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diff --git a/old/30115-8.txt b/old/30115-8.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..9c01a2b --- /dev/null +++ b/old/30115-8.txt @@ -0,0 +1,16332 @@ +The Project Gutenberg eBook, Tante, by Anne Douglas Sedgwick + + +This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with +almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org + + + + + +Title: Tante + + +Author: Anne Douglas Sedgwick + + + +Release Date: September 27, 2009 [eBook #30115] +Most recently updated: July 13, 2012 + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1 + + +***START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK TANTE*** + + +E-text prepared by David Garcia, Mary Meehan, and the Project Gutenberg +Online Distributed Proofreading Team (http://www.pgdp.net) + + + +TANTE + +by + +ANNE DOUGLAS SEDGWICK +(MRS. BASIL DE SÉLINCOURT) + +Author of "Franklin Winslow Kane," "A Fountain Sealed," "Amabel +Channice," "The Shadow of Life," Etc. + + + + + + + +New York +The Century Co. +1912 + +Copyright, 1911, by +The Century Co. + +Published, December, 1911. + + + + +TANTE + + + + +PART I + + + + +CHAPTER I + + +It was the evening of Madame Okraska's concert at the old St. James's +Hall. London was still the place of the muffled roar and the endearing +ugliness. Horse-'buses plied soberly in an unwidened Piccadilly. The +private motor was a curiosity. Berlin had not been emulated in an +altered Mall nor New York in the façades of giant hotels. The Saturday +and Monday pops were still an institution; and the bell of the +muffin-man, in such a wintry season, passed frequently along the foggy +streets and squares. Already the epoch seems remote. + +Madame Okraska was pausing on her way from St. Petersburg to New York +and this was the only concert she was to give in London that winter. For +many hours the enthusiasts who had come to secure unreserved seats had +been sitting on the stone stairs that led to the balcony or gallery, or +on the still narrower, darker and colder flight that led to the +orchestra from Piccadilly Place. From the adjacent hall they could hear +the strains of the Moore & Burgess Minstrels, blatant and innocuously +vulgar; and the determined mirth, anatomized by distance, sounded a +little melancholy. To those of an imaginative turn of mind it might have +seemed that they waited in a tunnel at one far end of which could be +perceived the tiny memory of tea at an Aerated Bread shop and at the +other the vision of the delights to which they would emerge. For there +was no one in the world like Madame Okraska, and to see and hear her was +worth cold and weariness and hunger. Not only was she the most famous of +living pianists but one of the most beautiful of women; and upon this +restoring fact many of the most weary stayed themselves, returning again +and again to gaze at the pictured face that adorned the outer cover of +the programme. + +Illuminated by chill gas-jets, armed with books and sandwiches, the +serried and devoted ranks were composed of typical concert-goers, of +types, in some cases, becoming as extinct as the muffin-man; young +art-students from the suburbs, dressed in Liberty serges and velveteens, +and reading ninepenny editions of Browning and Rossetti--though a few, +already, were reading Yeats; middle-aged spinsters from Bayswater or +South Kensington, who took their weekly concert as they took their daily +bath; many earnest young men, soft-hatted and long-haired, studying +scores; the usual contingent of the fashionable and economical lady; and +the pale-faced business man, bringing an air of duty to the pursuit of +pleasure. + +Some time before the doors opened a growing urgency began to make itself +felt. People got up from their insecurely balanced camp-stools or rose +stiffly from the stone steps to turn and stand shoulder to shoulder, +subtly transformed from comrades in discomfort to combatants for a +hazardous reward. The field for personal endeavour was small; the stairs +were narrow and their occupants packed like sardines; yet everybody +hoped to get a better seat than their positions entitled them to hope +for. Hope and fear increased in intensity with the distance from the +doors, those mute, mystic doors behind which had not yet been heard a +chink or a shuffle and against which leaned, now balefully visible, the +earliest comers of all, jaded, pallid, but insufferably assured. The +summons came at length in the sound of drawn bolts and chains and a +peremptory official voice, blood-tingling as a trumpet-call; and the +crowd, shoulder to shoulder and foot to foot, with rigid lips and eyes +uplifted, began to mount like one man. Step by step they went, steady +and wary, each pressing upon those who went before and presenting a +resistant back to those who followed after. The close, emulous contacts +bred stealthy strifes and hatreds. A small lady, with short grey hair +and thin red face and the conscienceless, smiling eye of a hypnotized +creature, drove her way along the wall and mounted with the agility of a +lizard to a place several steps above. Others were infected by the +successful outlawry and there were some moments of swaying and striving +before the crowd adjusted itself to its self-protective solidity. +Emerged upon the broader stairs they ascended panting and scurrying, in +a wild stampede, to the sudden quiet and chill and emptiness of the +familiar hall, with its high-ranged plaster cupids, whose cheeks and +breasts and thighs were thrown comically into relief by a thick coating +of dust. Here a permanent fog seemed to hang under the roof; only a few +lights twinkled frugally; and the querulous voice of the +programme-seller punctuated the monotonous torrent of feet. Row upon +row, the seats were filled as if by tumultuous waters entering appointed +channels, programmes rustled, sandwiches were drawn from clammy packets, +and the thin-faced lady, iniquitously ensconced in the middle of the +front row in the gallery, had taken out a strip of knitting and was +blandly ready for the evening. + +"I always come up here," said one of the ladies from Kensington to a +friend. "One hears her pianissimo more perfectly than anywhere else. +What a magnificent programme! I shall be glad to hear her give the +Schumann Fantaisie in C Major again." + +"I think I look forward more to the Bach Fantaisie than to anything," +said her companion. + +She exposed herself to a pained protest: "Oh surely not; not Bach; I do +not come for my Bach to Okraska. She belongs too definitely to the +romantics to grasp Bach. Beethoven, if you will; she may give us the +Appassionata superbly; but not Bach; she lacks self-effacement." + +"Liszt said that no one played Bach as she did." + +Authority did not serve her. "Liszt may have said it; Brahms would not +have;" was the rejoinder. + +Down in the orchestra chairs the audience was roughly to be divided into +the technical and the personal devotees; those who chose seats from +which they could dwell upon Madame Okraska's full face over the shining +surfaces of the piano or upon her profile from the side; and those who, +from behind her back, were dedicated to the study of her magical hands. + +"I do hope," said a girl in the centre of the front row of chairs, a +place of dizzy joy, for one might almost touch the goddess as she sat at +the piano, "I do hope she's not getting fat. Someone said they heard she +was. I never want to see her again if she gets fat. It would be too +awful." + +The girl with her conjectured sadly that Madame Okraska must be well +over forty. + +"I beg your pardon," a massive lady dressed in an embroidered sack-like +garment, and wearing many strings of iridescent shells around her +throat, leaned forward from behind to say: "She is forty-six; I happen +to know; a friend of mine has met Madame Okraska's secretary. Forty-six; +but she keeps her beauty wonderfully; her figure is quite beautiful." + +An element of personal excitement was evident in the people who sat in +these nearest chairs; it constituted a bond, though by no means a +friendly one. Emulation, the irrepressible desire to impart knowledge, +broke down normal barriers. The massive lady was slightly flushed and +her manner almost menacing. Her information was received with a vague, +half resentful murmur. + +"She looks younger," she continued, while her listeners gave her an +unwilling yet alert attention. "It is extraordinary how she retains her +youth. But it tells, it tells, the tragic life; one sees it in her eyes +and lips." + +The first girl now put forward with resolution her pawn of knowledge. + +"It has been tragic, hasn't it. The dreadful man she was married to by +her relations when she was hardly more than a child, and the death of +her second husband. He was the Baron von Marwitz; her real name is von +Marwitz; Okraska is her maiden name. He was drowned in saving her life, +you know." + +"The Baron von Marwitz was drowned no one knows how; he was found +drowned; she found his body. She went into a convent after his death." + +"A convent? I was reading a life of her in a magazine the other day and +nothing was said about a convent." + +The massive lady smiled tolerantly: "Nothing would be. She has a horror +of publicity. Yes, she is a mystic as well as an artist; she only +resigned the religious life because of what she felt to be her duty to +her adopted daughter. One sees the mystical side in her face and hears +it in her music." + +Madame Okraska was one of those about whose footsteps legends rise, and +legend could add little to the romantic facts of her life;--the poverty +of her youth; her _début_ as a child prodigy at Warsaw and the sudden +fame that had followed it; the coronets that had been laid at her feet; +her private tragedies, cosmopolitan friendships, her scholarship, +caprices and generosities. She had been the Egeria, smiling in mystery, +of half a dozen famous men. And it was as satisfactory to the devotee to +hear that she always wore white and drank coffee for her breakfast, as +that Rubinstein and Liszt had blessed her and Leschetitsky said that she +had nothing to learn. Her very origin belonged to the realm of romantic +fiction. Her father, a Polish music-master in New Orleans, had run away +with his pupil, a beautiful Spanish girl of a good Creole family. Their +child had been born in Cracow while the Austrians were bombarding it in +1848. + +The lights were now all up and the stalls filling. Ladies and gentlemen +from the suburbs, over early, were the first comers; eager schoolgirls +marshalled by governesses; scrupulous students with music under their +arms, and, finally, the rustling, shining, chattering crowd of +fashionable London. + +The massive lady had by now her little audience, cowed, if still +slightly sulky, well in hand. She pointed out each notability to them, +and indirectly, to all her neighbours. The Duchess of Bannister and Lady +Champney, the famous beauty; the Prime Minister, whom the girls could +have recognized for themselves, and Sir Alliston Compton, the poet. Had +they read his sonnet to Madame Okraska, last year, in the "Fortnightly"? +They had not. "I wonder who that odd looking girl is with him and the +old lady?" one of them ventured. + +"A little grand-daughter, a little niece," said the massive lady, who +did not know. "Poor Sir Alliston's wife is in a lunatic asylum; isn't it +a melancholy head?" + +But now one of her listeners, a lady also in the front row, leaned +forward to say hurriedly and deprecatingly, her face suffused with +shyness: "That nice young girl is Madame Okraska's adopted daughter. The +old lady is Mrs. Forrester, Madame Okraska's great friend; my +sister-in-law was for many years a governess in her family, and that is +how I come to know." + +All those who had heard her turned their eyes upon the young girl, who, +in an old-fashioned white cloak, with a collar of swansdown turned up +round her fair hair, was taking her place with her companions in the +front row of the orchestra-stalls. Even the massive lady was rapt away +to silence. + +"But I thought the adopted daughter was an Italian," one girl at last +commented, having gazed her fill at the being so exalted by fortune. +"Her skin is rather dark, but that yellow hair doesn't look Italian." + +"She is a Norwegian," said the massive lady, keeping however an eye on +the relative of Mrs. Forrester's governess; "the child of Norwegian +peasants. Don't you know the story? Madame Okraska found the poor little +creature lost in a Norwegian forest, leaped from her carriage and took +her into her arms; the parents were destitute and she bought the child +from them. She is the very soul of generosity." + +"She doesn't look like a peasant," said the girl, with a flavour of +discontent, as though a more apparent rusticity would have lent special +magnanimity to Madame Okraska's benevolence. But the massive lady +assured her: "Oh yes, it is the true Norse type; their peasantry has its +patrician quality. I have been to Norway. Sir Alliston looks very much +moved, doesn't he? He has been in love with Madame Okraska for years." +And she added with a deep sigh of satisfaction: "There has never been a +word whispered against her reputation; never a word--'Pure as the foam +on midmost ocean tossed.'" + +Among the crowds thronging densely to their places, a young man of +soldierly aspect, with a dark, narrow face, black hair and square blue +eyes, was making his way to a seat in the third row of stalls. His name +was Gregory Jardine; he was not a soldier--though he looked one--but a +barrister, and he was content to count himself, not altogether +incorrectly, a Philistine in all matters æsthetic. Good music he +listened to with, as he put it, unintelligent and barbarous enjoyment; +and since he had, shamefully, never yet heard the great pianist, he had +bought the best stall procurable some weeks before, and now, after a +taxing day in the law courts, had foregone his after-dinner coffee in +order not to miss one note of the opening Appassionata; it was a sonata +he was very fond of. He sometimes picked out the air of the slow +movement on the piano with heavy deliberation; his musical equipment did +not carry him as far as the variations. + +When he reached his seat he found it to be by chance next that of his +sister-in-law, his brother Oliver's wife, a pretty, jewelled and +jewel-like young woman, an American of a complicatedly cosmopolitan +type. Gregory liked Betty Jardine, and always wondered how she had come +to marry Oliver, whom he rather scorned; but he was not altogether +pleased to find her near him. He preferred to take his music in +solitude; and Betty was very talkative. + +"Well, this is nice, Gregory!" she said. "You and Captain Ashton know +each other, don't you. No, I couldn't persuade Oliver to come; he +wouldn't give up his whist. Isn't Oliver dreadful; he moves from the +saddle to the whist-table, and back again; and that is all. Captain +Ashton and I have been comparing notes; we find that we have missed +hardly any of Madame Okraska's concerts in London. I was only ten when I +heard the first she ever gave here; my governess took me; and actually +Captain Ashton was here on that day, too. Wasn't she a miracle of +loveliness? It was twenty years ago; she had already her European +reputation. It was just after she had divorced that horrible first +husband of hers and married the Baron von Marwitz. This isn't your +initiation, of course, Gregory?" + +"Actually my initiation," said Gregory, examining the portrait of Madame +Okraska on the cover of the programme. + +"But you've seen her at Mrs. Forrester's? She always stays with Mrs. +Forrester." + +"I know; but I've always missed her, or, at all events, never been asked +to meet her." + +"I certainly never have been," said Betty Jardine. "But Mrs. Forrester +thinks of me as frivolity personified, I know, and doesn't care to admit +anything lower than a cabinet minister or a poet laureate when she has +her lion domiciled. She is an old darling; but, between ourselves, she +does take her lions a little too seriously, doesn't she. Well, prepare +for a _coup de foudre_, Gregory. You'll be sure to fall in love with +her. Everybody falls in love with her. Captain Ashton has been in love +with her for twenty years. She is extraordinary." + +"I'm ready to be subjugated," said Gregory. "Do people really hang on +her hands and kiss them? Shall I want to hang on her hands and kiss +them?" + +"There is no telling what she will do with us," said Lady Jardine. + +Gregory Jardine's face, however, was not framed to express enthusiasm. +It was caustic, cold and delicate. His eyes were as clear and as hard as +a sky of frosty morning, and his small, firm lips were hard. His chin +and lower lip advanced slightly, so that when he smiled his teeth met +edge to edge, and the little black moustache, to which he often gave an +absent upward twist, lent an ironic quality to this chill, gay smile, at +times almost Mephistophelian. He sat twisting the moustache now, leaning +his head to listen, amidst the babel of voices, to Betty Jardine's +chatter, and the thrills of infectious expectancy that passed over the +audience like breezes over a corn-field left him unaffected. His +observant, indifferent glance had in it something of the schoolboy's +barbarian calm and something of the disabused impersonality of worldly +experience. + +"Who is the young lady with Mrs. Forrester?" he asked presently. "In +white, with yellow hair. Just in front of us. Do you know?" + +Betty had leaned forward to look. "Don't you even know her by sight?" +she said. "That is Miss Woodruff, the girl who follows Madame Okraska +everywhere. She attached herself to her years ago, I believe, in Rome or +Paris;--some sort of little art-student she was. What a bore that sort +of devotion must be. Isn't she queer?" + +"I had heard that she's an adopted daughter," said Captain Ashton; "the +child of Norwegian peasants, and that Madame Okraska found her in a +Norwegian forest--by moonlight;--a most romantic story." + +"A fable, I think. Someone was telling me about her the other day. She +is only a camp-follower and _protégée_; and a compatriot of mine. She is +an orphan and Madame Okraska supports her." + +"She doesn't look like a _protégée_," said Gregory Jardine, his eyes on +the young person thus described; "she looks like a protector." + +"I should think she must be most of all a problem," said Betty. "What a +price to pay for celebrity--these hangers-on who make one ridiculous by +their infatuation. Madame Okraska is incapable of defending herself +against them, I hear. The child's clothes might have come from Norway!" + +The _protégée_, protector or problem, who turned to them now and then +her oddly blunted, oddly resolute young profile, had tawny hair, and a +sun-browned skin. She wore a little white silk frock with flat bows of +dull blue upon it. Her evening cloak was bordered with swansdown. Two +black bows, one at the crown of her head and one at the nape of her +neck, secured the thick plaits of her hair, which was parted and brushed +up from her forehead in a bygone school-girlish fashion. She made +Gregory think of a picture by Alfred Stevens he had seen somewhere and +of an archaic Greek statue, and her appearance and demeanour interested +him. He continued to look at her while the unrest and expectancy of the +audience rolled into billows of excitement. + +A staid, melancholy man, forerunner of the great artist, had appeared +and performed his customary and cryptic function. "Why do they always +screw up the piano-stool at the last moment!" Betty Jardine murmured. +"Is it to pepper our tongues with anguish before the claret?--Oh, she +must be coming now! She always keeps one waiting like this!" + +The billows had surged to a storm. Signs of frenzy were visible in the +faces on the platform. They had caught a glimpse of the approaching +divinity. + +"Here she is!" cried Betty Jardine. Like everybody else she was clapping +frantically, like everybody, that is, except Gregory Jardine; for +Gregory, his elbow in his hand, his fingers still neatly twisting the +end of his moustache, continued to observe the young girl in the front +row, whose face, illuminated and irradiated, was upturned to the figure +now mounting to the platform. + + + + +CHAPTER II + + +The hush that had fallen was like the hush that falls on Alpine watchers +in the moment before sunrise, and, with the great musician's slow +emerging from below, it was as if the sun had risen. + +She came, with her indolent step, the thunder of hands and voices +greeting her; and those who gazed at her from the platform saw the +pearl-wreathed hair and opulent white shoulders, and those who gazed at +her from beneath saw the strange and musing face. Then she stood before +them and her dark eyes dwelt, impassive and melancholy, upon the sea of +faces, tumultuous and blurred with clapping hands. The sound was like +the roaring of the sea and she stood as a goddess might have stood at +the brink of the ocean, indifferent and unaware, absorbed in dreams of +ancient sorrow. The ovation was so prolonged and she stood there for so +long--hardly less the indifferent goddess because, from time to time, +she bowed her own famous bow, stately, old-fashioned, formally and +sublimely submissive,--that every eye in the great audience could feast +upon her in a rapturous assurance of leisure. + +She was a woman of forty-eight, of an ample though still beautiful +figure. Her flowing dress of white brocade made no attempt to compress, +to sustain or to attenuate. No one could say that a woman who stood as +she did, with the port of a goddess--the small head majestically poised +over such shoulders and such a breast--was getting fat; yet no one could +deny that there was redundancy. She was not redundant as other women +were; she was not elegant as other women were; she seemed in nothing +like others. Her dress was strange; it had folds and amplitudes and dim +disks of silver broideries at breast and knee that made it like the +dress of some Venetian lady, drawn at random from an ancestral marriage +coffer and put on dreamily with no thought of aptness. Her hair was +strange; no other woman's hair was massed and folded as was hers, hair +dark as night and intertwined and looped with twisted strands of pearl +and diamond. Her face was strange, that crowning face, known to all the +world. Disparate racial elements mingled in the long Southern oval and +the Slavonic modelling of brow and cheek-bone. The lips, serene and +passionate, deeply sunken at the corners and shadowed with a pencilling +of down, were the lips of Spain; all the mystery of the South was in the +grave and tragic eyes. Yet the eyes were cold; and touches of wild +ancestral suffering, like the sudden clash of spurs in the languors of a +Polonaise, marked the wide nostrils and the heavy eyelids and the broad, +black crooked eyebrows that seemed to stammer a little in the perfect +sentence of her face. + +She subjugated and she appealed. Her adorers were divided between the +longing to lie down under her feet and to fold her protectingly in their +arms. Calf-love is an undying element in human-nature, a shame-faced +derogatory name for the romantic, self-immolating emotion woven from +fancy, yearning and the infection of other's ardour. Love of this foam +and flame quality, too tender to be mere æsthetic absorption in a +beautiful object, too selfless to be sensual, too intense to be only +absurd, rose up towards Madame Okraska and encompassed her from hundreds +of hearts and eyes. The whole audience was for her one vast heart of +adoration, one fixed face of half-hypnotized tenderness. And there she +stood before them;--Madame Okraska whom crowned heads delighted to +honour; Madame Okraska who got a thousand pounds a night; Madame Okraska +who played as no one in the world could play; looking down over them, +looking up and around at them, as if, now, a little troubled by the +prolonged adulation, patient yet weary, like a mistress assaulted, after +long absence, by the violent joy of a great Newfoundland dog; smiling a +little, though buffeted, and unwilling to chill the ardent heart by a +reprimand. And more than all she was like a great white rose that, +fading in the soft, thick, scented air of a hot-house, droops languidly +with loosened petals. + +They let her go at last and she took her place at the piano. Her hands +fell softly on a group of dreamy ascending chords. Her face, then, in a +long pause, took on a rapt expectancy and power. She was the priestess +waiting before her altar for the descent of the god, glorious and +dreadful. And it was as if with the chill and shudder of a possession +that, breathing deeply, drawing her shoulders a little together, she +lifted her hands and played. She became the possessed and articulate +priestess, her soul, her mind, her passion lent to the message spoken +through her. The tumult and insatiable outcry of the Appassionata spread +like a river over her listeners. And as she played her face grew more +rapt in its brooding concentration, the eyes half-closed, the nostrils +wide, the jaw dropping and giving to the mouth an expression at once +relaxed and vigilant. + +To criticize with the spell of Madame Okraska's personality upon one was +hardly possible. Emerged from the glamour, there were those, pretending +to professional discriminations, who suggested that she lacked the +masculine and classic disciplines of interpretation; that her rendering, +though breathed through with noble dignities, was coloured by a +capricious and passionate personality; that it was the feeling rather +than the thought of the music that she excelled in expressing, its +suffering rather than its serenity. Only a rare listener, here and there +among her world-wide audiences, was aware of deeper deficiencies and of +the slow changes that time had wrought in her art. For it was +inspiration no longer; it was the memory of inspiration. The Nemesis of +the artist who expresses, not what he feels, but what he is expected to +feel, what he has undertaken to feel, had fallen upon the great woman. +Her art, too, showed the fragrant taint of an artificial atmosphere. She +had played ten times when she should have played once. She lived on her +capital of experience, no longer renewing her life, and her renderings +had lost that quality of the greatest, the living communication with the +experience embodied in the music. It was on the stereotyped memories of +such communication that she depended, on the half hypnotic possession by +the past; filling in vacancies with temperamental caprice or an emotion +no longer the music's but her own. + +But to the enchanted ear of the multitude, professional and +unprofessional, the essential vitality was there, the vitality embodied +to the enchanted eye by the white figure with its drooping, +pearl-wreathed head and face sunken in sombre ecstasy. She gave them all +they craved:--passion, stormy struggle, the tears of hopeless love, the +chill smile of lassitude in accepted defeat, the unappeasable longing +for the past. They listened, and their hearts lapsed back from the +hallucinated unity of enthusiasm each to its own identity, an identity +isolated, intensified, tortured exquisitely by the expression of dim +yearnings. All that had been beautiful in the pain and joy that through +long ages had gone to the building up of each human consciousness, +re-entered and possessed it; the fragrance of blossoming trees, the +farewell gaze of dying eyes, the speechless smile of lovers, ancestral +memories of Spring-times, loves, and partings, evoked by this poignant +lure from dim realms of sub-consciousness, like subterranean rivers +rising through creaks and crannies towards the lifted wand of the +diviner. It seemed the quintessence of human experience, the ecstasy of +perfect and enfranchising sorrow, distilled from the shackling, +smirching half-sorrows of actual life. Some of the listening faces +smiled; some were sodden, stupefied rather than enlightened; some showed +a sensual rudimentary gratification; some, lapped in the tide, yet +unaware of its significance, were merely silly. But no Orpheus, wildly +harping through the woods, ever led more enthralled and subjugated +listeners. + +Gregory Jardine's face was neither sodden nor silly nor sensual; but it +did not wear the enchanted look of the true votary. Instinctively this +young man, though it was emotion that he found in music, resisted any +too obvious assault upon his feelings, taking refuge in irony from their +force when roused. For the form of music, and its intellectual content, +he had little appreciation, and he was thus the more exposed to its +emotional appeal; but his intuition of the source and significance of +the appeal remained singularly just and accurate. He could not now have +analysed his sense of protest and dissatisfaction; yet, while the charm +grasped and encircled him, making him, as he said to himself, +idiotically grovel or inanely soar, he repelled the poignant sweetness +and the thrills that went through him were thrills of a half-unwilling +joy. + +He sat straightly, his arms folded, his head bent as he twisted the end +of his moustache, his eye fixed on the great musician; and he wondered +what was the matter with him, or with her. It was as if he couldn't get +at the music. Something interfered, something exquisite yet ambiguous, +alluring yet never satisfying. + +His glance fell presently from the pianist's drooping head to the face +of the _protégée_, and the contrast between what was expressed by this +young person's gaze and attitude and what he was himself feeling again +drew his attention to her. No grovelling and no soaring was here, but an +elation almost stern, a brooding concentration almost maternal, a +dedicated power. Madame Okraska, he reflected, must be an extraordinary +person if she really deserved that gaze. He didn't believe that she +quite did. His dissatisfaction with the music extended itself to the +musician and, looking from her face to the girl's, he remembered with +scepticism Betty's account of their relation. + +A group of Chopin Preludes and a Brahms Rhapsodie Hongroise brought the +first half of the concert to a close, and Gregory watched with +amusement, during the ensuing scene, the vagaries of the intoxicated +crowd. People rose to their feet, clapping, shouting, bellowing, +screaming. He saw on the platform the face of the massive lady, haggard, +fierce, devouring; the face of the shy lady, suffused, the eyes half +dazed with adoration like those of a saint in rapture. Old Mrs. +Forrester, with her juvenile auburn head, laughed irrepressibly while +she clapped, like a happy child. The old poet was nearly moved to tears. +Only the _protégée_ remained, as it were, outside the infection. She +smiled slightly and steadily, as if in a proud contentment, and clapped +now and then quite softly, and she turned once and scanned the audience +with eyes accustomed to ovations and appraising the significance of this +one. + +Madame Okraska was recalled six times, but she could not be prevailed +upon to give an encore, though for a long time a voice bayed +intermittently:--"The Berceuse! Chopin's Berceuse!" The vast harmonies +of entreaty and delight died down to sporadic solos, taken up more and +more faint-heartedly by weary yet still hopeful hands. + +Still smiling slightly, with a preoccupied air, the young girl looked +about her, or leaned forward to listen to some kindly bantering +addressed to her by Sir Alliston. She hardly spoke, but Gregory +perceived that she was by no means shy. She so pleasantly engaged his +attention that when Sir Alliston got up from his seat next hers there +was another motive than the mere wish to speak to his old friend in his +intention of joining Mrs. Forrester for a few moments. The project was +not definite and he abandoned it when his relative, Miss Eleanor +Scrotton, tense, significant and wearing the sacramental expression +customary with her on such occasions, hurried to the empty seat and +dropped into it. Eleanor's enthusiasms oppressed him and Betty had told +him that Madame Okraska was become the most absorbing of them. His +mother and Eleanor's had been cousins. Her father, the late Sir Jonas +Scrotton, heavily distinguished in the world of literature and politics, +had died only the year before. Gregory remembered him as a vindictive +and portentous old man presiding at Miss Scrotton's tea-parties in a +black silk skull-cap, and one could but admire in Miss Scrotton the +reverence and devotion that had not only borne with but gloried in him. +If the amplitude of his mantle had not descended upon her one might +metaphorically say that the black skull-cap had. Gregory felt that he +might have liked Eleanor better if she hadn't been so unintermittently +and unilluminatingly intelligent. She wrote scholarly articles in the +graver reviews--articles that he invariably skipped--she was always +armed with an appreciation and she had the air of thinking the +intellectual reputation of London very much her responsibility. Above +all she was dowered with an overwhelming power of enthusiasm. Eleanor +dressed well and had a handsome, commanding profile with small, +compressed lips and large, prominent, melancholy eyes that wickedly +reminded Gregory of the eyes of a beetle. Beneath the black feather boa +that was thrown round her neck, her thin shoulder-blades, while she +talked to Mrs. Forrester and sketched with pouncing fingers the phrasing +of certain passages, jerked and vibrated oddly. Mrs. Forrester nodded, +smiled, acquiesced. She was rather fond of Eleanor. Their talk was for +each other. Miss Woodruff, unheeded, but with nothing of the air of one +consciously insignificant, sat looking before her. Beside Eleanor's +vehemence and Mrs. Forrester's vivacity she made Gregory think of a +tranquil landscape seen at dawn. + +He was thus thinking, and looking at her, when, as though +sub-consciously aware of his gaze, she suddenly turned her head and +looked round at him. + +Her eyes, in the long moment while their glances were interchanged, were +so clear and deliberate, so unmoved by anything but a certain surprise, +that he felt no impulse to pretend politely that he had not been caught +staring. They scrutinized each other, gravely, serenely, intently, until +a thunder of applause, like a tidal wave surging over the hall, seemed +to engulf their gaze. Madame Okraska was once more emerging. Miss +Scrotton, catching up her boa, her programme and her fan, scuttled back +to her seat with an air of desperate gravity; Sir Alliston returned to +his; Mrs. Forrester welcomed him with a smile and a finger at her lips; +and as the pianist seated herself and cast a long glance over the still +disarranged and cautiously rustling audience, Gregory saw that Miss +Woodruff had no further thought for him. + + + + +CHAPTER III + + +Mrs. Forrester was dispensing tea in her lofty drawing-room which, with +its illumined heights and dim recesses, gave to the ceremony an almost +ritualistic state. Mrs. Forrester's drawing-room and Mrs. Forrester +herself were long-established features of London, and not to have sat +beneath the Louis Quinze chandelier nor have drunk tea out of the blue +Worcester cups was to have missed something significant of the typical +London spectacle. + +The drawing-room seemed most characteristic when one came to it from a +fog outside, as people had done to-day, and when Mrs. Forrester was +found presiding over the blue cups. She was an old lady with auburn hair +elaborately dressed and singularly bound in snoods of velvet. She wore +flowing silken trains and loose ruffled sacques of a curious bygone cut, +and upon each wrist was clasped, mounted on a velvet band, a large +square emerald, set in heavily chased gold. The glance of her eyes was +as surprisingly youthful as the color of her hair, and her face, though +complicatedly wrinkled, had an almost girlish gaiety and vigour. Abrupt +and merry, Mrs. Forrester was arresting to the attention and rather +alarming. She swept aside bores; she selected the significant; socially +she could be rather merciless; but her kindness was without limits when +she attached herself, and in private life she suffered fools, if not +gladly at all events humorously, in the persons of her three heavy and +exemplary sons, who had married wives as unimpeachable and as +uninteresting as themselves and provided her with a multitude of +grandchildren. Mrs. Forrester fulfilled punctiliously all her duties +towards these young folk, and it never occurred to her sons and +daughters-in-law that they and their interests were not her chief +preoccupation. The energy and variety of her nature were, however, +given, to her social relations and to her personal friendships, which +were many and engrossing. These friendships were always highly +flavoured. Mrs. Forrester had a _flair_ for genius and needed no popular +accrediting to make it manifest to her. And it wasn't enough to be +merely a genius; there were many of the species, eminent and emblazoned, +who were never asked to come under the Louis Quinze chandelier. She +asked of her talented friends personal distinction, the power of being +interesting in more than their art. + +Such a genius, pre-eminently such a one, was Madame von Marwitz. She was +more than under the chandelier; Mrs. Forrester's house, when she was in +London, was her home. "I am safe with you," she had said to Mrs. +Forrester, "with you I am never pursued and never bored." Where Mrs. +Forrester evaded and relegated bores, Madame von Marwitz sombrely and +helplessly hated them. "What can I do?" she said. "If no one will +protect me I am delivered to them. It is a plague of locusts. They +devour me. Oh their letters! Oh their flowers! Oh their love and their +stupidity! No, the earth is black with them." + +Madame von Marwitz was protected from the swarms while she visited her +old friend. The habits of the house were altered to suit hers. She +stayed in her rooms or came down as she chose. She had complete liberty +in everything. + +To-day she had not as yet appeared, and everyone had come with the hope +of seeing her. There was Lady Campion, the most tactful and discreet of +admirers; and Sir Alliston, who would be perhaps asked to go up to her +if she did not come down; and Eleanor Scrotton who would certainly go up +unasked; and old Miss Harding, a former governess of Mrs. Forrester's +sons and a person privileged, who had come leading an evident yet +pathetic locust, her brother's widow, little Mrs. Harding, the shy lady +of the platform. Miss Harding had told Mrs. Forrester about this +sister-in-law and of how, since her husband's death, she had lived for +philanthropy, and music in the person of Madame Okraska. She had never +met her. She did not ask to meet her now. She would only sit in a corner +and gaze. Mrs. Forrester had been moved by the account of such humble +faith and had told Miss Harding to bring her sister-in-law. + +"I have sent for Karen," Mrs. Forrester said, greeting Gregory Jardine, +who came in after Miss and Mrs. Harding; "she will tell us if our +chances are good. It was your first time, last night, wasn't it, +Gregory? I do hope that she may come down." + +Gregory Jardine was not a bore, but Mrs. Forrester suspected him to be +one of the infatuated. He belonged, she imagined, seeing him appear so +promptly after his initiation, to the category of dazzled circlers who +fell into her drawing-room in their myriads while Mercedes was with her, +like frizzled moths into a candle. Mrs. Forrester had sympathy with +moths, and was fond of Gregory, whom she greeted with significant +kindliness. + +"I never ask her to come down," she went on now to explain to him and to +the Hardings. "Never, never. She could not bear that. But she often does +come; and she has heard to-day from Karen Woodruff that special friends +are hoping to see her. So your chances are good, I think. Ah, here is +Karen." + +Gregory did not trouble to undeceive his old friend. It was his habit to +have tea with her once or twice a month, and his motive in coming to-day +had hardly been distinguishable from his usual impulse. If he had come +hoping to see anybody, it had been to see the _protégée_, and he watched +her now as she advanced down the great room with her cheerful, +unembarrassed look, the look of a person serenely accustomed to a +publicity in which she had no part. + +Seen thus at full length and in full face he found her more than ever +like an Alfred Stevens and an archaic Greek statue. Long-limbed, +thick-waisted, spare and strong, she wore a straight, grey dress--the +dress of a little convent girl coming into the _parloir_ on a day of +visits--which emphasized the boyish aspect of her figure. Narrow frills +of white were at wrist and neck; her shoes were low heeled and square +toed; and around her neck a gold locket hung on a black velvet ribbon. + +Mrs. Forrester held out her hand to her with the undiscerning kindliness +that greets the mere emissary. "Well, my dear, what news of our Tante? +Is she coming, do you think?" she inquired. "This is Lady Campion; she +has never yet met Tante." The word was pronounced in German fashion. + +"I am not sure that she will come," said Miss Woodruff, looking around +the assembled circle, while Mrs. Forrester still held her hand. "She is +still very tired, so I cannot be sure; I hope so." She smiled calmly at +Sir Alliston and Miss Scrotton who were talking together and then lifted +her eyes to Gregory who stood near. + +"You know Mr. Jardine?" Mrs. Forrester asked, seeing the pleased +recognition on the girl's face. "It was his first time last night." + +"No, I do not know him," said Miss Woodruff, "but I saw him at the +concert. Was it his first time? Think of that." + +"Now sit here, child, and tell me about Tante," said Mrs. Forrester, +drawing the girl down to a chair beside her. "I saw that she was very +tired this morning. She had her massage?" Mrs. Forrester questioned in a +lower voice. + +"Yes; and fortunately she was able to sleep for two hours after that. +Then Mr. Schultz came and she had to see him, and that was tiring." + +Mr. Schultz was Madame Okraska's secretary. + +"Dear, dear, what a pity that he had to bother her. Did she drink the +egg-flip I had sent up to her? Mrs. Jenkins makes them excellently as a +rule." + +"I did my best to persuade her," said Miss Woodruff, "but she did not +seem to care for it." + +"Didn't care for it? Was it too sweet? I warned Mrs. Jenkins that her +tendency was to put in too much sugar." + +"That was it," Miss Woodruff smiled at the other's penetration. "She +tasted it and said: '_Trop sucré_,' and put it down. But it was really +very nice. I drank it!" said Miss Woodruff. + +"But I am so grieved. I shall speak severely to Mrs. Jenkins," Mrs. +Forrester murmured, preoccupied. "I am afraid our chances aren't good +to-day, Lady Campion," she turned from Miss Woodruff to say. "You must +come and dine one night while she is with me. I am always sure of her +for dinner." + +"She really isn't coming down?" Miss Scrotton leaned over the back of +Miss Woodruff's chair to ask with some asperity of manner. "Shall I wait +for a little before I go up to her?" + +"I can't tell," the young girl replied. "She said she did not know +whether she would come or not. She is lying down and reading." + +"She does not forget that she comes to me for tea to-morrow?" + +"I do not think so, Miss Scrotton." + +"Lady Campion wants to talk to you, Karen," Mrs. Forrester now said; +"come to this side of the table." And as Sir Alliston was engaged with +Miss and Mrs. Harding, Gregory was left to Eleanor Scrotton. + +Miss Scrotton felt irritation rather than affection for Gregory Jardine. +Yet he was not unimportant to her. Deeper than her pride in old Sir +Jonas was her pride in her connection with the Fanshawes, and Gregory's +mother had been a Fanshawe. Gregory's very indifference to her and to +the standards of the Scrottons had always given to intercourse with him +a savour at once acid yet interesting. Though she knew many men of more +significance, she remained far more aware of him and his opinions than +of theirs. She would have liked Gregory to show more consciousness of +her and his relationship, of the fact that she, too, had Fanshawe blood +in her veins. She would have liked to impress, or please or, at worst, +to displease him. She would very much have liked to secure him more +frequently for her dinners and her teas. He vexed and he allured her. + +"Do you really mean that last night was the first time you ever heard +Mercedes Okraska?" she said, moving to a sofa, to which, somewhat +unwillingly, Gregory followed her. "It makes me sorry for you. It's as +if a person were to tell you that they'd never before seen the mountains +or the sea. If I'd realised that you'd never met her I could have +arranged that you should. She often comes to me quite quietly and meets +a few friends. She was so devoted to dear father; she called him The +Hammer of the Gods. I have the most wonderful letter that she wrote me +when he died," Miss Scrotton said, lowering her voice to a reverent +pause. "Between ourselves," she went on, "I do sometimes think that our +dear Mrs. Forrester cherishes her a little too closely. I confess that I +love nothing more than to share my good things. I don't mean that dear +Mrs. Forrester doesn't; but I should ask more people, frequently and +definitely, to meet Mercedes, if I were in her place." + +"But if Madame Okraska won't come down and see them?" Gregory inquired. + +"Ah, but she will; she will," Miss Scrotton said earnestly; "if it is +thought out; arranged for carefully. She doesn't, naturally, care to +come down on chance, like to-day. She does want to know whom she's to +meet if she makes the effort. She knows of course that Sir Alliston and +I are here, and that may bring her; I do hope so for your sake; but of +course if she does not come I go up to her. With Mrs. Forrester I am, I +think, her nearest friend in England. She has stayed with me in the +country;--my tiny flat here would hardly accommodate her. I am going, +did you know it, to America with her next week." + +"No; really; for a tour?" + +"Yes; through the States. We shall be gone till next summer. I know +several very charming people in New York and Boston and can help to make +it pleasant for Mercedes. Of course for me it is the opportunity of a +life-time. Quite apart from her music, she is the most remarkable woman +I have ever known." + +"She's clever?" + +"Clever is too trivial a word. Her genius goes through everything. We +read a great deal together--Dante, Goethe, French essayists, our English +poets. To hear her read poetry is almost as wonderful an experience as +to hear her play. Isn't it an extraordinary face? One sees it all in her +face, I think." + +"She is very unusual looking." + +"Her face," Miss Scrotton pursued, ignoring her companion's trite +comments, "embodies the thoughts and dreams of many races. It makes me +always think of Pater's Mona Lisa--you remember: 'Hers is the head upon +which all the ends of the world are come and the eyelids are a little +weary.' She is, of course, a profoundly tragic person." + +"Has she been very unfortunate?" + +"Unfortunate indeed. Her youth was passed in bitter poverty; her first +marriage was disastrous, and when joy came at last in an ideal second +marriage it was shattered by her husband's mysterious death. Yes; he was +drowned; found drowned in the lake on their estate in Germany. Mercedes +has never been there since. She has never recovered. She is a +broken-hearted woman. She sees life as a dark riddle. She counts herself +as one of the entombed." + +"Dear me," Gregory murmured. + +Miss Scrotton glanced at him with some sharpness; but finding his blue +eyes fixed abstractedly on Karen Woodruff exonerated him from intending +to be disagreeable. "Her childlessness has been a final grief," she +added; "a child, as she has often told me, would be a resurrection from +the dead." + +"And the little girl?" Gregory inquired. "Is she any solace? What is the +exact relationship? I hear that she calls her Tante." + +"The right to call her Tante is one of Mercedes's gifts to her. She is +no relation at all. Mercedes picked her up, literally from the roadside. +She is twenty-four, you know; not a child." + +"So the story is true, about the Norwegian peasants and the forest?" + +"I have to contradict that story at least twice a day," said Miss +Scrotton with a smile half indulgent and half weary. "It is true that +Karen was found in a forest, but it was the forest of Fontainebleau, +_tout simplement_; and it is true that she has Norwegian blood; her +mother was a Norwegian; she was the wife of a Norwegian artist in Rome, +and there Karen's father, an American, a sculptor of some talent, I +believe, met her and ran away with her. They were never married. They +lived on chestnuts up among the mountains in Tuscany, I believe, and the +mother died when Karen was a little child and the father when she was +twelve. Some relatives of the father's put her in a convent school in +Paris and she ran away from it and Mercedes found her on the verge of +starvation in the forest of Fontainebleau. The Baron von Marwitz had +known Mr. Woodruff in Rome and Mercedes persuaded him to take the child +into their lives. She hadn't a friend or a penny in the world. The +father's relatives were delighted to be rid of her and Mercedes has had +her on her hands ever since. That is the true story." + +"Isn't she fond of her?" Gregory asked. + +"Yes, she is fond of her," Miss Scrotton with some impatience replied; +"but she is none the less a burden. For a woman like Mercedes, with a +life over-full and a strength continually overtaxed, the care and +responsibility is an additional weight and weariness." + +"Well, but if she misses children so much; this takes the place," +Gregory objected. + +"Takes the place," Miss Scrotton repeated, "of a child of her own? This +little nobody, and an uninteresting nobody, too? Oh, she is a good girl, +a very good girl; and she makes herself fairly useful in elementary +ways; but how can you imagine that such a tie can satisfy maternal +craving?" + +"How does she make herself useful?" Gregory asked, waiving the question +of maternal cravings. He had vexed Miss Scrotton a good deal, but the +theme was one upon which she could not resist enlarging; anything +connected with Madame von Marwitz was for her of absorbing interest. + +"Well, she is a great deal in Cornwall, at Mercedes's place there," she +informed him. "It's a wonderfully lovely place; Les Solitudes; Mercedes +built the house. Karen and old Mrs. Talcott look after the little farm +and keep things in order." + +"Old Mrs. Talcott? Where does she come in?" + +"Ah, that is another of Mercedes's romantic benevolences. Mrs. Talcott +is a sort of old pensioner; a distant family connection; the funniest +old American woman you can conceive of. She has been with Mercedes since +her childhood, and, like everybody else, she is so devotedly attached to +her that she regards it as a matter of course that she should be taken +care of by her for ever. The way Karen takes her advantages as a matter +of course has always vexed me just a little." + +"Is Mrs. Talcott interesting?" Gregory pursued his questions with a +placid persistence that seemed to indicate real curiosity. + +"Good heavens, no!" Miss Scrotton said. "The epitome of the commonplace. +She looks like some of the queer old American women one sees in the +National Gallery with Baedekers in their hands and bags at their belts; +fat, sallow, provincial, with defective grammar and horrible twangs; the +kind of American, you know," said Miss Scrotton, warming to her +description as she felt that she was amusing Gregory Jardine, "that the +other kind always tell you they never by any chance would meet at home." + +"And what kind of American is Miss Woodruff? The other kind or Mrs. +Talcott's kind?" + +"By the other kind I mean Lady Jardine's," said Miss Scrotton; "or--no; +she constitutes a further variety; the rarest of all; the kind who would +never think about Mrs. Talcott one way or the other. But surely Karen is +no kind at all. Could you call her an American? She has never been +there. She is a sort of racial waif. The only root, the only nationality +she seems to have is Mercedes; her very character is constituted by her +relation to Mercedes; her only charm is her devotion--for she is indeed +sincerely and wholeheartedly devoted. Mercedes is a sort of +fairy-godmother to her, a sun-goddess, who lifted her out of the dust +and whirled her away in her chariot. But she isn't interesting," Miss +Scrotton again assured him. "She is literal and unemotional, and, in +some ways, distinctly dull. I have seen the poor fairy-godmother sigh +and shrug sometimes over her inordinately long letters. She writes to +her with relentless regularity and I really believe that she imagines +that Mercedes quite depends on hearing from her. No; I don't mean that +she is conceited; it's not that exactly; she is only dull; very, very +dull; and I don't know how Mercedes endures having her so much with her. +She feels that the girl depends on her, of course, and she is helplessly +generous." + +Gregory Jardine listened to these elucidations, leaning back in the +sofa, a hand clasping his ankle, his eyes turning now on Miss Scrotton +and now on the subject of their conversation. Miss Scrotton had amused +him. She was entertainingly simple if at moments entertainingly +intelligent, and he had divined that she was jealous of the crumbs that +fell to Miss Woodruff's share from the table of Madame von Marwitz's +bounty. A slight malice that had gathered in him during his talk with +Eleanor Scrotton found expression in his next remark. "She is certainly +charming looking; anyone so charming looking has a right to be dull." +But Miss Scrotton did not heed him. She had risen to her feet. "Here she +is!" she exclaimed, looking towards the door in radiant satisfaction. +"You will meet her after all. I'll do my very best so that you shall +have a little talk with her." + +The door had been thrown open and Madame Okraska had appeared upon the +threshold. + + + + +CHAPTER IV + + +She stood for a moment, with her hand resting on the lintel, and she +surveyed an apparently unexpected audience with contemplative +melancholy. If she was not pleased to find them so many, she was, at all +events unresentful, and Gregory imagined, from Mrs. Forrester's bright +flutter in rising, that resentment from the sun-goddess was a peril to +be reckoned with. Smiling, though languidly smiling, she advanced up the +room, after her graceful and involuntary pause. White fringes rippled +softly round her; a white train trailed behind her; on her breast the +silken cloak that she wore over a transparent under-robe was clasped +with pearls and silver. She was very lovely, very stately, very simple; +but she struck her one hypercritical observer as somewhat prepared; +calculated and conscious, as well. + +"Thanks, dearest friend," she said to Mrs. Forrester, who, meeting her +halfway down the room and taking her hand, asked her solicitously how +she did; "I am now a little rested; but it has been a bad night and a +busy morning." She spoke with a slightly foreign accent in a voice at +once fatigued and sonorous. Her eyes, clear, penetrating and singularly +steady, passed over the assembled faces, turned, all of them, towards +herself. + +She greeted Sir Alliston with a welcoming smile and a lift of the +strange crooked eyebrows, and to Miss Scrotton, who, eager and +illuminated, was beside her: "_Ah, ma chérie_," she said, resting her +hand affectionately on her shoulder. Mrs. Forrester had her other hand, +and, so standing between her two friends, she bowed gravely and +graciously to Lady Campion, to Miss Harding, to Mrs. Harding--who, in +the stress of this fulfilment had become plum-coloured--and to Gregory +Jardine. Then she was seated. Mrs. Forrester poured out her tea, Miss +Harding passed her cake and bread-and-butter, Lady Campion bent to her +with frank and graceful compliments, Miss Scrotton sat at her feet on a +low settle, and Sir Alliston, leaning on the back of her chair, looked +down at her with eyes of antique devotion. Gregory was left on the +outskirts of the group and his attention was attracted by the face of +little Mrs. Harding, who, all unnoticed and unseated, gazed upon Madame +Okraska with the intent liquid eye of a pious dog; the wavering, +uncertain smile that played upon her lips was like the humble thudding +of the dog's tail. Gregory remembered her face now as one of those, rapt +and hypnotized, that he had seen on the platform the night before. In +the ovation that Madame Okraska had received at the end of the concert +he had noticed this same plum-coloured little lady seizing and kissing +the great woman's hand. Shy, by temperament, as he saw, to the point of +suffering, he felt sure that only the infection of the crowd had carried +her to the act of uncharacteristic daring. He watched her now, finding +her piteous and absurd. + +But someone beside himself was aware of Mrs. Harding. Miss Woodruff +approached her, smiling impersonally, with rather the air of a kindly +verger at a church. Yes, she seemed to say, she could find a seat for +her. She pointed to the one she had risen from. Mrs. Harding, almost +tearful in her gratitude, slid into it with the precaution of the +reverent sight-seer who fears to disturb a congregation at prayer, and +Miss Woodruff, moving away, went to a table and began to turn over the +illustrated papers that lay upon it. Her manner, retired and cheerful, +had no humility, none of the poor dependent's unobtrusiveness; rather, +Gregory felt, it showed a happy pride, as if, a fortunate priestess in +the temple, she had opportunities and felicities denied to mere +worshippers. She was interested in her papers. She examined the pictures +with something of a child's attentive pleasure. + +Gregory came up to her and raising her eyes she smiled at him as though, +on the basis of last night's encounter, she took him for granted as +potentially a friend. + +"What are you looking at?" he asked her, as he might have asked a +friendly child. + +She turned the paper to him. "The Great Wall of China. They are +wonderful pictures." + +Gregory stood beside her and looked. The photographs were indeed +impressive. The sombre landscape, the pallid sky, and, winding as if for +ever over hill and valley, the astonishing structure, like an infinite +lonely consciousness. "I should like to see that," said Miss Woodruff. + +"Well, you travel a great deal, don't you?" said Gregory. "No doubt +Madame Okraska will go to China some day." + +Miss Woodruff contemplated the desolate wall. "But this is thousands and +thousands of miles from the places where concerts could be given; and I +do not know that my guardian has ever thought of China; no, it is not +probable that she will ever go there. And then, unfortunately, I do not +always go with her. I travel a great deal; but I stop at home a great +deal, too. My guardian likes best to be called von Marwitz in private +life, by those who know her personally," Miss Woodruff added, smiling +again as she presented him with the authorized liturgy. + +Gregory was slightly taken aback. He couldn't have defined Miss +Woodruff's manner as assured, yet it was singularly competent; and no +one could have been in less need of benevolent attentions. + +"I see," he said. "She looks so much more Polish than German, doesn't +she? What do you call home?" he added. "Have you lived much in England?" + +"By home I mean Cornwall," said Miss Woodruff, who was evidently used to +being asked questions. "My guardian has a house there; but it has not +been for long. It used to be in Germany, and then for a little in Italy; +she has only had Les Solitudes for four years." She looked across at the +group under the chandelier. "There is still room for a chair." Her +glance indicated a gap in Madame von Marwitz's circle. + +This kindly solicitude amused Gregory very much. She had him on her mind +as a sight-seer, as she had had Mrs. Harding; and she was full of +sympathy for sight-seers. "Oh--thanks--no," he said, his eyes following +hers. "I won't go crowding in." + +"She won't mind. She will not even notice;" Miss Woodruff assured him. + +"Oh, well, I like to be noticed if I do crowd," Gregory returned +smiling. + +His slight irony was lost upon her; yet, he was sure of it, she was not +dull. Her smile showed him that she congratulated him on an ambitious +spirit. "Well, later, then, we will hope," she said. "You would of +course rather talk with her. And here is Mr. Drew, so that this chance +is gone." + +"Who is that singular young man?" Gregory inquired watching with Miss +Woodruff the newcomer, who found a place at once in the gap near Madame +von Marwitz and was greeted by her with a brighter interest than she had +yet shown. + +"Mr. Claude Drew?" Miss Woodruff replied with some surprise. "Do you not +know? I thought that everybody in London knew him. He is quite a famous +writer. He has written poetry and essays. 'Artemis Wedded' is by +him--that is poetry; and 'The Bow of Ulysses'--the essay on my guardian +comes in that. Oh, he is quite well known." + +Mr. Claude Drew was suave and elegant, and his high, stock-like collar +and folded satin neck-gear gave him a somewhat recondite appearance. +With his dark eyes, pale skin, full, smooth, golden hair, and the vivid +red of an advancing Hapsburgian lip, he had the look of a young French +dandy drawn by Ingres. + +"My guardian is very much interested in him," Miss Woodruff went on. +"She believes that he has a great future. She is always interested in +promising young men." This, no doubt, was why Miss Woodruff had so +kindly encouraged him to take his chances. + +"He looks a clever fellow," said Gregory. + +"Do you like his face?" Miss Woodruff inquired. Mr. Drew, as if aware of +their scrutiny, had turned his eyes upon them for a moment. They were +large, jaded eyes, lustrous, yet with the lustre of a surface rather +than of depth; dense, velvety and impenetrable. + +"Well, no, I don't," said Gregory, genially decisive. "He looks +unwholesome, I think." + +"Oh! Unwholesome?" Miss Woodruff repeated the word thoughtfully rather +than interrogatively. "Yes; perhaps it is that. It is a danger of +talented modern young men, isn't it. They are not strong enough to be so +intelligent; one must be very strong--in character, I mean--if one is to +be so intelligent. Perhaps he is not strong in character. Perhaps that +is what one feels. Because I do not like his face, either; and I go +greatly by faces." + +"So do I," said Gregory. After a moment, in which they both continued to +look at Mr. Drew, he went on. "I wondered last night what nationality +you belonged to. I had been wondering about you for a long while before +you looked round at me." + +"You had heard about me?" she asked. + +He was pleased to be able to say: "Oh, I wondered about you before I +heard." + +"People are so often interested in me because of my guardian," said Miss +Woodruff; "everything about her interests them. But I am an American--if +you were not told; that is to say my father was an American--and my +mother was a Norwegian; but though I have never been to America I count +myself as an American, and with right, I think," she added. "We always +spoke English when I was a child, and I remember so many of my father's +friends. Some day I hope I may go to America. Have you been there? Do +you know New England? My father came from New England." + +"No; I've never been there. I'm very insular and untravelled." + +"Are you? It is a pity not to travel, isn't it," Miss Woodruff remarked. + +"But you like it here in England?" + +"Yes, I like it here, with Mrs. Forrester; and in Cornwall. But here +with Mrs. Forrester always seems to me more like the life of Europe. +English life, as a rule, is, I think, rather like boxes one inside the +other." She was perfectly sweet and undogmatic, but her air of +cosmopolitan competence amused Gregory, serenely of opinion, for his +part, that English was the only life. + +"Well, the great thing is that the boxes should fit comfortably into one +another, isn't it," he observed; "and I think that on the whole we've +come to fit pretty well in England. And we all come out of our boxes, +don't we," he added, pleased with his application of her simile, "for a +Madame von Marwitz." + +"Yes, I know," said Miss Woodruff, also, evidently, pleased. "That is +quite true; you all come out of your boxes for her. But, as a nation, +they are not artists, the English, are they? They are kind to the +beautiful things; they like to see them; they will take great trouble to +see them; but they do not make them. Beauty does not grow here--that is +what I mean. It is in its box, too, and it is taken out and passed round +from time to time. You do not mind my saying this? You, perhaps, are +yourself an artist?" + +"Dear me, no; I'm only a lawyer. I'm shut up in the tightest of the +boxes," said Gregory. + +Miss Woodruff scrutinized him with a smile. "I should not think that of +you," she said. "You do not look like an artist, it is true; few of us +can be artists; but you do not look shut into a box, either. Beauty, to +you, is something real; not a pastime, a fashion; no, I cannot think it. +When I saw your face last night I thought: Here is one who cares. One +counts those faces on one's fingers--even at a great concert. So many +think they care who only want to care. To you art is a serious thing and +an artist the greatest thing a country can produce. Is not that so?" + +Gregory continued to be amused by what he felt to be Miss Woodruff's +_naiveté_. He was inclined to think that artists, however admirable in +their functions, were undesirable in their persons, and the reverent +enthusiasm that Miss Woodruff imagined in him was singularly +uncharacteristic. He didn't quite know how to tell her so without +seeming rude, so he contented himself with confessing that beauty, in +his life, was kept, he feared, very much in its box. + +They, went on talking, going to an adjacent sofa where Miss Woodruff, +while they talked, stroked the deep fur of an immense Persian cat, +Hieronimus by name, who established himself between them. Gregory found +her very easy to talk to, though they had so few themes in common, and +her face he discovered to be even more charming than he had thought it +the night before. She was not at all beautiful and he imagined that in +her world of artists she would not be particularly appreciated; nor +would she be appreciated in his own world of convention--a girl with +such a thick waist, such queer clothes, a face so broad, so brown, so +abruptly modelled. She was, he felt, a grave and responsible young +person, and something in her face suggested that she might have been +through a great deal; but she was very cheerful and she laughed with +facility at things he said and that she herself said; and when she +laughed her eyes nearly closed and the tip of her tongue was caught, +with an effect of child-like gaiety, between her teeth. The darkness of +her skin made her lips, by contrast, of a pale rose, and her hair, where +it grew thickly around her brows and neck, of an almost infantile +fairness. Her broad, brown eyebrows lay far apart and her grey eyes were +direct, deliberate and limpid. + +From where Gregory sat he had Madame von Marwitz in profile and he +observed that once or twice, when they laughed, she turned her head and +looked at them. Presently she leaned a little to question Mrs. Forrester +and then, rather vexed at a sequence, natural but unforeseen, he saw +that Mrs. Forrester got up to fetch him. + +"Tante has sent for you!" Miss Woodruff exclaimed. "I am so glad." + +It really vexed him a little that he should still be supposed to be +pining for an introduction; he would so much rather have stayed talking +to her. On the sofa she continued to stroke Hieronimus and to keep a +congratulatory gaze upon him while he was conducted to a seat beside the +great woman. + +Madame von Marwitz was very lovely. She was the type of woman with whom, +as a boy, he would have fallen desperately in love, seeing her as poetry +personified. And she was the type of woman, all indolent and indifferent +as she was, who took it for granted that people would fall desperately +in love with her. Her long gaze, now, told him that. It seemed to give +him time, as it were, to take her in and to arrange with himself how +best to adjust himself to a changed life. It was not the glance of a +flirt; it held no petty consciousness; it was the gaze of an enchantress +aware of her own inevitable power. Gregory met the cold, sweet, +melancholy eyes. But as she gazed, as she slowly smiled, he was aware, +with a perverse pleasure, that his present seasoned self was completely +immune from her magic. He opposed commonplace to enchantment, and in him +Madame von Marwitz would find no victim. + +"I have never seen you here before, I think," she said. She spoke with a +beautiful precision; that of the foreigner perfectly at ease in an alien +tongue, yet not loving it sufficiently to take liberties with it. + +Gregory said, no, she had never seen him there before. + +"Mrs. Forrester is, it seems, a mutual friend," said Madame von Marwitz. +"She has known you since boyhood. You have been very fortunate." + +Gregory assented. + +"She tells me that you are in the law," Madame von Marwitz pursued; "a +barrister. I should not have thought that. A diplomat; a soldier, it +should have been. Is it not so?" + +Gregory had not wanted to be a barrister. It did not please him that +Madame von Marwitz should guess so accurately at a disappointment that +had made his youth bitter. "I'm a younger son, you see," he said. "And I +had to make my living." + +When Madame von Marwitz's gaze grew more intent she did not narrow her +eyes, but opened them more widely. She opened them more widely now, +putting back her head a little. "Ah," she said. "That was hard. That +meant suffering. You are caged in a calling you do not care for." + +"Oh, no," said Gregory, smiling; "I'm very well off; I'm quite +contented." + +"Contented?" she raised her crooked eyebrow. "Are you indeed so +fortunate?--or so unfortunate?" + +To this large question Gregory made no reply, continuing to offer her +the non-committal coolness of his smile. He was not liking Madame von +Marwitz, and he was becoming aware that if one didn't like her one did +not appear to advantage in talking with her. He cast about in his mind +for an excuse to get away. + +"The law," Madame von Marwitz mused, her eyes dwelling on him. "It is +stony; yet with stone one builds. You would not be content, I think, +with the journeyman's work of the average lawyer. You shape; you create; +you have before you the vision of the strong fortress to be built where +the weak may find refuge. You are an architect, not a mason. Only so +could you find contentment in your calling." + +"I'm afraid that I don't think about it like that," said Gregory. "I +should say that the fortress is built already." + +There was now a change in her cold sweetness; her smile became a little +ambiguous. "You remind me," she said, "that I was speaking in somewhat +pretentious similes. I was not asking you what had been done, but what +you hoped to do. I was asking--it was that that interested me in you, as +it does in all the young men I meet--what was the ideal you brought to +your calling." + +It was as though, with all her sweetness, she had seen through his +critical complacency and were correcting the manners of a conceited boy. +Gregory was a good deal taken aback. And it was with a touch of boyish +sulkiness that he replied: "I don't think, really, that I can claim +ideals." + +Definitely, now, the light of mockery shone in her eye. In evading her, +in refusing to be drawn within her magic circle, he had aroused an irony +that matched his own. She was not the mere phrase-making woman; by no +means the mere siren. "How afraid you English are of your ideals," she +said. "You live by them, but you will not look at them. I could say to +you--as Statius to Virgil in the Purgatorio--that you carry your light +behind you so that you light those who follow, but walk yourselves in +darkness. You will not claim them; no, and above all, you will not talk +about them. Do not be afraid, my young friend; I shall not tamper with +your soul." So she spoke, sweetly, deliberately, yet tersely, too, as +though to make him feel that she had done all she could for him and that +he had proved himself not worth her trouble. Mr. Claude Drew was still +on her other hand, carrying on an obviously desultory conversation with +Miss Scrotton, and to him Madame von Marwitz turned, saying: "And what +is it you wished to tell me of your Carducci? You will send me the +proofs? Good. Oh, I shall not be too tired to read what you have +written." + +Here was a young man, evidently, who was worth her trouble. Gregory sat +disposed of and a good deal discomposed, the more so since he had to own +that he had opened himself to the rebuff. He rose and moved away, +looking about and seeing that Miss Woodruff had left the room; but Mrs. +Forrester came to him, her brilliant little face somewhat clouded. + +"What is it, my dear Gregory?" she questioned. "She asked to have you +brought. Haven't you pleased her?" + +Mrs. Forrester, who had known not only himself, but his father in +boyhood, was fond of him, but was not disposed to think of him as +important. And she expected the unimportant to know, in a sense, their +place and to show the important that they did know it. There was a hint, +now, of severity, in her countenance. + +It would sound, he knew, merely boyish and sulky to say: "She hasn't +pleased me." But he couldn't resist: "I wasn't _à la hauteur_." + +Mrs. Forrester, at this, looked at him hard for a moment. She then +diagnosed his case as one of bad temper rather than of malice, and +could forgive it in one who had failed to interest the great woman and +been discarded in consequence; Mercedes, she knew, could discard with +decision. + +"Well, when you talk to a woman like Madame von Marwitz, you must try to +be worthy of your opportunities," she commented, tempering her severity +with understanding. "You really had an opportunity. Your face interested +her, and your kindness to little Karen. She always likes people who are +kind to little Karen." + +It was pleasantly open to him now to say: "Little Karen has been kind to +me." + +"A dear, good child," said Mrs. Forrester. "I am glad that you talked to +her. You pleased Mercedes in that." + +"She is a delightful girl," said Gregory. + +He now took his departure. But he was again to encounter Miss Woodruff. +She was in the hall, talking French to a sallow little woman in black, +evidently a ladies' maid, who had the oppressed, anxious countenance and +bright, melancholy eyes of a monkey. + +"_Allons_," Miss Woodruff was saying in encouraging tones, while she +paused on the first step of the stairs, her hand on the banister; "_ce +n'est pas une cause perdue, Louise; nous arrangerons la chose_." + +"_Ah, Mademoiselle, c'est que Madame ne sera pas contente, pas contente +du tout quand elle verra la robe_," was Louise's mournful reply as +Gregory came up. + +"I hoped we might go on with our talk," he said. He still addressed her +somewhat as one addresses a friendly child; "I wanted to hear the end of +that story about the Hungarian student." + +"He died, in Davos, poor boy," said Miss Woodruff, looking down at him +from her slightly higher place, while Louise stood by dejectedly. "He +wrote to my guardian and we went to him there and she played to him. It +made him so happy. We were with him till he died." + +"Shall I see you again?" Gregory asked. "Will you be here for any time? +Are you staying in London?" + +"My guardian goes to America next week--did you not know?--with Miss +Scrotton." + +"Oh yes, Eleanor told me. And you're not going too? You're not to see +America yet?" + +"No; not this time. I go to Cornwall." + +"You are to be alone with Mrs. Talcott all the winter?" + +"You know Mrs. Talcott?" Miss Woodruff exclaimed in pleased +astonishment. + +"No; I don't know her; Eleanor told me about her, too." + +"It is not being alone," said Miss Woodruff. "She and I have a most +happy time together. I thought it strange that you should know Mrs. +Talcott. I never met anyone who knew her unless they knew my guardian +very well." + +"And when are you coming back?" + +"From Cornwall? I do not know. I am afraid we shall not see each +other--oh, for a very long time," said Miss Woodruff. She smiled. She +gave him her hand, leaning down to him from behind the banister. Gregory +said that he had friends in Cornwall and that he might run down and see +them one day--and then he might see her and Les Solitudes, too. And Miss +Woodruff said that that would be very nice. + +He heard the last words of the colloquy with Louise as his coat was put +on in the hall. "_Alors il ne faut pas renvoyer la robe, Mademoiselle?_" + +"_Mais non, mais non; nous nous tirerons d'affaire_," Miss Woodruff +replied, springing gaily up the stairs, her arm, with a sort of +dignified familiarity, in which was encouragement and protection, cast +round Louise's shoulders. + + + + +CHAPTER V + + +Gregory walked at a brisk pace from Mrs. Forrester's house in Wilton +Crescent to Hyde Park Corner, and from there, through St. James's Park, +to Queen Anne's Mansions where he had a flat. He had moved into it from +dismal rooms when prosperity had first come to him, five or six years +ago, and was much attached to it. It was high up in the large block of +buildings and its windows looked over the greys and greens and silvers +of the park, the water shining in the midst, and the dim silhouettes of +Whitehall rising in stately significance on the evening sky. Gregory +went to the balcony and overhung his view contemplatively for a while. +The fog had lifted, and all London was alight. + +The drawing-room behind him expressed an accepted convention rather than +a personal predilection. It was not the room of a young man of conscious +tastes. It was solid, cheerful and somewhat _naif_. There was a great +deal of very clean white paint and a great deal of bright wall-paper. +There were deep chairs covered with brighter chintz. There were blue and +white tiles around the fireplace and heavy, polished brass before. On +the tables lay buff and blue reviews and folded evening papers, massive +paper-cutters and large silver boxes. Photographs in silver frames also +stood there, of female relatives in court dress and of male relatives in +uniform. Behind the photographs were pots of growing flowers; and on the +walls etchings and engravings after well-known landscapes. It was the +room of a young man uninfluenced by Whistler, unaware of Chinese screens +and indifferent to the rival claims of Jacobean and Chippendale +furniture. It was civilised, not cultivated; and it was thoroughly +commonplace. + +Gregory thought of himself as the most commonplace of types;--the +younger son whose father hadn't been able to do anything for him beyond +educating him; the younger son who, after years of uncongenial drudgery +had emerged, tough, stringy, professional, his boyish dreams dead and +his boyish tastes atrophied; a useful hard-working, clear-sighted member +of society. And there was truth in this conception of himself. There was +truth, too, in Madame von Marwitz's probe. He had more than the normal +English sensitiveness where ideals were concerned and more than the +normal English instinct for a protective literalness. He didn't intend +that anybody should lay their hand on his heart and tell him of lofty +aims that it would have made him feel awkward to look at by himself; his +fastidiousness was far from commonplace, and so were his disdains; they +made cheap successes and cheap ambitions impossible to him. He would +never make a fortune out of the law; yet already he was distinguished +among the younger men at the bar. With nothing of the air of a paladin +he brought into the courts a flavour of classic calm and courtesy. He +was punctiliously fair. He never frightened or bullied or confused. His +impartiality could become alarming at times to his own clients, and +shady cases passed him by. Everybody respected Gregory Jardine and a +good many people disliked him. A few old friends, comrades at Eton and +Oxford, were devoted to him and looked upon him, in spite of his +reputation for almost merciless common-sense, as still potentially +Quixotic. As a boy he had been exceptionally tender-hearted; but now he +was hard, or thought himself so. He had no vanity and looked upon his +own resolution and dignity as the heritage of all men worth their salt; +in consequence he was inclined to theoretic severity towards the +worsted. The sensitiveness of youth had steeled itself in irony; he was +impatient of delusions and exaltations, and scornful of the shambling, +shame-faced motives that moved so many of the people who came under his +observation. + +Yet, leaning on the iron railing, his gaze softening to a grave, +peaceful smile as he looked over the vast, vaporous scene, laced with +its moving and motionless lines of light, it was this, and its +mysteries, its delicacies, its reticent radiance, that expressed him +more truly than the commonplaces of the room behind him, accurately as +these symbolized the activities of his life. The boy and youth, +emotional and poetic, dreamy if also shrewdly humorous, still survived +in a sub-conscious region of his nature, an Atlantis sunken beneath the +traffic of the surface; and, when he leaned and gazed, as now, at the +lovely evocations of the evening, it was like hearing dimly, from far +depths, the bells of the buried city ringing. + +He was thinking of nothing as he leaned there, though memories, linked +in their associated loveliness, floated across his mind--larch-boughs +brushed exquisitely against a frosty sky on a winter morning in +Northumberland, when, a boy, with gun and dogs, he had paused on the +wooded slopes near his home to look round him; or the little well of +chill, clear water that he had found one summer day gushing from a mossy +source under a canopy of leaves; or the silver sky, and hills folded in +greys and purples, that had surrounded him on a day in late autumn when +he had walked for miles in loneliness and, again, had paused to look, +receiving the scene ineffaceably, so that certain moods always made it +rise before him. And linked by some thread of affinity with these +pictures, the face of the young girl he had met that afternoon rose +before him. Not as he had just seen her, but as he had seen her, for the +first time, the night before at the concert. Her face came back to him +with the larch-boughs and the spring of water and the lonely hills, +while he looked at London beneath him. She touched and interested him, +and appealed to something sub-conscious, as music did. But when he +passed from picturing her to thinking about her, about her origin and +environment and future, it was with much the same lucid and unmoved +insight with which he would have examined some unfortunate creature in +the witness-box. + +Miss Woodruff seemed to him very unfortunate. For her irregular birth he +had contempt and for her haphazard upbringing only pity. He saw no place +in a well-ordered society for sculptors who ran away with other men's +wives and lived on chestnuts and left their illegitimate children to be +picked up at the roadside. He was the type of young man who, +theoretically, admitted of and indeed admired all independences in +women; practically he preferred them to be sheltered by their male +relatives and to read no French novels until they married--if then. Miss +Woodruff struck him as at once sheltered and exposed. Her niche under +the extended wing of the great woman seemed to him precarious. He saw no +real foothold for her in her present _milieu_. She only entered Mrs. +Forrester's orbit, that was evident, as a tiny satellite in attendance +on the streaming comet. In the wake of the comet she touched, it was +true, larger orbits than the artistic; but it was in this accidental and +transitory fashion, and his accurate knowledge of the world saw in the +nameless and penniless girl the probable bride of some second-rate +artist, some wandering, dishevelled musician, or ill-educated, +ill-regulated poet. Girls like that, who had the aristocrat's assurance +and simplicity and unconsciousness of worldly lore, without the +aristocrat's secure standing in the world, were peculiarly in danger of +sinking below the level of their own type. + +He went in to dress. He was dining with the Armytages and after thinking +of Miss Woodruff it was indeed like passing from memories of larch-woods +into the chintzes and metals and potted flowers of the drawing-room to +think of Constance Armytage. Yet Gregory thought of her very contentedly +while he dressed. She was well-dowered, well-educated, well-bred; an +extremely nice and extremely pretty young woman with whom he had danced, +dined and boated frequently during her first two seasons. The Armytages +had a house at Pangbourne and he spent several week-ends with them every +summer. Constance liked him and he liked her. He was not in love with +her; but he wondered if he might not be. To get married to somebody like +Constance seemed the next step in his sensible career. He could see her +established most appropriately in the flat. He could see her beautifully +burnished chestnut hair, her pretty profile and bright blue eyes above +the tea-table; he could see her at the end of the dinner-table presiding +charmingly at a dinner. She would be a charming mother, too; the +children, when babies, would wear blue sashes and would grow up doing +all the proper things at the proper times, from the French _bonne_ and +the German _Fräulein_ to Eton and Oxford and dances and happy marriages. +She would continue all the traditions of his outer life, would fulfil it +and carry it on peacefully and honourably into the future. + +The Armytages lived in a large house in Queen's Gate Gardens. They were +not interesting people, but Gregory liked them none the less for that. +He approved of the Armytage type--the kind, courageous, intolerant old +General who managed to find Gladstone responsible for every misfortune +that befell the Empire--blithe, easy-going Lady Armytage, the two sons +in the army and the son in the navy and the two unmarried girls, of whom +Constance was one and the other still in the school-room. It was a small +dinner-party that night; most of the family were there and they had +music after it, Constance singing very prettily--she was taking +lessons--the last two songs she had learned, one by Widor and one by +Tosti. + +Yet as he drove home late Gregory was aware that Constance still +remained a pleasant possibility to contemplate and that he had come no +nearer to being in love with her. It might be easier, he mused, if only +she could offer some trivial trick or imperfection, if she had been +freckled, say, or had had a stammer, or prominent teeth. He could +imagine being married to her so much more easily than being in love with +her, and he was a little vexed with himself for his own +insusceptibility. + +Constance was the last thing that he thought of before going to sleep; +yet it was not of her he dreamed. He dreamed, very strangely, of the +little cosmopolitan waif whom he had met that afternoon. He was walking +down a road in a forest. The sky above was blue, with white clouds +heaving above the dark tree-tops, and it was a still, clear day. His +mood was the boyish mood of romance and expectancy, touched with a +little fear. At a turning of the road he came suddenly upon Karen +Woodruff. She was standing at the edge of the forest as if waiting for +him, and she held a basket of berries, not wild-strawberry and not +bramble, but a fairy-tale fruit that a Hans Andersen heroine might have +gathered, and she looked like such a heroine herself, young, and +strange, and kind, and wearing the funny little dress of the concert, +the white dress with the flat blue bows. She held out the basket to him +as he approached, and, smiling at each other in silence, they ate the +fruit with its wild, sweet savour. Then, as if he had spoken and she +were answering him, she said: "And I love you." + +Gregory woke with this. He lay for some moments still half dreaming, +with no surprise, conscious only of a peaceful wonder. He had forgotten +the dream in the morning; but it returned to him later in the day, and +often afterwards. It persisted in his memory like a cluster of +unforgettable sensations. The taste of the berries, the scent of the +pine-trees, the sweetness of the girl's smile, these things, rather than +any significance that they embodied, remained with him like one of the +deep impressions of his boyhood. + + + + +CHAPTER VI + + +On the morning that Gregory Jardine had waked from his dream, Madame von +Marwitz sat at her writing-table tearing open, with an air of impatient +melancholy, note after note and letter after letter, and dropping the +envelopes into a waste-paper basket beside her. A cigarette was between +her lips; her hair, not dressed, was coiled loosely upon her head; she +wore a white silk _peignoir_ bordered with white fur and girdled with a +sash of silver tissue. She had just come from her bath and her face, +though weary, had the freshness of a prolonged toilet. + +The room where she sat, with its grand piano and its deep chairs, its +sofa and its capacious writing-table, was accurately adjusted to her +needs. It, too, was all in white, carpet, curtains and dimity coverings. +Madame von Marwitz laughed at her own vagary; but it had had only once +to be clearly expressed, and the greens and pinks that had adorned her +sitting-room at Mrs. Forrester's were banished as well as the +rose-sprigged toilet set and hangings of the bedroom. "I cannot breathe +among colours," she had said. "They seem to press upon me. White is like +the air; to live among colours, with all their beauty, is like swimming +under the water; I can only do it with comfort for a little while." + +Madame von Marwitz looked up presently at a wonderful little clock of +gold and enamel that stood before her and then struck, not impatiently, +but with an intensification of the air of melancholy, an antique silver +bell that stood beside the clock. Louise entered. + +"Where is Mademoiselle?" Madame von Marwitz asked, speaking in French. +Louise answered that Mademoiselle had gone out to take Victor for his +walk, Victor being Madame von Marwitz's St. Bernard who remained in +England during his mistress's absences. + +"You should have taken Victor yourself, Louise," said Madame von +Marwitz, not at all unkindly, but with decisive condemnation. "You know +that I like Mademoiselle to help me with my letters in the morning." + +Louise, her permanent plaintiveness enhanced, murmured that she had a +bad headache and that Mademoiselle had kindly offered to take Victor, +had said that she would enjoy taking him. + +"Moreover," Madame von Marwitz pursued, as though these excuses were not +worthy of reply, "I do not care for Mademoiselle to be out alone in such +a fog. You should have known that, too. As for the dress, don't fail to +send it back this morning--as you should have done last night." + +"Mademoiselle thought we might arrange it to please Madame." + +"You should have known better, if Mademoiselle did not. Mademoiselle has +very little taste in such matters, as you are well aware. Do my feet +now; I think that the nails need a little polishing; but very little; I +do not wish you to make them look as though they had been varnished; it +is a trick of yours." + +Madame von Marwitz then resumed her cigarette and her letters while +Louise, fetching files and scissors, powders and polishers, mournfully +knelt before her mistress, and, drawing the _mule_ from a beautifully +undeformed white foot, began to bring each nail to a state of perfected +art. In the midst of this ceremony Karen Woodruff appeared. She led the +great dog by a leash and was still wearing her cap and coat. + +"I hope I am not late, Tante," she said, speaking in English and going +to kiss her guardian's cheek, while Victor stood by, majestically +benignant. + +"You are late, my Karen, and you had no business to take out Victor at +this hour. If you want to walk with him let it be in the afternoon. +_Aïe! aïe!_ Louise! what are you doing? Have mercy I beg of you!" Louise +had used the file awkwardly. "What is that you have, Karen?" Madame von +Marwitz went on. Miss Woodruff held in her hand a large bouquet +enveloped in white paper. + +"An offering, Tante; they just arrived as I came in. Roses, I think." + +"I have already sent half a dozen boxes downstairs for Mrs. Forrester to +dispose of in the drawing-room. You will take off your things now, +child, and help me, please, with all these weary people. _Bon Dieu!_ do +they really imagine that I am going to answer their inept effusions?" + +Miss Woodruff had unwrapped a magnificent bunch of pink roses and laid +them beside her guardian. "From that good little dark-faced lady of +yesterday, Tante." + +Madame von Marwitz, pausing meditatively over a note, glanced at them. +"The dark-faced lady?" + +"Don't you remember? Mrs. Harding. Here is her card. She sat and gazed +at you, so devoutly, while you talked to Mr. Drew and Lady Campion. And +she looked very poor. It must mean a great deal for her to buy roses in +January--_un suprême effort_," Miss Woodruff quoted, she and her +guardian having a host of such playful allusions. + +"I see her now," said Madame von Marwitz. "I see her face; +_congestionnée d'émotion, n'est-ce-pas_." She read the card that Karen +presented. + +"Silly woman. Take them away, child." + +"But no, Tante, it is not silly; it is very touching, I think; and you +have liked pink roses sometimes. It makes me sorry for that good little +lady that you shouldn't even look at her roses." + +"No. I see her. Dark red and very foolish. I do not like her or her +flowers. They look stupid flowers--thick and pink, like fat, smiling +cheeks. Take them away." + +"You have read what she says, Tante, here on the back? I call that very +pretty." + +"I see it. I see it too often. No. Go now, and take your hat off. Good +heavens, child, why did you wear that ancient sealskin cap?" + +Karen paused at the door, the rejected roses in her arms. "Why, Tante, +it was snowing a little; I didn't want to wear my best hat for a morning +walk." + +"Have you no other hat beside the best?" + +"No, Tante. And I like my little cap. You gave it to me--years +ago--don't you remember; the first time that we went to Russia +together." + +"Years ago, indeed, I should imagine from its appearance. Well; it makes +no difference; you will soon be leaving town and it will do for Cornwall +and Tallie." + +When Karen returned, Madame von Marwitz, whose feet were now finished, +took her place in an easy chair and said: "Now to work. Leave the +accounts for Schultz. I've glanced at some of them this morning and, as +usual, I seem to be spending twice as much as I make. How the money runs +away I cannot imagine. And Tallie sends me a great batch of bills from +Cornwall, _bon Dieu_!" _Bon Dieu_ was a frequent ejaculation with Madame +von Marwitz, often half sighed, and with the stress laid on the first +word. + +"Never mind, you will soon be making a great deal more money," said +Karen. + +"It would be more to the point if I could manage to keep a little of +what I make. Schultz tells me that my investments in the Chinese +railroads are going badly, too. Put aside the bills. We will go through +the rest of the letters." + +For some time they worked at the pile of correspondence. Karen would +open each letter and read the signature; letters from those known to +Madame von Marwitz, or from her friends, were handed to her; the letters +signed by unknown names Karen read aloud:--begging letters; letters +requesting an autograph; letters recommending to the great woman's +kindly notice some budding genius, and letters of sheer adulation, +listened to, these last, sometimes with a dreamy indifference to the +end, interrupted sometimes with a sudden "_Assez_." + +There were a dozen such letters this morning and when Karen read the +signature of the last: "Your two little adorers Gladys and Ethel +Bocock," Madame von Marwitz remarked: "We need not have that. Put it +into the basket." + +"But, Tante," Karen protested, looking round at her with a smile, "you +must hear it; it is so funny and so nice." + +"So stupid I call it, my dear. They should not be encouraged." + +"But you must be kind, you will be kind, even to the stupid. See, here +are two of your photographs, they ask you to sign them. There is a +stamped and addressed envelope to return them in. Such love, Tante! such +torrents of love! You must listen." + +Madame von Marwitz resigned herself, her eyes fixed absently on the +smoke curling from her cigarette as if, in its fluctuating evanescence, +she saw a symbol of human folly. Gladys and Ethel lived in Clapham and +told her that they came in to all her concerts and sat for hours waiting +on the stairs. Their letter ended: "Everyone adores you, but no one can +adore you like we do. Oh, would you tell us the colour of your eyes? +Gladys thinks deep, dark grey, but I think velvety brown; we talk and +talk about it and can't decide. We mustn't take up any more of your +precious time.--Your two little adorers, Gladys and Ethel Bocock." + +"Bocock," Madame von Marwitz commented. "No one can adore me like they +do. Let us hope not. _Petites sottes._" + +"You will sign the photographs, Tante--and you will say, yes, you +must--'To my kind little admirers.' Now be merciful." + +"Bocock," Madame von Marwitz mused, holding out an indulgent hand for +the pen that Karen gave her and allowing the blotter with the +photographs upon it to be placed upon her knee. "And they care for +music, _parbleu_! How many of such appreciators are there, do you think, +among my adorers? I do this to please you, Karen. It is against my +principles to encourage the _schwärmerei_ of schoolgirls. There," she +signed quickly across each picture in a large, graceful and illegible +hand, adding, with a smile up at Karen,--"To my kind little admirers." + +Karen, satisfied, examined the signatures, held them to the fire for a +moment to preserve their vivid black in bold relief, and then put them +into their envelope, dropping in a small slip of paper upon which she +had written: "Her eyes are grey, flecked with black, and are not +velvety." + +They had now reached the end of the letters. + +"A very good, helpful child it is," said Madame von Marwitz. "You are +methodical, Karen. You will make a good housewife. That has never been +my talent." + +"And it is my only one," said Karen. + +"Ah, well, no; it is a good, solid little head in other directions, too. +And it is no mean musician that the child has become. Yes; there are +many well-known artists to whom I would listen less willingly than to my +Karen. It is only in the direction of _la toilette_," Madame von Marwitz +smiled with a touch of roguishness, "only in the direction of _la +toilette_ that the taste is rather rudimentary as yet. I was very cross +last night, _hein_?" + +"It was disappointing not to have pleased you," said Karen, smiling. + +"And I was cross. Louise has her _souffre-douleur_ expression this +morning to an exasperating degree." + +"We thought we were going to make the dress quite right," said Karen. +"It seemed very simple to arrange the lace around the shoulders; I stood +and Louise draped me; and Louise is clever, you know." + +"Not clever enough for that. It was all because with your solicitude +about Louise you wanted her to escape a scolding. She took the lace to +Mrs. Rolley too late and did not explain as I told her to do. And you +did not save her, you see. Put those two letters of Mr. Drew's in the +portfolio; so. And now come and sit, there. I want to have a serious +talk with you, Karen." + +Karen obeyed. Madame von Marwitz sat in her deep chair, the window +behind her. The fog had lifted and the pale morning sunlight struck +softly on the coils of her hair and fell on the face of the young girl +sitting before her. With her grey dress and folded hands and serene gaze +Karen looked very like the little convent _pensionnaire_. Madame von +Marwitz scrutinized her thoughtfully for some moments. + +"You are--how old is it, Karen?" she said at last. + +"I shall be twenty-four in March," said Karen. + +"_Bon Dieu!