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He came to his own chair opposite her, picking up the pipe which she had filled for him. “What’s in that black little head?”

“Many things. More, really, than I know,—or, at least, than I knew.”

“Nothing wrong?”

“... I even wonder if there is anything right.”

He was at once reassured. “You’ve been with Katie Salter. How is she?”

“She’s bearing it. Papa, penses-tu, I delivered the funeral oration.”

“B’en vrai, tu en as! ... What did you say?”

“I talked over their heads, and a little over my own, as though I were under a spell. I thought I was going to say something religious; but it was scarcely that. It was rather like what the cook scrapes together when people turn up for dinner unexpectedly,—philosophical pot-luck. Everybody seemed puzzled, but I wasn’t just inventing words, as I used to do when addressing my paper dolls. The words seemed to make sense in spite of me. ... And I had a strange feeling, afterwards, of having grown up all at once. I don’t think I’ll ever feel sheer girlish again. And the worst of that is, I don’t quite know how a woman is supposed to feel and conduct herself. It’s very perplexing.... Papa, what do you believe comes after this life, or what doesn’t?”