as the sense of loss grew upon her, consciousness grew more vivid, bringing its visions. This hour of awakening. Gregory's eyes smiling at her, not cold, not hard eyes then. His hand stretched out to hers; their morning kiss. Tears suddenly streamed down her face. It was impossible to hide them from Mrs. Talcott, who came in carrying a breakfast tray; but Karen checked them, and dried her eyes. Mrs. Talcott set the tray down on the little table near the bed. "Is it late, Mrs. Talcott?" Karen asked. "It's just nine; Mercedes is up early so as to get some work in before she goes out motoring." "She is going motoring?"