_ I had not realised that it was so much; you are singularly +young for your years." + +"Am I, Tante? I don't know," Karen reflected, genially. "I often feel, +oh far older than the people I talk with." + +"Do you, _mon enfant_. Some children, it is true, are far wiser than +their elders. You are a wise child; but you are young, Karen, very young +for your years, in appearance, in demeanour, in candour of outlook. Tell +me; have you ever contemplated your future? asked yourself about it?" + +Karen, looking gravely at her, shook her head. "Hardly at all, Tante. Is +that very stupid?" + +"Not stupid, perhaps; but, again, very child-like. You live in the +present." + +"The past was so sad, Tante, and since I have been with you I have been +so happy. There has seemed no reason for thinking of anything but the +present." + +"Well, that is right. It is my wish to have you happy. As far as +material things go, too, your future shall be assured; I see to that. +But, you are twenty-three years old, Karen; you are a woman, and a child +no longer. Do you never dream dreams of _un prince charmant_; of a home +of your own, and children, and a life to build with one who loves you? +If I were to die--and one can count on nothing in life--you would be +very desolate." + +Karen, for some silent moments, looked at her guardian, intently and +with a touch of alarm. "No; I don't dream," she said then. "And perhaps +that is because you fill my life so, Tante. If someone came who loved me +very much and whom I loved, I should of course be glad to marry;--only +not if it would take me from you; I mean that I should want to be often +with you. And when I look forward at all I always take it for granted +that that will come in time--a husband and children, and a home of my +own. But there seems no reason to think of it now. I am quite contented +as I am." + +The kindly melancholy of Madame von Marwitz's gaze continued to fix her. +"But I am not contented for you," she observed. "I wish to see you +established. Youth passes, all too quickly, and its opportunities pass, +too. I should blame myself if our tie were to cut you off from a wider +life. Good husbands are by no means picked up on every bush. One cannot +take these things for granted. It is of a possible marriage I wish to +speak to you this morning, my Karen. We will talk of it quietly." Madame +von Marwitz raised herself in her chair to stretch her hand and take +from the mantelpiece a letter lying there. "This came this morning, my +Karen," she said. "From our good Lise Lippheim." + + +Frau Lippheim was a warm-hearted, talented, exuberant Jewess who had +been a fellow student of Madame von Marwitz's in girlhood. The +eagle-flights of genius had always been beyond her, yet her pinions were +wide and, unburdened by domestic solicitudes, she might have gone far. +As it was, married to a German musician much her inferior, and immersed +in the care and support of a huge family, she ranked only as second or +third rate. She gave music-lessons in Leipsig and from time to time, +playing in a quintet made up of herself, her eldest son and three eldest +girls, gave recitals in Germany, France and England. The Lippheim +quintet, in its sober way, held a small but dignified position. + +Karen had been deposited by her guardian more than once under the +Lippheim's overflowing roof in Leipsig, and it was a vision of Frau +Lippheim that came to her as her guardian unfolded the letter--of the +near-sighted, pale blue eyes, heavy, benignant features, and crinkled, +red-brown hair. So very ugly, almost repulsively so; yet so kind, so +valiant, so untiring. The thought of her was touching, and affectionate +solicitude almost effaced Karen's personal anxiety; for she could not +connect Frau Lippheim with any matrimonial project. + +Madame von Marwitz, glancing through her letter, looked up from the last +sheet. "I have talked with the good Lise more than once, Karen," she +said, "about a hope of hers. She first spoke of it some two years ago; +but I told her then that I would say nothing to you till you were older. +Now, hearing that I am going away, to leave you for so long, she writes +of it again. Did you know that Franz was very much attached to you, +Karen?" Franz was Frau Lippheim's eldest son. + +The vision that now flashed, luridly, for Karen, was that of an immense +Germanic face with bright, blinking eyes behind glasses; huge lips; a +flattened nose, modelled thickly at the corners, and an enormous laugh +that rolled back the lips and revealed suddenly the Semitic element and +a boundless energy and kindliness. She had always felt fond of Franz +until this moment. Now, amazed, appalled, a violent repulsion went +through her. She became pale. "No. I had not guessed that," she said. + +Her eyes were averted. Madame von Marwitz glanced at her and vexation +clouded her countenance. She knew that flinty, unresponsive look. In +moments of deep emotion Karen could almost disconcert her. Her face +expressed no hostility; but a sternness, blind and resisting, like that +of a rock. At such moments she did not look young. + +Madame von Marwitz, after her glance, also averted her eyes, sighing +impatiently. "I see that you do not care for the poor boy. He had hoped, +with his mother to back him, that he might have some chance of winning +you;--though it is not Franz who writes." + +She paused; but Karen said nothing. "You know that Franz has talent and +is beginning, now, to make money steadily. Lise tells me that. And I +would give you a little _dot_; enough to assure your future, and his. I +only speak of the material things because it is part of your +childishness never to consider them. Of him I would not have spoken at +all, had I not believed that you felt friendship and affection for him. +He is so good, so strong, so loyal that I did not think it impossible." + +After another silence Karen found something to say. "I have friendship +for him. That is quite different." + +"Why so, Karen?" Madame von Marwitz inquired. "Since you are not a +romantic school-girl, let us speak soberly. Friendship, true friendship, +for a man whose tastes are yours, whose pursuits you understand, is the +soundest basis upon which to build a marriage." + +"No. Only as a friend, a friend not too near, do I feel affection for +Franz. It is repulsive to me--the thought of anything else. It makes me +hate him," said Karen. + +"_Tiens!_" Madame von Marwitz opened her eyes in genuine surprise. "I +could not have imagined such, decisive feeling. I could not have +imagined that you despised the good Franz. I need not tell you that I do +not agree with you there." + +"I do not despise him." + +"Ah, there is more than mere negation in your look, your voice, my +child. It is pride, wounded pride, that speaks; and it is as if you told +me that I had less care for your pride than you had, and thought less of +your claims." + +"I do not think of my claims." + +"You feel them. You feel Franz your inferior." + +"I did not think of such things. I thought of his face, near me, and it +made me hate him." + +Karen continued to look aside with a sombre gaze. And, after examining +her for another moment, Madame von Marwitz held out her hand. "Come," +she said, "come here, child. I have blundered. I see that I have +blundered. Franz shall be sent about his business. Have I hurt you? Do +not think of it again." + +The girl got up slowly, as if her stress of feeling made her awkward. +Stumbling, she knelt down beside her guardian and, taking the hand and +holding it against her eyes, she said in a voice heavy with unshed +tears: "Am I a burden? Am I an anxiety? Let me go away, then. I can +teach. I can teach music and languages. I can do translations, so many +things. You have educated me so well. You will always be my dear friend +and I shall see you from time to time. But it is as you say, I am a +woman now. I would rather go away than have you troubled by me." + +Madame von Marwitz's face, as she listened to the heavy voice, that +trembled a little over its careful words, darkened. "It is not well what +you say, Karen," she replied. "No. You speak to me as you have no right +to speak, as though you had a grievance against me. What have I ever +done that you should ask me whether you are a burden to me?" + +"Only--" said Karen, her voice more noticeably trembling--"only that it +seemed to me that I must be in the way if you could think of Franz as a +husband for me. I do not know why I feel that. But it hurt me so much +that it seemed to me to be true." + +"It has always been my joy to care for you," said Madame von Marwitz. "I +have always loved you like my own child. I do not admit that to think of +Franz as a husband for you was to do you a wrong. I would not listen to +an unfitting suitor for my child. It is you who have hurt me--deeply +hurt me--by so misunderstanding me." Sorrow and reproach grew in her +voice. + +"Forgive me," said Karen, who still held the hand before her eyes. + +Madame von Marwitz drew her hand gently away and raising Karen's head so +that she could look at her, "I forgive you, indeed, Karen," she said. +"How could I not forgive you? But, child, do not hurt me so again. Never +speak of leaving me again. You must never leave me except to go where a +fuller happiness beckons. You do not know how they stabbed--those words +of yours. That you could think them, believe them! No, Karen, it was not +well. Not only are you dear to me for yourself; there is another bond. +You were dear to him. You were beside me in the hour of my supreme +agony. You desecrate our sacred memories when you allow small suspicions +and fears to enter your thoughts of me. So much has failed me in my +life. May I not trust that my child will never fail me?" + +Tragic grief gazed from her eyes and Karen's eyes echoed it. + +"Forgive me, Tante, I have hurt you. I have been stupid," she spoke +almost dully; but Madame von Marwitz was looking into the eyes, deep +wells of pain and self-reproach. + +"Yes, you have hurt me, _ma chérie_," she replied, leaning now her cheek +against Karen's head. "And it is not loving to forget that when a cup of +suffering brims, a drop the more makes it overflow. You are harsh +sometimes, Karen, strangely harsh." + +"Forgive me," Karen repeated. + +Madame von Marwitz put her arms around her, still leaning her head +against hers. "With all my heart, my child, with all my heart," she +said. "But do not hurt me so again. Do not forget that I live at the +edge of a precipice; an inadvertent footstep, and I crash down to the +bottom, to lie mangled. Ah, my child, may life never tear you, burn you, +freeze you, as it has torn and burned and frozen me. Ah, the memories, +the cruel memories!" Great sighs lifted her breast. She murmured, while +Karen knelt enfolding her, "His dead face rises before me. The face that +we saw, Karen. And I know to the full again my unutterable woe." It was +rare with Madame von Marwitz to allude thus explicitly to the tragedy of +her life, the ambiguous, the dreadful death of her husband. Karen knelt +holding her, pale with the shared memory. They were so for a long time. +Then, sighing softly, "_Bon Dieu! bon Dieu!_" Madame von Marwitz rose +and, gently putting the girl aside, she went into her bedroom and closed +the door. + + + + +CHAPTER VII + + +It was a hard, chill morning and Gregory, sauntering up and down the +platform at Euston beside the open doors of the long steamer-train, felt +that the taste and smell of London was, as nowhere else, concentrated, +compressed, and presented to one in tabloid form, as it were, at a +London station on a winter morning. It was a taste and smell that he, +personally, rather liked, singularly compounded as it was, to his fancy, +of cold metals and warm sooty surfaces; of the savour of kippers cooking +over innumerable London grates and the aroma of mugs of beer served out +over innumerable London bars; something at once acrid yet genial, +suggesting sordidness and unlimited possibility. The vibration of +adventure was in it and the sentiment, oddly intermingled, of human +solidarity and personal detachment. + +Gregory, as he strolled and waited for his old friend and whilom Oxford +tutor, Professor Blackburn, whom he had promised to see off, had often +to pause or to deviate in his course; for, though it was still early, +and the season not a favourite one for crossing, the platform was quite +sufficiently crowded, and crowded, evidently, with homeward-bound +Americans, mostly women. Gregory tended to think of America and its +people with the kindly lightness common to his type. Their samenesses +didn't interest him, and their differences were sometimes vexatious. He +had a vague feeling that they'd really better have been Colonials and be +done with it. Professor Blackburn last night had reproved this insular +levity. He was going over with an array of discriminations that Gregory +had likened to an explorer's charts and instruments. He intended to +investigate the most minute and measure the most immense, to lecture +continually, to dine out every evening and to write a book of some real +appropriateness when he came home. Gregory said that all that he asked +of America was that it should keep its institutions to itself and share +its pretty girls, and the professor told him that he knew more about the +latter than the former. There were not many pretty girls on the platform +this morning, though he remarked one rather pleasing young person who +sat idly on a pile of luggage and fixed large, speculative, innocently +assured eyes upon him when he went by, while near her her mother and a +tawny sister disputed bitterly with a porter. Most of the ladies who +hastened to and fro seemed, while very energetic, also very jaded. They +were packed as tightly with experiences as their boxes with contraband +clothing, and they had both, perhaps, rather heavily on their minds, +wondering, it was probable, how they were to get them through. Some of +them, strenuous, eye-glassed and scholastic, looked, however, as they +marshalled their pathetically lean luggage, quite innocent of material +trophies. + +Among these alien and unfamiliar visages, Gregory caught sight suddenly +of one that was alien yet recognizable. He had seen the melancholy, +simian features before, and after a moment he placed the neat, black +person, walking beside a truck piled high with enormous boxes, as +Louise, Madame von Marwitz's maid. To recognise Louise was to think of +Miss Woodruff. Gregory looked around the platform with a new interest. + +Miss Woodruff was nowhere to be seen, but a new element pervaded the +dingy place, and it hardly needed the presence of four or five richly +dressed ladies bearing sheaves of flowers, or that of two silk-hatted +impresario-looking gentlemen with Jewish noses, to lead Gregory to infer +that the element was Madame von Marwitz's, and that he had, +inadvertently, fallen upon the very morning of her departure. Already an +awareness and an expectancy was abroad that reminded him of that in the +concert hall. The contagion of celebrity had made itself felt even +before the celebrity herself was visible; but, in another moment, Madame +von Marwitz had appeared upon the platform, surrounded by cohorts of +friends. Dressed in a long white cloak and flowing in sables, a white +lace veil drooping about her shoulders, a sumptuous white feather +curving from her brow to her back, she moved amidst the scene like a +splendid, dreamy ship entering some grimy Northern harbour. + +Mrs. Forrester, on heels as high as a fairy-godmother's and wearing a +strange velvet cloak and a stranger velvet bonnet, trotted beside her; +Sir Alliston was on the other hand, his delicate Vandyke features nipped +with the cold; Mr. Claude Drew walked behind and before went Eleanor +Scrotton, smiling a tight, stricken smile of triumph and responsibility. +As the group passed Gregory, Miss Scrotton caught sight of him. + +"We are in plenty of time, I see," she said. "Dear me! it has been a +morning! Mercedes is always late. Could you, I wonder, induce these +people to move away. She so detests being stared at." + +Eleanor, as usual, roused a mischievous spirit in Gregory. "I'm afraid +I'm helpless," he replied. "We're in a public place, and a cat may look +at a king. Besides, who could help looking at those marvellous clothes." + +"It isn't a question of cats but of impertinent human beings," Miss +Scrotton returned with displeasure. "Allow me, Madam," she forged a +majestic way through a gazing group. + +"Where is Miss Woodruff?" Gregory inquired. He was wondering. + +"Tiresome girl," Miss Scrotton said, watching the ladies with the +flowers who gathered around her idol. "She will be late, I'm afraid. She +had forgotten Victor." + +"Victor? Is Victor the courier? Why does Miss Woodruff have to remember +him?" + +"No, no. Victor is Mercedes's dog, her dearly loved dog," said Miss +Scrotton, her impatience with an ignorance that she suspected of +wilfulness tempered, as usual, by the satisfaction of giving any and +every information about Madame von Marwitz. "It is a sort of +superstition with her that he should always be on the platform to see +her off. It will be serious, really serious, if Karen doesn't get him +here in time. It may depress Mercedes for the whole of the voyage." + +"And where has she gone to get him?" + +"Oh, she turned back nearly at once. She was with us in the carriage and +we passed Louise in the omnibus with the boxes and fortunately Karen +noticed that Victor wasn't with her. It turned out, when we stopped and +asked Louise about him, that she had given him to the footman to take +for a walk and she thought he had been brought back to Karen. Karen took +a hansom at once and went back. She really ought to have seen to it +before starting. I do hope she will get him here in time. Madam, if you +please; we really can't get by." + +A little woman, stout but sprightly, in whom Gregory recognized the +agitated mother of the pretty girl, evaded Miss Scrotton's extended hand +and darted past her to place herself in front of Madame von Marwitz. She +wore a large, box-like hat from which a blue veil hung. Her small +features, indeterminate in form and incoherent in assemblage, expressed +to an extraordinary degree determination and strategy. She faced the +great woman. + +"Baroness," she said, in swift yet deliberate tones; "allow me to +present myself; Mrs. Hamilton K. Slifer. We have mutual friends; Mrs. +Tollman, Mrs. General Tollman of St. Louis, Missouri. She had the +pleasure of meeting you in Paris some years ago. An old family friend of +ours. My girls, Baroness; Maude and Beatrice. They won't forget this +day. We're simply wild about you, Baroness. We were at your concert the +other night." Maude, the lean and tawny, and Beatrice, the dark and +pretty, had followed deftly in their mother's wake and were smiling, +Maude with steely brightness, Beatrice with nonchalant assurance, at +Madame von Marwitz. + +"_Bon Dieu!_" the great woman muttered. She gazed away from the Slifers +and about her with helpless consternation. Then, slightly bowing her +head and murmuring: "I thank you, Madam," she moved on, her friends +closing round her. Miss Scrotton, pale with wrath, put the Slifers aside +as she passed them. + +"Well, girls, I knew I could do it!" Mrs. Slifer ejaculated, drawing a +deep breath. They stood near Gregory, and Beatrice, who had adjusted her +camera, was taking a series of snaps of the retreating celebrity. "We've +met her, anyway, and perhaps if she ever comes on deck we'll get another +chance. That's a real impertinent woman she's got with her. Did you see +her try and shove me back?" + +"Never mind, mother," said Beatrice, who was evidently easy-going; "I +snapped her as she did it and she looked ugly enough to turn milk sour. +My! do look at that girl with the queer cap and the big dog. She's a +freak and no mistake! Stand back, Maude, and let me have a shot at her." + +"Why, I believe it's the adopted daughter!" Maude exclaimed. "Don't you +remember. She was in the front row and we heard those people talking +about her. I think she's _distinguée_ myself. She looks like a Russian +countess." + +It was indeed Miss Woodruff who had arrived and Gregory, whose eyes +followed the Slifers', was aware of a sudden emotion on seeing her. It +was the emotion of his dream, touched and startled and sweet, and even +more than in his dream she made him think of a Hans Andersen heroine +with the little sealskin cap on her fair hair, and a long furred coat +reaching to her ankles. She stood holding Victor by a leash, looking +about her with a certain anxiety. + +Gregory made his way to her and when she saw him she started to meet +him, gladly, but without surprise. "Where is Tante?" she said, "Is she +already in the train? Did she send you for me?" + +"You are in very good time," he reassured her. "She is over there--you +see her feather now, don't you. I'll take you to her." + +"Thank you so much. It has been a great rush. You have heard of the +misfortunes? By good chance I found the quickest cab." + +She was walking beside him, her eyes fixed before them on the group +where she saw her guardian's plume and veil. "I don't know what Tante +would have done if Victor had not been here in time to say good-bye to +her." + +Madame von Marwitz was holding a parting reception before the open door +of her saloon carriage. Flowers and fruits lay on the tables. Louise and +Miss Scrotton's maid piled rugs and cushions on the chairs and divans. +One of the Jewish gentlemen stood with his hat pushed off his forehead +talking in low, important tones to a pallid young newspaper man who made +rapid notes. + +Madame von Marwitz at once caught sight of Karen and Victor. Past the +intervening heads she beckoned Karen to come to her and she and Gregory +exchanged salutes. In her swift smile on seeing him he read a mild +amusement; she could only think that, like everybody else, he had come +to see her off. + +The cohorts opened to receive Miss Woodruff and Madame von Marwitz +enfolded her and stooped to kiss Victor's head. + +Gregory watched the little scene, which was evidently touching to all +who witnessed it, and then turned to find Professor Blackburn at his +elbow. He, too, it appeared, had been watching Madame von Marwitz. "Yes; +I heard her two years ago in Oxford," he said; "and even my antique +blood was stirred, as much by her personality as by her music. A most +romantic, most pathetic woman. What eyes and what a smile!" + +"I see that you are one of the stricken," said Gregory. "Shall I +introduce you to my old friend, Mrs. Forrester? She'll no doubt be able +to get you a word with Madame Okraska, if you want to hear her speak." + +No, the professor said, he preferred to keep his idols remote and +vaguely blurred with incense. "Who is the young Norse maiden?" he +inquired; "the one you were with. Those singular ladies are accosting +her now." + +Karen Woodruff, on the outskirts of the group, had been gazing at her +guardian with a constrained smile in which Gregory detected +self-mastery, and turned her eyes upon the Slifers as the professor +asked his question. Mrs. Slifer, marshalling her girls, and stooping to +pat Victor, was introducing herself, and while Gregory told the +professor that that was Miss Woodruff, Madame Okraska's ward, she bent +to expound to the Slifers the inscription on Victor's collar, speaking, +it was evident, with kindness. Gregory was touched by the tolerance with +which, in the midst of her own sad thoughts, she satisfied the Slifers' +curiosity. + +"Then she really is Norse," said the professor. + +"Really half Norse." + +"I like her geniality and her reticence," said the professor, watching +the humours of the little scene. "Those enterprising ladies won't get +much out of her. Ah, they must relinquish her now; her guardian is +asking for her. I suppose it's time that I got into my compartment." + +The groups were breaking up and the travellers, detaching themselves +from their friends, were taking their places. Madame von Marwitz, poised +above a sea of upturned faces on the steps of her carriage, bent to +enfold Karen Woodruff once more. Doors then slammed, whistles blew, +green flags fluttered, and the long train moved slowly out of the +station. + +Standing at a little distance from the crowd, and holding Victor by his +leash, Miss Woodruff looked after the train with a fixed and stiffened +smile. She was near tears. The moment was not a propitious one for +speaking to her; yet Gregory felt that he could not go without saying +good-bye. He approached her and she turned grave eyes upon him. + +"And you are going to Cornwall, now?" said Gregory, patting Victor's +head. + +"Yes; I go to-morrow," said Miss Woodruff in a gentle voice. + +"Have you friends there?" Gregory asked, "and books? Things to amuse +you?" + +"We see the rector and his wife and one or two old ladies now and then. +But it is very remote, you know. That is why my guardian loves it so +much. She needs the solitude after her rushing life. But books; oh yes; +my guardian has an excellent library there; she is a great reader; I +could read all day, in every language, if I wanted to. As for amusement, +Mrs. Talcott and I are very busy; we see after the garden and the little +farm; I practice and take Victor out for walks." + +She had quite mastered her emotion and Gregory could look up at her +frankly. "Isn't there something I could send you," he said, "to help to +pass the time? Magazines? Do you have them? And sweets? Do you like +sweets?" His manner was half playful and he smiled at her as he might +have smiled at a young school-girl. If only those wide braids under the +little cap had been hanging over her shoulders the manner would have +been justified. As it was, Gregory felt with some bewilderment that his +behaviour was hardly normal. He was not in the habit of offering +magazines and sweets to young women. But his solicitude expressed itself +in these unconventional forms and luckily she found nothing amiss with +them. She was accustomed, no doubt, to a world where such offerings +passed freely. + +"It is very kind of you," said Miss Woodruff. "I should indeed like to +see a review now and then. Mr. Drew is writing another little article on +my guardian, in one of this month's reviews, I did not hear which one; +and I would like to see that very much. But sweets? No; when I like them +I like them too much and eat too many and then I am sorry. Please don't +send me sweets." She was smiling. + +"What do you like to eat, then, that doesn't make you sorry--even when +you eat a great deal?" + +"Roast-beef!" she said, laughing, and the tip of her tongue was caught +between her teeth. He was charmed to feel that, for the moment, at +least, he had won her from her sadness. + +"But you get roast-beef in Cornwall." + +"Oh, excellent. I will not have roast-beef, please." + +"Fruit, then? You like fruit?" + +"Yes; indeed." + +"And you don't get much fruit in Cornwall in winter." + +"Only apples," she confessed, "and dried apricots." + +He elicited from her that nectarines and grapes were her favourite +fruits. But in the midst of their talk she became suddenly grave again. + +"I do not believe that you had a single word with her after I came!" + +His face betrayed his bewilderment. + +"Tante," she enlightened him. "But before then? You did speak with her? +She had sent you to look for me?" The depths of her misconception as to +his presence were apparent. + +"No; it was by chance I saw you," he said. "And I didn't have any talk +with Madame von Marwitz." He had no time to undeceive her further if it +had been worth while to undeceive her, for Mrs. Forrester, detaching +herself from the larger group of bereaved ones, joined them. + +"I can't give you a lift, Gregory?" she asked. "You are going citywards? +We are all feeling very bleak and despoiled, aren't we? What an awful +place a station is when someone has gone away from it." + +"Mrs. Forrester," said Karen Woodruff, with wide eyes, "he did not have +one single word with her; Mr. Jardine did not get any talk at all with +Tante. Oh, that should have been managed." + +But Mrs. Forrester, though granting to his supposed plight a glance of +sympathetic concern, was in a hurry to get home and he was, again, +spared the necessity of a graceless confession. He piloted them through +the crowd, saw them--Miss Woodruff, Mrs. Forrester and Victor,--fitted +into Mrs. Forrester's brougham, and then himself got into a hansom. It +was still the atmosphere of the dream that hovered about him as he +decided at what big fruit-shop he should stop to order a box of +nectarines. He wanted her to find them waiting for her in Cornwall. And +the very box of nectarines, the globes of sombre red fruit nested in +cotton-wool, seemed part of the dream. He knew that he was behaving +curiously; but she was, after all, the little Hans Andersen heroine and +one needn't think of ordinary customs where she was concerned. + + + + +CHAPTER VIII + + + "Les Solitudes, + "February 2nd. + + "Dear Mr. Jardine,--How very, very kind of you. I could hardly + believe it when Mrs. Talcott told me that a box was here for me. I + could think of nothing to explain it. Then when we opened it and + saw, row upon row, those beautiful things like pearls in a + casket--it made me feel quite dazed. Nectarines are not things that + you expect to have, in rows, all to yourself. Mrs. Talcott and I + ate two at once, standing there in the hall where we opened them; + we couldn't wait for chairs and plates and silver knives; things + taste best of all when eaten greedily, I think, and I think that + these will all be eaten greedily. It is so kind of you. I thank you + very much.--Yours sincerely, + + "Karen Woodruff." + + * * * * * + + "Les Solitudes, + "February 9th. + + "Dear Mr. Jardine,--It is most kind of you to write me this nice + note and to send me these reviews. I often have to miss the things + that come out in the reviews about my guardian, for the + press-cuttings go to her. Mr. Drew says many clever things, does he + not; he understands music and he understands--at least almost--what + my guardian is to music; but he does not, of course, understand + her. He only sees the greatness and sees it made out of great + things. When one knows a great person intimately one sees all the + little things that make them great; often such very little things; + things that Mr. Drew could not know. That is why his article is, to + me, rather pretentious; nor will you like it, I think. He fills up + with subtleties the gaps in his knowledge, and that makes it all so + artificial. But I am most glad to have, it.--Sincerely yours, + + "Karen Woodruff." + + * * * * * + + "Les Solitudes, + "February 18th. + + "Dear Mr. Jardine,--The beautiful great box of fruit arrived + to-day. It is too good and kind of you. I am wondering now whether + muscatel grapes are not even more my favourites than nectarines! + This is a day of rain and wind, soft rain blowing in gusts and the + wind almost warm. Victor and I have come in very wet and now we are + both before the large wood fire. London seems so far away that New + York hardly seems further. You heard of the great ovation that my + guardian had. I had a note from her yesterday and two of the New + York papers. If you care to read them I will gladly send them; they + tell in full about the first great concert she has given and the + criticism is good. I will ask you to let me have them back when you + have read them.--With many, many thanks.--Sincerely yours, + + "Karen Woodruff." + + * * * * * + + "Les Solitudes, + "February 28th. + + "Dear Mr. Jardine,--I am glad that you liked the box of snowdrops + and that they reached you safely, packed in their moss. I got them + in a little copse a few miles from here. The primroses will soon be + coming now and, if you like, I will send you some of them. I know + one gets them early in London; but don't you like best to open + yourself a box from the country and see them lying in bunches with + their leaves. I like even the slight flatness they have; but mine + are very little flattened; I am good at packing flowers! My + guardian always tells me so! You are probably right in not caring + to see the papers; they are always much alike in what they say. It + was only the glimpse of the great enthusiasm they gave that I + thought might have interested you. Next week she goes to Chicago. I + am afraid she will be very tired. But Miss Scrotton will take care + of her.--Sincerely yours, + + "Karen Woodruff." + + * * * * * + + "Les Solitudes, + "March 17th. + + "Dear Mr. Jardine,--I have taken up my pen for only two purposes + since I left London--to write my weekly letter to my guardian--and + to thank you over and over again. Only now you have quite spoiled + Mrs. Talcott and me for our stewed dried fruit that we used to + think so nice before we lived on grapes and nectarines. Indeed I + have not forgotten the primroses and I shall be so delighted to + pick them for you when the time comes, though I suspect it is sheer + kindness in you that gives me the pleasure of sending you + something. Your nice letter interested me very much. Yes, we have + 'Dominique' in the library here, and I will perhaps soon read it; I + say perhaps, because I am reading 'Wilhelm Meister'--my guardian + was quite horrified with me when she found I had never read it--and + must finish that first, and it is very long. Is 'Dominique' indeed + your favourite French novel? My guardian places Stendahl and + Flaubert first. For myself I do not care much for French novels. I + like the Russians best.--Sincerely yours, + + "Karen Woodruff." + + * * * * * + + "Les Solitudes, + "April 2nd. + + "Dear Mr. Jardine,--You make a charming picture of the primroses in + the blue and white bowls for me. And of your view over the park. + London can be so beautiful; I, too, care for it very much. It is + beautiful here now; the hedges all white with blackthorn and the + woods full of primroses. My guardian must now be in San Francisco! + She is back in New York in May, and is to give three more great + concerts there. I am impatiently waiting for my next letter from + her. I am so glad you like the primroses. Many, many thanks for the + fruit.--Yours sincerely, + + "Karen Woodruff." + + * * * * * + + "Les Solitudes, + "April 5th. + + "Dear Mr. Jardine,--What you say makes me feel quite troubled. I + know you write playfully, yet sometimes one can _dire la vérité en + riant_, and it is as if you had found my letters very empty and + unresponsive. I did not mean them to be that of course; but I am + not at all in the habit of writing letters except to people I am + very intimate with. Indeed, I am in the habit only of writing to my + guardian, and it is difficult for me to think that other people + will be interested in the things I am doing. And in one way I do so + little here. Nothing that I could believe interesting to you; + nothing really but have walks and practise my music and read; and + talk sometimes with Mrs. Talcott. About once in two months the + vicar's wife has tea with us, and about once in two months we have + tea with her; that is all. And I am sure you cannot like + descriptions of landscapes. I love to look at landscapes and + dislike reading what other people have to say about them; and is + not that the same with you? It is quite different that you should + write to me of things and people; for you see so many and you do so + much and you know that to someone in the depths of the country all + this must be very interesting. So do not punish me for my dullness + by ceasing to write to me.--Sincerely yours, + + "Karen Woodruff." + + * * * * * + + "Les Solitudes, + "April 10th. + + "Dear Mr. Jardine,--Of course I will write you descriptions of + landscapes!--and of all my daily routine, if you really care to + hear. No; I am not lonely, though of course I miss my guardian very + much. I have the long, long walks with Victor, in wet weather over + the inland moors along the roads, and in fine weather along the + high cliff paths; sometimes we walk ten miles in an afternoon and + come back very tired for tea. In the evenings I sit with Mrs. + Talcott over the fire. You ask me to describe Mrs. Talcott to you, + and to tell you all about her. She is with me now, and we are in + the morning room, where we always sit; for the great music-room + that opens on the verandah and fronts the sea is shut when my + guardian is not here. This room looks over the sea, too, but from + the side of the house and through an arabesque of trees. The walls + are filled with books and flowering bulbs stand in the windows. We + have had our tea and the sunlight slants in over the white freesia + and white hyacinths. There are primroses everywhere, too, and they + make the room seem more full of sunlight. You could hardly see a + more beautiful room. Mrs. Talcott sits before the fire with her + skirt turned up and her feet in square-toed shoes on the fender and + looks into the fire. She is short and thick and very old, but she + does not seem old; she is hard; not soft and withered. She has a + large, calm face with very yellow skin, and very light blue eyes + set deeply under white eyebrows. Her hair is white and drawn up + tightly to a knot at the top of her head. She wears no cap and + dresses always in black; very plain, with, in the daytime, a collar + of white lawn turning over a black silk stock and bow, such as + young girls wear, and, in the evening, a little fichu of white net, + very often washed, and thin and starchy. And since her skirts are + always very short, and her figure so square, she makes one think of + a funny little girl as well as of an old woman. She comes from the + State of Maine, and she remembers a striving, rough existence in a + little town on the edge of wildernesses. She is a very distant + relation of my guardian's. My guardian's maternal grandparents were + Spanish and lived in New Orleans, and a sister of Señor Bastida's + (Bastida was the name of my guardian's grandfather)--married a New + Englander, from Vermont--and that New Englander was an uncle of + Mrs. Talcott's--do you follow!--her uncle married my guardian's + aunt, you see. Mrs. Talcott, in her youth, stayed sometimes in New + Orleans, and dearly loved the beautiful Dolores Bastida who left + her home to follow Pavelek Okraska. Poor Dolores Okraska had many + sorrows. Her husband was not a good husband and her parents died. + She was very unhappy and before her baby came--she was in Poland + then,--she sent for Mrs. Talcott. Mrs. Talcott had been married, + too, and had lost her husband and was very poor. But she left + everything and crossed to Europe in the steerage--and what it must + have been in those days!--imagine!--to join her unfortunate + relative. My guardian has told me of it; she calls Mrs. Talcott: + '_Un coeur d'or dans un corps de bois._' She stayed with Dolores + Okraska until she died a little time after. She brought up her + child. They were in great want; my guardian remembers that she had + sometimes not enough to eat. When she was older and had already + become famous, some relatives of the Bastidas heard of her and + helped; but those were years of great struggle for Mrs. Talcott; + and it is so strange to think of that provincial, simple American + woman with her rustic ways and accent, living in Cracow and Warsaw, + and Vienna, and steadily doing what she had set herself to do. She + speaks French with a most funny accent even yet, though she spent + so many years abroad, so many in Paris. I do not know what would + have become of my guardian if it had not been for her. Her father + loved her, but was very erratic and undisciplined. Mrs. Talcott has + been with my guardian for almost all the time ever since. It is a + great and silent devotion. She is very reticent. She never speaks + of herself. She talks to me sometimes in the evenings about her + youth in Maine, and the long white winters and the sleigh-rides; + and the tapping of the maple-trees in Spring; and the nutting + parties in the fall of the year. I think that she likes to remember + all this; and I love to hear her, for it reminds me of what my + father used to tell me of his youth; and I love especially to hear + of the trailing arbutus, that lovely little flower that grows + beneath the snow; how one brushes back the snow in early Spring and + finds the waxen, sweet, pink flowers and dark, shining leaves under + it. And I always imagine that it is a doubled nostalgia that I feel + and that my mother's Norway in Spring was like it, with snow and + wet woods. There is a line that brings it all over me: 'In May, + when sea-winds pierced our solitudes.' It is by Emerson. The Spring + here is very lovely, too, but it has not the sweetness that arises + from snow and a long winter. Through the whole winter the fuchsias + keep their green against the white walls of the little village, + huddled in between the headlands at the edge of the sea beneath us. + You know this country, don't you? The cliffs are so beautiful. I + love best the great headlands towards the Lizard, black rock or + grey, all spotted with rosettes of orange lichen with sweeps of + grey-green sward sloping to them. Victor becomes quite intoxicated + with the wind on these heights and goes in circles round and round, + like a puppy. Later on, all the slopes are veiled in the delicate + little pink thrift, and the stone walls are festooned with white + campion. + + "Then Mrs. Talcott and I have a great deal to do about the little + farm. Mrs. Talcott is so clever at this. She makes it pay besides + giving my guardian all the milk and eggs and bacon, too, she needs. + There is a farmer and his wife, and a gardener and a boy; but with + the beautiful garden we have here it takes most of the day to see + to everything. The farmer's wife is a stern looking woman, but + really very gentle, and she sings hymns all the day long while she + works. She has a very good voice, so that it is sweet to hear her. + Yes; I do play. I have a piano here in the morning-room, and I am + very fond of my music. And, as I have told you, I read a good deal, + too. So there you have all the descriptions and the details. I + liked so much what you told me of the home of your boyhood. When I + saw you, I knew that you were a person who cared for all these + things, even if you were not an artist. What you tell me, too, of + the law-courts and the strange people you see there, and the ugly, + funny side of human life amused me, though it seems to me more + sorrowful than you perhaps feel it. People amuse me very much + sometimes, too; but I have not your eye for their foibles. You draw + them rather as Forain does; I should do it, I suspect, with more + sentimentality. The fruit comes regularly once a week, and punctual + thanks seem inappropriate for what has become an institution. But + you know how grateful I am. And for the weekly _Punch_;--so + _gemütlich_ and _bien pensant_ and, often, very, very funny, with a + funniness that the Continental papers never give one; their jests + are never the jests of the _bien pensant_. It is the acrid + atmosphere of the café they bring, not that of the dinner party, + or, better still, for _Punch_, the picnic. The reviews, too, are + very interesting. Mrs. Talcott reads them a good deal, she who + seldom reads. She says sometimes very acute and amusing things + about politics. My guardian has a horror of politics; but they + rather interest Mrs. Talcott. I know nothing of them; but I do not + think that my guardian would agree with what you say; I think that + she would belong more to your party of freedom and progress. What a + long letter I have written to you! I have never written such a long + one in my life before, except to my guardian.--Sincerely yours, + + "Karen Woodruff." + + * * * * * + + "Les Solitudes, + "April 15th. + + "Dear Mr. Jardine,--How very nice to hear that you are coming to + Cornwall for Easter and will be near us--at least Falmouth is quite + near with a motor. It is beautiful country there, too; I have + driven there with my guardian, and it is a beautiful town to see, + lying in a wide curve around its blue bay. It is softer and milder + than here. A bend of the coast makes so much difference. But why am + I telling you all this, when of course you know it! I forget that + anyone knows Cornwall but Mrs. Talcott and my guardian and me. But + you have not seen this bit of the coast, and it excites me to think + that I shall introduce you to our cliffs and to Les Solitudes. If + only my guardian were here! It is not itself, this place, without + her. It is not to see Les Solitudes if you do not see the great + music-room opening its four long windows on the sea and sky; and my + guardian sitting in the shade of the verandah looking over the sea. + But Mrs. Talcott and I will do the honours as best we may and tell + you everything about my guardian that you will wish to know. Let us + hear beforehand the day you are coming; for the cook makes + excellent cakes, and we will have some baked specially for you. How + very nice to see you again.