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 answering the smile. There was a moment's silence. "Do you miss Italy?"

"Ye-es." It was an absent answer; Mrs. Windermere's thoughts were concentrated elsewhere. "There's something strange about you, child," she said.

Esmée now remembered how her conversation had been always little rushing advances on the personal. She had a way of yawning reproachfully with a little click of the teeth and a "Surely we two know each other too well to talk about the weather?" if one tried to give the conversation an outward twist. Esmée had found their first walks together very interesting, they had had the chilly, unusual, dream-familiar sense of walking in one's skin. "There is something strange," said Mrs. Windermere.

"You look just the same as ever."

"There's a stillness here," said the other, slipping a hand beneath her fur. "Like the stillness in the heart of the whirlwind. Get right into it, live in your most interior self, and you're unchangeable. You haven't found it yet; you're very young, you've never penetrated."