"Oh! He insisted on her keeping it with her." March laughed again, but this time he laughed alone, and after a while she said: "Well, they gave just the right relief to Nuremberg, with their good, clean American philistinism. I don't mind their thinking us queer; they must have thought Nuremberg was queer." "Yes. We oldsters are always queer to the young. We're either ridiculously lively and chirpy, or we're ridiculously stiff and grim; they never expect to be like us, and wouldn't, for the world. The worst of it is, we elderly people are absurd to one another; we don't, at the bottom of our hearts, believe we're like that, when we meet. I suppose that arrogant old ass of a Triscoe looks upon me as a grinning dotard." "I wonder," said Mrs. March, "if she's told him yet," and March perceived that she was now suddenly far from the mood of philosophic introspection; but he had no difficulty in following her. "She's had time enough. But it was an awkward task Burnamy left to her." "Yes, when I think of that, I can hardly forgive him for coming back in that way. I know she is dead in love with him; but she could only have accepted him conditionally." "Conditionally to his making it all right with Stoller?" "Stoller? No! To her father's liking it." "Ah, that's quite as hard. What makes you think she accepted him at all?" "What do you think she was crying about?" "Well, I have supposed that ladies occasionally shed tears of pity. If she accepted him conditionally she would have to tell her father about it." Mrs. March gave him a glance of silent contempt, and he hastened to atone for his stupidity. "Perhaps she's told him on the instalment plan. She may have begun by confessing that Burnamy had been in Carlsbad. Poor old fellow, I wish we were going to find him in Ansbach! He could make things very smooth for us." "Well, you needn't flatter yourself that you'll find him in Ansbach. I'm sure I don't know where he is." "You might write to Miss Triscoe and ask." "I think I shall wait for Miss Triscoe to write to me," she said, with dignity. "Yes, she certainly owes you that much, after all your suffering for her. I've asked the banker in Nuremberg to forward our letters to the poste restante in Ansbach. Isn't it good to see the crows again, after those ravens around Carlsbad?" She joined him in looking at the mild autumnal landscape through the open window. The afternoon was fair and warm, and in the level fields bodies of soldiers were at work with picks and spades, getting the ground ready for the military manoeuvres; they disturbed among the stubble foraging parties of crows, which rose from time to time with cries of indignant protest. She said, with a smile for the crows, "Yes. And I'm thankful that I've got nothing on my conscience, whatever happens," she added in dismissal of the subject of Burnamy.