--Sincerely yours, + + "Karen Woodruff." + + + + +CHAPTER IX + + +On a chill, sunny morning in April, Gregory Jardine went out on to his +balcony before breakfast and stood leaning there as was his wont, +looking down over his view. The purpling tree-tops in the park emerged +from a light morning mist. The sky, of the palest blue, seemed very high +and was streaked with white. Spring was in the air and he could see +daffodils shining here and there on the slopes of green. + +He had just read Karen Woodruff's last letter, and he was in the mood, +charmed, amused and touched, that her letters always brought. Never, he +thought, had there been such sweet and such funny letters; so frank and +so impersonal; so simple and so mature. During these months of their +correspondence the thought of her had been constantly in his mind, +mingling now not only with his own deep and distant memories, but, it +seemed, with hers, so that while she still walked with him over the +hills of his boyhood and stooped to look with him at the spring gushing +from under the bracken, they also brushed together the dry, soft snow +from the trailing arbutus, or stood above the sea on the Cornish +headlands. Never in his life had he so possessed the past and been so +aware of it. His youth was with him, even though he still thought of his +relation to Karen Woodruff as a paternal and unequal one; imagining a +crisis in which his wisdom and knowledge of the world might serve her; a +foolish love-affair, perhaps, that he would disentangle; or a disaster +connected with the great woman under whose protection she lived; he +could so easily imagine disasters befalling Madame von Marwitz and +involving everyone around her. And now in a week's time he would be in +Cornwall and seeing again the little Hans Andersen heroine. This was the +thought that emerged from the sweet vagrancy of his mood; and, as it +came, he was pierced suddenly with a strange rapture and fear that had +in it the very essence of the spring-time. + +Gregory had continued to think of the girl he was to marry in the guise +of a Constance Armytage, and although Constance Armytage's engagement to +another man found him unmoved, except with relief for the solution of +what had really ceased to be a perplexity--since, apparently, he could +not manage to fall in love with her--this fact had not been revealing, +since he still continued to think of Constance as the type, if she had +ceased to be the person. Karen Woodruff was almost the last type he +could have fixed upon. She fitted nowhere into his actual life. She only +fitted into the life of dreams and memories. + +So now, still looking down at the trees and daffodils, he drew a long +breath and tried to smile over what had been a trick of the imagination +and to relegate Karen to the place of half-humorous dreams. He tried to +think calmly of her. He visualized her in her oddity and child-likeness; +seeing the flat blue bows of the concert; the old-fashioned gold locket +of the tea; the sealskin cap of the station. But still, it was apparent, +the infection of the season was working in him; for these trivial bits +of her personality had become overwhelmingly sweet and wonderful. The +essential Karen infused them. Her limpid grey eyes looked into his. She +said, so ridiculously, so adorably: "My guardian likes best to be called +von Marwitz by those who know her personally." She laughed, the tip of +her tongue caught between her teeth. From the place of dream and memory, +the living longing for her actual self emerged indomitably. + +Gregory turned from the balcony and went inside. He was dazed. Her +primroses stood about the room in the white and blue bowls. He wanted to +kiss them. Controlling the impulse, which seemed to him almost insane, +he looked at them instead and argued with himself. In love? But one +didn't fall in love like that between shaving and breakfast. What +possessed him was a transient form of _idée fixe_, and he had behaved +very foolishly in playing fairy-godfather to a dear little girl. But at +this relegating phrase his sense of humour rose to mock him. He could +not relegate Karen Woodruff as a dear little girl. It was he who had +behaved like a boy, while she had maintained the calm simplicities of +the mature. He hadn't the faintest right to hope that she saw anything +in his correspondence but what she had herself brought to it. Fear fell +more strongly upon him. He sat down to his breakfast, his thoughts in +inextricable confusion. And while he drank his coffee and glanced +nervously down the columns of his newspaper, a hundred little filaments +of memory ran back and linked the beginning to the present. It had not +been so sudden. It had been there beside him, in him; and he had not +seen it. The meeting of their eyes in the long, grave interchange at the +concert had been full of presage. And why had he gone to tea at Mrs. +Forrester's? And why, above all why, had he dreamed that dream? It was +his real self who had felt no surprise when, at the edge of the forest, +she had said: "And I love you." The words had been spoken in answer to +his love. + +Gregory laid down his paper and stared before him. He was in love. +Should he get over it? Did he want to get over it? Was it possible to +get over it if he did want to? And, this was the culmination, would she +have him? These questions drove him forth. + +When Barker, his man, came to clear away the breakfast things he found +that the bacon and eggs had not been eaten. Barker was a stone-grey +personage who looked like a mid-Victorian Liberal statesman. His gravity +often passed into an air of despondent responsibility. "Mr. Jardine +hasn't eaten his breakfast," he said to his wife, who was Gregory's +cook. "It's this engagement of Miss Armytage's. He was more taken with +her than we'd thought." + +Gregory had intended to motor down to Cornwall, still a rare opportunity +in those days; a friend who was going abroad had placed his car at his +disposal. But he sent the car ahead of him and, on the first day of his +freedom, started by train. Next day he motored over to the little +village near the Lizard. + +It was a pale, crystalline Spring day. From heights, where the car +seemed to poise like a bird in mid-air, one saw the tranquil blue of the +sea. The woods were veiled in young green and the hedges thickly starred +with blackthorn. Over the great Goonhilly Downs a silvery sheen trembled +with impalpable colour and the gorse everywhere was breaking into gold. +It was a day of azure, illimitable distances; of exultation and delight. +Even if one were not in love one would feel oneself a lover on such a +day. + +Gregory had told himself that he would be wise; that he would go +discreetly and make sure not only that he was really in love, but that +there was in his love a basis for life. Marriage must assure and secure +his life, not disturb and disintegrate it; and a love resisted and put +aside unspoken may soon be relegated to the place of fond and transient +dream. Perhaps the little Hans Andersen heroine would settle happily +into such a dream. How little he had seen of her. But while he thus +schooled himself, while the white roads curved and beckoned and unrolled +their long ribbons, the certainties he needed of himself merged more and +more into the certainties he needed of her. And he felt his heart, in +the singing speed, lift and fly towards the beloved. + +He had written to her and told her the hour of his arrival, and at a +turning he suddenly saw her standing above the road on one of the stone +stiles of the country. Dressed in white and poised against the blue, +while she kept watch for his coming, she was like a calm, far-gazing +figure-head on a ship, and the ship that bore her seemed to have soared +into sight. + +She was new, yet unchanged. Her attitude, her smile, as she held up an +arresting hand to the chauffeur, filled him with delight and anxiety. It +disconcerted him to find how new she was. He felt that he spoke +confusedly to her when she came to shake his hand. + +"People often lose their way in coming to see Tante," she said, and it +struck him, even in the midst of his preoccupation with her, as too +sweetly absurd that the first sentence she spoke to him should sound the +familiar chime. "They have gone mistakenly down the lane that leads to +the cliff path, that one there, or the road that leads out to the moors. +And one poor man was quite lost and never found his way to us at all. It +meant, for he had only a day or two to spend in England, that he did not +see her for another year. Tante has had signs put up since then; but +even now people can go wrong." + +She mounted beside the chauffeur so that she could guide him down the +last bit of road, sitting sideways, her arm laid along the back of the +seat. From time to time she smiled at Gregory. + +She was a person who accepted the unusual easily and with no personal +conjecture. She was so accustomed, no doubt, to the sudden appearance of +all sorts of people, that she had no discriminations to apply to his +case. There was no shyness and no surmise in her manner. She smiled at +him as composedly as she had smiled over the Great Wall of China in Mrs. +Forrester's drawing-room, and her pleasure in seeing him was neither +less frank nor more intimate. + +She wore a broad hat of sun-burnt straw and a white serge coat and skirt +that looked as if they had shrunk in frequent washings. Her white blouse +had the little frills at neck and wrists and around her throat was the +gold locket on its black ribbon. Her eyes, when she turned them on him +and smiled, seemed to open distances like the limitlessness of the +moorland. Her tawny skin and shining golden hair were like the gorse and +primroses and she in her serenity and gladness like the day personified. + +They did not attempt to talk through the loudly purring monotones of the +car, which picked its way swiftly and delicately down the turning road +and then skimmed lightly on the level ground between hedges of fuchsia +and veronica. As the prospect opened Karen pointed to the golden +shoulder of a headland bathed in sunlight and the horizon line of the +sea beyond. They turned among wind-bitten Cornish elms, leaning inland, +and Gregory saw among them the glimmer of Les Solitudes. + +It was a white-walled house with a high-pitched roof of grey shingles, +delicately rippling; a house almost rustic, yet more nearly noble, very +beautiful; simple, yet unobtrusively adapted to luxury. Simplicity +reigned within, though one felt luxury there in a chrysalis condition, +folded exquisitely and elaborately away and waiting the return of the +enchantress. + +Karen led him across the shining spaces of the hall and into the +morning-room. Books, flowers and sunlight seemed to furnish it, and, +with something austere and primitive, to make it the most fitting +background for herself. But while her presence perfected it for him, it +was her guardian's absence that preoccupied Karen. Again, and comically, +she reminded Gregory of the sacristan explaining to the sight-seer that +the famous altar-piece had been temporarily removed and that he could +not really judge the chapel without its culminating and consecrating +object. "If only Tante were here!" she said. "It seems so strange that +anyone should see Les Solitudes who has not seen her in it. I do not +remember that it has ever happened before. This is the dining-room--yes, +I like to show it all to you--she planned it all herself, you know--is +it not a beautiful room? You see, though we are Les Solitudes, we can +seat a large dinner-party and Tante has sometimes many guests; not often +though; this is her place of peace and rest. She collected all this +Jacobean furniture; connoisseurs say that it is very beautiful. The +music-room, alas, is closed; but I will show you the garden--and Mrs. +Talcott in it. I am eager for you and Mrs. Talcott to meet." + +He would rather have stayed and talked to her in the morning-room; but +she compelled him, rather as a sacristan compels the slightly bewildered +sight-seer, to pass on to the next point of interest. She led him out to +the upper terrace of the garden, which dropped, ledge by ledge, with low +walls and winding hedges, down the cliff-side. She pointed out to him +the sea-front of the house, with its wide verandah and clustered trees +and the beautiful dip of the roof over the upper windows, far gazing +little dormer windows above these. Tante, she told him, had designed the +house. "That is her room, the corner one," she said. "She can see the +sunrise from her bed." + +Gregory was interested neither in Madame von Marwitz's advantages nor in +her achievements. He asked Karen where her own room was. It was at the +back of the house, she said; a dear little room, far up. She, too, had a +glimpse of the Eastern headland and of the sunrise. + +They were walking along the paths, their borders starred as yet frugally +with hints of later glories; but already the aubrietia and arabis made +bosses of white or purple on the walls, and in a little copse daffodils +grew thickly. + +"There is Mrs. Talcott," said Karen, quickening her pace. Evidently she +considered Mrs. Talcott, in her relation to Tante, as an important +feature of Les Solitudes. + +It was her relation to Karen that caused Gregory to look with interest +at the stout old lady, dressed in black alpaca, who was stooping over a +flower-border at a little distance from them. He had often wondered what +this sole companion of Karen's cloistered life was like. Mrs. Talcott's +skirts were short; her shoes thick-soled and square-toed, fastening with +a strap and button over white stockings at the ankle. She wore a round +straw hat, like a child's, and had a basket of gardening implements +beside her. + +"Mrs. Talcott, here is Mr. Jardine," Karen announced, as they approached +her. + +Mrs. Talcott raised herself slowly and turned to them, drawing off her +gardening gloves. She was a funny looking old woman, funnier than Karen +had prepared him for finding her, and uglier. Her large face, +wallet-shaped and sallow, was scattered over with white moles, or +rather, warts, one of which, on her eyelid, caused it to droop over her +eye and to blink sometimes, suddenly. She had a short, indefinite nose +and long, large lips firmly folded. With its updrawn hair and +impassivity her face recalled that of a Chinese image; but more than of +anything else she gave Gregory the impression, vaguely and incongruously +tragic, of an old shipwrecked piece of oaken timber, washed up, finally, +out of reach of the waves, on some high, lonely beach; battered, though +still so solid; salted through and through; crusted with brine, and with +odd, bleached excrescences, like barnacles, adhering to it. Her look of +almost inhuman cleanliness added force to the simile. + +"Mr. Jardine heard Tante last winter, you know," said Karen, "and met +her at Mrs. Forrester's." + +"I'm very happy to make your acquaintance, Sir," said Mrs. Talcott, +giving Gregory her hand. + +"Mrs. Talcott is a great gardener," Karen went on. "Tante has the ideas +and Mrs. Talcott carries them out. And sometimes they aren't easy to +carry out, are they, Mrs. Talcott!" + +Mrs. Talcott, her hands folded at her waist, contemplated her work. + +"Mitchell made a mistake about the campanulas, Karen," she remarked. +"He's put the clump of blue over yonder, instead of the white." + +"Oh, Mrs. Talcott!" Karen turned to look. "And Tante specially wanted +the white there so that they should be against the sea. How very stupid +of Mitchell." + +"They'll have to come out, I presume," said Mrs. Talcott, but without +emotion. + +"And where is the _pyramidalis alba_?" + +"Well, he's got that up in the flagged garden where she wanted the +blue," said Mrs. Talcott. + +"And it will be so bad for them to move them again! What a pity! They +have been sent for specially," Karen explained to Gregory. "My guardian +heard of a particularly beautiful kind, and the white were to be for +this corner of the wall, you see that they would look very lovely +against the sea, and the blue were to be among the white veronica and +white lupins in the flagged garden. And now they are all planted wrong, +and so accurately and solidly wrong," she walked ahead of Mrs. Talcott +examining the offending plants. "Are you quite sure they're wrong, Mrs. +Talcott?" + +"Dead sure," Mrs. Talcott made reply. "He did it this morning when I was +in the dairy. He didn't understand, or got muddled, or something. I'll +commence changing them round as soon as I've done this weeding. It'll be +a good two hours' work." + +"No, you must not do it till I can help you," said Karen. "To-morrow +morning." She had a manner at once deferential and masterful of +addressing the old lady. They were friendly without being intimate. "Now +promise me that you will wait till I can help you." + +"Well, I guess I won't promise. I like to get things off my mind right +away," said Mrs. Talcott. If Karen was masterful, she was not yielding. +"I'll see how the time goes after tea. Don't you bother about it." + +They left her bending again over her beds. "She is very strong, but I +think sometimes she works too hard," said Karen. + +By a winding way she led him to the high flagged garden with its +encompassing trees and far blue prospect, and here they sat for a little +while in the sunlight and talked. "How different all this must be from +your home in Northumberland," said Karen. "I have never been to +Northumberland. Is your brother much there? Is he like you? Have you +brothers and sisters?" + +She questioned him with the frank interest with which he wished to +question her. He told her about Oliver and said that he wasn't like +himself. A faint flavour of irony came into his voice in speaking of his +elder brother and finding Karen's calm eyes dwelling on him he wondered +if she thought him unfair. "We always get on well enough," he said, "but +we haven't much in common. He is a good, dull fellow, half alive." + +"And you are very much alive." + +"Yes, on the whole, I think so," he answered, smiling, but sensitively +aware of a possible hint of irony in her. But she had intended none. She +continued to look at him calmly. "You are making use of all of yourself; +that is to be alive, Tante always says; and I feel that it is true of +you. And his wife? the wife of the dull hunting brother? Does she hunt +too and think of foxes most?" + +He could assure her that Betty quite made up in the variety of her +activities for Oliver's deficiencies. Karen was interested in the +American Betty and especially in hearing that she had been at the +concert from which their own acquaintance dated. She asked him, walking +back to the house, if he had seen Mrs. Forrester. "She is an old friend +of yours, isn't she?" she said. + +"That must be nice. She was so kind to me that last day in London. Tante +is very fond of her; very, very fond. I hardly think there is anyone of +all her friends she has more feeling for. Here is Victor, come to greet +you. You remember Victor, and how he nearly missed the train." + +The great, benignant dog came down the path to them and as they walked +Karen laid her hand upon his head, telling Gregory that Sir Alliston had +given him to Tante when he was quite a tiny puppy. "You saw Sir +Alliston, that sad, gentle poet? There is another person that Tante +loves." It was with a slight stir of discomfort that Gregory realised +more fully from these assessments how final for Karen was the question +of Tante's likes and dislikes. + +They were on the verandah when she paused. "But I think, though the +music-room is closed, that you must see the portrait." + +"The portrait? Of you?" Actually, and sincerely, he was off the track. + +"Of me? Oh no," said Karen, laughing a little. "Why should it be of me? +Of my guardian, of course. Perhaps you know it. It is by Sargent and was +in the Royal Academy some years ago." + +"I must have missed it. Am I to see it now?" + +"Yes. I will ask Mrs. Talcott for the key and we will draw all the +blinds and you shall see it." They walked back to the garden in search +of Mrs. Talcott. + +"Do you like it?" Gregory asked. + +Karen reflected for a moment and then said; "He understands her better +than Mr. Drew does, or, at all events, does not try to make up for what +he does not understand by elaborations. But there are blanks!--oh +blanks!--However, it is a very magnificent picture and you shall see. +Mrs. Talcott, may I have the key of the music-room? I want to show the +Sargent to Mr. Jardine." + +They had come to the old woman again, and again she slowly righted +herself from her stooping posture. "It's in my room, I'll come and get +it," said Mrs. Talcott, and on Karen's protesting against this, she +observed that it was about tea-time, anyway. She preceded them to the +house. + +"But I do beg," Karen stopped her in the hall. "Let me get it. You shall +tell me where it is." + +Mrs. Talcott yielded. "In my left top drawer on the right hand side +under the pile of handkerchiefs," she recited. "Thanks, Karen." + +While Karen was gone, Mrs. Talcott in the hall stood in front of Gregory +and looked past him in silence into the morning-room. She did not seem +to feel it in any sense incumbent upon her to entertain him, though +there was nothing forbidding in her manner. But happening presently, +while they waited, to glance at the droll old woman, he found her eyes +fixed on him in a singularly piercing, if singularly impassive, gaze. +She looked away again with no change of expression, shifting her weight +from one hip to the other, and something in the attitude suggested to +Gregory that she had spent a great part of her life in waiting. She had +a capacity, he inferred, for indefinite waiting. Karen came happily +running down the stairs, holding the key. + +They went into the dim, white room where swathed presences stood as if +austerely welcoming them. Karen drew up the blind and Mrs. Talcott, +going to the end of the room, mounted a chair and dexterously twitched +from its place the sheet that covered the great portrait. Then, standing +beside it, and still holding its covering, she looked, not at it, but, +meditatively, out at the sea that crossed with its horizon line the four +long windows. Karen, also in silence, came and stood beside Gregory. + +It was indeed a remarkable picture; white and black; silver and green. +To a painter's eye the arresting balance of these colours would have +first appealed and the defiant charm with which the angular surfaces +of the grand piano and the soft curves of the woman seated at it +were combined. The almost impalpable white of an azalea with its +flame-green foliage, and a silver statuette, poised high on a +slender column of white chalcedony, were the only accessories. But +after the first delighted draught of wonder it was the face of Madame +Okraska--pre-eminently Madame Okraska in this portrait--that compelled +one to concentration. She sat, turning from the piano, her knees +crossed, one arm cast over them, the other resting along the edge of the +key-board. The head drooped slightly and the eyes looked out just below +the spectator's eyes, so that in poise and glance it recalled somewhat +Michael Angelo's Lorenzo da Medici. And something that Gregory had felt +in her from the first, and that had roused in him dim hostilities and +ironies, was now more fully revealed. The artist seemed to have looked +through the soft mask of the woman's flesh, through the disturbing and +compelling forces of her own consciousness, to the very structure and +anatomy of her character. Atavistic, sub-conscious revelations were in +the face. It was to see, in terms of art, a scientific demonstration of +race, temperament, and the results of their interplay with environment. +The languors, the feverish indolences, the caprice of generations of +Spanish exiles were there, and the ambiguity, the fierceness of Slav +ancestry. And, subtly interwoven, were the marks of her public life upon +her. The face, so moulded to indifference, was yet so aware of +observation, so adjusted to it, so insatiable of it, that, sitting +there, absorbed and brooding, lovely with her looped pearls and +diamonds, her silver broideries and silken fringes, she was a product of +the public, a creature reared on adulation, breathing it in softly, +peacefully, as the white flowers beside her breathed in light and air. +Her craftsmanship, her genius, though indicated, were submerged in this +pervasive quality of an indifference based securely on the ever present +consciousness that none could be indifferent to her. And more than the +passive acceptance and security was indicated. Strange, sleeping +potentialities lurked in the face; as at the turn of a kaleidoscope, +Gregory could fancy it suddenly transformed, by some hostile touch, some +menace, to a savage violence and rapacity. He was aware, standing +between the girl who worshipped her and the devoted old woman, of the +pang of a curious anxiety. + +"Well," said Karen at last, and she looked from the picture to him. +"What do you think of it?" + +"It's splendid," said Gregory. "It's very fine. And beautiful." + +"But does it altogether satisfy you?" Her eyes were again on the +portrait. "What is lacking, I cannot say; but it seems to me that it is +painted with intelligence only, not with love. It is Madame Okraska, the +great genius; but it is not Tante; it is not even Madame von Marwitz." + +The portrait seemed to Gregory to go so much further and so much deeper +than what he had himself seen that it was difficult to believe that hers +might be the deepest vision, but he was glad to take refuge in the +possibility. "It does seem to me wonderfully like," he said. "But then I +don't know 'Tante.'" + +Karen now glanced at Mrs. Talcott. "It is a great bone of contention +between us," she said, smiling at the old lady, yet smiling, Gregory +observed, with a touch of challenge. "She feels it quite complete. That, +in someone who does know Tante, I cannot understand." + +Mrs. Talcott, making no reply, glanced up at the portrait and then, +again, out at the sea. + +Gregory looked at her with awakened curiosity. This agreement was an +unexpected prop for him. "You, too, think it a perfect likeness?" he +asked her. Her old blue eyes, old in the antique tranquillity of their +regard, yet still of such a vivid, unfaded turquoise, turned on him and +again he had that impression of an impassive piercing. + +"It seems to me about as good a picture as anyone's likely to get," said +Mrs. Talcott. + +"Yes, but, oh Mrs. Talcott"--with controlled impatience Karen took her +up--"surely you see,--it isn't Tante. It is a genius, a great woman, a +beautiful woman, a beautiful and poetic creature, of course;--he has +seen all that--who wouldn't? but it is almost a woman without a heart. +There is something heartless there. I always feel it. And when one +thinks of Tante!" And Mrs. Talcott remaining silent, she insisted: "Can +you really say you don't see what I mean?" + +"Well, I never cared much about pictures anyway," Mrs. Talcott now +remarked. + +"Well, but you care for this one more than I do!" Karen returned, with a +laugh of vexation. "It isn't a question of pictures; it's a question of +a likeness. You really think that this does Tante justice? It's that I +can't understand." + +Mrs. Talcott, thus pursued, again looked up at the portrait, and +continued, now, to look at it for several moments. And as she stood +there, looking up, she suddenly and comically reminded Gregory of the +Frog gardener before the door in "Alice," with his stubborn and +deliberate misunderstanding. He could almost have expected to see Mrs. +Talcott advance her thumb and rub the portrait, as if to probe the cause +of her questioner's persistence. When she finally spoke it was only to +vary her former judgment: "It seems to me about as good a picture as +Mercedes is likely to get taken," she said. She pronounced the Spanish +name: "Mursadees." + +Karen, after this, abandoned her attempt to convince Mrs. Talcott. Tea +was ready, and they went into the morning-room. Here Mrs. Talcott +presided at the tea-table, and for all his dominating preoccupation she +continued to engage a large part of Gregory's attention. She sat, +leaning back in her chair, slowly eating, her eyes, like tiny, blue +stones, immeasurably remote, immeasurably sad, fixed on the sea. + +"Is it long since you were in America?" he asked her. He felt drawn to +Mrs. Talcott. + +"Why, I guess it's getting on for twenty-five years now," she replied, +after considering for a moment; "since I've lived there. I've been over +three or four times with Mercedes; on tours." + +"Twenty-five years since you came over here? That is a long time." + +"Oh, it's more than that since I came," said Mrs. Talcott. "Twenty-five +years since I lived at home. I came over first nearly fifty years ago. +Yes; it's a long time." + +"Dear me; you have lived most of your life here, then." + +"Yes; you may say I have." + +"And don't you ever want to go back to America to stay?" + +"I don't know as I do," said Mrs. Talcott. + +"You're fonder of it over here, like so many of your compatriots?" + +"Well, I don't know as I am," Mrs. Talcott, who had a genius it seemed +for non-committal statements, varied; and then, as though aware that her +answers might seem ungracious, she added: "All my folks are dead. +There's no reason for my wanting to go home that I can think of." + +"Besides, Mrs. Talcott," Karen now helped her on, "home to you is where +Tante is, isn't it. Mrs. Talcott has lived with Tante ever since Tante +was born. No one in the world knows her as well as she does. It is +rather wonderful to think about." She had the air, finding Mrs. Talcott +appreciated, of putting forward for her her great claim to distinction. + +"Yes; I know Mercedes pretty well," Mrs. Talcott conceded. + +"How I love to hear about it," said Karen; "about her first concert, you +know, Mrs. Talcott, when you curled her hair--such long, bright brown +hair, she had, and so thick, falling below her waist, didn't it?" Mrs. +Talcott nodded with a certain complacency. "And she wore a little white +muslin frock and white shoes and a blue sash; she was only nine years +old; it was a great concert in Warsaw. And she didn't want her hair +curled, and combed it all out with her fingers just before going on to +the platform--didn't she?" + +Mrs. Talcott was slightly smiling over these reminiscences. "Smart +little thing," she commented. "She did it the last minute so as it was +too late for me to fix it again. It made me feel dreadful her going on +to the platform with her head all mussed up like that. She looked mighty +pretty all the same." + +"And she was right, too, wasn't she?" said Karen, elated, evidently, at +having so successfully drawn Mrs. Talcott out. "Her hair was never +curly, was it. It looked better straight, I'm sure." + +"Well, I don't know about that," said Mrs. Talcott. "I always like it +curled best, when she was little. But I had to own to myself she looked +mighty pretty, though I was so mad at her." + +"Tante has always had her own way, I imagine," said Karen, "about +anything she set her mind on. She had her way about being an infant +prodigy; though you were so right about that--she has often said so, +hasn't she, and how thankful she is that you were able to stop it before +it did her harm. I must show you our photographs of Tante, Mr. Jardine. +We have volumes and volumes, and boxes and boxes of them. They are far +more like her, I think, many of them, than the portrait. Some of them +too dear and quaint--when she was quite tiny." + +Tea was over and Karen, rising, looked towards the shelves where, +evidently, the volumes and boxes were kept. + +"I really think I'd rather see some more of this lovely place, first," +said Gregory. "Do take me further along the cliff. I could see the +photographs, you know, the next time I come." + +He, too, had risen and was smiling at her with a little constraint. + +Karen, arrested on her way to the photographs, looked at him in +surprise. "Will you come again? You are to be in Cornwall so long?" + +"I'm to be here about a fortnight and I should like to come often, if I +may." She was unaware, disconcertingly unaware; yet her surprise showed +the frankest pleasure. + +"How very nice," she said. "I did not think that you could come all that +way more than once." + +While they spoke, Mrs. Talcott's ancient, turquoise eyes were upon them, +and in her presence Gregory found it easier to say things than it would +have been to say them to Karen alone. Already, he felt sure, Mrs. +Talcott understood, and if it was easy to say things in her presence +might that not be because he guessed that she sympathised? "But I came +down to Cornwall to see you," he said, leaning on his chair back and +tilting it a little while he smiled at Karen. + +Her pleasure rose in a flush to her cheek. "To see me?" + +"Yes; I felt from our letters that we ought to become great friends." + +She looked at him, pondering the unlooked-for possibility he put before +her. "Great friends?" she repeated. "I have never had a great friend of +my own. Friends, of course; the Lippheims and the Belots; and Strepoff; +and you, of course, Mrs. Talcott; but never, really, a great friend +quite of my own, for they are Tante's friends first and come through +Tante. Of course you have come through Tante, too," said Karen, with +evident satisfaction; "only not quite in the same way." + +"Not at all in the same way," said Gregory. "Don't forget. We met at the +concert, and without any introduction! It has nothing to do with Madame +von Marwitz this time. It's quite on our own." + +"Oh, but I would so much rather have it come through her, if we are to +be great friends," Karen returned, smiling, though reflectively. "I +think we are to be, for I felt you to be my friend from that first +moment. But it was at the concert that we met and it was Tante's +concert. So that it was not quite on our own. I want it to be through +Tante," she went on, "because it pleases me very much to think that we +may be great friends, and my happy things have come to me through Tante, +always." + + + + +CHAPTER X + + +He came next day and every day. They were favoured with the rarely given +gift of a perfect spring. They walked along the cliffs and headlands. +They sat and talked in the garden. He took her with Mrs. Talcott for +long drives to distant parts of the coast which he and Karen would +explore, while Mrs. Talcott in the car sat, with apparently interminable +patience, waiting for them. + +Karen played to him in the morning-room; and this was a new revelation +of her. She was not a finished performer and her music was limited by +her incapacity; but she had the gift for imparting, with transparent +sincerity and unfailing sensitiveness, the very heart of what she +played. There were Arias from Schubert Sonatas, and Bach Preludes, and +loving little pieces of Schumann, that Gregory thought he had never +heard so beautifully played before. Everything they had to say was said, +though, it might be, said very softly. He told her that he cared more +for her music than for any he had listened to, and Karen laughed, not at +all taking him seriously. "But you do care for music, though you are no +musician," she said. "I like to play to you; and to someone who does not +care it is impossible." + +Her acceptances of their bond might give ground for all hope or for +none. As for himself there had been, from the moment of seeing her +again, of knowing in her presence that fear and that delight, no further +doubt as to his own state and its finality. Yet his first perplexities +lingered and could at moments become painful. + +He felt the beloved creature to be at once inappropriate and inevitable. +With all that was deepest and most instinctive in him her nature chimed; +the surfaces, the prejudices, the principles of his life she +contradicted and confused. She talked to him a great deal, in answer to +his questions, about her past life, and what she told him was often +disconcerting. The protective tenderness he had felt for her from the +first was troubled by his realisation of the books she had placidly +read--under Tante's guidance--the people whose queer relationships she +placidly took for granted as in no need of condonation. When he +intimated to her that he disapproved of such contacts and customs, she +looked at him, puzzled, and then said, with an air of kindly maturity at +once touching and vexatious: "But that is the morality of the +Philistines." + +It was, of course, and Gregory considered it the very best of +moralities; but remembering her mother he could not emphasize to her how +decisively he held by it. + +It was in no vulgar or vicious world that her life, as the child of the +unconventional sculptor, as the _protégée_ of the great pianist, had +been passed. But it was a world without religion, without institutions, +without order. Gregory, though his was not the religious temperament, +had his reasoned beliefs in the spiritual realities expressed in +institutions and he had his inherited instincts of reverence for the +rituals that embodied the spiritual life of his race. He was impatient +with dissent and with facile scepticisms. He did not expect a woman to +have reasoned beliefs, nor did he ask a credulous, uncritical orthodoxy; +but he did want the Christian colouring of mind, the Christian outlook; +he did want his wife to be a woman who would teach her children to say +their prayers at her knees. It was with something like dismay that he +gathered from Karen that her conception of life was as untouched by any +consciousness of creed as that of a noble young pagan. He was angry at +himself for feeling it and when he found himself applying his rules and +measures to her; for what had it been from the first but her spiritual +strength and loveliness that had drawn him to her? Yet he longed to make +her accept the implications of the formulated faiths that she lived by. +"Oh, no, you're not," he said to her when, turning unperturbed eyes upon +him, she assured him: "Oh yes, I am quite, quite a pagan." "I don't +think you know what you mean when you say you're a pagan," Gregory +continued. + +"But, yes," she returned. "I have no creed. I was brought up to think of +beauty as the only religion. That is my guardian's religion. It is the +religion, she says, of all free souls. And my father thought so, too." +It was again the assurance of a wisdom, not her own, yet possessed by +her, a wisdom that she did not dream of anybody challenging. Was it not +Tante's? + +"Well," he remarked, "beauty is a large term. Perhaps it includes more +than you think." + +Karen looked at him with approbation. "That is what Tante says; that it +includes everything." And she went on, pleased to reveal to him still +more of Tante's treasure, since he had proved himself thus +understanding; "Tante, you know, belongs to the Catholic Church; it is +the only church of beauty, she says. But she is not _pratiquante_; not +_croyante_ in any sense. Art is her refuge." + +"I see," said Gregory. "And what is your refuge?" + +Karen, at this, kept silence for a moment, and then said: "It is not +that; not art. I do not feel, perhaps, that I need refuges. And I am +happier than my dear guardian. I believe in immortality; oh yes, +indeed." She looked round gravely at him--they were sitting on the turf +of a headland above the sea. "I believe, that is, in everything that is +beautiful and loving going on for ever." + +He felt abashed before her. The most dependent and child-like of +creatures where her trust and love were engaged, she was, as well, the +most serenely independent. Even Tante, he felt, could not touch her +faiths. + +"You mustn't say that you are a pagan, you see," he said. + +"But Plato believed in immortality," Karen returned, smiling. "And you +will not tell me that Plato was _pratiquant_ or _croyant_." + +He could not claim Plato as a member of the Church of England, though he +felt quite ready to demonstrate, before a competent body of listeners, +that, as a nineteenth century Englishman, Plato would have been. Karen +was not likely to follow such an argument. She would smile at his +seeming sophistries. + +No; he must accept it, and as a very part of her lovableness, that she +could not be made to fit into the plan of his life as he had imagined +it. She would not carry on its traditions, for she would not understand +them. To win her would be, in a sense, to relinquish something of that +orderly progression as a professional and social creature that he had +mapped out for himself, though he knew himself to be, through his +experience of her, already a creature more human, a creature enriched. +Karen, if she came to love him, would be, through love, infinitely +malleable, but in the many adjustments that would lie before them it +would be his part to foresee complications and to do the adjusting. +Change in her would be a gradual growth, and never towards mere +conformity. + +He felt it to be the first step towards adjustments when he motored +Karen and Mrs. Talcott to Guillian House to lunch with his friends the +Lavingtons. The occasion must mark for him the subtle altering of an old +tie. Karen and the Lavingtons could never be to each other what he and +the Lavingtons had been. It was part of her breadth that congeniality +could never for her be based on the half automatic affinities of caste +and occupation; and it was part of her narrowness, or, rather, of her +inexperience, that she could see people only as individuals and would +not recognize the real charm of the Lavingtons, which consisted in their +being, like their house and park, part of the landscape and of an +established order of things. Yet, once he had her there, he watched the +metamorphosis that her presence worked in his old associations with +pleasure rather than pain. It pleased him, intimately, that the +Lavingtons should see in him a lover as yet uncertain of his chances. It +pleased him that they should not find in Karen the type that they must +have expected the future Mrs. Jardine to be, the type of Constance +Armytage and the type of Evelyn Lavington, Colonel and Mrs. Lavington's +unmarried daughter, who, but for Karen, might well have become Mrs. +Jardine one day. He observed, with a lover's fond pride, that Karen, in +her shrunken white serge and white straw hat, Karen, with her pleasant +imperturbability, her mingled simplicity and sophistication, did, most +decisively, make the Lavingtons seem flavourless. Among them, while Mrs. +Lavington walked her round the garden and Evelyn elicited with kindly +concern that she played neither golf, hockey nor tennis, and had never +ridden to hounds, her demeanour was that of a little rustic princess +benignly doing her social duty. The only reason why she did not appear +like this to the Lavingtons was that, immutably unimaginative as they +were, they knew that she wasn't a princess, was, indeed, only the odd +appendage of an odd celebrity with whom their friend had chosen, oddly, +to fall in love. They weren't perplexed, because, since he had fallen in +love with her, she was placed. But they, in the complete contrast they +offered, had little recognition of individual values and judged a dish +by the platter it was served on. A princess was a princess, and an +appendage an appendage, and a future Mrs. Jardine a very recognizable +person; just as, had a subtle _charlotte russe_ been brought up to lunch +in company with the stewed rhubarb they would have eaten it without +comment and hardly been aware that it wasn't an everyday milk-pudding. + +"Did you and Mrs. Lavington and Evelyn and Mrs. Haverfield find much to +talk of after lunch?" Gregory asked, as he motored Mrs. Talcott and +Karen back to Les Solitudes. + +"Yes; we talked of a good many things," said Karen. "But I know about so +few of their things and they about so few of mine. Miss Lavington was +very much surprised to think that I had never been to a fox-hunt; and +I," Karen smiled, "was very much surprised to think that they had never +heard Tante play." + +"They hardly ever get up to town, you see," said Gregory. "But surely +they knew about her?" + +"Not much," said Karen. "Mrs. Lavington asked me about her--for +something pleasant to say--and they were such strange questions; as +though one should be asked whether Mr. Arthur Balfour were a Russian +nihilist or Metchnikoff an Italian poet." Karen spoke quite without +grievance or irony. + +"And after your Sargent," said Gregory, "you must have been pained by +that portrait of Mrs. Haverfield in the drawing-room." + +"Mrs. Lavington pointed it out to me specially," said Karen, laughing, +"and told me that it had been in the Academy. What a sad thing; with all +those eyelashes! And yet opposite to it hung the beautiful Gainsborough +of a great-grandmother. Mrs. Lavington saw no difference, I think." + +"They haven't been trained to see differences," said Gregory, and he +summed up the Lavingtons in the aphorism to himself as well as to Karen; +"only to accept samenesses." He hoped indeed, by sacrificing the +æsthetic quality of the Lavingtons, to win some approbation of their +virtues; but Karen, though not inclined to proffer unasked criticism, +found, evidently, no occasion for commendation. Later on, when they were +back at Les Solitudes and walking in the garden, she returned to the +subject of his friends and said: "I was a little disturbed about Mrs. +Talcott; did you notice? no one talked to her at all, hardly. It was as +if they thought her my _dame de compagnie_. She isn't my _dame de +compagnie_; and if she were, I think that she should have been talked +to." + +Gregory had observed this fact and had hoped that it might have escaped +Karen's notice. To the Lavingtons Mrs. Talcott's platter had been +unrecognizable and they had tended to let its contents alone. + +"It's as I said, you know," he put forward a mitigation; "they've not +been trained to see differences; she is very different, isn't she?" + +"Well, but so am I," said Karen, "and they talked to me. I don't mean to +complain of your friends; that would be very rude when they were so nice +and kind; and, besides, are your friends. But people's thoughtlessness +displeases me, not that I am not often very thoughtless myself." + +Gregory was anxious to exonerate himself. "I hope she didn't feel left +out;" he said. "I did notice that she wasn't talking. I found her in the +garden, alone--she seemed to be enjoying that, too--and she and I went +about for quite a long time together." + +"I know you did," said Karen. "You are not thoughtless. As for her, one +never knows what she feels. I don't think that she does feel things of +that sort at all; she has been used to it all her life, one may say; but +there's very little she doesn't notice and understand. She +understands--oh, perfectly well--that she is a queer old piece of +furniture standing in the background, and one has to remember not to +treat her like a piece of furniture. It's a part of grace and tact, +isn't it, not to take such obvious things for granted. You didn't take +them for granted with her, or with me," said Karen, smiling her +recognition at him. "For, of course, to most people I am furniture, too; +and if Tante is about, there is, of course, nothing to blame in that; +everybody becomes furniture when Tante is there." + +"Oh no; I can't agree to that," said Gregory. "Not everybody." + +"You know what I mean," Karen rejoined. "If you will not agree to it for +me, it is because from the first you felt me to be your friend; that is +different." They were walking in the flagged garden where the blue +campanulas were now safely established in their places and the low +afternoon sun slanted in among the trees. Karen still wore her hat and +motoring veil and the smoky grey substance flowed softly back about her +shoulders. Her face seemed to emerge from a cloud. It had always to +Gregory's eyes the air of steadfast advance; the way in which her hair +swept back and up from her brows gave it a wind-blown, lifted look. He +glanced at her now from time to time, while, in a meditative and +communicative mood, she continued to share her reflections with him. +Gregory was very happy. + +"Even Tante doesn't always remember enough about Mrs. Talcott," she went +on. "That is of course because Mrs. Talcott is so much a part of her +life that she sometimes hardly sees her. She _is_, for her, the dear old +restful chair that she sinks back into and forgets about. Besides, some +people have a right not to see things. One doesn't ask from giants the +same sort of perception that one does from pygmies." + +This was indeed hard on the Lavingtons; but Gregory was not thinking of +the Lavingtons, who could take care of themselves. He was wondering, as +he more and more wondered, about Madame von Marwitz, and what she saw +and what she permitted herself not to see. + +"You aren't invisible to her sometimes?" he inquired. + +Her innocence before his ironies made him ashamed always of having +spoken them. "It is just that that makes me feel sometimes so badly +about Mrs. Talcott," she answered now; "just because she is, in a sense, +sometimes invisible, and I'm not. Mrs. Talcott, of course, counts for a +great deal more in the way of comfort and confidence than I do; I don't +believe that Tante really is as intimate with anybody in the world as +with Mrs. Talcott; but she doesn't count as much as I do, I am nearly +sure, in the way of tenderness. I really think that in the way of +tenderness I am nearer than anybody." + +They left the flagged garden now, and came down to a lower terrace. Here +the sun shone fully; they walked to and fro in the radiance. "Of +course," Karen continued to define and confide, "as far as interest goes +any one of her real friends counts for more than I do, and you mustn't +think that I mean to say that I believe myself the most loved; not at +all. But I am the tender, home thing in her life; the thing to pet and +care for and find waiting. It is that that is so beautiful for me and so +tragic for her." + +"Why tragic?" + +"Oh, but you do not feel it? A woman like that, such a heart, and such a +spirit--and no one nearer than I am? That she should have no husband and +no child? I am a makeshift for all that she has lost, or never had." + +"And Mrs. Talcott?" said Gregory after a moment. "Is it Mrs. Talcott's +tragedy to have missed even a makeshift?" + +Karen now turned her eyes on him, and her face, as she scrutinized him, +showed a slight severity. "Hardly that. She has Tante." + +"Has her as the chair has her, you mean?" He couldn't for the life of +him control the question. It seemed indeed due to their friendship that +he should not conceal from her the fact that he found disproportionate +elements in her devotion. Yet it was not the right way in which to be +frank, and Karen showed him so in her reply. "I mean that Tante is +everything to her and that, in the nature of things, she cannot be so +much to Tante. You mustn't take quite literally what I said of the +chair, you know. It can hardly be a makeshift to have somebody like +Tante to love and care for. I don't quite know what you mean by speaking +like that," Karen said. Her gaze, in meeting his, had become almost +stern. She seemed to scan him from a distance. + +Gregory, though he felt a pang of disquietude, felt no disposition to +retreat. He intended that she should be made to understand what he +meant. "I think that what it comes to is that it is you I am thinking +of, rather than of Mrs. Talcott," he said. "I don't know your guardian, +and I do know you, and it is what she gets rather than what she gives +that is most apparent to me." + +"Gets? From me? What may that be?" Karen continued to return his gaze +almost with haughtiness. + +"The most precious thing I can imagine," said Gregory. "Your love. I +hope that she is properly grateful for it." + +She looked at him and the slow colour mounted to her cheeks; but it was +as if in unconscious response to his feeling; it hardly, even yet, +signified self-consciousness. She had stood still in asking her last +question and she still did not move as she said: "I do not like to hear +you speak so. It shows me that you understand nothing." + +"Does it? I want to understand everything." + +"You care for me," said Karen, standing still, her eyes on his, "and I +care for you; but what I most wish in such a friend is that he should +see and understand. May I tell you something? Will you wait while I +tell you about my life?" + +"Please tell me." + +"I want you to see and understand Tante," said Karen. "And how much I +love her; and why." + +They walked on, from the terrace to the cliff-path. Karen stopped when +they had gone a little way and leaned her elbows on the stone wall +looking out at the sea. "She has been everything to me," she said. +"Everything." + +He was aware, as he leaned beside her in the mellow evening light, of a +great uneasiness mingling with the beautiful gravity of the moment. She +was near him as she had never yet been near. She had almost recognized +his love. It was there between them, and it was as if, not turning from +it, she yet pointed to something beyond and above it, something that it +was his deep instinct to evade and hers to show him. He must not take a +step towards her, she seemed to tell him, until he had proved to her +that he had seen what she did. And nothing she could say would, he felt +sure of it, alter his fundamental distrust of Madame von Marwitz. + +"I want to tell you about my life," said Karen, looking out at the sea +from between her hands. "You have heard my story, of course; people are +always told it; but you have never heard it from my side. You have heard +no doubt about my father and mother, and how she left the man she did +not love for him. My mother died when I was quite little; so, though I +remember her well she does not come into the part of my story that I +want to tell you. But I was thirteen years old when my father died, and +that begins the part that leads to Tante. It was in Rome, in winter when +he died; and I was alone with him; and there was no money, and I had +more to bear than a child's mind and heart should have. He died. And +then there were dreadful days. Cold, coarse people came and took me and +put me in a convent in Paris. That convent was like hell to me. I was so +miserable. And I had never known restraint or unkindness, and the French +girls, so sly and so small in their thoughts, were hateful to me. And I +did not like the nuns. I was punished and punished--rightly no doubt. I +was fierce and sullen, I remember, and would not obey. Then I heard, by +chance, from a girl whose family had been to her concert in Paris, that +Madame Okraska was with her husband at