'Why did you look for me?' she said curtly.
'The letter asked Joachim to befriend you if she died; I thought I ought to do what he would have done.'
'That was kind.'
'If it were I have more than my reward."
The flattery passed by her unseen, making no more imprint than the dew as it rolls off a cabbage-leaf.
'I do not see why you should care,' she said at length; meaning what she said.
'But I did care,' he said with some anger. He did not add, 'because Joconda said that you were beautiful, and alone, and I love all beautiful things, and I pity all lonely ones.'
She stood silent, looking at him, musing.
'Come to her,' she said abruptly and yet with a great tenderness in her voice; and she motioned him to follow her into the chamber where the coffin of poplar-wood lay in the twilight of mother earth.
She knelt down by it and kissed the rough wood.
'Dear and good friend,' she murmured,