Fontainebleau. Of her I knew +nothing but the lovely face in the shop-windows. But her husband's name +brought back distant days to me. He had known my father; I remembered +him--the fair, large, kindly smiling, very sad man--in my father's +studio among the clay and marble. He bought once a little head my father +had done of me when I was a child. So I ran away from the convent--oh, +it was very bad; I knocked down a nun and escaped the portress, and hid +for a long time in the streets. And I made my way through Paris and +walked for a day and night to Fontainebleau; and there in the forest, in +the evening, I was lost, and almost dead with hunger and fatigue. And as +I stood by the road I saw the carriage approaching from very far away +and saw sitting in it, as it came nearer, the beautiful woman. Shall I +ever forget it? The dark forest and the evening sky above and her face +looking at me--looking, looking, full of pity and wonder. She has told +me that I was the most unhappy thing that she had ever seen. My father's +friend was with her; but though I saw him and knew that I was safe, I +had eyes only for her. Her face was like heaven opening. When the +carriage stopped and she leaned to me, I sprang to her and she put her +arms around me. They have been round me ever since," said Karen, joining +her fingers over her eyes and leaning her forehead upon them so that her +face was hidden; and for a moment she did not speak. "Ever since," she +went on presently, "she has been joy and splendour and beauty. What she +has given me is nothing. It is what she is herself that lifts the lives +of other people. Those who do not know her seem to me to have lives so +sad and colourless compared to mine. You cannot imagine it, anyone so +great, yet at the same time so little and so sweet. She is merry like no +one else, and witty, and full of cajoleries, like a child. One cannot be +dull with her, not for one moment. And there is through it all her +genius, the great flood of wonderful music; can you think what it is +like to live with that? And under-lying everything is the great +irremediable sorrow. I was with her when it came; the terrible thing. I +did not live with them while he was alive, you know, my Onkel Ernst; he +was so good and kind--always the kindest of friends to me; but he loved +her too deeply to be able to share their life, and how well one +understands that in her husband. He had me put at a school in Dresden. I +did not like that much, either. But, even if I were lonely, I knew that +my wonderful friends--my Tante and my Onkel--were there, like the sun +behind the grey day, and I tried to study and be dutiful to please them. +And in my holidays I was always with them, twice it was, at their +beautiful estate in Germany. And it was there that the horror came that +wrecked her life; her husband's death, his death that cannot be +explained or understood. He drowned himself. We never say it, but we +know it. That is the fear, the mystery. All his joy with her, his love +and happiness--to leave them;--it was madness; he had always been a sad +man; one saw that in his face; the doctors said it was madness. He +disappeared without a word one day. For three weeks--nothing. Tante was +like a creature crying out on the rack. And it was I who found him by +the lake-edge one morning. She was walking in the park, I knew; she used +to walk and walk fast, fast, quite silent; and with horrible fear I +thought: If I can keep her from seeing. I turned--and she was beside me. +I could not save her. Ah--poor woman!" Karen closed her hands over her +face. + +They stood for a long time in silence, Gregory leaning beside her and +looking down at the sea. His thought was not with the stricken figure +she put before him; it dwelt on the girl facing horror, on the child +bearing more than a child should bear. Yet he was glad to feel, as a +background to his thoughts, that Madame von Marwitz was indeed very +pitiful. + +"You understand," said Karen, straightening herself at last and laying +her hands on the wall. "You see how it is." + +"Yes," said Gregory. + +"It is kind of you, and beautiful, to feel me, as your friend, a person +of value," said Karen. "But it does not please me to have the great fact +of my life belittled." + +"I haven't meant to do that, really. I see why it means so much, to you. +But I see you before I see the facts of your life; they interest me +because of you," said Gregory. "You come first to me. It's that I want +you to understand." + +Karen had at last turned her eyes upon his and they met them in a long +encounter that recalled to Gregory their first. It was not the moment +for explicit recognitions or avowals; the shadow of the past lay too +darkly upon her. But that their relation had changed her deepened gaze +accepted. She took his hand, she had a fashion almost boyish of taking +his rather than giving her hand, and said: "We shall both understand +more and more; that is so, is it not? And some day you will know her. +Until you know her you cannot really understand." + + + + +CHAPTER XI + + +Karen and he had walked back to the house in silence, and at the door, +where she stood to see him off, it had been arranged that he was to +lunch at Les Solitudes next day and that she was to show him a favourite +headland, one not far away, but that he had never yet been shown. From +the sweetness, yet gravity, of her look and voice he could infer nothing +but that she recognized change and a new significance. Her manner had +neither the confusion nor the pretended unconsciousness of ordinary +girlhood. She was calm, but with a new thoughtfulness. He arrived a +little early next day and found Mrs. Talcott alone in the morning-room +writing letters. He noticed, as she rose from the bureau, her large, +immature, considered writing. "Karen'll be down in a minute or two, I +guess," she said. "Take a chair." + +"Don't let me interrupt you," said Gregory, as Mrs. Talcott seated +herself before him, her hands folded at her waist. But Mrs. Talcott, +remarking briefly, "Don't mention it," did not move back to her former +place. She examined him and he examined her and he felt that she probed +through his composure to his unrest. "I wanted a little talk," she +observed presently. "You've gotten pretty fond of Karen, haven't you, +Mr. Jardine?" + +This was to come at once to the point. "Very fond," said Gregory, +wondering if she had been diagnosing his fondness in a letter to Madame +von Marwitz. + +"She hasn't got many friends," Mrs. Talcott, after another moment of +contemplation, went on. "She's always been a lonesome sort of child." + +"That's what has struck me, too," said Gregory. + +"Sometimes Mercedes takes her along; but sometimes she don't," Mrs. +Talcott pursued. "It ain't a particularly lively sort of life for a +young girl, going on in an out-of-the-way place like this with an old +woman like me. She's spent most of her time with me, when you come to +reckon it up." There was no air of criticism or confidence in Mrs. +Talcott. She put forward these remarks with unbiassed placidity. + +"I suppose Madame von Marwitz couldn't arrange always to take her?" +Gregory asked after a pause. + +"It ain't always convenient toting a young girl round with you," said +Mrs. Talcott. "Sometimes Mercedes feels like it and sometimes she don't. +Karen and I stay at home, now that I'm too old to go about with her, and +we see her when she's home. That's the idea. But she ain't much at home. +She's mostly travelling and staying around with folks." + +"It isn't a particularly lively time, it seems to me, for either of +you," said Gregory. It was his instinct to blame Madame von Marwitz for +the featureless lives led by her dependents, though he could but own +that it might, perhaps, be difficult to fit them into the vagabondage of +a great pianist's existence. + +"Well, it's good enough for me," said Mrs. Talcott. "I'm very contented +if it comes to that; and so is Karen. She's known so much that's worse, +the same as I have. But she's known what's better, too; she was a pretty +big girl when her Poppa died and she was a companion to him and I reckon +that without figuring it up much to herself she's lonesome a good deal." + +Gregory for a moment was silent. Then he found it quite natural to say +to Mrs. Talcott: "What I hope is that she will marry me." + +"I hope so, too," said Mrs. Talcott with no alteration of tone. "I hoped +so the moment I set eyes on you. I saw that you were a good young man +and that you'd make her a good kind husband." + +"Thanks, very much," said Gregory, smiling yet deeply touched. "I hope I +may be. I intend to be if she will have me." + +"The child is mighty fond of you," said Mrs. Talcott. "And it's not as +if she took easy to people. She don't. She's never seemed to need folks. +But I can see that she's mighty fond of you, and what I want to say is, +even if it don't seem to work out like you want it to right away, you +hang on, Mr. Jardine; that's my advice; an old woman like me understands +young girls better than they understand themselves. Karen is so wrapped +up in Mercedes and thinks such a sight of her that perhaps she'll feel +she don't want to leave her and that sort of thing; but just you hang +on." + +"I intend to," said Gregory. "I can't say how much I thank you for being +on my side." + +"Yes; I'm on your side, and I'm on Karen's side; and I want to see this +thing put through," said Mrs. Talcott. + +Something seemed to hover between them now, a fourth figure that must be +added to the trio they made. He wondered, if he did hang on successfully +and if it did work out as he intended that it should, how that fourth +figure would work in. He couldn't see a shared life with Karen from +which it could be eliminated, nor did he, of course, wish to see it +eliminated; but he did not see himself, either, as forming one of a band +of satellites, and the main fact about the fourth figure seemed to be +that any relation to it involved one, apparently, in discipleship. There +seemed even some disloyalty to Mrs. Talcott in accepting her sympathy +while anxieties and repudiations such as these were passing through his +mind; for she, no doubt, saw in Karen's relation to Madame von Marwitz +the chief asset with which she could present a husband; and he expected +Mrs. Talcott, now, to make some reference to this asset; but none came; +and if she expected from him some recognition of it, no expectancy was +visible in the old blue eyes fixed on his face. A silence fell between +them, and as it grew longer it grew the more consoling. Into their +compact of understanding she let him see, he could almost fancy, that +the question of Madame von Marwitz was not to enter. + +Karen, when she appeared, was looking preoccupied, and after shaking his +hand and giving him, for a moment, the sweet, grave smile with which +they had parted, she glanced at the writing-table. "You are writing to +Tante, Mrs. Talcott?" she said. "You heard from her this morning?" + +"Yes; I heard from her," said Mrs. Talcott. Gregory at once inferred +that Madame von Marwitz had been writing for information concerning +himself. + +She must by now have become aware of his correspondence with Karen and +its significant continuity. + +"Are there any messages?--any news?" asked Karen, and she could not keep +dejection from her voice. She had had no letter. + +"It's only a business note," said Mrs. Talcott. "Hasn't Miss Scrotton +written?" + +"Does my cousin keep you posted as a rule?" Gregory asked, as Karen +shook her head. + +"No; but Tante asks her to write sometimes, when she is too tired or +rushed; and I had a letter from her, giving me their plans, only a few +days ago; so that I know that all is well. It is only that I am always +greedy for Tante's letters, and this is the day on which they often +come." + +They went in to lunch. Karen spoke little during the meal. Gregory and +Mrs. Talcott carried on a desultory conversation about hotels and the +different merits of different countries in this respect. Mrs. Talcott +had a vast experience of hotels. From Germany to Australia, from New +York to St. Petersburg, they were known to her. + +After lunch he and Karen started on their walk. It had been a morning of +white fog and the mist still lay thickly over the sea, so that from the +high cliff-path, a clear, pale sky above them, they looked down into +milky gulfs of space. Then, as the sun shone softly and a gentle breeze +arose, a rift of dark, still blue appeared below, as the sky appears +behind dissolving clouds, and fold upon fold, slumbrously, the mist +rolled back upon itself. The sea lay like a floor of polished sapphire +beneath the thick, soft webs. Far below, in a cavern, the sound of +lapping water clucked, and a sea-gull, indolently intent, drifted by +slowly on dazzling wings. + +Karen and Gregory reached their headland and, seating themselves on the +short, warm turf, looked out over the sea. During the walk they had +hardly spoken, and he had wondered whether her thoughts were with him +and with their last words yesterday, or dwelling still on her +disappointment. But presently, as if her preoccupation had drifted from +her as the fog had drifted from the sea, Karen turned tranquil eyes upon +him and said: "I suddenly thought, and the stillness made me think it, +and Mrs. Talcott's hotels, too, perhaps, of all that is going on in the +world while we sit here so lonely and so peaceful. Frenchmen with fat +cheeks and flat-brimmed silk hats sitting at little tin tables in +boulevards; isn't it difficult to realize that they exist? and Arabs on +camels crossing deserts; they are quite imaginable; and nuns praying in +convent cells; and stokers, all stripped and sweating, under the engines +of great steamers; and a little Japanese artist carving so carefully the +soles of the feet of some tiny image; there they are, all going on; as +real to themselves as we are, at the very moment that we sit here and +feel that only we, in all the world, are real." She might almost have +been confiding her fancies to a husband whose sympathy had been tested +by years of fond companionship. + +Gregory, wondering at her, loving her, pulled at the short turf as he +lay, propped on an elbow, beside her, and said: "What nice thoughts you +have." + +"You have them, too, I think," said Karen, smiling down at him. "And +nicer ones. Mine are usually only amusing, like those; but yours are +often beautiful. I see that in your face, you know. It is a face that +makes me think always of a cold, clear, steely pool;--that is what it +looks like if one does not look down into it but only across it, as it +were; but if one bends over and looks down, deep down, one sees the sky +and passing white clouds and boughs of trees. I saw deep down at once. +That is why," her eyes rested upon him, "we were friends from the +first." + +"It's what you bring that you see," said Gregory; "you make me think of +all those things." + +"Ah, but you think them for yourself, too; when you are alone you think +them." + +"But when I am alone and think them, without you in the thought of them, +it's always with sadness, for something I've lost. You bring them back, +with happiness. The thought of you is always happy. I have never known +anyone who seemed to me so peacefully happy as you do. You are very +happy, aren't you?" Gregory looked down at his little tufts of turf as +he asked this question. + +"I am glad I seem to you like that," said Karen. "I think I am usually +quiet and gay and full of confidence; I sometimes wonder at my +confidence. But it is not always so. No, I am not always happy. +Sometimes, when I think and remember, it is like feeling a great hole +being dug in my heart--as if the iron went down and turned up dark +forgotten things. I have that feeling sometimes; and then I wonder that +I can ever be happy." + +"What things, dear Karen?" + +"You know, I think." Karen looked out at the sea. "Tante's face when I +found her husband's body. And my father's face when he was dying; he did +not know what was to become of me; he was quite weak, like a little +child, and he cried on my breast. And my mother's face when she died. I +have not told you anything of my mother." + +"Will you? I want to hear everything about you; everything," said +Gregory. + +"This is her locket," Karen said, putting her hand over it. "Her face is +in it; would you like to see it?" + +He held out his hand, and slipping the ribbon over her head she pressed +the little spring and laid the open locket in it. + +He saw the tinted photograph of a young girl's head, a girl younger than +Karen and with her fair hair and straight brows and square chin; but it +was a gentler face and a clumsier, and strange with its alien +nationality. + +"I always feel as if she were my child and I her mother when I look at +that," said Karen. "It was taken before I was born. She had a happy +life, and yet my memory of her breaks my heart. She was so very young +and it frightened her so much to die; she could not bear to leave us." + +Gregory, holding the little locket, looked at it silently. Then he put +it to his lips. "You care for me, don't you, Karen?" he said. + +"You know, I think," said Karen, repeating her former words. + +He laid the locket in her hand, and the moment had for him a sacramental +holiness so that the locket was like a wedding-ring; holding it and her +hand together he said, lifting his eyes to hers, "I love you. Do you +love me?" + +Her eyes had filled with tears when he had kissed her mother's face, and +there was young awe in her gaze; but no shadow, no surprise. + +"Yes," she said, unhesitatingly. "Yes, I love you, dear Gregory." + +The simplicity, the inevitableness of his bliss overwhelmed him. He held +her hand and looked down at it. All about them was the blue. All her +past, its beauty, its dark, forgotten things, she had given to him. She +was his for ever. "Oh, my darling Karen," he murmured. + +She bent down to look at him now, smiling and unclosing her hand from +his gently, so that she could look at her mother's face. "How glad she +would be if she could know," she said. "Perhaps she does know. Do you +not think so?" + +"Dear--I don't know what I think about those hopes. I hope." + +"Oh, it is more than hope, my belief that she is there; that she is not +lost. Only one cannot tell how or when or where it all may be. For that, +yes, it can be only hope. She, too, would love you, I am sure," Karen +continued. + +"Would she? I'm glad you think so, darling." + +"We are so much alike, you see, that it is natural to feel sure that we +should think alike. Do you not think that her face is much like mine? +What happiness! I am glad it is not a day of rain for our happiness." +And she then added, "I hope we may be married." + +"Why, we are to be married, dear child," Gregory said, smiling at her. +"There is no 'may' about it, since you love me." + +"Only one," said Karen, who still looked at her mother's face. "And +perhaps it will be well not to speak much of our love till we can know. +But I feel sure that she will say this happiness is for me." + +"She?" Gregory repeated. For a moment he imagined that she meant some +superstition connected with her mother. + +Karen, slipping the ribbon over her head, had returned the locket to its +place. "Yes; Tante," she said, still with the locket in her hand. + +"Tante?" Gregory repeated. + +At his tone, its change, she lifted startled eyes to his. + +"What has she to do with it?" Gregory asked after a moment in which she +continued to gaze at him. + +"What has Tante to do with it?" said Karen in a wondering voice. "Do you +think I could marry without Tante's consent?" + +"But you love me?" + +"I do not understand you. Was it wrong of me to have said so before I +had her consent? Was that not right? Not fair to you?" + +"Since you love me you ought to be willing to marry me whether you have +your guardian's consent or not." His voice strove to control its +bitterness; but the day had darkened; all his happiness was blurred. He +felt as if a great injury had been done him. + +Karen continued to gaze at him in astonishment. "Would you have expected +me to marry you without my mother's consent? She is in my mother's +place." + +"If you loved me I should certainly expect you to say that you would +marry me whether your mother consented or not. You are of age. There is +nothing against me. Those aren't English ideas at all, Karen." + +"But I am not English," said Karen, "my guardian is not English. They +are our ideas." + +"You mean, you seriously mean, that, loving me, you would give me up if +she told you to?" + +"Yes," said Karen, now with the heaviness of their recognized division. +"She would not refuse her consent unless it were right that I should +give you up." + +For some moments after this Gregory, in silence, looked down at the +grass between them, clasping his knees; for he now sat upright. Then, +controlling his anger to argumentative rationality, he said, while again +wrenching away at the strongly rooted tufts: "If she did refuse, what +reason could she give for refusing? As I say, there's absolutely nothing +against me." + +Karen had kept her troubled eyes on his downcast face. "There might be +things she did not like; things she would not believe for my happiness +in married life," she replied. + +"And you would take her word against mine?" + +"You forget, I think," he had lifted his eyes to hers and she looked +back at him, steadily, with no entreaty, but with all the perplexity of +her deep pain. "She has known me for eleven years. I have only known you +for three months." + +He could not now control the bitterness or the dismay; for, coldly, +cuttingly he knew it, it was quite possible that Madame von Marwitz +would not "like things" in him. Their one encounter had not been of a +nature to endear him to her. "It simply means," he said, looking into +her eyes, "that you haven't any conception of what love is. It means +that you don't love me." + +They looked at each other for a moment and then Karen said, "That is +hard." And after another moment she rose to her feet. Gregory got up and +they went down the cliff-path towards Les Solitudes. + +He had not spoken recklessly. His words expressed his sense of her +remoteness. He could not imagine what sort of love it was that could so +composedly be put aside. And making no feminine appeal or protest, she +walked steadily, in silence, before him. Only at a turning of the way +did he see that her lips were compressed and tears upon her cheeks. + +"Karen," he said, looking into her face as he now walked beside her; +"won't you talk it over? You astonish me so unspeakably. Can she destroy +our friendship, too? Would you give me up as a friend if she didn't like +things in me?" + +The tears expressed no yielding, for she answered "Yes." + +"And how far do you push submission? If she told you to marry someone +she chose for you, would you consent, whether you loved him or not?" + +"It is not submission," said Karen. "It is our love, hers and mine. She +would not wish me to marry a man I did not love. The contrary is true. +My guardian before she went away spoke to me of a young man she had +chosen for me, someone for whom she had the highest regard and +affection; and I, too, am very fond of him. She felt that it would be +for my happiness to marry him, and she hoped that I would consent. But I +did not love him. I told her that I could never love him; and so it +ended immediately. You do her injustice in your thoughts of her; and you +do me injustice, too, if you think of me as a person who would marry +where I did not love." + +He walked beside her, bitterly revolving the sorry comfort of this last +speech. "Who was the young man?" he asked. Not that he really cared to +know. + +"His name is Herr Franz Lippheim," said Karen, gravely. "He is a young +musician." + +"Herr Franz Lippheim," Gregory repeated, with an irritation glad to +wreak itself on this sudden object presented opportunely. "How could you +have been imagined as marrying someone called Lippheim?" + +"Why not, pray?" + +"Is he a German Jew?" Gregory inquired after a moment. + +"He is, indeed, of Joachim's nationality," Karen answered, in a voice +from which the tears were gone. + +They walked on, side by side, the estrangement cutting deep between +their new-won nearness. Yet in the estrangement was an intimacy deeper +than that of the merely blissful state. They seemed in the last +miserable half hour to have advanced by years their knowledge of each +other. Mrs. Talcott and tea were waiting for them in the morning-room. +The old woman fixed her eyes upon each face in turn and then gave her +attention to her tea-pot. + +"I am sorry, Mrs. Talcott, that we are so late," Karen said. Her +composure was kept only by an effort that gave to her tones a stately +conventionality. + +"Don't mention it," said Mrs. Talcott. "I'm only just in myself." + +"Has it not been a beautiful afternoon?" Karen continued. "What have you +been doing in the garden, Mrs. Talcott?" + +"I sowed a big bed of mignonette down by the arbour, and Mitchell and I +set out a good lot of plants." + +Mrs. Talcott made her replies to the questions that Karen continued to +ask, in an even voice in which Gregory, who kept his dismal eyes upon +her, detected a melancholy patience. Mrs. Talcott must perceive his +state to be already one of "hanging on." Of her sympathy he was, at all +events, assured. She showed it by rising as soon as he and Karen had +drunk their tea. "I've got some more things to do," she said. "Good-bye, +Mr. Jardine. Are you coming over to-morrow?" + +"No," said Gregory taking Mrs. Talcott's hand. "My holiday is over. I +shall be going back to town to-morrow." + +Mrs. Talcott looked into his eyes. "Well, that's too bad," she observed. + +"Isn't it? I'd far rather stay here, I can assure you," said Gregory. + +"We'll miss you, I guess," said Mrs. Talcott. "I'm very glad to have had +the pleasure of making your acquaintance." + +"And I of making yours." + +Mrs. Talcott departed and Gregory turned to Karen. She was standing near +the window, looking at him. + +"We must say good-bye, too, I suppose," said Gregory, mastering his +grief. "You will give me your guardian's address so that I can write to +her at once?" + +Her face had worn the aspect of a grey, passive sheet of water; a +radiant pallor now seemed struck from its dulled surface. + +"You are going to write to Tante?" she said. + +"Isn't that the next step?" Gregory asked. "You will write, too, won't +you? Or is it part of my ordeal that I'm to plead my cause alone?" + +Karen had clasped her hands together on her breast and, in the eyes +fixed on his, tears gathered. "Do not speak harshly," she said. "I am so +sorry there must be the ordeal. But so happy, too--so suddenly. Because +I believed that you were going to leave me since you thought me so wrong +and so unloving." + +"Going to leave you, Karen?" Gregory repeated in amazement. Desperate +amusement struggled in his face with self-reproach. "My darling child, +what must you think of me? And, actually, you'd have let me go?" He had +come to her and taken her hands in his. + +"What else could I do?" + +"Such an idiot would have deserved it? Could you believe me such an +idiot? Darling, you so astonish me. What a strange, indomitable creature +you are." + +"What else could I do, Gregory?" she repeated, looking into his face and +not smiling in answer to his smiling, frowning gaze. + +"Love me more; that's what you could have done--a great deal more," said +Gregory. "That's what you must do, Karen. I can't bear to think that you +wouldn't marry me without her consent. I can't bear to think that you +don't love me enough. But leave you because you don't love me as much as +I want you to love me! My darling, how little you understand." + +"You seemed very angry," said Karen. "I was so unhappy. I don't know how +I should have borne it if you had gone away and left me like this. But +love should not make one weak, Gregory. There you are wrong, to think it +is because I do not love you." + +"Ah, you'll find out if I'm wrong!" Gregory exclaimed with tender +conviction. "You'll find out how much more you are to love me. Oh, yes, +I will kiss you good-bye, Karen. I don't care if all the Tantes in the +world forbid it!" + +In thinking afterwards of these last moments that they had had together, +the discomfitures and dismays of the afternoon tended to resolve +themselves for Gregory into the memory of the final yielding. She had +let him take her into his arms, and with the joy was the added sweetness +of knowing that in permitting and reciprocating his unauthorized kiss +she sacrificed some principles, at all events, for his sake. + + + + +CHAPTER XII + + +Madame von Marwitz was sitting on the great terrace of a country-house +in Massachusetts, opening and reading her post, as we have already seen +her do. Impatient and weary as the occupation often made her, she yet +depended upon the morning waves of adulation that lapped in upon her +from every quarter of the earth. To miss the fullness of the tide gave +her, when by chance there was deficiency, the feeling that badly made +_café au lait_ gave her at the beginning of the day; something was +wrong; the expected stimulant lacked in force or in flavour, and coffee +that was not strong and sweet and aromatic was a mishap so unusual that, +when it occurred, it became an offence almost gross and unnatural, as +did a post that brought few letters of homage and appreciation. To-day +the mental coffee was as strong and as perfumed as that of which she had +shortly before partaken in her lovely little _Louis Quinze_ boudoir, +after she had come in from her bath. The bath-room was like that of a +Roman Empress, all white marble, with a square of emerald water into +which one descended down shallow marble steps. Madame von Marwitz was +amused by the complexities of luxury among which she found herself, some +of which, even to her, were novel. "_Eh, eh, ma chère_," she had said to +Miss Scrotton, "beautiful if you will, and very beautiful; but its nails +are too much polished, its hair too much _ondulé_. I prefer a porcelain +to a marble bath-tub." But the ingenuities of hospitality which the +Aspreys--earnest and accomplished millionaires--lavished upon their +guests made one, she owned, balmily comfortable. And as she sat now in +her soft white draperies under a great silken sunshade, raised on a +stand above her and looking in the sunlight like a silver bell, the +beauty of her surroundings--the splendid Italian gardens, a miracle of +achievement even if lacking, as the miraculous may, an obvious relation +with its surroundings; the landscape with its inlaid lake and wood and +hill and great arch of bluest sky; the tall, transparent, Turneresque +trees in the middle distance;--all this stately serenity seemed to have +wrought in her an answering suavity and gladness. There was almost a +latent gaiety in her glance, as, with her large, white, securely moving +hands, which seemed to express their potential genius in every deft and +delicate gesture, she took up and cut open and unfolded her letters, +pausing between them now and then to tweak off and eat a grape as large +as a plum from the bunch lying on its leaves in a Veronese-like silver +platter beside her. + +This suavity, this gladness and even gaiety of demeanour were apparent +to Miss Eleanor Scrotton when she presently emerged from the house and +advanced slowly along the terrace, pausing at intervals beside its +balustrade to gaze with a somewhat melancholy eye over the prospect. + +Miss Scrotton was struggling with a half formulated sense of grievance. +It was she who had brought Madame von Marwitz and the Aspreys together. +Madame von Marwitz already knew, of course, most of the people in +America who were worth knowing; if she hadn't met them there she had met +them in Europe; but the Aspreys she had, till then, never met, and they +had been, indisputably, Miss Scrotton's possession. Miss Scrotton had +known them slightly for several years; her father and Mr. Asprey had +corresponded on some sociological theme and the Aspreys had called on +him in London in a mood of proper deference and awe. She had written to +the Aspreys before sailing with Mercedes, had found that they were +wintering in Egypt, but would be back in America in Spring, ready to +receive Madame von Marwitz and herself with open arms; and within those +arms she had, a week ago, placed her treasure. No doubt someone else +would have done it if she hadn't; and perhaps she had been too eager in +her determination that no one else should do it. Perhaps she was +altogether a little too eager. Madame von Marwitz liked people to care +for her and showed a pretty gratitude for pains endured on her behalf; +at least she usually did so; but it may well have been that the great +woman, at once vaguely aloof and ironically observant, had become a +little irked, or bored, or merely amused at hearing so continually, as +it were, her good Scrotton panting beside her, tense, determined and +watchful of opportunity. However that may have been, Miss Scrotton, as +Madame von Marwitz's glance now lifted and rested upon herself, detected +the sharper gaiety defined by the French as "_malice_," lighting, though +ever so mildly, her friend's eyes and lips. Like most devotees Miss +Scrotton had something of the valet in her composition, and with the +valet's capacity for obsequiousness went a valet-like shrewdness of +perception. She hadn't spent four months travelling about America with +Madame von Marwitz without seeing her in undress. She had long since +become uncomfortably aware that when Madame von Marwitz found one a +little ridiculous she could be unkind, and that when one added +plaintiveness to folly she often amused herself by giving one, to speak +metaphorically, soft yet sharp little pinches that left one nervously +uncertain of whether a caress or an aggression had been intended. + +Miss Scrotton was plaintive, and she could not conceal it. Glory as she +might in the _rôle_ of second fiddle, she was very tenaciously aware of +what was due to that subservient but by no means insignificant +performer; and the Aspreys had not shown themselves enough aware, +Mercedes had not shown herself aware at all, of what they all owed to +her sustaining, discreet and harmonious accompaniment. In the carefully +selected party assembled at Belle Vue for Madame von Marwitz's +delectation, she had been made a little to feel that she was but one of +the indistinguishable orchestra that plucked out from accommodating +strings a mellow bass to the one thrilling solo. Not for one moment did +she grudge any of the recognitions that were her great friend's due; but +she did expect to bask beside her; she did expect to find transmitted to +her an important satellite's share of beams; and, it wasn't to be +denied, Mercedes had been too much occupied with other people--and with +one other in particular--to shine upon her in any distinguishing degree. +Mercedes had the faculty, chafe against it as one might--and her very +fondness, her very familiarity were a part of the effect--of making one +show as an unimportant satellite, as something that would revolve when +wanted and be contentedly invisible when that was fitting. "I might +almost as well be a paid _dame de compagnie_," Miss Scrotton had more +than once murmured to herself with a lip that trembled; and, obscurely, +she realised that close association with the great might reveal one as +insignificant rather than as glorified. It was therefore with her air of +melancholy that she paused in her advance along the terrace to gaze out +at the prospect, and with an air of emphasized calm and dignity that she +finally came towards her friend; and, as she came, thus armed, the +blitheness deepened in the great woman's eyes. + +"Well, _ma chèrie_," she remarked, "How goes it?" She spoke in French. + +"Very well, _ma bien aimée_," Miss Scrotton replied in the same +language. Her French was correct, but Mercedes often made playful +sallies at the expense of her accent. She preferred not to talk in +French. And when Madame von Marwitz went on to ask her where her fellow +_convives_ were, it was in English that she answered, "I don't know +where they all are--I have been busy writing letters; Mrs. Asprey and +Lady Rose are driving, I know, and Mr. Asprey and Mr. Drew I saw in the +smoking-room as I passed. The Marquis I don't think is down yet, nor +Mrs. Furnivall; the young people are playing tennis, I suppose." + +Miss Scrotton looked about the terrace with its rhythmic tubs of +flowering trees, its groups of chairs, its white silk parasols, and then +wandered to the parapet to turn and glance up at the splendid copy of an +Italian villa that rose above it. "It is really very beautiful, +Mercedes," she observed. "It becomes the more significant from being so +isolated, so divorced from what we are accustomed to find in Europe as a +setting for such a place, doesn't it? Just as, I always think, the +people of the Asprey type, the best this country has to offer, are more +significant, too, for being picked out from so much that is +indistinguishable. I do flatter myself, darling, that in this visit, at +least, I've been able to offer you something really worth your while, +something that adds to your experience of people and places. You _are_ +enjoying yourself," said Miss Scrotton with a manner of sad +satisfaction. + +"Yes; truly," Madame von Marwitz made genial reply. "The more so for +finding myself surrounded by so many old acquaintances. It is a +particular pleasure to see again Lady Rose and the vivacious and +intelligent Mrs. Furnivall; it was in Venice that we last met; her +Palazzo there you must one day see. Monsieur de Hautefeuille and Mr. +Drew I counted already as friends in Europe." + +"And Mrs. Asprey you will soon count as one, I hope. She is really a +somewhat remarkable woman. She comes, you know, of one of their best and +oldest families." + +"Oh, for that, no; not remarkable. Good, if you will--_bon comme du +pain_; it strikes me much, that goodness, among these American rich whom +we are accustomed to hear so crudely caricatured in Europe;--and it is +quite a respectable little aristocracy. They ally themselves, as we see +here in our excellent host and hostess, with what there is of old blood +in the country and win tradition to guide their power. They are not the +flaunting, vulgar rich, of whom we hear so much from those who do not +know them, but the anxious, thoughtful, virtuous rich, oppressed by +their responsibilities and all studying so hard, poor dears, at stiff, +deep books, in order to fulfil them worthily. They all go to +_conférences_, these ladies, it seems, and study sociology. They take +life with a seriousness that I have never seen equalled. Mrs. Asprey is +like them all; good, oh, but yes. And I am pleased to know her, too. +Mrs. Furnivall had promised her long since, she tells me, that it should +be. She and Mrs. Furnivall are old school-mates." + +Miss Scrotton, all her merit thus mildly withdrawn from her, stood +silent for some moments looking away at the lake and the Turneresque +trees. + +"It was so very kind of you, Mercedes, to have had Mr. Drew asked here," +she observed at last, very casually. "It is a real opportunity for a +young bohemian of that type; you are a true fairy-godmother to him; +first Mrs. Forrester and now the Aspreys. Curious, wasn't it, his +appearing over here so suddenly?" + +"Curious? It did not strike me so," said Madame von Marwitz, showing no +consciousness of the thrust her friend had ventured to essay. "People +come to America a great deal, do they not; and often suddenly. It is the +country of suddenness. His books are much read here, it seems, and he +had business with his publishers. He knew, too, that I was here; and +that to him was also an attraction. Why curious, my Scrotton?" + +Miss Scrotton disliked intensely being called "my Scrotton;" but she had +never yet found the necessary courage to protest against the +appellation. "Oh, only because I had had no hint of it until he +appeared," she returned. "And I wondered if you had had. Yes; I suppose +he would be a good deal read over here. It is a very derivative and +artificial talent, don't you think, darling?" + +"Rather derivative; rather artificial," Madame von Marwitz replied +serenely. + +"He doesn't look well, does he?" Miss Scrotton pursued, after a little +pause. "I don't like that puffiness about the eyelids and chin. It will +be fatal for him to become fat." + +"No," said Madame von Marwitz, as serenely as before, her eyes now on a +letter that she held. "Ah, no; he could rise above fat, that young man. +I can see him fat with impunity. Would it become, then, somewhat the +Talleyrand type? How many distinguished men have been fat. Napoleon, +Renan, Gibbon, Dr. Johnson--" she turned her sheet as she mildly brought +out the desultory list. "And all seem to end in n, do they not? I am +glad that I asked Mr. Drew. He flavours the dish like an aromatic herb; +and what a success he has been; _hein_? But he is the type of personal +success. He is independent, indifferent, individual." + +"Ah, my dear, you are too generous to that young man," Miss Scrotton +mused. "It's beautiful, it's wonderful to watch; but you are, indeed, +too kind to him." She mused, she was absent, yet she knew, and knew that +Mercedes knew, that never before in all their intercourse had she +ventured on such a speech. It implied watchfulness; it implied +criticism; it implied, even, anxiety; it implied all manner of things +that it was not permitted for a satellite to say. + +The Baroness's eyes were on her letter, and though she did not raise +them her dark brows lifted. "_Tiens_," she continued, "you find that I +am too kind to him?" + +Miss Scrotton, to keep up the appearance of ingenuousness, was forced to +further definition. "I don't think, darling, that in your sympathy, your +solicitude, where young talent is concerned, you quite realize how much +you give, how much you can be made use of. The man admires you, of +course, and has, of course, talent of a sort. Yet, when I see you +together, I confess that I receive sometimes the impression of a +scattering of pearls." + +Madame von Marwitz laid down her letter. "Ah! ah!--oh! oh!--_ma bonne_," +she said. She laughed out. Her eyes were lit with dancing sparks. "Do +you know you speak as if you were very, very jealous of this young man +who is found so charming?" + +"Jealous, my dear Mercedes?" Miss Scrotton's emotion showed itself in a +dark flush. + +"_Mais oui; mais oui_; you tell me that my friend is a swine. Does +that not mean that you, of late, have received too few pearls?" + +"My dear Mercedes! Who called him a swine?" + +"One doesn't speak of scattered pearls without rousing these +associations." Her tone was beaming. + +Was it possible to swallow such an affront? Was it possible not to? And +she had brought it upon herself. There was comfort and a certain +restoration of dignity in this thought. Miss Scrotton, struggling +inwardly, feigned lightness. "So few of us are worthy of your pearls, +dear. Unworthiness doesn't, I hope, consign us to the porcine category. +Perhaps it is that being, like him, a little person, I'm able to see Mr. +Drew's merits and demerits more impartially than you do. That is all. I +really ought to know a good deal about Mr. Drew," Miss Scrotton pursued, +regaining more self-control, now that she had steered her way out of the +dreadful shoals where her friend's words had threatened to sink her; +"I've known him since the days when he was at Oxford and I used to stay +there with my uncle the Dean. He was sitting, then, at the feet of +Pater. It's a derivative, a _parvenu_ talent, and, I do feel it, I +confess I do, a derivative personality altogether, like that of so many +of these clever young men nowadays. He is, you know, of anything but +distinguished antecedents, and his reaction from his own _milieu_ has +been, perhaps, from the first, a little marked. Unfortunately his +marriage is there to remind people of it, and I never see Mr. Drew _dans +le monde_ without, irrepressibly, thinking of the dismal little wife in +Surbiton whom I once called upon, and his swarms--but swarms, my +dear--of large-mouthed children." + +Miss Scrotton wondered, as she proceeded, whether she had again too far +abandoned discretion. + +The Baroness examined her next letter for a moment before opening it and +if she, too, had received her sting, she abandoned nothing. + +She answered with complete, though perhaps ominous, mildness: "He is +rather like Shelley, I always think, a sophisticated Shelley who had sat +at the feet of Pater. Shelley, too, had swarms of children, and it is +possible that they were large-mouthed. The plebeian origin that you tell +me of rather attracts me. I care, especially, for the fine flame that +mounts from darkness; and I, too, on one side, as you will remember, _ma +bonne_, am _du peuple_." + +"My dear Mercedes! Your father was an artist, a man of genius; and if +your parents had risen from the gutter, you, by your own genius, +transcend the question of rank as completely as a Shakespeare." + +The continued mildness was alarming Miss Scrotton; an eagerness to make +amends was in her eye. + +"Ah--but did he, poor man!" Madame von Marwitz mused, rather +irrelevantly, her eyes on her letter. "One hears now, not. But thank +you, my Scrotton, you mean to be consoling. I have, however, no dread of +the gutter. _Tiens_," she turned a page, "here is news indeed." + +Miss Scrotton had now taken a chair beside her and her fingers tapped a +little impatiently as the Baroness's eye--far from the thought of pearls +and swine--went over the letter. + +"_Tiens, tiens_," Madame von Marwitz repeated; "the little Karen is +sought in marriage." + +"Really," said Miss Scrotton, "how very fortunate for the poor little +thing. Who is the young man, and how, in heaven's name, has she secured +a young man in the wilds of Cornwall?" + +Madame von Marwitz made no reply. She was absorbed in another letter. +And Miss Scrotton now perceived, with amazement and indignation, that +the one laid down was written in the hand of Gregory Jardine. + +"You don't mean to tell me," Miss Scrotton said, after some moments of +hardly held patience, "that it's Gregory?" + +Madame von Marwitz, having finished her second letter, was gazing before +her with a somewhat ambiguous expression. + +"Tallie speaks well of him," she remarked at last. "He has made a very +good impression on Tallie." + +"Are you speaking of Gregory Jardine, Mercedes?" Miss Scrotton repeated. + +Madame von Marwitz now looked at her and as she looked the tricksy light +of malice again grew in her eye. "_Mais oui; mais oui._ You have guessed +correctly, my Scrotton," she said. "And you may read his letter. It is +pleasant to me to see that stiff, self-satisfied young man brought to +his knees. Read it, _ma chère_, read it. It is an excellent letter." + +Miss Scrotton read, and, while she read, Madame von Marwitz's cold, deep +eyes rested on her, still vaguely smiling. + +"How very extraordinary," said Miss Scrotton. She handed back the +letter. + +"Extraordinary? Now, why, _ma bonne_?" her friend inquired, all limpid +frankness. "He looked indeed, a stockish, chill young man, of the +cold-nosed type--_ah, que je n'aime pas ça!_--but he is a good young +man; a most unimpeachable young man; and our little Karen has melted +him; how much his letter shows." + +"Gregory Jardine is a very able and a very distinguished person," said +Miss Scrotton, "and of an excellent county family. His mother and mine +were cousins, as you know, and I have always taken the greatest interest +in him. One can't but wonder how the child managed it." Mercedes, she +knew, was drawing a peculiar satisfaction from her displeasure; but she +couldn't control it. + +"Ah, the child is not a manager. She is so far from managing it, you +see, that she leaves it to me to manage. It touches and surprises me, I +confess, to find that her devotion to me rules her even at a moment like +this. Yes; Karen has pleased me very much." + +"Of course that old-fashioned formality would in itself charm Gregory. +He is very conventional. But I do hope, my dear Mercedes, that you will +think it over a little before giving your consent. It is really a most +unsuitable match. Karen's feelings are, evidently, not at all deeply +engaged and with Gregory it must be a momentary infatuation. He will get +over it in time and thank you for saving him; and Karen will marry Herr +Lippheim, as you hoped she would." + +"Now upon my word, my Scrotton," said Madame von Marwitz in a manner as +near insolence as its grace permitted, "I do not follow you. A +barrister, a dingy little London barrister, to marry my ward? You call +that an unsuitable marriage? I protest that I do not follow you and I +assert, to the contrary, that he has played his cards well. Who is he? A +nobody. You speak of your county families; what do they signify outside +their county? Karen in herself is, I grant you, also a nobody; but she +stands to me in a relation almost filial--if I chose to call it so; and +I signify more than the families of many counties put together. Let us +be frank. He opens no doors to Karen. She opens doors to him." + +Miss Scrotton, addressed in these measured and determined tones, changed +colour. "My dear Mercedes, of course you are right there. Of course in +one sense, if you take Gregory in as you have taken Karen in, you open +doors to him. I only meant that a young man in his position, with his +way to make in the world, ought to marry some well-born woman with a +little money. He must have money if he is to get on. He ought to be in +parliament one day; and Karen is without a penny, you have often told me +so, as well as illegitimate. Of course if you intend to make her a large +allowance, that is a different matter; but can you really afford to do +that, darling?" + +"I consider your young man very fortunate to get Karen without one +penny," Madame von Marwitz pursued, in the same measured tones, "and I +shall certainly make him no present of my hard-earned money. Let him +earn the money for Karen, now, as I have done for so many years. Had she +married my good Franz, it would have been a very different thing. This +young man is well able to support her in comfort. No; it all comes most +opportunely. I wanted Karen to settle and to settle soon. I shall cable +my consent and my blessings to them at once. Will you kindly find me a +servant, _ma chère_." + +Miss Scrotton, as she rose automatically to carry out this request, was +feeling that it is possible almost to hate one's idols. She had +transgressed, and she knew it, and Mercedes had been aware of what she +had done and had punished her for it. She even wondered if the quick +determination to accept Gregory as Karen's suitor hadn't been part of +the punishment. Mercedes knew that she had a pride in her cousin and had +determined to humble it. She had perhaps herself to thank for having +riveted this most disastrous match upon him. It was with a bitter heart +that she walked on into the house. + +As she went in Mr. Claude Drew came out and Miss Scrotton gave him a +chill greeting. She certainly hated Mr. Claude Drew. + +Claude Drew blinked a little in the bright sunlight and had somewhat the +air of a graceful, nocturnal bird emerging into the day. He was dressed +with an appropriateness to the circumstances of stately _villégiature_ +so exquisite as to have a touch of the fantastic. + +Madame von Marwitz sat with her back to him in the limpid shadow of the +great white parasol and was again looking, not at Karen's, but at +Gregory Jardine's, letter. One hand hung over the arm of her chair. + +Mr. Drew approached with quiet paces and, taking this hand, before +Madame von Marwitz could see him, he bowed over it and kissed it. The +manner of the salutation made of it at once a formality and a caress. + +Madame von Marwitz looked up quickly and withdrew her hand. "You +startled me, my young friend," she said. In her gaze was a mingled +severity and softness and she smiled as if irrepressibly. + +Mr. Drew smiled back. "I've been wearying to escape from our host and +come to you," he said. "He will talk to me about the reform of American +politics. Why reform them? They are much more amusing unreformed, aren't +they? And why talk to me about them. I think he wants me to write about +them. If I were to write a book for the Americans, I would tell them +that it is their mission to be amusing. Democracies must be either +absurd or uninteresting. America began by being uninteresting; and now +it has quite taken its place as absurd. I love to hear about their fat, +bribed, clean-shaven senators; just as I love to read the advertisements +of tooth-brushes and breakfast foods and underwear in their magazines, +written in the language of persuasive, familiar fraternity. It was +difficult not to confess this to Mr. Asprey; but I do not think he would +have understood me." Mr. Drew spoke in a soft, slightly sibilant voice, +with little smiling pauses between sentences that all seemed vaguely +shuffled together. He paused now, smiling, and looking down at Madame +von Marwitz. + +"You speak foolishly," said Madame von Marwitz. "But he would have +thought you wicked." + +"Because I like beauty and don't like democracy. I suppose so." Still +smiling at her he added, "One forgets democracies when one looks at you. +You are very beautiful this morning." + +"I am not, this morning, in a mood for unconventionalities," Madame von +Marwitz returned, meeting his gaze with her mingled severity and +softness. + +And again, with composure, he ignored her severity and returned her +smile. It would have been unfair to say that there was effrontery in Mr. +Drew's gaze; it merely had its way with you and, if you didn't like its +way, passed from you unperturbed. With all his rather sickly grace and +ambiguous placidity, Mr. Drew was not lacking in character. He had risen +superior to a good many things, the dismal wife at Surbiton and the +large-mouthed children perhaps among them, and he had won his +detachment. The homage he offered was not unalloyed by humour. To a +person of Madame von Marwitz's calibre, he seemed to say, he would not +pretend to raptures or reverences they had both long since seen through. +It would bore him to be rapturous or reverent, and if you didn't like +him, so his whole demeanour mildly demonstrated, you could leave him, +or, rather, he could leave you. So that when Madame von Marwitz sought +to quell him she found herself met with a gentle unawareness, even a +gentle indifference. Cogitation and a certain disquiet were often in her +eye when it rested on this devotee. + +"Does one make conventional speeches to the moon?" he now remarked, +taking a chair beside her and turning the brim of his white hat over his +eyes so that of his face only the sensual, delicate mouth and chin were +in sunlight. "I shouldn't want to make speeches to you if you were +conventional. You are done with your letters? I may talk to you?" + +"Yes, I have done. You may talk, as foolishly as you please, but not +unconventionally; whether I am or am not conventional is not a matter +that concerns you. I have had good news to-day. My little Karen is to +marry." + +"Your little Karen? Which of all the myriads is this adorer?" + +"The child you saw with me in London. The one who stays in Cornwall." + +"You mean the fair, square girl who calls you Tante? I only remember of +her that she was fair and square and called you Tante." + +"That is she. She is to marry an excellent young man, a young man," said +Madame von Marwitz, slightly smiling at him, "who would never wish to +make speeches to the moon, who is, indeed, not aware of the moon. But he +is very much aware of Karen; so much so," and she continued to smile, as +if over an amusing if still slightly perplexing memory, "that when she +is there he is not aware of me. What do you say to that?" + +"I say," Mr. Drew replied, "that the barbarians will always be many and +the civilized few. Who is this barbarian?" + +"A Mr. Gregory Jardine." + +"Jardine? _Connais-pas_," said Mr. Drew. + +"He is a cousin of our Scrotton's," said Madame von Marwitz, "and a man +of law. Very stiff and clean like a roll of expensive paper. He has +asked me very nicely if he may inscribe the name of Mrs. Jardine upon a +page of it. He is the sort of young man of law, I think I distinguish," +Madame von Marwitz mused, her eyes on the landscape, "who does not smoke +a briar wood pipe and ride on an omnibus, but who keeps good cigars in a +silver box and always takes a hansom. He will make Karen comfortable +and, I gather from her letter, happy. It will be a strange change of +_milieu_ for the child, but I have, I think, made her independent of +_milieus_. She will write more than Mrs. Jardine on his scroll. It is a +child of character." + +"And she will no longer be in Cornwall," Mr. Drew observed. "I am glad +of that." + +"Why, pray? I am not glad of it. I shall miss my Karen at Les +Solitudes." + +"But I, you see, don't want to have other worshippers there when I go to +stay with you," said Mr. Drew; "for, you know, you are going to let me +stay a great deal with you in Cornwall. You will play to me, and I will +write something that you will, perhaps, care to read. And the moon will +be very kind and listen to many speeches. You know," he added, with a +change of tone, "that I am in love with you. I must be alone with you at +Les Solitudes." + +"Let us have none of that, if you please," said Madame von Marwitz. She +looked away from him along the sunny stretches of the terrace and she +frowned slightly, though smiling on, as if with tolerant affection. And +in her look was something half dazed and half resentful like the look of +a fierce wild bird, subdued by the warmth and firmness of an enclosing +hand. + + + + +CHAPTER XIII + + +Gregory went down to Cornwall again only nine days after he had left it. +He and Karen met as if under an arch of infinite blessings. He had his +cable to show her and she hers to show him, and, although Gregory did +not see them as the exquisite documents that Karen felt them to be, they +did for him all that he asked Madame von Marwitz to do. + +"I give her to you. Be worthy of my trust. Mercedes von Marwitz"--his +read. And Karen's: "I could only yield you to a greater joy than you can +find with me--but it could not be to a greater love. Do not forget me in +your happiness. You are mine, my beloved child, not less but more than +ever.--Tante." + +Karen's joy was unshadowed. It made him think of primroses and crystal +springs. She was not shy; he was shyer than she, made a little dumb, a +little helpless, by his man's reverence, his man's awed sense of the +beloved's dawn-like wonder. She was not changed; any change in Karen +would come as quiet growth, not as transformation. Gregory's gladness +had not this simplicity. It revealed to him a new world, a world newly +beautiful but newly perilous, and a changed self,--the self of boyhood, +renewed yet transformed, through whose joy ran the reactionary +melancholy that, in a happiness attained, glances at fear, and at a +climax of life, is aware of gulfs of sorrow as yet unsounded. More than +his lover's passion was a tenderness for her and for her unquestioning +acceptances that seemed near tears. Karen was in character so wrought +and in nature so simple. Her subtleties were all objective, subtleties +of sympathy, of recognition, of adaptation to the requirements of +devoted action; her simplicity was that of a whole-heartedness unaware +at high moments of all but the essential. + +She had to tell him fully, holding his hand and looking into his eyes, +all about her side of it; what she had thought when she saw him at the +concert--certain assumptions there gave Gregory his stir of +uneasiness--"You were caring just as much as I was--in the same way--for +her music"; what she had thought at Mrs. Forrester's, and at the railway +station, and when the letters went on and on. She had of course seen +what was coming that evening after they had been to the Lavington's; +"When you didn't understand about me and Tante, you know; and I made you +understand." And then he had made her understand how much he cared for +her and she for him; only it had all come so quietly; "I did not think a +great deal about it, or wonder; it sank into me--like stars one sees in +a still lake, so that next day it was no surprise at all, when you told +me; it was like looking up and seeing all the real stars in the sky. +Afterwards it was dreadful for a little while, wasn't it?" Karen held +his hand for a moment to her cheek. + +When all the past had been looked at together, Gregory asked her if she +would not marry him quite soon; he hoped, indeed, that it might be +within the month. "You see, why not?" he said. "I miss you so dreadfully +and I can't be here; and why should you be? Let me come down and marry +you in that nice little church on the other side of the village as soon +as our banns can be called." + +But, for the first time, a slight anxiety showed in her eyes. "I miss +you dreadfully, too," she said. "But you forget, Tante will not be back +till July. We must wait for Tante, Gregory. We are in May now, it is not +so far to July. You will not mind too much?" + +He felt, sitting under the arch of blessings as he was, that it would be +most ungrateful and inappropriate to mind. But then, he said, if they +must put it off like that, Karen would have to come to London. She must +come and stay with Betty. "And get your trousseau"; this was a brilliant +idea. "You'll have to get your trousseau, you know, and Betty is an +authority on clothes." + +"Oh, but clothes. I never have clothes in that sense," said Karen. "A +little seamstress down here makes most of them and Louise helps her +sometimes if she has time. Tante gave me twenty pounds before she went +away; would twenty pounds do for a trousseau?" + +"Betty would think twenty pounds just about enough for your gloves and +stockings, I imagine," said Gregory. + +"And will you expect me to be so luxurious? You are not rich? We shall +not live richly?" + +"I'm not at all rich; but I want you to have pretty things--layers and +layers of the nice, white, soft things brides always have, and a great +many new hats and dresses. Couldn't I give you a little tip--to begin +the trousseau?" + +"Ah, it can wait, can't it?" said Karen easily. "No; you can't give me a +tip. Tante, I am sure, will see that I have a nice trousseau. She may +even give me a little _dot_ when I marry. I have no money at all; not +one penny, you know. Do you mind?" + +"I'd far rather have you without a penny because I want to give you +everything. If Tante doesn't give you the little _dot_, I shall." + +Karen was pondering a little seriously. "I don't know what Tante will +feel since you have enough for us both. It was when she wished me to +marry Franz that she spoke of a _dot_. And Franz is of course very poor +and has a great family of brothers and sisters to help support. You will +know Franz one day. You did not speak very nicely of Franz that time, +you know; that was another reason why I thought you were so angry. And +it made me angry, too," said Karen, smiling at him. + +"Wasn't I nice? I am sure Franz is." + +"Oh, so good and kind and true. And very talented. And his mother would +be a wonderful musician if she had not so many children to take care of; +that has harmed her music. And she, too, is a golden-hearted person; she +used often to help me with my dresses. Do you remember that little white +silk dress of mine? perhaps so; I wore it at the concert, such a pretty +dress, I think. Frau Lippheim helped me with that--she and a little +German seamstress in Leipsig. I see us now, all bending over the +rustling silk, round the table with the lamp on it. We had to make it so +quickly. Tante had sent for me to come to her in Vienna and I had +nothing to wear at the great concert she was to give. We sat up till +twelve to finish it. Franz and Lotta cooked our supper for us and we +only stopped long enough to eat. Dear Frau Lippheim. Some day you will +know all the Lippheims." + +He listened to her with dreamy, amused delight, seeing her bending in +the ugly German room over the little white silk dress and only vaguely +aware of the queer figures she put before him. He had no inclination to +know Franz and his mother, and no curiosity about them. But Karen +continued. "That is the one, the only thing I can give you," she said, +reflecting. "You know so few artists, don't you; so few people of +talent. As to people, your life is narrow, isn't it so? I have met so +many great people in my life, first through my father and then through +Tante. Painters, poets, musicians. You will probably know them now, too; +some of them certainly, for some are also friends of mine. Strepoff, for +example; oh--how I shall like you to meet him. You have read him, of +course, and about his escape from Siberia and his long exile." + +"Strepoff? Yes, I think so. A dismal sort of fellow, isn't he?" + +Gregory's delight was merging now in a more definite amusement, tinged, +it may be confessed, with alarm. He remembered to have seen a photograph +of this celebrity, very turbulently haired and very fixed and fiery of +eye. He remembered a large bare throat and a defiant neck-tie. He had no +wish to make Strepoff's acquaintance. It was quite enough to read about +him in the magazines and admire his exploits from a distance. + +"Dismal?" Karen had repeated, with a touch of severity. "Who would not +be after such a life? Yes, he is a sad man, and the thought of Russia +never leaves him. But he is full of gaiety, too. He spent some months +with us two years ago at the Italian lakes and I grew so fond of him. We +had great jokes together, he and I. And he sometimes writes to me now, +such teasing, funny letters. The last was from San Francisco. He is +giving lectures out there, raising money; for he never ceases the +struggle. He calls me Liebchen. He is very fond of me." + +"What do you call him?" Gregory inquired. + +"Just Strepoff; everybody calls him that. Dear Belot, too," Karen +pursued. "He could not fail to interest you. Perhaps you have already +met him. He has been in London." + +"Belot? Does he write poetry?" + +"Poetry? No. Belot is a painter; a great painter. Surely you have heard +of Belot?" + +"Well, I'm afraid that if I have I've forgotten. You see, as you say, I +live so out of the world of art." + +"Did you not see his portrait of Susanne Mauret--the great French +actress? It has been exhibited through all the world." + +"Of course I have. Belot of course. The impressionist painter. It looked +to me, I confess, awfully queer; but I could see that it was very +clever." + +"Impressionist? No; Belot would not rank himself among the +impressionists. And he would not like to hear his work called clever; I +warn you of that. He has a horror of cleverness. It was not a clever +picture, but sober, strange, beautiful. Well, I know Belot and his wife +quite intimately. They are great friends of the Lippheims, too, and call +themselves the Franco-Prussian alliance. Madame Belot is a dear little +woman. You must have often seen his pictures of her and the children. He +has numbers of children and adores them. _La petite_ Margot is my +special pet and she always sends me a little present on my birthday. +Madame Belot was once his model," Karen added, "and is quite _du +peuple_, and I believe that some of his friends were sorry that he +married her; but she makes him very happy. That beautiful nude in the +Luxembourg by Chantefoy is of her--long before she married, of course. +She does not sit for the _ensemble_ now, and indeed I fear it has lost +all its beauty, for she is very fat. It would be nice to go to Paris on +our wedding-tour and see the Belots," said Karen. + +Gregory made an evasive answer. He reflected that once he had married +her it would probably be easy to detach Karen from these most +undesirable associates. He hoped that she would take to Betty. Betty +would be an excellent antidote. "And you think your sister-in-law will +want me?" said Karen, when he brought her from the Belots back to Betty. +"She doesn't know me." + +"She must begin to know you as soon as possible. You will have Mrs. +Forrester at hand, you see, if my family should oppress you too much. +Barring Betty, who hardly counts as one of them, they aren't +interesting, I warn you." + +"I may oppress them," said Karen, with the shrewdness that often +surprised him. "Who will they take refuge with?" + +"Oh, they have all London to fall back upon. They do nothing when +they're up but go out. That's my plan; that they should leave you a good +deal when they go out, and leave you to me." + +"That will be nice," said Karen. "But Mrs. Forrester, you know," she +went on, "is not exactly an intimate of mine that I could fall back +upon. I am, in her eyes, only a little appendage of Tante's." + +"Ah, but you have ceased, now, to be an appendage of Tante's. And Mrs. +Forrester is an intimate, an old one, of mine." + +"She'll take me in as your appendage," Karen smiled. + +"Not at all. It's you, now, who are the person to whom the appendage +belongs. I'm your appendage. That quite alters the situation. You will +have to stand in the foreground and do all the conventional things." + +"Shall I?" smiled Karen, unperturbed. She was, as he knew, not to be +disconcerted by any novel social situation. She had witnessed so many +situations and such complicated ones that the merely conventional were, +in her eyes, relatively insignificant and irrevelant. There would be for +her none of the débutante's sense of awkwardness or insufficiency. Again +she reminded him of the rustic little princess, unaware of alien +customs, and ready to learn and to laugh at her own blunders. + +It was arranged, Mrs. Talcott's appearance helping to decisions, that as +soon as Karen heard from her guardian, who might have plans to suggest, +she should come up to London and stay with Lady Jardine. + +Mrs. Talcott, on entering, had grasped Gregory's hand and shaken it +vigorously, remarking: "I'm very pleased to see you back again." + +"I didn't tell Mrs. Talcott anything, Gregory," said Karen. "But I am +sure she guessed." + +"Mrs. Talcott and I had our understandings," said Gregory, "but I'm sure +she guessed from the moment she saw me down here. She was much quicker +than you, Karen." + +"I've seen a good many young folks in my time," Mrs. Talcott conceded. + +Gregory's sense of the deepened significance in all things lent a +special pathos to his conjectures to-day about Mrs. Talcott. He did not +know how far her affection for Karen went and whether it were more than +the mere kindly solicitude of the aged for the young; but the girl's +presence in her life must give at least interest and colour, and after +Mrs. Talcott had spoken her congratulations and declared that she +believed they'd be real happy together, he said, the idea striking him +as an apt one, "And Mrs. Talcott, you must come up and stay with us in +London sometimes, won't you?" + +"Oh, Mrs. Talcott--yes, yes;" said Karen, delighted. He had never seen +her kiss Mrs. Talcott, but she now clasped her arm, standing beside her. +Mrs. Talcott did not smile; but, after a moment, the aspect of her face +changed; it always took some moments for Mrs. Talcott's expression to +change. Now it was like seeing the briny old piece of shipwrecked oak +mildly illuminated with sunlight on its lonely beach. + +"That's real kind of you; real kind," said Mrs. Talcott reflectively. "I +don't expect I'll get up there. I'm not much of a traveller these days. +But it's real kind of you to have thought of it." + +"But it must be," Karen declared. "Only think; I should pour out your +coffee for you in the morning, after all these years when you've poured +out mine; and we would walk in the park--Gregory's flat overlooks the +park you know--and we would drive in hansoms--don't you like +hansoms--and go to the play in the evening. But yes, indeed, you shall +come." + +Mrs. Talcott listened to these projects, still with her mild +illumination, remarking when Karen had done, "I guess not, Karen; I +guess I'll stay here. I've been moving round considerable all my life +long and now I expect I'll just stay put. There's no one to look after +things here but me and they'd get pretty muddled if I was away, I +expect. Mitchell isn't a very bright man." + +"The real difficulty is," said Karen, holding Mrs. Talcott's arm and +looking at her with affectionate exasperation, "that she doesn't like to +leave Les Solitudes lest she should miss a moment of Tante. Tante +sometimes turns up almost at a moment's notice. We shall have to get +Tante safely away to Russia, or America again, before we can ask you; +isn't that the truth, Mrs. Talcott?" + +"Well, I don't know. Perhaps there's something in it," Mrs. Talcott +admitted. "Mercedes likes to know I'm here seeing to things. She +mightn't feel easy in her mind if I was away." + +"We'll lay it before her, then," said Karen. "I know she will say that +you must come." + + + + +CHAPTER XIV + + +It was not until some three weeks after that Karen paid her visit to +London. Tante had not written at once and Gregory had to control his +discontent and impatience as best he might. He and Karen wrote to each +other every day and he was aware of a fretful anxiety in his letters +which contrasted strangely with the serenity of hers. Once more she made +him feel that she was the more mature. In his brooding imaginativeness +he was like the most youthful of lovers, seeing his treasure menaced on +every hand by the hazards of life. He warned Karen against cliff-edges; +he warned her, now that motors were every day becoming more common, +against their sudden eruption in "cornery" lanes; he begged her +repeatedly to keep safe and sound until he could himself take care of +her. Karen replied with sober reassurances and promises and showed no +corresponding alarms on his behalf. She had, evidently, more confidence +in the law of probability. + +She wired at last to say that she had heard from Tante and would come up +next day if Lady Jardine could have her at such short notice. Gregory +had made his arrangements with Betty, who showed a most charming +sympathy for his situation, and when, at the station, he saw Karen's +face smiling at him from a window, when he seized her arm and drew her +forth, it was with a sense of relief and triumph as great as though she +were restored to him after actual perils. + +"Darling, it has seemed such ages," he said. + +He was conscious, delightedly, absorbedly, of everything about her. She +wore her little straw hat with the black bow and a long hooded cape of +thin grey cloth. In her hand she held a small basket containing her +knitting--she was knitting him a pair of golf stockings--and a book. + +He piloted her to the cab he had in waiting. Her one small shabby box +was put on the top and a very large dressing-case, curiously contrasting +in its battered and discoloured magnificence with the box, placed +inside; it was a discarded one of Madame von Marwitz's, as its tarnished +initials told him. It was only as the cab rolled out of the station, +after he had kissed Karen and was holding her hand, that he realized +that she was far less aware of him than he of her. Not that she was not +glad; she sighed deeply with content, smiling at him, holding his hand +closely; but there was a shadow of preoccupation on her. + +"Tell me, darling, is everything all right?" he asked. "You have had +good news from your guardian?" + +She said nothing for a moment, looking out of the window, and then back +at him. Then she said: "She is beautiful to me. But I have made her +sad." + +"Made her sad? Why have you made her sad?" Gregory suppressed--only just +suppressed--an indignant note. + +"I did not think of it myself," said Karen. "I didn't think of her side +at all, I'm afraid, because I did not realise how much I was to her. But +you remember what I told you I was, the little home thing; I am that +even more deeply than I had thought; and she feels--dear, dear one--that +that is gone from her, that it can never be the same again." She turned +her eyes from him and the tears gathered thickly in them. + +"But, dearest," said Gregory, "she can't want to make you sad, can she? +She must really be glad to have you happy. She herself wanted you to get +married, and had found Franz Lippheim for you, you know." Instinct +warned him to go carefully. + +Karen shook her head with a little impatience. "One may be glad to have +someone happy, yet sad for oneself. She is sad. Very, very sad." + +"May I see her letter?" Gregory asked after a moment, and Karen, +hesitating, then drew it from the pocket of her cloak, saying, as she +handed it to him, and as if to atone for the impatience, "It doesn't +make me love you any less--you understand that, dear Gregory--because +she is sad. It only makes me feel, in my own happiness, how much I love +her." + +Gregory read. The address was "Belle Vue." + + "My Darling Child,--A week has passed since I had your letter and + now the second has come and I must write to you. My Karen knows + that when in pain it is my instinct to shut myself away, to be + quite still, quite silent, and so to let the waves go over me. That + is why, she will understand, I have not written yet. I have waited + for the strength and courage to come back to me so that I might + look my sorrow in the face. For though it is joy for you, and I + rejoice in it, it is sorrow, could it be otherwise, for me. So the + years go on and so our cherished flowers drop from us; so we feel + our roots of life chilling and growing old; and the marriage-veil + that we wrap round a beloved child becomes the symbol of the shroud + that is to fold us from her. I knew that I should one day have to + give up my Karen; I wished it; she knows that; but now that it has + come and that the torch is in her hand, I can only feel the + darkness in which her going leaves me. Not to find my little Karen + there, in my life, part of my life;--that is the thought that + pierces me. In how many places have I found her, for years and + years; do you remember them all, Karen? I know that in heart we are + not to be severed; I know that, as I cabled to you, you are not + less but more mine than ever; but the body cries out for the dear + presence; for the warm little hand in my tired hand, the loving + eyes in my sad eyes, the loving heart to lean my stricken heart + upon. How shall I bear the loneliness and the silence of my life + without you? + + "Do not forget me, my Karen. Ah, I know you will not, yet the cry + arises. Do not let this new love that has come to you in your youth + and gladness shut me out more than it must. Do not forget the old, + the lonely Tante. Ah, these poor tears, they fall and fall. I am + sad, sad to death, my Karen. Great darknesses are behind me, and + before me I see the darkness to which I go. + + "Farewell, my darling.--_Lebewohl._--Tell Mr. Jardine that he must + make my child happy indeed if I am to forgive him for my loss. + + "Yes; it shall be in July, when I return. I send you a little gift + that my Karen may make herself the fine lady, ready for all the + gaieties of the new life. He will wish it to be a joyful one, I + know; he will wish her to drink deep of all that the world has to + offer of splendid, and rare, and noble. My child is worthy of a + great life, I have equipped her for it. Go forward, my Karen, with + your husband, into the light. My heart is with you always. + + "Tante." + +Gregory read, and instinctively, while he read, he glanced at Karen, +steadying his face lest she should guess from its tremor of contempt how +latent antagonisms hardened to a more ironic dislike. But Karen gazed +from the window--grave, preoccupied. Such suspicions were far indeed +from her. Gregory could give himself to the letter and its intimations +undiscovered. Suffering? Perhaps Madame von Marwitz was suffering; but +she had no business to say it. Forgive him indeed; well, if those were +the terms of forgiveness, he promised himself that he should deserve it. +Meanwhile he must conceal his resentment. + +"I'm so sorry, darling," he said, giving the letter back to Karen. "We +shall have to cheer her up, shan't we? When she sees how very happy you +are with me I am sure she'll feel happier." He wasn't at all sure. + +"I don't know, Gregory. I am afraid that my happiness cannot make her +less lonely." + +Karen's griefs were not to be lightly dispersed. But she was not a +person to enlarge upon them. After another moment she pointed out +something from the window and laughed; but the unshadowed gladness that +he had imagined for their meeting was overcast. + +Betty awaited them with tea in her Pont Street drawing-room, a room of +polished, glittering, softly lustrous surfaces. Precious objects stood +grouped on little Empire tables or ranged in Empire cabinets. Flat, firm +cushions of rose-coloured satin stood against the backs of Empire chairs +and sofas. On the walls were French engravings and a delicate portrait +of Betty done at the time of her marriage by Boutet de Monvel. The room, +like Betty herself, combined elegance and cordiality. + +"I was there, you know, at the very beginning," she said, taking Karen's +hands and scanning her with her jewel-like eyes. "It was love at first +sight. He asked who you were at once and I'm pleased to think that it +was I who gave him his first information. Now that I look back upon it," +said Betty, taking her place at the tea-table and holding Karen still +with her bright and friendly gaze, "I remember that he was far more +interested in you than in anything else that evening. I don't believe +that Madame Okraska existed for him." Betty was drawing on her +imagination in a manner that she took for granted to be pleasing. + +"I should be sorry to think that," Karen observed and Gregory was +relieved to see that she did not take Betty's supposition seriously. She +watched her pretty hands move among the teacups with an air of pleased +interest. + +"Would you really? You would want him to retain all his æsthetic +faculties even while he was falling in love? Do you think one could?" +Betty asked her questions smiling. "Or perhaps you think that one would +fall in love the more securely from listening to Madame Okraska at the +same time. I think perhaps I should. I do admire her so much. I hope now +that some day I shall know her. She must be, I am sure, as lovely as she +looks." + +"Yes, indeed," said Karen. "And you will meet her very soon, you see, +for she comes back in July." + +Gregory sat and listened to their talk, satisfied that they were to get +on, yet with a slight discomfort. Betty questioned and Karen replied, +unaware that she revealed aspects of her past that Betty might not +interpret as she would feel it natural that they should be interpreted, +supremely unaware that any criticism could attach itself to her guardian +as a result of these revelations. Yes; she had met so-and-so and this +and that, in Rome, in Paris, in London or St. Petersburg; but no, +evidently, she could hardly say that she knew any of these people, +friends of Tante's though they were. The ambiguity of her status as +little camp-follower became defined for Betty's penetrating and +appraising eyes and the inappropriateness of the letter, with its +broken-hearted maternal tone, returned to Gregory with renewed irony. He +didn't want to share with Betty his hidden animosities and once or +twice, when her eye glanced past Karen and rested reflectively upon +himself, he knew that Betty was wondering how much he saw and how he +liked it. The Lippheims again made their socially unillustrious +appearance; Karen had so often stayed with them before Les Solitudes had +been built and while Tante travelled with Mrs. Talcott; she had never +stayed--Gregory was thankful for small mercies--with the Belots; Tante, +after all, had her own definite discriminations; she would not have +placed Karen in the charge of Chantefoy's lady of the Luxembourg, +however reputable her present position; but Gregory was uneasy lest +Karen should disclose how simply she took Madame Belot's past. The fact +that Karen's opportunities in regard to dress were so obviously +haphazard, coming up with the question of the trousseau, was somewhat +atoned for by the sum that Madame von Marwitz now sent--Gregory had +forgotten to ask the amount. "A hundred pounds," said Betty cheerfully; +"Oh, yes; we can get you very nicely started on that." + +"Tante seems to think," said Karen, "that I shall have to be very gay +and have a great many dresses; but I hope it will not have to be so very +much. I am fond of quiet things." + +"Well, especially at first, I suppose you will have a good many dinners +and dances; Gregory is fond of dancing, you know. But I don't think you +lead such a taxing social life, do you, Gregory? You are a rather sober +person, aren't you?" + +"That is what I thought," said Karen. "For I am sober, too, and I want +to read so many things, in the evening, you know, Gregory. I want to +read Political Economy and understand about politics; Tante does not +care for politics, but she always finds me too ignorant of the large +social questions. You will teach me all that, won't you? And we must +hear so much music; and travel, too, in your holidays; I do not see how +we can have much time for many dinners. As for dances, I do not know how +to dance; would that make any difference, when you went? I could sit and +look on, couldn't I?" + +"No, indeed; you can't sit and look on; you'll have to dance with me," +said Gregory. "I will teach you dancing as well as Political Economy. +She must have lessons, mustn't she, Betty? Of course you must learn to +dance." + +"I do not think I shall learn easily," Karen said, smiling from him to +Betty. "I do not think I should do you credit in a ballroom. But I will +try, of course." + +Gregory was quite prepared for Betty's probes when Karen went upstairs +to her room. "What a dear she is, Gregory," she said; "and how clever it +was of you to find her, hidden away as she has been. I suppose the life +of a great musician doesn't admit of formalities. She never had time to +introduce, as it were, her adopted daughter." + +"Well, no; a great musician could hardly take an adopted or a real +daughter around to dances; and Karen isn't exactly adopted." + +"No, I see." Betty's eyes sounded him. "She is really very nice I +suppose, Madame von Marwitz? You like her very much? Mrs. Forrester +dotes upon her, of course; but Mrs. Forrester is an enthusiast." + +"And I'm not, as you know," Gregory returned, he flattered himself, with +skill. "I don't think that I shall ever dote on Madame von Marwitz. When +I know her I hope to like her very much. At present I hardly know her +better than you do." + +"Ah--but you must know a great deal about her from Karen," said Betty, +who could combine tact with pertinacity; "but she, too, in that respect, +is an enthusiast, I suppose." + +"Well, naturally. It's been a wonderful relationship. You remember you +felt that so much in telling me about Karen at the very first." + +"Of course; and it's all true, isn't it; the forest and all the rest of +it. Only, not having met Karen, one didn't realize how much Madame von +Marwitz was in luck." Betty, it was evident, had already begun to wonder +whether Tante was as lovely as she looked. + + + + +CHAPTER XV + + +"Dear Mrs. Forrester, you know that I worship the ground she treads on," +said Miss Scrotton; "but it can't be denied--can you deny it?--that +Mercedes is capricious." + +It was one day only after Miss Scrotton's return from America and she +had returned alone, and it was to this fact that she alluded rather than +to the more general results of Madame von Marwitz's sudden postponement. +Owing to the postponement, Karen to-day was being married in Cornwall +without her guardian's presence. Miss Scrotton had touched on that. She +had said that she didn't think Mercedes would like it, she had added +that she couldn't herself, however inconvenient delay might have been, +understand how Karen and Gregory could have done it. But she had not at +first much conjecture to give to the bridal pair. It was upon the fact +that Mercedes, at the last moment, had thrown all plans overboard, that +she dwelt, with a nipped and tightened utterance and a gaze, fixed on +the wall above the tea-table, almost tragic. Mrs. Forrester was the one +person in whom she could confide. It was through Mrs. Forrester that she +had met Mercedes; her devotion to Mercedes constituted to Mrs. +Forrester, as she was aware, her chief merit. Not that Mrs. Forrester +wasn't fond of her; she had been fond of her ever since, as a relative +of the Jardines' and a precociously intelligent little girl who had +published a book on Port-Royal at the age of eighteen, she had first +attracted her attention at a literary tea-party. But Mrs. Forrester +would not have sat so long or listened so patiently to any other theme +than the one that so absorbed them both and that so united them in their +absorption. Miss Scrotton even suspected that a tinge of bland and +kindly pity coloured Mrs. Forrester's readiness to sympathize. She must +know Mercedes well enough to know that she could give her devotees bad +half hours, though the galling thing was to suspect that Mrs. Forrester +was one of the few people to whom she wouldn't give them. Mrs. Forrester +might worship as devoutly as anybody, yet her devotion never let her in +for so much forbearance and sacrifice. Perhaps, poor Miss Scrotton +worked it out, the reason was that to Mrs. Forrester Mercedes was but +one among many, whereas to herself Mercedes was the central prize and +treasure. Mrs. Forrester was incapable of a pang of jealousy or +emulation; she was always delighted yet never eager. When, in the first +flow of intimacy with Mercedes, Miss Scrotton had actually imagined, for +an ecstatic and solemn fortnight, that she stood first with her, Mrs. +Forrester had met her air of irrepressible triumph with a geniality in +which was no trace of grievance or humiliation. The downfall had been +swift; Mercedes had snubbed her one day, delicately and accurately, in +Mrs. Forrester's presence, and Miss Scrotton's cheek still burned when +she remembered it. There were thus all sorts of unspoken things between +her and Mrs. Forrester, and not the least of them was that her folly +should have endeared her. Miss Scrotton at once chafed against and +relied upon her old friend's magnanimity. Her intercourse with her was +largely made up of a gloomy demand for sympathy and a stately evasion of +it. + +Mrs. Forrester now poured her out a second cup of tea, answering, +soothingly, "Yes, she is capricious. But what do you expect, my dear +Eleanor? She is a force of nature, above our little solidarities and +laws. What do you expect? When one worships a force of nature, _il faut +subir son sort_." It was kind of Mrs. Forrester to include herself in +these submissions. + +"I had really built all my summer about the plans that we had made," +Miss Scrotton said. "Mercedes was to have come back with me, I was to +have stopped in Cornwall for Karen's marriage and after my month here in +London I was to have joined her at Les Solitudes for August. Now August +is empty and I had refused more than one very pleasant invitation in +order to go to Mercedes. She isn't coming back for another three +months." + +"You didn't care to go with the Aspreys to the Adirondacks?" + +"How could I go, dear Mrs. Forrester, when I was full of engagements +here in London for July? And, moreover, they didn't ask me. It is rather +curious when one comes to think of it. I brought the Aspreys and +Mercedes together, I gave her to them, one may say, but, I am afraid I +must own it, they seized her and looked upon me as a useful rung in the +ladder that reached her. It has been a disillusionizing experience, I +can't deny it; but _passons_ for the Aspreys and their kind. The fact +is," said Miss Scrotton, dropping her voice a little, "the real fact is, +dear Mrs. Forrester, that the Aspreys aren't responsible. It wasn't for +them she'd have stayed, and I think they must realize it. No, it is all +Claude Drew. He is at the bottom of everything that I feel as strange +and altered in Mercedes. He has an unholy influence over her, oh, yes, I +mean it, Mrs. Forrester. I have never seen Mercedes so swayed before." + +"Swayed?" Mrs. Forrester questioned. + +"Oh, but yes, indeed. He managed the whole thing--and when I think that +he would in all probability never have seen the Aspreys if it had not +been for me!--Mercedes had him asked there, you know; they are very, but +very, very fashionable people, they know everybody worth knowing all +over the world. I needn't tell you that, of course. But it was all +arranged, he and Mercedes, and Lady Rose and the Marquis de +Hautefeuille, and a young American couple--with the Aspreys in the +background as universal providers--it made a little group where I was +plainly _de trop_. Mr. Drew planned everything with her. She is to have +her piano and he is to write a book under her aegis. And they are to +live in the pinewoods with the most elaborate simplicity. However, I am +sure the Adirondacks will soon bore her." + +"And how soon will Mr. Drew bore her?" asked Mrs. Forrester, who had +listened to these rather pitiful revelations with, now and then, a +slight elevation of her intelligent eyebrows. + +The question gave Miss Scrotton an opportunity for almost ominous +emphasis; she paused over it, holding Mrs. Forrester with a brooding +eye. + +"He won't bore her," she then brought out. + +"What, never? never?" Mrs. Forrester questioned gaily. + +"Never, never," Miss Scrotton repeated. "He is too clever. He will keep +her interested--and uncertain." + +"Well," Mrs. Forrester returned, as if this were all to the good, "it is +a comfort to think that the poor darling has found a distraction." + +"You feel it that? I wish I could. I wish I could feel it anything but +an infatuation. If only he weren't so much the type of a great woman's +folly; if only he weren't so of the region of whispers. It isn't like +our wonderful Sir Alliston; one sees her there standing high on a +mountain peak with the winds of heaven about her. To see her with Mr. +Drew is like seeing her through some ambiguous, sticky fog. Oh, I can't +deny that it has all made me very, very unhappy." Tears blinked in Miss +Scrotton's eyes. + +Mrs. Forrester was kind, she leaned forward and patted Miss Scrotton's +hand, she smiled reassuringly, and she refused, for a moment, to share +her anxiety. "No, no, no," she said, "you are troubling yourself quite +needlessly, my dear Eleanor. Mercedes is amusing herself and the young +man is an interesting young man; she has talked to me and written to me +about him. And I think she needed distraction just now, I think this +marriage of little Karen's has affected her a good deal. The child is of +course connected in her mind with so much that is dear and tragic in the +past." + +"Oh, Karen!" said Miss Scrotton, who, drying her eyes, had accepted Mrs. +Forrester's consolations with a slight sulkiness, "she hasn't given a +thought to Karen, I can assure you." + +"No; you can't assure me, Eleanor," Mrs. Forrester returned, now with a +touch of severity. "I don't think you quite understand how deep a bond +of that sort can be for Mercedes--even if she seldom speaks of it. She +has written to me very affectingly about it. I only hope she will not +take it to heart that they could not wait for her. I could not blame +them. Everything was arranged; a house in the Highlands lent to them for +the honeymoon." + +"Take it to heart? Dear me no; she won't like it, probably; but that is +a different matter." + +"Gregory is radiant, you know." + +"Is he?" said Miss Scrotton gloomily. "I wish I could feel radiant about +that match; but I can't. I did hope that Gregory would marry well." + +"It isn't perhaps quite what one would have expected for him," Mrs. +Forrester conceded; "but she is a dear girl. She behaved very prettily +while she was here with Lady Jardine." + +"Did she? It is a very different marriage, isn't it, from the one that +Mercedes had thought suitable. She told you, I suppose, about Franz +Lippheim." + +"Yes; I heard about that. Mercedes was a good deal disappointed. She is +very much attached to the young man and thought that Karen was, too. I +have never seen him." + +"From what I've heard he seemed to me as eminently suitable a husband +for Karen as my poor Gregory is unsuitable. What he can have discovered +in the girl, I can't imagine. But I remember now how much interested in +her he was on that day that he met her here at tea. She is such a dull +girl," said Miss Scrotton sadly. "Such a heavy, clumsy person. And +Gregory has so much wit and irony. It is very curious." + +"These things always are. Well, they are married now, and I wish them +joy." + +"No one is at the wedding, I suppose, but old Mrs. Talcott. The next +thing we shall hear will be that Sir Alliston has fallen in love with +Mrs. Talcott," said Miss Scrotton, indulging her gloomy humour. + +"Oh, yes; the Jardines went down, and Mrs. Morton;"--Mrs. Morton was a +married sister of Gregory's. "Lady Jardine has very much taken to the +child you know. They have given her a lovely little tiara." + +"Dear me," said Miss Scrotton; "it is a case of Cinderella. No; I can't +rejoice over it, though, of course I wish them joy; I wired to them this +morning and I'm sending them a very handsome paper-cutter of dear +father's. Gregory will appreciate that, I think. But no; I shall always +be sorry that she didn't marry Franz Lippheim." + + + + +CHAPTER XVI + + +The Jardines did not come back to London till October. They had spent a +month in Scotland and a month in Italy and two weeks in France, +returning by way of Paris, where Gregory passed through the ordeal of +the Belots. He saw Madame Belot clasp Karen to her breast and the long +line of little Belots swarm up to be kissed successively, Monsieur +Belot, a short, stout, ruddy man, with outstanding grey hair and a +square grey beard, watching the scene benignantly, his palette on his +thumb. Madame Belot didn't any longer suggest Chantefoy's picture; she +suggested nothing artistic and everything domestic. From a wistful +Burne-Jones type with large eyes and a drooping mouth she had relapsed +to her plebeian origins and now, fat, kind, cheerful, she was nothing +but wife and mother, with a figure like a sack and cheap tortoiseshell +combs stuck, apparently at random, in the untidy _bandeaux_ of her hair. + +Following Karen and Monsieur Belot about the big studio, among canvases +on easels and canvases leaned against the walls, Gregory felt himself +rather bewildered, and not quite as he had expected to be bewildered. +They might be impossible, Madame Belot of course was impossible; but +they were not vulgar and they were extremely intelligent, and their +intelligence displayed itself in realms to which he was almost +disconcertingly a stranger. Even Madame Belot, holding a stalwart, +brown-fisted baby on her arm, could comment on her husband's work with a +discerning aptness of phrase which made his own appreciation seem very +trite and tentative. He might be putting up with the Belots, but it was +quite as likely, he perceived, that they might be putting up with him. +He realized, in this world of the Belots, the significance, the +laboriousness, the high level of vitality, and he realized that to the +Belots his own world was probably seen as a dull, half useful, half +obstructive fact, significant mainly for its purchasing power. For its +power of appreciation they had no respect at all. "_Il radote, ma +chèrie_," Monsieur Belot said to Karen of a famous person, now, after +years of neglect, loudly acclaimed in London at the moment when, by +fellow-artists, he was seen as defunct. "He no longer lives; he repeats +himself. Ah, it is the peril," Monsieur Belot turned kindly including +eyes on Gregory; "if one is not born anew, continually, the artist dies; +it becomes machinery." + +Karen was at home among the Belot's standards. She talked with Belot, of +processes, methods, technique, the talk of artists, not artistic talk. +"_Et la grande Tante?_" he asked her, when they were all seated at a +nondescript meal about a long table of uncovered oak, the children +unpleasantly clamorous and Madame Belot dispensing, from one end, +strange, tepid tea, but excellent chocolate, while Belot, from the +other, sent round plates of fruit and buttered rolls. Karen was laughing +with _la petite Margot_, whom she held in her lap. + +"She is coming," said Karen. "At last. In three weeks I shall see her +now. She has been spending the summer in America, you know; among the +mountains." + +One of the boys inquired whether there were not danger to Madame von +Marwitz from _les Peaux-Rouges_, and when he was reassured and the +question of buffaloes disposed of Madame Belot was able to make herself +heard, informing Karen that the Lippheims, Franz, Frau Lippheim, Lotta, +Minna and Elizabeth, were to give three concerts in Paris that winter. +"You have not seen them yet, Karen?" she asked. "They have not yet met +Monsieur Jardine?" And when Karen said no, not yet; but that she had +heard from Frau Lippheim that they were to come to London after Paris, +Madame Belot suggested that the young couple might have time now to +travel up to Leipsig and take the Lippheims by surprise. "_Voilà de +braves gens et de bons artistes_," said Monsieur Belot. + +"You did like my dear Belots," Karen said, as she and Gregory drove +away. She had, since her marriage, grown in perception; Gregory would +have found it difficult, now, to hide ironies and antipathies from her. +Even retrospectively she saw things which at the time she had not seen, +saw, for instance, that the idea of the Belots had not been alluring to +him. He knew, too, that she would have considered dislike of the Belots +as showing defect in him not in them, but cheerfully, if with a touch of +her severity. She had an infinite tolerance for the defects and foibles +of those she loved. He was glad to be able to reply with full sincerity: +"_Ils sont de braves gens et de bons artistes._" + +"But," Karen said, looking closely at him, and with a smile, "you would +not care to pass your life with them. And you were quite disturbed lest +I should say that I wanted to go and take the Lippheims by surprise at +Leipsig. You like _les gens du monde_ better than artists, Gregory." + +"What are you?" Gregory smiled back at her. "I like you better." + +"I? I am _gens du monde manqué_ and _artiste manqué_. I am neither fish, +flesh nor fowl," said Karen. "I'm only--positively--my husband's wife +and Tante's ward. And that quite satisfies me." + +He knew that it did. Their happiness was flawless; flawless as far as +her husband's wife was concerned. It was in regard to Tante's ward that +Gregory was more and more conscious of keeping something from Karen, +while more and more it grew difficult to keep anything from her. +Already, if sub-consciously, she must have become aware that her +guardian's unabated mournfulness did not affect her husband as it did +herself. She had showed him no more of Tante's letters, and they had +been quite frequent. She had told him while they were in Scotland that +it had hurt Tante very much that they should not have waited till her +return; but she did not enlarge on the theme; and Gregory knew why; to +enlarge would have been to reproach him. Karen had yielded, against her +own wishes, to his entreaties. She had agreed that their marriage should +not be so postponed at the last minute. In his vehemence Gregory had +been skilful; he had said not one word of reproach against Madame von +Marwitz for her disconcerting change of plan. It was not surprising to +him; it was what he had expected of Madame von Marwitz, that she would +put Karen aside for a whim. Karen would not see her guardian's action in +this light; yet she must know that her beloved was vulnerable to the +charge, at all events, of inconsiderateness, and she had been grateful +to him, no doubt, for showing no consciousness of it. She had consented, +perhaps, partly through gratitude, though she had felt her pledged word, +too, as binding. Once she had consented, whatever the results, Gregory +knew that she would not visit them on him. It was of her own +responsibility that she was thinking when, with a grave face, she had +told him of Tante's hurt. "After all, dearest," Gregory had ventured, +"we did want her, didn't we? It was really she who chose not to come, +wasn't it?" + +"I am sure that Tante wanted to see me married," said Karen, touching on +her own hidden wound. + +He helped her there, knowing, in his guile, that to exonerate Tante was +to help not only Karen but himself. "Of course; but she doesn't think +things out, does she? She is accustomed to having things arranged for +her. I suppose she didn't a bit realise all that had been settled over +here, nor what an impatient lover it was who held you to your word." + +Her face cleared as he showed her that he recognised Tante's case as so +explicable. "I'm so glad that you see it all," she said. "For you do. +She is oh! so unpractical, poor darling; she would forget everything, +you know, unless I or Mrs. Talcott were there to keep reminding +her--except her music, of course; but that is like breathing to her. And +I am so sorry, so dreadfully sorry; because, of course, to know that she +hurt me by not coming must hurt her more. But we will make it up to her. +And oh! Gregory, only think, she says she may come and stay with us." + +One of her first exclamations on going over his flat with him was that +they could put up Tante, if she would come. The drawing-room could be +devoted to her music; for there was ample room for the grand +piano--which accompanied Madame von Marwitz as invariably as her +tooth-brush; and the spare-bedroom had a dressing-room attached that +would do nicely for Louise. Now there seemed hope of this dream being +realised. + +Karen had not yet received a wedding-present from her guardian, but in +Paris, on the homeward way, she heard that it had been dispatched from +New York and would be awaiting her in London, and it was of this gift +that she had been talking as she and Gregory drove from the station to +St. James's on a warm October evening. Tante had not told her what the +present was, but had written that Karen would care for it very much. "To +find her present waiting for us is like having Tante to welcome us," +Karen said. After her surmise about the present she relapsed into happy +musings and Gregory, too, was silent, able only to give a side-glance of +gratitude, as it were, at the thought that Tante was to welcome them by +proxy. + +His mood was one of almost tremulous elation. He was bringing her home +after bridal wanderings that had never lost their element of dream-like +unreality. There had always been the feeling that he might wake any day +to find Italy and Karen both equally illusory. But to see Karen in his +home, taking her place in his accustomed life, would be to feel his joy +linking itself securely with reality. + +The look of London at this sunny hour of late afternoon and at this +autumnal season matched his consciousness of a tranquil metamorphosis. +Idle still and empty of its more vivid significance, one yet felt in it +the soft stirrings of a re-entering tide of life. Cabs passed, piled +with brightly badged luggage; the drowsily reminiscent shop-windows +showed here and there an adventurous forecast, and a house or two, among +the rows of dumb, sleeping faces, opened wide eyes at the leisurely +streets. The pale, high pinks of the sky drooped and melted into the +greys and whites and buffs below, and blurred the heavy greens of the +park with falling veils of rose. The scene seemed drawn in flat delicate +tones of pastel. + +Karen sat beside him in the cab and, while she gazed before her, she had +slipped her hand into his. She had preserved much of the look of the +unmarried Karen in her dress. The difference was in the achievement of +an ideal rather than in a change. The line of her little grey travelling +hat above her brows was still unusual; with her grey gloves and long +grey silken coat she had an air, cool, competent, prepared for any +emergency of travel. She would have looked equally appropriate dozing +under the hooded light in a railway carriage, taking her place at a +_table d'hôte_ in a provincial French town, or walking in the wind and +sun along a foreign _plage_. After looking at the London to which he +brought her, Gregory looked at her. Marriage had worked none of its even +superficial disenchantments in him. After three months of intimacy, +Karen still constantly arrested him with a sense of the undiscovered, +the unforeseen. What it consisted in he could not have defined; she was +simple, even guileless, still; she had no reticences; yet she seemed to +express so much of which she was unaware that he felt himself to be +continually making her acquaintance. That quiet slipping now of her hand +into his, while her gaze maintained its calm detachment, the charm of +her mingled tenderness and independence, had its vague sting for +Gregory. She accepted him and whatever he might mean with something of +the happy matter-of-fact with which she accepted all that was hers. She +loved him with a completeness and selflessness that had made the world +suddenly close round him with gentle arms; but Gregory often wondered if +she were in love with him. Rapture, restlessness and fear all seemed +alien to her, and to turn from thoughts of her and of their love to +Karen herself was like passing from dreams of poignant, starry ecstasy +to a clear, white dawn, with dew on the grass and a lark rising and the +waking sweetness of a world at once poetical and practical about one. +She strengthened and stilled his passion for her. And she seemed unaware +of passion. + +They arrived at the great, hive-like mansion and in the lift, which took +them almost to the top, Karen, standing near him, again put her hand in +his and smiled at him. She was not feeling his tremor, but she was +limpidly happy and as conscious as he of an epoch-making moment. + +Barker opened the door to them, murmuring a decorous welcome and they +went down the passage towards the drawing-room. They must at once +inaugurate their home-coming, Gregory said, by going out on the balcony +and looking at the view together. + +"I beg your pardon, sir," said Barker, who followed after them, "but I +hope you and Mrs. Jardine will think it best what I've done with the +large case, sir, that has come. I didn't know where you'd like it put, +and it was a job getting it in anywhere. There wasn't room to leave it +standing here." + +"Tante's present!" Karen exclaimed. "Oh, where is it?" + +"I had it put in the drawing-room, Ma'am," said Barker. "It made a hole +in the wall and knocked down two prints, sir; I'm very sorry, but there +was no handling it conveniently." + +They turned down the next passage; the drawing-room was at the end. +Gregory threw open the door and he and Karen paused upon the threshold. +Standing in the middle of the room, high and dark against the +half-obliterated windows, was a huge packing-case, an incredibly huge +packing-case. At a first glance it had blotted out the room. The +furniture, huddled in the corners, seemed to have drawn back from the +apparition, scared and startled, and Gregory, in confronting it, felt an +actual twinge of fear. The vast, unexpected form loomed to his +imagination, for a moment, like a tidal-wave rising terrifically in +familiar surroundings and poised in menace above him and his wife. He +controlled an exclamation of dismay, and the ominous simile receded +before a familiar indignation; that, too, he controlled; he could not +say: "How stupid!" + +"Is it a piano?" Karen, after their long pause, asked in a hushed, +tentative voice. + +"It's too high for a piano, darling," said Gregory, who had her arm in +his--"and I have my little upright, you see. I can't imagine." + +"Shall I get the porter, sir, to help open it while you and Mrs. Jardine +have tea?" Barker asked. "I laid tea in the dining-room, Ma'am." + +"Yes; let us have it opened at once," said Karen. "But I must be here +when it is opened." She drew her arm from Gregory's and made the tour of +the case. "It is probably something very fragile and that is why it is +packed in such a great box; it cannot itself be so big." + +"Barker will begin peeling off the outer husks while we get ready for +tea; we shall have plenty of time," said Gregory. "Get the porter up at +once, Barker. I'm afraid your guardian has an exaggerated idea of the +size of our domain, darling. The present looks as if only baronial halls +could accommodate it." + +She glanced up at him while he led her to their room and he knew that +something in his voice struck her; he hadn't been able to control it and +it sounded like ill-temper. Perhaps it was ill-temper. It was with a +feeling of relief, and almost of escape, that he shut the door of the +room upon tidal-waves and put his arms around his wife. "Darling," he +said, "this is really it--at last--our home-coming." + +She returned his clasp and kiss with her frank, sweet fervour, though he +saw in her eyes a slight bewilderment. He insisted--he had often during +their travels been her maid--on taking off her hat and shoes for her +before going into his adjoining dressing-room. Karen always protested. +"It is so dear and foolish; I am so used to waiting on myself; I am so +unused to being the fine idle lady." And she protested now, adding, as +he knelt before her, and putting her hand on his head: "And besides, I +believe that in some ways I am stronger than you. It should not be you +to take care of me." + +"Stronger? In what ways? Upon my word, Madam!" Gregory exclaimed smiling +up at her, "Do you know that I was one of the best men of my time at +Oxford?" + +"I don't mean in body, I mean in feelings, in nerves," said Karen. "It +is more like Tante." + +He wondered, while in his little dressing-room he splashed restoringly +in hot water, what she quite did mean. Did she guess at the queer, +morbid moment that had struck at his blissful mood? It was indeed +disconcerting to have her find him like Tante. + +"Do you mind," said Karen, when he joined her again, smiling at him and +clasping her hands in playful entreaty, "seeing at once what the present +is before we have tea? I do not know how I could eat tea while I had not +seen it." + +"Mind? I'm eager to see it, too," said Gregory, with a pang of +self-reproach. "Of course we must wait tea." + +The porter, in the passage, was carrying away the outer boards of the +packing-case and in the drawing-room they found Barker, knee deep in +straw, ripping the heavy sacking covering that enveloped a much +diminished but still enormous parcel. + +Gregory came to his aid. They drew forth fine shavings and unwrapped +layers of paper, neatly secured; slowly the core of the mystery +disclosed itself in a temple-like form with a roof of dull black lacquer +and dimly gilded inner walls, a thickly swathed figure wedged between +them. The gift was, they now perceived, a Chinese Bouddha in his shrine, +and, as Gregory and Barker disengaged the figure and laid it upon the +ground, amusement, though still of an acrid sort, overcame Gregory's +vexation. "A Bouddha, upon my word!" he said. "This is a gorgeous gift." + +Karen stooped to help unroll as if from a mummy, the multitudinous +bandages of fine paper; the passive bronze visage of the idol was +revealed, and by degrees, the seated figure, ludicrously prone. They +moved the temple to the end of the room, where two pictures were taken +down and a sofa pushed away to make room for it; the Bouddha was +hoisted, with difficulty, on to its lotus, and there, dark on its +glimmering background of gold, it sat and ambiguously blessed them. + +Karen had worked with them neatly and expeditionary, and in silence, and +Gregory, glancing at her face from time to time, felt sure that she was +adjusting herself to a mingled bewilderment and disappointment; to the +wish also, that she might be worthy of her new possession. She stood now +before the Bouddha and gazed at it. + +They had turned up the electric lights, but the curtains were not drawn +and the scent, and light, and vague, diffused roar of London at this +evening hour came in at the open windows. Barker, the porter and the +housemaid were carrying away the litter of paper and straw. The bright +cheerful room with its lovable banality and familiar comfort smiled its +welcome; and there, in the midst, the majestic and alien presence sat, +overpowering, and grotesque in its inappropriateness. + +Karen now turned her eyes on her husband and slightly smiled. "It is +very wonderful," she said, "but I feel as if Tante expected a great deal +of me in giving it to me--a great deal more than is in me. It ought to +be a very deep and mystic person to have that Bouddha." + +"Yes, it's a wonderful thing; quite awesome. Perhaps she expects you to +become deep and mystic," said Gregory. "Please don't." + +"There is no danger of that," said Karen. "Of course it is the beauty of +it and the strangeness, that made Tante care for it. It is the sort of +thing she would love to have herself." + +"Where on earth is he to go?" Gregory surmised. "Yes, he might look well +in that big music-room at Les Solitudes, or in some vast hall where he +would be more of an episode and less of a white elephant. I hardly think +he'll fit anywhere into the passage," he ventured. + +Karen had been looking from him to the Bouddha. "But Gregory, of course +he must stay here," she said, "in the room we live in. Tante, I am sure, +meant that." Her voice had a tremor. "I am sure it would hurt her +dreadfully if we put him out of the way." + +Barker was now gone and Gregory put his arm around her. "But it makes +all the room wrong, doesn't it? It will make us all wrong--that's what I +rather feel. We aren't _à la hauteur_." He remembered, after speaking +them, that these were the words he had used of his one colloquy with +Madame von Marwitz. + +"I don't think," said Karen after a moment, "that you are quite kind." + +"Darling--I'm only teasing you," said Gregory. "I'll like the thing if +you want me to, and make offerings to him every morning--he looks in +need of sacrifices and offerings, doesn't he? And what a queer Oriental +scent is in the air. Rather nice, that." + +"Please don't call it the 'thing,'" said Karen. He saw into her divided +loyalty. And his comfort was to know that she didn't like the Bouddha +either. + +"I won't," he promised. "It isn't a thing, but a duty, a privilege, a +responsibility. He shall stay here, where he is. He really won't crowd +us too impossibly, and that sofa can go." + +"You see," said Karen, and tears now came to her eyes, "it would hurt +her so dreadfully if she could dream that we did not love it very, very +much." + +"I know," said Gregory, kissing her. "I perfectly understand. We will +love it very, very much. Come now, you must be hungry; let us have our +tea." + + + + +CHAPTER XVII + + +Madame von Marwitz sat in the deep chintz sofa with Karen beside her, +and while she talked to the young couple, Karen's hand in hers, her eyes +continually went about the room with an expression that did not seem to +match her alert, if rather mechanical, conversation. Karen had already +seen her, the day before, when she had gone to the station to meet her +and had driven with her to Mrs. Forrester's. But Miss Scrotton had been +there, too, almost tearful in her welcoming back of her great friend, +and there had been little opportunity for talk in the carriage. Tante +had smiled upon her, deeply, had held her hand, closely, and had asked, +with the playful air which forestalls gratitude, how she liked her +present. "You will see it, my Scrotton; a Bouddha in his shrine--of the +best period; a thing really rare and beautiful. Mr. Asprey told me of +it, at a sale in New York; and I was able to secure it. _Hein, ma +petite_; you were pleased?" + +"Oh, Tante, my letter told you that," said Karen. + +"And your husband? He was pleased?" + +"He thought that it was gorgeous," said Karen, but after a momentary +hesitation not lost upon her guardian. + +"I was sorely tempted to keep it myself," said Madame von Marwitz. "I +could see it in the music-room at Les Solitudes. But at once I felt--it +is Karen's. My only anxiety was for its background. I have never seen +Mr. Jardine's flat. But I knew that I could trust the man my child had +chosen to have beauty about him." + +"It isn't exactly a beautiful room," Karen confessed, smiling. "It isn't +like the music-room; you won't expect that from a London flat--or from +us. But it is very bright and comfortable and, yes, pretty. I hope that +you will like my home." + +Miss Scrotton, Karen felt, while she made these preparatory statements, +had eyed her in a somewhat gaunt manner; but she was accustomed to a +gaunt manner from Miss Scrotton, and Miss Scrotton's drawing-room, +certainly, was not as nice as Gregory's. Karen had not cared at all for +its quality of earnest effort. Miss Scrotton, not many years ago, had +been surrounded with art-tinted hangings and photographs from Rossetti, +and the austerity of her eighteenth-century reaction was now almost +defiant. Her drawing-room, in its arid chastity, challenged you, as it +were, to dare remember the æsthetics of South Kensington. + +Karen did not feel that Gregory's drawing-room required apologies and +Tante had been so mild and sweet, if also a little absent, that she +trusted her to show leniency. + +She had, as yet, to-day, said nothing about the Bouddha or the +background on which she found him. She talked to Gregory, while they +waited for tea, asking him a great many questions, not seeming, always, +to listen to his answers. "Ah, yes. Well done. Bravo," she said at +intervals, as he told her about their wedding-trip and how he and Karen +had enjoyed this or that. When Barker brought in the tea-tray and set it +on a little table before Karen, she took up one of the cups--they were +of an old English ware with a wreath of roses inside and lines of half +obliterated gilt--and said--it was her first comment on the +background--"_Tiens, c'est joli._ Is this one of your presents, Karen?" + +Karen told her that the tea-set was not a present; it had belonged to a +great-grandmother of Gregory's. + +Madame von Marwitz continued to examine the cup and, as she set it down +among the others, with the deliberate nicety of gesture that gave at +once power and grace to her slightest movement, she said: "You were +fortunate in your great-grandmother, Mr. Jardine." + +Her voice, her glance, her gestures, were already affecting Gregory +unpleasantly. There was in them a quality of considered control, as +though she recognised difficulty and were gently and warily evading it. +Seated on his chintz sofa in the bright, burnished room, all in white, +with a white lace head-dress, half veil, half turban, binding her hair +and falling on her shoulders, she made him think, in her +inappropriateness and splendour, of her own Bouddha, who, in his +glimmering shrine, lifted his hand as if in a gesture of bland exorcism +before which the mirage of a vulgar and trivial age must presently fade +away. The Bouddha looked permanent and the room looked transient; the +only thing in it that could stand up against him, as it were, was Karen. +To her husband's eye, newly aware of æsthetic discriminations, Karen +seemed to interpret and justify her surroundings, to show their +commonplace as part of their charm and to make the Bouddha and Madame +von Marwitz herself, in all their portentous distinction, look like +incidental ornaments. + +Madame von Marwitz's silence in regard to the Bouddha had already become +a blight, but it was, perhaps, the growing crisp decision in Gregory's +manner that made Karen first aware of constraint. Her eyes then turned +from Tante to the shrine at the end of the room, and she said: "You +don't care for the way it looks here, Tante, do you--your present?" + +Madame von Marwitz had finished her tea and she turned in the sofa so +that she could consider the Bouddha no longer incidentally but +decisively. "I am glad that it is yours, _ma chérie_," she said, after +the pause of her contemplation. "Some day you must place it more +happily. You don't intend, do you, Mr. Jardine, to live for any length +of time in these rooms?" + +"Oh, but I like it here so much, Tante," Karen took upon herself the +reply. "I want to go on living where Gregory has lived for so long. We +have such a view, you see; and such air." + +Madame von Marwitz mused upon her for a moment and then giving her chin +a little pinch, half meditative, half caressing, she inquired, with +Continental frankness: "A very pretty sentiment, _ma petite_, but what +will you do when the babies come?" + +Karen was not disconcerted. "I rather hope we may not have babies for a +year or two, Tante; and when they do come there will be room, quite +happily, for several. You don't know how big the flat is; you will see. +Gregory has always been able to put up his married sister and her +husband; that gives us one quite big room over and a small one." + +"But then you can have no friends if your rooms are full of babies," +Madame von Marwitz objected, still with mild playfulness. + +"No," Karen had to admit it; "but while they were very small I do not +think I should have much time for friends in the house, should I. And we +think, Gregory and I, of soon taking a tiny cottage in the country, +too." + +"Then, while you remain here, and unless my Bouddha is to look very +foolish," said Madame von Marwitz, "you must, I think, change your +drawing-room. It can be changed," she gazed about her with a touch of +wildness. "Something could be done. It could be darkened; quieted; it +talks too much and too loudly now, does it not? But you could move these +so large chairs and couches away and have sober furniture, of a good +period; one can still pick up good things if one is clever; a Chinese +screen here and there; a fine old mirror; a touch of splendour; a +flavour of dignity. The shape of the room is not impossible; the +outlook, as you say, gives space and breathing; something could be +done." + +Karen's gaze followed hers, cogitating but not acquiescent. "But you +see, Tante," she remarked, "these are things that Gregory has lived +with. And I like them so, too. I should not like them changed." + +"But they are not things that you have lived with, _parbleu_!" said +Madame von Marwitz laughing gently. "It is a pretty sentiment, _ma +petite_, it does you honour; you are--but oh! so deeply--the wife, +already, are you not, my Karen? but I am sure that your husband will not +wish you to sacrifice your taste to your devotion. Young men, many of +them do not care for these domestic matters; do not see them. My Karen +must not pretend to me that she does not care and see. I am right, am I +not, Mr. Jardine? you would not wish to deprive Karen of the bride's +distinctive pleasure--the furnishing of her own nest." + +Gregory's eyes met hers;--it seemed to be their second long +encounter;--eyes like jewels, these of Madame von Marwitz; full of +intense life, intense colour, still, bright and cold, tragically cold. +He seemed to see suddenly that all the face--the long eyebrows, with the +plaintive ripple of irregularity bending their line, the languid lips, +the mournful eyelids, the soft contours of cheek and throat,--were a +veil for the coldness of her eyes. To look into them was like coming +suddenly through dusky woods to a lonely mountain tarn, lying fathomless +and icy beneath a moonlit sky. Gregory was aware, as if newly and more +strongly than before, of how ambiguous was her beauty, how sinister her +coldness. + +Above the depths where these impressions were received was his +consciousness that he must be careful if Karen were not to guess how +much he was disliking her guardian. It was not difficult for him to +smile at a person he disliked, but it was difficult not to smile +sardonically. This was an apparently trivial occasion on which to feel +that it was a contest that she had inaugurated between them; but he did +feel it. "Karen knows that she can burn everything in the room as far as +I'm concerned," he said. "Even your Bouddha," he added, smiling a little +more nonchalantly, "I'd gladly sacrifice if it gave her pleasure." + +Nothing was lost upon Madame von Marwitz, of that he was convinced. She +saw, perhaps, further than he did; for he did not see, nor wish to, +beyond the moment of guarded hostility. And it was with the utmost +gentleness and precaution, with, indeed, the air of one who draws softly +aside from a sleeping viper found upon the path, that she answered: "I +trust, indeed, that it may never be my Karen's pleasure, or yours, Mr. +Jardine, to destroy what is precious; that would hurt me very much. And +now, child, may I not see the rest of this beloved domain?" She turned +from him to Karen. + +Gregory rose; he had told Karen that he would leave them alone after +tea; he had letters to write and he would see Madame von Marwitz before +she went. He had the sense, as he closed the door, of flying before +temptation. What might he not say to Madame von Marwitz if he saw too +much of her? + +When she and Karen were left alone, Madame von Marwitz's expression +changed. The veils of lightness fell away; her face became profoundly +melancholy; she gazed in silence at Karen and then held out her arms to +her; Karen came closer and was enfolded in their embrace. + +"My child, my child," said Madame von Marwitz, leaning, as was her wont +at these moments, her forehead against Karen's cheek. + +"Dear Tante," said Karen. "You are not sad?" she murmured. + +"Sad?" her guardian repeated after a moment. "Am I ever anything but +sad? But it is not of my sadness that I wish to speak. It is of you. Are +you happy, my dear one?" + +"Oh, Tante--so happy, so very happy; more than I can say." + +"Is it so?" Madame von Marwitz lifted her head and stroked back the +girl's hair. "Is it so indeed? He loves you very much, Karen?" + +"Oh, yes, Tante." + +"It is a great love? selfless? passionate? It is a love worthy of my +child?" + +"Yes, indeed." A slight austerity was now apparent in Karen's tone. +Silence fell between them for a moment, and then, stroking again the +golden head, Madame von Marwitz continued, with great tenderness; "It is +well. It is what I have prayed for--for my child. And let me not cast +one shadow, even of memory, upon your happiness. Yet ah--ah Karen--if +you could have let me share in the sunshine a little. If you could have +remembered how dark was my way, how lonely. That my child should have +married without me. It hurts. It hurts--" + +She did not wish to cast a shadow, yet she was weeping, the silent, +undisfigured weeping that Karen knew so well, showing only in the slow +welling of tears from darkened eyes. + +"Oh, Tante," Karen now leaned her head to her guardian's shoulder, "I +did not dream you would mind so much. It was so difficult to know what +to do." + +"Have I shown myself so indifferent to you in the past, my Karen, that +you should have thought I would not mind?" + +"I do not mean that, Tante. I thought that you would feel that it was +what it was best for me to do. I had given my word. All the plans were +made." + +"You had given your word? Would he not have let you put me before your +word? For once? For that one time in all our lives?" + +"It was not that, Tante. Gregory would have done what I wished. You must +not think that I was forced in any way." Karen now had raised her head. +"But we had waited for you. We thought that you were coming. It was only +at the last moment that you let us know, Tante, and you did not even say +when you were coming back." + +Madame von Marwitz kept silence for some moments after this, savouring +perhaps in the words--though Karen's eyes, in speaking them, had also +filled with tears--some hint of resistance. She looked away from the +girl, keeping her hand in hers, as she said: "I could not come. I could +not tell you when I was to come. There were reasons that bound me; ties; +claims; a tangle of troubled human lives--the threads passing through my +fingers. No; I was not free; and there I would have had you trust me. +No, no, my Karen, we will speak of it no farther. I understand young +hearts--they are forgetful; they cannot dwell on the shadowed places. +Let us put it aside, the great grief. What surprises me is to find that +the littlest, littlest ones cling so closely. I am foolish, Karen. I +have had much to bear lately, and I cannot shake off the little griefs. +That others than myself should have chosen my child's trousseau; oh, it +is small--so very small a thing; yet it hurts; it hurts. That the joy of +seeking all the pretty clothes together--that, that, too, should have +been taken from me. Do not weep, child." + +"Tante, you could not come, and the things had to be made ready. They +all--Mrs. Forrester--Betty--seemed to feel there was no time to lose. +And I have always chosen my own clothes; I did not know that you would +feel this so." + +"Betty? Who is Betty?" Madame von Marwitz mournfully yet alertly +inquired. + +"Lady Jardine, Gregory's sister-in-law. You remember, Tante, I have +written of her. She has been so kind." + +"Betty," Madame von Marwitz repeated, sadly. "Yes, I remember; she was +at your wedding, I think. There, dry your eyes, child. I understand. It +is a loving heart, but it forgot. The sad old Tante was crowded out by +new friends--new joys." + +"No, you must not say that, Tante. It is not true." + +The hardness that Madame von Marwitz knew how to interpret was showing +itself on Karen's face, despite the tears. Her guardian rose, passing +her arm around her shoulders. "It is not true, then, _chérie_. When one +is very sad one is foolish. Ah, I know it; one imagines too quickly +things that are not true. They float and then they cling, like the tiny +barbed down of the thistle, and then, behold, one's brain is choked with +thorny weeds. That is how it comes, my Karen. Forgive me. There; kiss +me." + +"Darling Tante," Karen murmured, clasping her closely. "Nothing, nothing +crowded you out. Nothing could ever crowd you out. Say that you believe +me. Say that all the thistles are rooted up and thrown away." + +"Rooted up and burned--burned root and branch, my child. I promise it. I +trust my child; she is mine; my loving one. _Ainsi soit-il._ And now," +Madame von Marwitz spoke with sudden gaiety, "and now show me your home, +my Karen, show me all over this home of yours to which already you are +so attached. Ah--it is a child in love!" + +They went from room to room, their arms around each other's waists. +Madame von Marwitz cast her spell over Mrs. Barker in the kitchen, and +smiled a long smile upon Rose, the housemaid. "Yes, yes, very nice, very +pretty," she said, in the spare-room, the little dressing-room, the +dining-room and kitchen. In Karen's room, with its rose-budded chintz +and many photographs of herself, of Gregory, she paused and looked +about. "Very, very pretty," she repeated. "You like bedsteads of brass, +my Karen?" + +"Yes, Tante. They look so clean and bright." + +"So clean and bright. I do not think that I could sleep in brass," +Madame von Marwitz mused. "But it is a simple child." + +"Yes, that is just it, Tante," said Karen, smiling. "And I wanted to +explain to you about the drawing-room. You see it is that; I am simple; +not a sea-anemone of taste, like you. I quite well see things. I see +that Les Solitudes is beautiful, and that this is not like Les +Solitudes. Yet I like it here just as it is." + +"Because it is his, is it not so, my child-in-love? Ah, she must not be +teased. You can be happy, then, among so much brass?--so many things +that glitter and are highly coloured?" + +"Yes, indeed. And it is a pretty bedroom, Tante. You must say that it is +a pretty bedroom?" + +"Is it? Must I? Pretty? Yes, no doubt it is pretty. Yet I could have +wished that my Karen's nest had more distinction, expressed a finer +sense of personality. I imagine that every young woman in this vast +beehive of homes has just such a bedroom." + +"You think so, Tante? I am afraid that if you think this like +everybody's room you will find Gregory's library even worse. You must +see that now; it is all that you have not seen." Karen took her last +bull by the horns, leading her out. + +"Has it red wall-paper, sealing-wax red; with racing prints on the walls +and a very large photograph over the mantelpiece of a rowing-crew at +Oxford?" Madame von Marwitz questioned with a mixture of roguishness and +resignation. + +"Yes, yes, you wicked Tante. How did you know?" + +"I know; I see it," said Madame von Marwitz. "But a man's room expresses +a man's past. One cannot complain of that." + +They went to the library. Madame von Marwitz had described it with +singular accuracy. Gregory rose from his letters and his eyes went from +her face to Karen's, both showing their traces of tears. + +"It is _au revoir_, then," said Madame von Marwitz, standing before him, +her arm round Karen's shoulders. "I am happy in my child's happiness, +Mr. Jardine. You have made her happy, and I thank you. You will lend her +to me, sometimes? You will be generous with me and let me see her?" + +"Of course; whenever you want to; whenever she wants to," said Gregory, +leaning his hands on the back of his chair and tilting it a little while +he smiled the fullest acquiescence. + +Madame von Marwitz's eyes brooded on him. "That is kind," she said +gently. + +"Oh no, it isn't," Gregory returned. + +"I think," said Madame von Marwitz, becoming even more gentle, "that you +misunderstand my meaning. When people love, it is hard sometimes not to +be selfish in the joy of love, and the lesser claims tend to be +forgotten. I only ask that you should make it easy for Karen to come to +me." + +To this Gregory did not reply. He continued to tilt his chair and to +smile at Madame von Marwitz. + +"This husband of yours, Karen," said Madame von Marwitz, "does not +understand me yet. You must interpret me to him. Adieu, Mr. Jardine. +Will you come with me alone to the door, Karen. It is our first farewell +in a home I do not give you." + +She gave Gregory her hand. They left him and went down the passage +together. Madame von Marwitz kept her arm round the girl's shoulders, +but its grasp had tightened. + +"My child! my own child!" she murmured, as, at the door, she turned and +clasped her. Her voice strove with deep emotion. + +"Dear, dear Tante," said Karen, also with a faltering voice. + +Madame von Marwitz achieved an uncertain smile. "Farewell, my dear one. +I bless you. My blessing be upon you." Then, on the threshold she +paused. "Try to make your husband like me a little, my Karen," she said. + +Karen did not come back to him in the smoking-room and Gregory presently +got up and went to look for her. He found her in the drawing-room, +sitting in the twilight, her elbow on her knee, her chin in her hand. He +did not know what she could be feeling; the fact that dominated in his +own mind was that her guardian had made her weep. + +"Well, darling," he said. He stooped over her and put his hand on her +shoulder. + +The face she lifted to him was ambiguous. She had not wept again; on the +contrary, he felt sure that she had been intently thinking. The result +of her thought, now, was a look of resolute serenity. But he was sure +that she did not feel serene. For the first time, Karen was hiding her +feeling from him. "Well, darling," she replied. + +She got up and put her arms around his neck; she looked at him, smiling +calmly; then, as if struck by a sudden memory, she said: "It is the +night of the dance, Gregory." + +They were to dine at Edith Morton's and go on to Karen's first dance. +Under Betty's supervision she had already made progress through +half-a-dozen lessons, though she had not, she confessed to Gregory, +greatly distinguished herself at them. "_I'll_ get you round all right," +he had promised her. They looked forward to the dance. + +"So it is," said Gregory. "It's not time to dress yet, is it?" + +"It's only half-past six. Shall I wear my white silk, Gregory, with the +little white rose wreath?" + +"Yes, and the nice little square-toed white silk shoes--like a Reynolds +lady's--and like nobody else's. I do so like your square toes." + +"I cannot bear pinched toes," said Karen. "My father gave me a horror of +that; and Tante. Her feet are as perfect as her hands. She has all her +shoes made for her by a wonderful old man in Vienna who is an artist in +shoes. She was looking well, wasn't she, Tante?" Karen added, in even +tones. Gregory and she were sitting now on the sofa together, their arms +linked and hand-in-hand. + +"Beautiful," said Gregory with sincerity. "How well that odd head-dress +became her." + +"Didn't it? It was nice that she liked those pretty teacups, wasn't it. +And appreciated our view; even though," Karen smiled, taking now another +bull by the horns, "she was so hard on our flat. I'm afraid she feels +her Bouddha _en travestie_ here." + +"Well, he is, of course. I do hope," said Gregory, also seizing his +bull, "that she didn't think me rude in my joke about being willing to +burn him. And you will change everything--burn anything--barring the +Bouddha and the teacups--that you want to, won't you, dear?" + +"No; I wouldn't, even if I wanted to; and I don't want to. Perhaps Tante +did not quite understand. I think it may take a little time for her to +understand your jokes or you her outspokenness. She is like a child in +her candour about the things she likes or dislikes." A fuller ease had +come to her voice. By her brave pretence that all was well she was +persuading herself that all could be made well. + +Perhaps it might be, thought Gregory, if only he could go on keeping his +temper with Madame von Marwitz and if Karen, wise and courageous +darling, could accept the unspoken between them, and spare him +definitions and declarations. A situation undefined is so often a +situation saved. Life grows over and around it. It becomes a mere +mummied fly, preserved in amber; unsightly perhaps; but unpernicious. +After all, he told himself--and he went on thinking over the incidents +of the afternoon while he dressed--after all, Madame von Marwitz might +not be much in London; she was a comet and her course would lead her +streaming all over the world for the greater part of her time. And above +all and mercifully, Madame von Marwitz was not a person upon whose +affections one would have to count. He seemed to have found out all +sorts of things about her this afternoon: he could have given Sargent +points. The main strength of her feeling for anyone, deep instinct told +him, was an insatiable demand that they should feel sufficiently for +her. And the chief difficulty--he refused to dignify it by the name of +danger--was that Madame von Marwitz had her deep instincts, too, and +had, no doubt, found out all sorts of things about him. He did not like +her; he had not liked her from the first; and she could hardly fail to +feel that he liked her less and less. He was able to do Madame von +Marwitz justice. Even a selflessly devoted mother could hardly rejoice +wholeheartedly in the marriage of a daughter to a man who disliked +herself; and how much less could Madame von Marwitz, who was not a +mother and not selflessly devoted to anybody, rejoice in Karen's +marriage. She was right in feeling that it menaced her own position. He +did her justice; he made every allowance for her; he intended to be +straight with her; but the fact that stood out for Gregory was that, +already, she was not straight with him. Already she was picking +surreptitiously, craftily, at his life; and this was to pick at Karen's. + +He would give her a long string and make every allowance for the +vexations of her situation; but if she began seriously to tarnish +Karen's happiness he would have to pull the string smartly. The +difficulty--he refused to see this as danger either--was that he could +not pull the string upon Madame von Marwitz without, by the same +gesture, upsetting himself as well. + + + + +CHAPTER XVIII + + +The unspoken, for the first month or so of Madame von Marwitz's return, +remained accepted. There were no declarations and no definitions, and +Gregory's immunity was founded on something more reassuring than the +mere fact that Madame von Marwitz frequently went away. When she was in +London, it became apparent, he was to see very little of her, and as +long as they did not meet too often he felt that he was, in so far, +safe. Madame von Marwitz was tremendously busy. She paid many week-end +visits; she sat to Belot--who had come to London to paint it--for a +great portrait; she was to give three concerts in London during the +winter and two in Paris, and it was natural enough that she had not +found time to come to the flat again. + +But although Gregory saw so little of her, although she was not in his +life as a presence, he felt her in it as an influence. She might have +been the invisible but portentous comet moving majestically on the far +confines of his solar system; and one accounted for oddities of +behaviour in the visible planets by inferring that the comet was the +cause of them. If he saw very little of Madame von Marwitz, he saw, too, +much less of his twin planet, Karen. It was not so much that Karen's +course was odd as that it was altered. If Madame von Marwitz sent for +her very intermittently, she had, all the same, in all her life, as she +told Gregory, never seen so much of her guardian. She frankly displayed +to him the radiance of her state, wishing him, as he guessed, to share +to the full every detail of her privileges, and to realise to the full +her gratitude to him for proving so conclusively to Tante that there was +none of the selfishness of love in him. Tante must see that he made it +very easy for her to go to her, and Gregory derived his own secret +satisfaction from the thought that Karen's radiance was the best of +retorts to Madame von Marwitz's veiled intimations. As long as she made +Karen happy and let him alone, he seemed to himself to tell her, he +would get on very well; and he suspected that her clutch of Karen would +soon loosen when she found it unchallenged. In the meantime there was +not much satisfaction for him elsewhere. Karen's altered course left him +often lonely. Not only had the readings of Political Economy, begun with +so much ardour in their spare evenings, almost lapsed for lack of +consecutiveness; but he frequently found on coming home tired for his +tea, and eager for the sight of his wife, a little note from her telling +him that she had been summoned to Mrs. Forrester's as Tante was "with +Fafner in his cave" and wanted her. + +Fafner was the name that Madame von Marwitz gave to her moods of +sometimes tragic and sometimes petulant melancholy. Karen had told him +all about Fafner and how, in the cave, Tante would lie sometimes for +long hours, silent, her eyes closed, holding her hand; sometimes asking +her to read to her, English, French, German or Italian poetry; their +range of reading always astonished Gregory. + +He gathered, too, from Karen's confidences, how little, until now, he +had gauged the variety of the great woman's resources, how little done +justice to her capacity for being merely delightful. She could be +whimsically gay in the midst of melancholy, and her jests and merriment +were the more touching, the more exquisite, from the fact that they +flowered upon the dark background of the cave. It was, he saw, with a +richer flavour that Karen tasted again the charm of old days, when, +after some great musical or social event, in which the girl had played +her part of contented observer, they had laughed together over follies +and appreciated qualities, in the familiar language of allusion evolved +from long community in experience. + +Karen repeated to him Tante's sallies at the expense of this or that +person and the phrase with which she introduced these transformations of +human foolishness to the service of comedy. "Come, let us make +_méringues_ of them." + +The dull or ludicrous creatures, so to be whipped up and baked crisp, +revealed, in the light of the analogy, the tempting vacuity of a bowl of +white of egg. When Tante introduced her wit into the colourless +substance she frothed it to a sparkling work of art. + +Gregory was aware sometimes of a pang as he listened. He and Karen had, +indeed, their many little jokes, and their stock of common association +was growing; but there was nothing like the range of reference, nothing +like the variety of experience, that her life with Madame von Marwitz +had given her to draw upon. It was to her companionship, intermittent as +it had been, with the world-wandering genius that she owed the security +of judgment that often amused yet often disconcerted him, the +catholicity of taste beside which, though he would not acknowledge its +final validity, he felt his own taste to be sometimes narrow and +sometimes guileless. He saw that Karen had every ground for feeling her +own point of view a larger one than his. It was no personal complacency +that her assurance expressed, but the modest recognition of privilege. +Beyond their personal tie, so her whole demeanour showed him, he had +nothing to add to her highly dowered life. + +Gregory had known that his world would mean nothing to Karen; yet when, +under Betty's guidance, she fulfilled her social duties, dined out, gave +dinners, received and returned visits, the very compliance of her +indifference, while always amusing, vexed him a little, and a little +alarmed him, too. He had known that he would have to make all the +adjustments, but how adjust oneself to a permanent separation between +one's private and one's social life? Old ties, lacking new elements of +growth, tended to become formalities. When Karen was not there, he did +not care to go without her to see people, and when she was with him the +very charm of her personality was a barrier between him and them. His +life became narrower as well as lonelier. There was nothing much to be +done with people to whom one's wife was indifferent. + +It was very obvious to him that she found the sober, conventional people +who were his friends very flavourless, especially when she came to them +from Fafner's cave. He had always taken his friends for granted, as part +of the pleasant routine of life, like one's breakfast or one's bath; but +now, seeing them anew, through Karen's eyes, he was inclined more and +more to believe that they weren't as dull as she found them. She lacked +the fundamental experience of a rooted life. She was yet to learn--he +hoped, he determined, she should learn--that a social system of +harmonious people, significant perhaps more because of their places in +the system than as units, and bound together by a highly evolved code, +was, when all was said and done, a more satisfactory place in which to +spend one's life than an anarchic world of erratic, undisciplined, +independent individuals. Karen, however, did not understand the use of +the system and she saw its members with eyes as clear to their defects +as were Gregory's to the defects of Madame von Marwitz. + +Gregory's friends belonged to that orderly and efficient section of the +nation that moves contentedly between the simply professional and the +ultra fashionable. They had a great many duties, social, political and +domestic, which they took with a pleasant seriousness, and a great many +pleasures which they took seriously, too. They "came up" from the quiet +responsibilities of the country-side for a season and "did" the concerts +and exhibitions as they "did" their shopping and their balls. Art, to +most of them, was a thing accepted on authority, like the latest cut for +sleeves or the latest fashion for dressing the hair. A few of them, like +the Cornish Lavingtons, had never heard Madame Okraska; a great many of +them had never heard of Belot. The Madame Okraskas and the Belots of the +world were to them a queer, alien people, regarded with only a mild, +derivative interest. They recognized the artist as a decorative +appurtenance of civilized life, very much as they recognized the dentist +or the undertaker as its convenient appurtenances. It still struck them +as rather strange that one should meet artists socially and, perhaps, as +rather regrettable, their traditional standard of good faith requiring +that the people one met socially should, on the whole, be people whom +one wouldn't mind one's sons and daughters marrying; and they didn't +conceive of artists as entering that category. + +Gregory, with all his acuteness, did not gauge the astonishment with +which Karen came to realize these standards of his world. Her cheerful +evenness of demeanour was a cloak, sometimes for indignation and +sometimes for mirth. She could only face the fact that this world must, +in a sense, be hers, by relegating it and all that it meant to the +merest background in their lives. Her real life consisted in Gregory; in +Tante. All that she had to do with these people--oh, so nice and kind +they were, she saw that well, but oh so stupid, most of them, so +inconceivably blind to everything of value in life--all that she had to +do was, from time to time, to open their box, their well-padded, +well-provendered box, and look at them pleasantly. She felt sure that +for Gregory's sake, if not for theirs, she should always be able to look +pleasantly; unless--she had been afraid of this sometimes--they should +say or do things that in their blindness struck at Tante and at the +realities that Tante stood for. But all had gone so well, so Karen +believed, that she felt no misgivings when Tante expressed a wish to +look into the box with her and said, "You must give a little +dinner-party for me, my Karen, so that I may see your new _milieu_." + +Gregory controlled a dry little grimace when Karen reported this speech +to him. He couldn't but suspect Tante's motives in wanting them to give +a little dinner-party for her. But he feigned the most genial interest +in the plan and agreed with Karen that they must ask their very nicest +to meet Tante. + +Betty had helped Karen with all her dinners; she had seen as yet very +little of the great woman, and entered fully into Karen's eagerness that +everything should be very nice. + +"Gregory will take her in," said Betty; "and we'll put Bertram Fraser on +her other side. He's always delightful. And we'll have the +Canning-Thompsons and the Overtons and the Byngs; the Byngs are so +decorative!" Constance Armytage was now Mrs. Byng. + +"And my dear old General," said Karen, sitting at her desk with a paper +on her knee and an obedient pencil in her hand; "I forget his name, but +we met him at the dinner that you gave after we married; you know, +Betty, with the thin russet face and the little blue eyes. May he take +me in?" + +"General Montgomery. Yes; that is a good idea; glorious old man. Though +Lady Montgomery is rather a stodge," said Betty; "but Oliver can have +her." + +"I remember, a sleek, small head--like a turtle--with salmon-pink +feathers on it. Poor Oliver. Will he mind?" + +"Not a bit. He never minds anything but the dinner; and with Mrs. Barker +we can trust to that." + +"Tante often likes soldiers," said Karen, pleased with her good idea. +"Our flags, she says, they are, and that the world would be +drab-coloured without them." + +So it was arranged. Bertram Fraser was an old family friend of the +Jardines'. His father was still the rector of their Northumberland +parish, and he and Gregory and Oliver had hunted and fished and shot and +gone to Oxford together. Bertram had been a traveller in strange +countries since those days, had written one or two clever books and was +now in Parliament. The Overtons, also country neighbours, were fond of +music as well as of hunting, and Mr. Canning-Thompson was an eminent, if +rather ponderous, Q.C., for whose wife, the gentle and emaciated Lady +Mary, Gregory had a special affection. She was a great philanthropist +and a patient student of early Italian art, and he and she talked +gardens and pictures together. + +Betty and Oliver were the first to arrive on the festal night, Betty's +efficiency, expressed by all her diamonds and a dress of rose-coloured +velvet, making up for whatever there might be of inefficiency in Karen's +appearance and deportment. Karen was still, touchingly so to her +husband's eyes, the little Hans Andersen heroine in appearance. She wore +to-night the white silk dress and the wreath of little white roses. + +Oliver and Gregory chatted desultorily until the Byngs arrived. Oliver +was fair and ruddy and his air of dozing contentment was always +vexatious to his younger brother. He had every reason for contentment. +Betty's money had securely buttressed the family fortunes and he had +three delightful little boys to buttress Betty's money. Gregory grew a +little out of temper after talking for five minutes to Oliver and this +was not a fortunate mood in which to realise, as the Montgomerys, the +Overtons and the Canning-Thompsons followed the Byngs, at eight-fifteen, +that Madame von Marwitz was probably going to be late. At eight-thirty, +Karen, looking at him with some anxiety expressed in her raised brows, +silently conveyed to him her fear that the soup, at the very least, +would be spoiled. At eight-forty Betty murmured to Karen that they had +perhaps better begin without Madame von Marwitz--hadn't they? She must, +for some reason, be unable to come. Dinner was for eight. "Oh, but we +must wait longer," said Karen. "She would have telephoned--or Mrs. +Forrester would--if she had not been coming. Tante is always late; but +always, always," she added, without condemnation if with anxiety. "And +there is the bell now. Yes, I heard it." + +It was a quarter to nine when Madame von Marwitz, with Karen, who had +hastened out to meet her, following behind, appeared at last, benign and +unperturbed as a moon sliding from clouds. In the doorway she made her +accustomed pause, the pause of one not surveying her audience but +indulgently allowing her audience to survey her. It was the attitude in +which Belot was painting his great portrait of her. But it was not met +to-night by the eyes to which she was accustomed. The hungry guests +looked at Madame von Marwitz with austere relief and looked only long +enough to satisfy themselves that her appearance really meant dinner. + +Gregory led the way with her into the dining-room and suspected in her +air of absent musing a certain discomfiture. + +She was, as usual, strangely and beautifully attired, as though for the +operatic stage rather than for a dinner-party. Strings of pearls fell +from either side of her head to her shoulders and a wide tiara of pearls +banded her forehead in a manner recalling a Russian head-dress. She +looked, though so lovely, also so conspicuous that there was a certain +ludicrousness in her appearance. It apparently displeased or surprised +Lady Montgomery, who, on Gregory's other hand, her head adorned with the +salmon-pink, ostrich feathers, raised a long tortoiseshell lorgnette and +fixed Madame von Marwitz through it for a mute, resentful moment. Madame +von Marwitz, erect and sublime as a goddess in a shrine, looked back. It +was a look lifted far above the region of Lady Montgomery's formal, and +after all only tentative, disapprobations; divine impertinence, +sovereign disdain informed it. Lady Montgomery dropped her lorgnette +with a little clatter and, adjusting her heavy diamond bracelets, turned +her sleek mid-Victorian head to her neighbour. Gregory did not know +whether to be amused or vexed. + +It was now his part to carry on a conversation with the great woman: and +he found the task difficult. She was not silent, nor unresponsive. She +listened to his remarks with the almost disconcerting closeness of +attention that he had observed in her on their meeting of the other day, +seeming to seek in them some savour that still escaped her good-will. +She answered him alertly, swiftly, and often at random, as though by her +intelligence and competence to cover his ineptitude. Her smile was +brightly mechanical; her voice at once insistent and monotonous. She had +an air, which Gregory felt more and more to be almost insolent, of doing +her duty. + +Bertram Fraser's turn came and he rose to it with his usual buoyancy. He +was interested in meeting Madame von Marwitz; but he was a young man who +had made his way in the world and perhaps exaggerated his achievement. +He expected people to be interested also in meeting him. He expected +from the great genius a reciprocal buoyancy. Madame von Marwitz bent her +brows upon him. Irony grew in her smile, a staccato crispness in her +utterance. Cool and competent as he was, Bertram presently looked +disconcerted; he did not easily forgive those who disconcerted him, and, +making no further effort to carry on the conversation, he sat silent, +smiling a little, and waited for his partner to turn to him again. Had +Gregory not taken up his talk, lamely and coldly, with Madame von +Marwitz, she would have been left in an awkward isolation. + +She answered him now in a voice of lassitude and melancholy. Leaning +back in her chair, strange and almost stupefying object that she was, +her eyes moved slowly round the table with a wintry desolation of +glance, until, meeting Karen's eyes, they beamed forth a brave warmth of +cherishing, encouraging sweetness. "Yes, _ma chérie_," they seemed to +say; "Bear up, I am bearing up. I will make _méringues_ of them for +you." + +She could make _méringues_ of them; Gregory didn't doubt it. Yet, and +here was the glow of malicious satisfaction that atoned to him for the +discomforts he endured, they were, every one of them, making _méringues_ +of her. + +In their narrowness, in their defects, ran an instinct, as shrewd as it +was unconscious, that was a match for Madame von Marwitz's intelligence. +They were so unperceiving that no one of them, except perhaps Betty and +Karen--who of course didn't count among them at all--was aware of the +wintry wind of Madame von Marwitz's boredom; yet if it had been +recognised it would have been felt as insignificant. They knew that she +was a genius, and that she was very odd looking and that, as Mrs. +Jardine's guardian, she had not come in a professional capacity and +might therefore not play to them after dinner. So defined, she was seen, +with all her splendour of association, as incidental. + +Only perhaps in this particular section of the British people could this +particular effect of cheerful imperviousness have been achieved. They +were not of the voracious, cultured hordes who make their way by their +well-trained appreciations, nor of the fashionable lion-collecting tribe +who do not need to make their way but who need to have their way made +amusing. Well-bred, securely stationed, untouched by boredom or anxiety, +they were at once too dull and too intelligent to be fluttered by the +presence of a celebrity. They wanted nothing of her, except, perhaps, +that after their coffee she should give them some music, and they did +not want this at all eagerly. + +If Madame von Marwitz had come to crush, to subjugate or to enchant, she +had failed in every respect and Gregory saw that her failure was not +lost upon her. Her manner, as the consciousness grew, became more +frankly that of the vain, ill-tempered child, ignored. She ceased to +speak; her eyes, fixed on the wall over Sir Oliver's head, enlarged in a +sullen despondency. + +Lady Montgomery was making her way through a bunch of grapes and Lady +Mary had only peeled her peach, when, suddenly, taking upon herself the +prerogative of a hostess, Madame von Marwitz caught up her fan and +gloves with a gesture of open impatience, and swept to the door almost +before Gregory had time to reach it or the startled guests to rise from +their places. + + + + +CHAPTER XIX + + +When the time came for going to the drawing-room, Gregory found Betty +entertaining the company there, while Karen, on a distant sofa, was +apparently engaged in showing her guardian a book of photographs. He +took in the situation at a glance, and, as he took it in, he was aware +that part of its significance lay in the fact that it obliged him to a +swift interchange with Betty, an interchange that irked him, defining as +it did a community of understanding from which Karen, in her simplicity, +was shut out. + +He went across to the couple on the sofa. Only sudden illness could have +excused Madame von Marwitz's departure from the dining-room, yet he +determined to ask no questions, and to leave any explanations to her. + +Karen's eyes, in looking at him, were grave and a little anxious; but +the anxiety, he saw, was not on his account. "Tante wanted to see our +kodaks," she said. "Do sit here with us, Gregory. Betty is talking to +everybody so beautifully." + +"But you must go and talk to everybody beautifully, too, now, darling," +said Gregory. He put his hand on her shoulder and looked down at her +smiling. The gesture, with its marital assurance, the smile that was +almost a caress, were involuntary; yet they expressed more than his +tender pride and solicitude, they defined his possession of her, and +they excluded Tante. "It's been a nice little dinner, hasn't it," he +went on, continuing to look at her and not at Madame von Marwitz. "I saw +that the General was enjoying you immensely. There he is, looking over +at you now; he wants to go on talking about Garibaldi with you. He said +he'd never met a young woman so well up in modern history." + +Madame von Marwitz's brooding eyes were on him while he thus spoke. He +ignored them. + +Karen looked a little perplexed. "Did you think it went so well, then, +Gregory?" + +"Why, didn't you?" + +"I am not sure. I don't think I shall ever much like dinners, when I +give them," she addressed herself to her guardian as well as to her +husband. "They make one feel so responsible." + +"Well, as far as you were responsible for this one you were responsible +for its being very nice. Everybody enjoyed themselves. Now go and talk +to the General." + +"I did enjoy him," said Karen, half closing her book. "But Tante has +rather a headache--I am afraid she is tired. You saw at dinner that she +was tired." + +"Yes, oh yes, indeed, I thought that you must be feeling a little ill, +perhaps," Gregory observed blandly, turning his eyes now on Madame von +Marwitz. "Well, you see, Karen, I will take your place here, and it will +give me a chance for a quiet talk with your guardian." + +"People must not bother her," Karen rose, pleased, he could see, with +this arrangement, and hoping, he knew, that the opportunity was a +propitious one, and that in it her dear ones might draw together. "You +will see that they don't bother her, Gregory, and go on showing her +these." + +"They won't bother a bit, I promise," said Gregory, taking her place as +she rose. "They are all very happily engaged, and Madame von Marwitz and +I will look at the photographs in perfect peace." + +Something in these words and in the manner with which her guardian +received them, with a deepening of her long, steady glance, arrested +Karen's departure. She stood above them, half confident, yet half +hesitating. + +"Go, _mon enfant_," said Madame von Marwitz, turning the steady glance +on her. "Go. Nobody here, as your husband truly says, is thinking of me. +I shall be quite untroubled." + +Still with her look of preoccupation Karen moved away. + +Cheerfully and deliberately Gregory now proceeded to turn the pages of +the kodak album, and to point out with painstaking geniality the charms +and associations of each view, "_Tu l'as voulu, Georges Dandin_," +expressed his thought, for he didn't believe that Madame von Marwitz, +more than any person not completely self-abnegating, could tolerate +looking at other people's kodaks. But since it was her chosen +occupation, the best she could find to do with their dinner-party, she +should be gratified; should be shown Karen standing on a peak in the +Tyrol; Karen feeding the pigeons before St. Mark's; Karen, again--wasn't +it rather nice of her?--in a gondola. Madame von Marwitz bent her head +with its swinging pearls above the pictures, proffering now and then a +low murmur of assent. + +But in the midst of the Paris pictures she lifted her head and looked at +him. It was again the steady, penetrating look, and now it seemed, with +the smile that veiled it, to claim some common understanding rather than +seek it. "Enough," she said. She dismissed the kodaks with a tap of her +fan. "I wish to talk with you. I wish to talk with you of our Karen." + +Gregory closed the volume. Madame von Marwitz's attitude as she leaned +back, her arms lightly folded, affected him in its deliberate grace and +power as newly significant. Keeping his frosty, observant eyes upon her, +Gregory waited for what she had to say. "I am glad, very glad, that you +have given me this opportunity for a quiet conversation," so she took up +the threads of her intention. "I have wanted, for long, to consult with +you about various matters concerning Karen, and, in especial, about her +future life. Tell me--this is what I wish in particular to ask you--you +are going, are you not, in time, when she has learned more skill in +social arts, to take my Karen into the world--_dans le monde_," Madame +von Marwitz repeated, as though to make her meaning genially clear. +"Skill she is as yet too young to have mastered--or cared to master. But +she had always been at ease on the largest stage, and she will do you +credit, I assure you." + +It was rather, to Gregory's imagination--always quick at similes--as +though she had struck a well-aimed blow right in the centre of a huge +gong hanging between them. There she was, the blow said. It was this she +meant. No open avowal of hostility could have been more reverberating or +purposeful, and no open avowal of hostility would have been so sinister. +But Gregory, though his ears seemed to ring with the clang of it, was +ready for her. He, too, with folded arms, sat leaning back and he, too, +smiled genially. "That's rather crushing, you know," he made reply, "or +didn't you? Karen is in my world. This is my world." + +Madame von Marwitz gazed at him for a moment as if to gauge his +seriousness. And then she turned her eyes on his world and gazed at +that. It was mildly chatting. It was placid, cheerful, unaware of +deficiency. It thought that it was enjoying itself. It was, indeed, +enjoying itself, if with the slightest of materials. Betty and Bertram +Fraser laughed together; Lady Mary and Oliver ever so slowly conversed. +Constance Byng and Mr. Overton discussed the latest opera, young Byng +had joined Karen and the General, and a comfortable drone of politics +came from Mrs. Overton and Mr. Canning-Thompson. Removed a little from +these groups Lady Montgomery, very much like a turtle, sat with her head +erect and her eyes half closed, evidently sleepy. It was upon Lady +Montgomery that Madame von Marwitz's gaze dwelt longest. + +"You are contented," she then said to Gregory, "with these good people; +for yourself and for your wife?" + +"Perfectly," said Gregory. "You see, Karen has married a commonplace +person." + +Madame von Marwitz paused again, and again her eyes dwelt on Lady +Montgomery, whose pink feathers had given a sudden nod and then serenely +righted themselves. "I see," she then remarked. "But she is not +contented." + +"Ah, come," said Gregory. "You can't shatter the conceit of a happy +husband so easily, Madame von Marwitz. You ask too much of me if you ask +me to believe that Karen makes confidences to you that she doesn't to +me. I can't take it on, you know," he continued to smile. + +He had already felt that the loveliness of Madame von Marwitz's face was +a veil for its coldness, and hints had come to him that it masked, also, +some more sinister quality. And now, for a moment, as if a primeval +creature peeped at him from among delicate woodlands, a racial savagery +crossed her face with a strange, distorting tremor. The blood mounted to +her brow; her skin darkened curiously, and her eyes became hot and heavy +as though the very irises felt the glow. + +"You do not accept my word, Mr. Jardine?" she said. Her voice was +controlled, but he had a disagreeable sensation of scorching, as though +a hot iron had been passed slowly before his face. + +Gregory shook his foot a little, clasping his ankle. "I don't say that, +of course. But I'm glad to think you're mistaken." + +"Let me tell you, Mr. Jardine," she returned, still with the curbed +elemental fury colouring her face and voice, "that even a happy +husband's conceit is no match for a mother's intuition. Karen is like my +child to me; and to its mother a child makes confidences that it is +unaware of making. Karen finds your world narrow; _borné_; it does not +afford her the wide life she has known." + +"You mean," said Gregory, "the life she led with Mrs. Talcott?" + +He had not meant to say it. If he had paused to think it over he would +have seen that it exposed him to her as consciously hostile and also as +almost feminine in his malice. And, as if this recognition of his false +move restored to her her full self-mastery, she met his irony with a +masculine sincerity, putting him, as on the occasion of their first +encounter, lamentably in the wrong. "Ah," she commented, her eyes +dwelling on him. "Ah, I see. You have wondered. You have criticized. You +have, I think, Mr. Jardine, misunderstood my life and its capacities. +Allow me to explain. Your wife is the creature dearest to me in the +world, and if you misread my devotion to her you endanger our relation. +You would not, I am sure, wish to do that; is it not so? Allow me +therefore to exculpate myself. I am a woman who, since childhood, +has had to labour for my livelihood and for that of those I love. +You can know nothing of what that labour of the artist's life +entails,--interminable journeys, suffocating ennui, the unwholesome +monotony and publicity of a life passed in hotels and trains. It was not +fit that a young and growing girl should share that life. As much as has +been possible I have guarded Karen from its dust and weariness. I have +had, of necessity, to leave her much alone, and she has needed +protection, stability, peace. I could have placed her in no lovelier +spot than my Cornish home, nor in safer hands than those of the guardian +and companion of my own youth. Do you not feel it a little unworthy, Mr. +Jardine, when you have all the present and all the future, to grudge me +even my past with my child?" + +She spoke slowly, with a noble dignity, all hint of sultry menace +passed; willing, for Karen's sake, to stoop to this self-justification +before Karen's husband. And, for Karen's sake, she had the air of +holding in steady hands their relation, hers and his, assailed so +gracelessly by his taunting words. Gregory, for the first time in his +knowledge of her, felt a little bewildered. It was she who had opened +hostilities, yet she almost made him forget it; she almost made him feel +that he alone had been graceless. "I do beg your pardon," he said. "Yes; +I had wondered a little about it; and I understand better now." But he +gathered his wits together sufficiently to add, on a fairer foothold: "I +am sure you gave Karen all you could. What I meant was, I think, that +you should be generous enough to believe that I am giving her all I +can." + +Madame von Marwitz rose as he said this and he also got up. It was not +so much, Gregory was aware, that they had fought to a truce as that they +had openly crossed swords. Her eyes still dwelt on him, and now as if in +a sad wonder. "But you are young. You are a man. You have ambition. You +wish to give more to the loved woman." + +"I don't really quite know what you mean by more, Madame von Marwitz," +said Gregory. "If it applies to my world, I don't expect, or wish, to +give Karen a better one." + +They stood and confronted each other for a moment of silence. + +"_Bien_," Madame von Marwitz then said, unemphatically, mildly. "_Bien._ +I must see what I can do." She turned her eyes on Karen, who, +immediately aware of her glance, hastened to her. Madame von Marwitz +laid an arm about her neck. "I must bid you good-night, _ma chérie_. I +am very tired." + +"Tante, dear, I saw that you were so tired, I am so sorry. It has all +been a weariness to you," Karen murmured. + +"No, my child; no," Madame von Marwitz smiled down into her eyes, +passing her hand lightly over the little white-rose wreath. "I have seen +you, and seen you happy; that is happiness enough for me. Good-night, +Mr. Jardine. Karen will come with me." + +Pausing for no further farewells, Madame von Marwitz passed from the +room with a majestic, generalized bending of the head. + +Betty joined her brother-in-law. "Dear me, Gregory," she said. "We've +had the tragic muse to supper, haven't we. What is the matter, what has +been the matter with Madame von Marwitz? Is she ill?" + +"She says she's tired," said Gregory. + +"It was disconcerting, wasn't it, her trailing suddenly out of the +dining-room in that singular fashion," said Betty. "Do you know, +Gregory, that I'm getting quite vexed with Madame von Marwitz." + +"Really? Why, Betty?" + +"Well, it has been accumulating. I'm a very easy-going person, you know; +but I've been noticing that whenever I want Karen, Madame von Marwitz +always nips in and cuts me out, so that I have hardly seen her at all +since her guardian came to London. And then it did rather rile me, I +confess, to find that the one hat in Karen's trousseau that I specially +chose for her is the one--the only one--that Madame von Marwitz objects +to. Karen never wears it now. She certainly behaved very absurdly +to-night, Gregory. I suppose she expected us to sit round in a circle +and stare." + +"Perhaps she did," Gregory acquiesced. "Perhaps we should have." + +He was anxious to maintain the appearance of bland lightness before +Betty. Karen had re-entered as they spoke and Betty called her to them. +"Tell me, Karen dear, is Madame von Marwitz ill? She didn't give me a +chance to say good-night to her." Betty had the air of wishing to +exonerate herself. + +"She isn't ill," said Karen, whose face was grave. "But very tired." + +"Now what made her tired, I wonder?" Betty mused. "She looks such a +robust person." + +It was bad of Betty, and as Karen stood before them, looking from one to +the other, Gregory saw that she suspected them. Her face hardened. "A +great artist needs to be robust," she said. "My guardian works every day +at her piano for five or six hours." + +"Dear me," Betty murmured. "How splendid. I'd no idea the big ones had +to keep it up like that." + +"There is great ignorance about an artist's life," Karen continued +coldly to inform her. "Do you not know what von Bulow said: If I miss my +practising for one day I notice it; if for two days my friends notice +it; if I miss it for three days the public notices it. The artist is +like an acrobat, juggling always, intent always on his three golden +balls kept flying in the air. That is what it is like. Every atom of +their strength is used. People, like my guardian, literally give their +lives for the world." + +"Oh, yes, it is wonderful, of course," Betty assented. "But of course +they must enjoy it; it can hardly be called a sacrifice." + +"Enjoy is a very small word to apply to such a great thing," said Karen. +"You may say also, if you like, that the saint enjoys his life of +suffering for others. It is his life to give himself to goodness; it is +the artist's life to give himself to beauty. But it is beauty and +goodness they seek, not enjoyment; we must not try to measure these +great people by our standards." + +Before this arraignment Betty showed a tact for which Gregory was +grateful to her. He, as so often, found Karen, in her innocent +sententiousness, at once absurd and adorable, but he could grant that to +Betty she might seem absurd only. + +"Don't be cross with me, Karen," she said. "I suppose I am feeling sore +at being snubbed by Madame von Marwitz." + +"But indeed she did not mean to snub you, Betty," said Karen earnestly. +"And I am not cross; please do not think that. Only I cannot bear to +hear some of the things that are said of artists." + +"Well, prove that you're not cross," said Betty, smiling, "by at last +giving me an afternoon when we can do something together. Will you come +and see the pictures at Burlington House with me to-morrow and have tea +with me afterwards? I've really seen nothing of you for so long." + +"To-morrow is promised to Tante, Betty. I'm so sorry. Her great concert +is to be on Friday, you know; and till then, and on the Saturday, I have +said that I will be with her. She gets so very tired. And I know how to +take care of her when she is tired like that." + +"Oh, dear!" Betty sighed. "There is no hope for us poor little people, +is there, while Madame von Marwitz is in London. Well, on Monday, then, +Karen. Will you promise me Monday afternoon?" + +"Monday is free, and I shall like so very much to come, Betty," Karen +replied. + +When Gregory and his wife were left alone together, they stood for some +moments without speaking on either side of the fire, and, as Karen's +eyes were on the flames, Gregory, looking at her carefully, read on her +face the signs of stress and self-command. The irony, the irritation and +the oppression that Madame von Marwitz had aroused in him this evening +merged suddenly, as he looked at Karen into intense anger. What had she +not done to them already, sinister woman? It was because of her that +constraint, reticence and uncertainty were rising again between him and +Karen. + +"Darling," he said, putting out his hand and drawing her to him; "you +look very tired." + +She came, he fancied, with at first a little reluctance, but, as he put +his arm around her, she leaned her head against his shoulder with a +sigh. "I am tired, Gregory." + +They stood thus for some moments and then, as if the confident +tenderness their attitude expressed forced her to face with him their +difficulty, she said carefully: "Gregory, dear, did you say anything to +depress Tante this evening?" + +"Why do you ask, darling?" Gregory, after a slight pause, also carefully +inquired. + +"Only that she seemed depressed, very much depressed. I thought, I hoped +that you and she were talking so nicely, so happily." + +There was another little pause and then Gregory said: "She rather +depressed me, I think." + +"Depressed you? But how, Gregory?" + +He must indeed be very careful. It was far too late, now, for simple +frankness; simple frankness had, perhaps, from the beginning been +impossible and in that fact lay the insecurity of his position, and the +immense advantage of Madame von Marwitz's. And as he paused and sought +his words it was as if, in the image of the Bouddha, looking down upon +him and Karen, Madame von Marwitz were with them now, a tranquil and +ironic witness of his discomfiture. "Well," he said, "she made me feel +that I had only a very dingy sort of life to offer you and that my +friends were all very tiresome--_borné_ was the word she used. That did +rather--well--dash my spirits." + +Standing there within his arm, of her face, seen from above, only the +brow, the eyelashes, the cheek visible, she was very still for a long +moment. Then, gently, she said--and in the gentleness he felt that she +put aside the too natural suspicion that he was complaining of Tante +behind her back: "She doesn't realise that I don't care at all about +people. And they are rather _bornés_, aren't they, Gregory." + +"I don't find them so," said Gregory, reasonably. "They aren't geniuses, +of course, or acrobats, or saints, or anything of that sort; but they +seem to me, on the whole, a very nice lot of people." + +"Very nice indeed, Gregory. But I don't think it is saints and geniuses +that Tante misses here; she misses minds that are able to recognise +genius." Her quick ear had caught the involuntary irony of his +quotation. + +"Ah, but, dear, you mustn't expect to find the average nice person able +to pay homage at a dinner-party. There is a time and a place for +everything, isn't there." + +"It was not that I meant, Gregory, or that Tante meant. There is always +a place for intelligence. It wasn't an interesting dinner, you must have +felt that as well as I, not the sort of dinner Tante would naturally +expect. They were only interested in their own things, weren't they? And +quite apart from homage, there is such a thing as realisation. Mr. +Fraser talked to Tante--I saw it all quite well--as he might have talked +to the next dowager he met. Tante isn't used to being talked to as if +she were _toute comme une autre_; she isn't _toute comme une autre_." + +"But one must pretend to be, at a dinner-party," Gregory returned. To +have to defend his friends when it was Tante who stood so lamentably in +need of defence had begun to work upon his nerves. "And some dowagers +are as interesting as anybody. There are all sorts of ways of being +interesting. Dowagers are as intelligent as geniuses sometimes." His +lightness was not unprovocative. + +"It isn't funny, Gregory, to see Tante put into a false position." + +"But, my dear, we did the best we could for her." + +"I know that we did; and our best isn't good enough for her. That is all +that I ask you to realise," said Karen. + +She was angry, and from the depths of his anger against Madame von +Marwitz Gregory felt a little gush of anger against Karen rise. "You are +telling me what she told me," he said; "that my best isn't good enough +for her. You may say it and think it, of course; but it's a thing that +Madame von Marwitz has no right to say." + +Karen moved away from his arm. Something more than the old girlish +sternness was in the look with which she faced him, though that flashed +at him, a shield rather than a weapon. He recognised the hidden pain and +astonishment and his anger faded in tenderness. How could she but resent +and repell any hint that belittled Tante's claims and justifications? +how could she hear but with dismay the half threat of his last words, +the intimation that from her he would accept what he would not accept +from Tante? The sudden compunction of his comprehension almost brought +the tears to his eyes. Karen saw that his resistance melted and the +sternness fell from her look. "But Gregory," she said, her voice a +little trembling, "Tante did not say that. Please don't make mistakes. +It is so dreadful to misunderstand; nothing frightens me so much. I say +it; that our best isn't good enough, and I am thinking of Tante; only of +Tante; but she--too sweetly and mistakenly--was thinking of me. Tante +doesn't care, for herself, about our world; why should she? And she is +mistaken to care about it for me; because it makes no difference, none +at all, to me, if it is _borné_. All that I care about, you know that, +Gregory, is you and Tante." + +Gregory had his arms around her. "Do forgive me, darling," he said. + +"But was I horrid?" Karen asked. + +"No. It was I who was stupid," he said. "Do you know, I believe we were +almost quarrelling, Karen." + +"And we can quarrel safely--you and I, Gregory, can't we?" Karen said, +her voice still trembling. + +He leaned his head against her hair. "Of course we can. Only--don't let +us quarrel--ever. It is so dreadful." + +"Isn't it dreadful, Gregory. But we must not let it frighten us, ever, +because of course we must quarrel now and then. And we often have +already, haven't we," she went on, reassuring him, and herself. "Do you +remember, in the Tyrol, about the black bread!--And I was right that +time.--And the terrible conflict in Paris, about _La Gaine d'Or_; when I +said you were a Philistine." + +"Well, you owned afterwards, after you read about the beastly thing, +that you were glad we hadn't gone." + +"Yes; I was glad. You were right there. Sometimes it is you and +sometimes I," Karen declared, as if that were the happy solution. + +So, in their mutual love, they put aside the menacing difference. +Something had happened, they could but be aware of that; but their love +tided them over. They did not argue further as to who was right and who +wrong that evening. + + + + +CHAPTER XX + + +The first of Madame von Marwitz's great concerts was given on Friday, +and Karen spent the whole of that day and of Saturday with her, summoned +by an urgent telephone message early in the morning. On Sunday she was +still secluded in her rooms, and Miss Scrotton, breaking in determinedly +upon her, found her lying prone upon the sofa, Karen beside her. + +"I cannot see you, my Scrotton," said Madame von Marwitz, with kindly +yet listless decision. "Did they not tell you below that I was seeing +nobody? Karen is with me to watch over my ill-temper. She is a soothing +little milk-poultice and I can bear nothing else. I am worn out." + +Before poor Miss Scrotton's brow of gloom Karen suggested that she +should herself go down to Mrs. Forrester for tea and leave her place to +Miss Scrotton, but, with a weary shake of the head, Madame von Marwitz +rejected the proposal. "No; Scrotton is too intelligent for me to-day," +she said. "You will go down to Mrs. Forrester for your tea, my Scrotton, +and wait for another day to see me." + +Miss Scrotton went down nearly in tears. + +"She refused to see Sir Alliston," Mrs. Forrester said, soothingly. "She +really is fit for nothing. I have never seen her so exhausted." + +"Yet Karen Jardine always manages to force her way in," said Miss +Scrotton, controlling the tears with difficulty. "She has absolutely +taken possession of Mercedes. It really is almost absurd, such devotion, +and in a married woman. Gregory doesn't like it at all. Oh, I know it. +Betty Jardine gave me a hint only yesterday of how matters stand." + +"Lady Jardine has always seemed to me a rather trivial little person. I +should not accept her impression of a situation," said Mrs. Forrester. +"Mercedes sends for Karen constantly. And I am sure that Gregory is glad +to think that she can be of use to Mercedes." + +"Oh, Betty Jardine thinks, too, that it is Mercedes who takes Karen from +her husband. But I really can't agree with her, or with you, dear Mrs. +Forrester, there. Mercedes is simply too indolent and kind-hearted to +defend herself from the sort of habit the girl has imposed upon her. As +for Gregory being grateful I can only assure you that you are entirely +mistaken. My own impression is that he is beginning to dislike Mercedes. +Oh, he is a very jealous temperament; I have always felt it in him. He +is one of those cold, passionate men who become the most infatuated and +tyrannical of husbands." + +"My dear Eleanor," Mrs. Forrester raised her eyebrows. "I see no sign of +tyranny. He allows Karen to come here constantly." + +"Yes; because he knows that to refuse would be to endanger his relation +to her. Mercedes is angelic to him of course, and doesn't give him a +chance for making things difficult for Karen. But it is quite obvious to +me that he hates the whole situation." + +"I hope not," said Mrs. Forrester, gravely now. "I hope not. It would be +tragical indeed if this last close relation in Mercedes's life were to +be spoiled for her. I could not forgive Gregory if he made it difficult +in any way for Karen to be with her guardian." + +"Well, as long as he can conceal his jealousy, Mercedes will manage, I +suppose, to keep things smooth. But I can't see it as you do, Mrs. +Forrester. I can't believe for a moment that Mercedes needs Karen or +that the tie is such a close one. She only likes to see her now because +she is bored and impatient and unhappy, and Karen is--she said it just +now, before the girl--a poultice for her nerves. And the reason for her +nerves isn't far to seek. I must be frank with you, dear Mrs. Forrester; +you know I always have been, and I'm distressed, deeply distressed about +Mercedes. She expected Claude Drew to be back from America by now and I +heard yesterday from that horrid young friend of his, Algernon Bently, +that he has again postponed his return. It's that that agonizes and +infuriates Mercedes, it's that that makes her unwilling to be alone with +me. I've seen too much; I know too much; she fears me, Mrs. Forrester. +She knows that I know that Claude Drew is punishing her now for having +snubbed him in America." + +"My dear Eleanor," Mrs. Forrester murmured distressfully. "You +exaggerate that young man's significance." + +"Dear Mrs. Forrester," Miss Scrotton returned, almost now with a solemn +exasperation, "I wish it were possible to exaggerate it. I watched it +grow. His very effrontery fascinates her. We know, you and I, what +Mercedes expects in devotion from a man who cares for her. They must +adore her on their knees. Now Mr. Drew adored standing nonchalantly on +his feet and looking coolly into her eyes. She resented it; she had +constantly to put him in his place. But she would rather have him out of +his place than not have him there at all. That is what she is feeling +now. That is why she is so worn out. She is wishing that Claude Drew +would come back from America, and she is wanting to write one letter to +his ten and finding that she writes five. He writes to her constantly, I +suppose?" + +"I believe he does," Mrs. Forrester conceded. "Mercedes is quite open +about the frequency of his letters. I am sure that you exaggerate, +Eleanor. He interests her, and he charms her if you will. Like every +woman, she is aware of devotion and pleased by it. I don't believe it's +anything more." + +"I believe," said Miss Scrotton, after a moment, and with resolution, +"that it's a great passion; the last great passion of her life." + +"Oh, my dear!" + +"A great passion," Miss Scrotton persisted, "and for a man whom she +knows not to be in any way her equal. It is that that exasperates her." + +Mrs. Forrester meditated for a little while and then, owning to a +certain mutual recognition of facts, she said: "I don't believe that +it's a great passion; but I think that a woman like Mercedes, a genius +of that scope, needs always to feel in her life the elements of a +'situation'--and life always provides such women with a choice of +situations. They are stimulants. Mr. Drew and his like, with whatever +unrest and emotion they may cause her, nourish her art. Even a great +passion would be a tempest that filled her sails and drove her on; in +the midst of it she would never lose the power of steering. She has +essentially the strength and detachment of genius. She watches her own +emotions and makes use of them. Did you ever hear her play more +magnificently than on Friday? If Mr. Drew _y était pour quelque chose_, +it was in the sense that she made mincemeat of him and presented us in +consequence with a magnificent sausage." + +Miss Scrotton, who had somewhat forgotten her personal grievance in the +exhilaration of these analyses, granted the sausage and granted that +Mercedes made mincemeat of Mr. Drew--and of her friends into the +bargain. "But my contention and my fear is," she said, "that he will +make mincemeat of her before he is done with her." + +Miss Scrotton did not rank highly for wisdom in Mrs. Forrester's +estimation; but for her perspicacity and intelligence she had more +regard than she cared to admit. Echoes of Eleanor's distrusts and fears +remained with her, and, though it was but a minor one, such an echo +vibrated loudly on Monday afternoon when Betty Jardine appeared at +tea-time with Karen. + +It was the afternoon that Karen had promised to Betty, and when this +fact had been made known to Tante it was no grievance and no protest +that she showed, only a slight hesitation, a slight gravity, and then, +as if with cheerful courage in the face of an old sadness: "_Eh bien_," +she said. "Bring her back here to tea, _ma chérie_. So I shall come to +know this new friend of my Karen's better." + +Betty was not at all pleased at being brought back to tea. But Karen +asked her so gravely and prettily and said so urgently that Tante wanted +especially to know her better, and asked, moreover, if Betty would let +her come to lunch with her instead of tea, so that they should have +their full time together, that Betty once more pocketed her suspicions +of a design on Madame von Marwitz's part. The suspicion was there, +however, in her pocket, and she kept her hand on it rather as if it were +a small but efficacious pistol which she carried about in case of an +emergency. Betty was one who could aim steadily and shoot straight when +occasion demanded. It was a latent antagonist who entered Mrs. +Forrester's drawing-room on that Monday afternoon, Karen, all guileless, +following after. Mrs. Forrester and the Baroness were alone and, in a +deep Chesterfield near the tea-table, Madame von Marwitz leaned an arm, +bared to the elbow, in cushions and rested a meditative head on her +hand. She half rose to greet Betty. "This is kind of you, Lady Jardine," +she said. "I feared that I had lost my Karen for the afternoon. _Elle me +manque toujours_; she knows that." Smiling up at Karen she drew her down +beside her, studying her with eyes of fond, maternal solicitude. "My +child looks well, does she not, Mrs. Forrester? And the pretty hat! I am +glad not to see the foolish green one." + +"Oh, I like the green one very much, Tante," said Karen. "But you shall +not see it again." + +"I hope I'm to see it again," said Betty, turning over her pistol. "I +chose it, you know." + +Madame von Marwitz turned startled eyes upon her. "Ah--but I did not +know. Did you tell me this, Karen?" the eyes of distress now turned to +Karen. "Have I forgotten? Was the green hat, the little green hat with +the wing, indeed of Lady Jardine's choosing? Have I been so very rude?" + +"Betty will understand, Tante," said Karen--while Mrs. Forrester, softly +chinking among her blue Worcester teacups, kept a cogitating eye on +Betty Jardine--"that I have so many new hats now that you must easily +forget which is which." + +"All I ask," said Betty, laughing over her mishap, "is that I, +sometimes, may see Karen in the green hat, for I think it charming." + +"Indeed, Betty, so do I," said Karen, smiling. + +"And I must be forgiven for not liking the green hat," Madame von +Marwitz returned. + +Betty and Karen were supplied with tea, and after they had selected +their cakes, and a few inconsequent remarks had been exchanged, Madame +von Marwitz said: + +"And now, my Karen, I have a little plan to tell you of; a little treat +that I have arranged for you. We are to go together, on this next +Saturday, to stay at Thole Castle with my friends the Duke and Duchess +of Bannister. I have told them that I wish to bring my child." + +"But how delightful, Tante. It is to be in the country? We shall be +there, you and I and Gregory, till Monday?" + +"I thought that I should please you. Yes; till Monday. And in beautiful +country. But it is to be our own small treat; yours and mine. Your +husband will lend you to me for those two days." Holding the girl's hand +Madame von Marwitz smiled indulgently at her, with eyes only for her. +Betty, however, was listening. + +"But cannot Gregory come, too, Tante?" Karen questioned, her pleasure +dashed. + +"These friends of mine, my Karen," said Madame von Marwitz, "have heard +of you as mine only. It is as my child that you will come with me; just +as it is as your husband's wife that you see his friends. That is quite +clear, quite happy, quite understood." + +Karen's eyes now turned on Betty. They did not seek counsel, they asked +no question of Betty; but they gave her, in their slight bewilderment, +her opportunity. + +"But Karen, I think you are right," so she took up the gage that Madame +von Marwitz had flung. "I don't think that you must accept this +invitation without, at least, consulting Gregory." + +Madame von Marwitz did not look at her. She continued to gaze as +serenely at Karen as though Betty were a dog that had barked +irrelevantly from the hearth-rug. But Karen fixed widened eyes upon her. + +"I do not need to consult Gregory, Betty," she said. "We have, I know, +no engagements for this Saturday to Monday, and he will be delighted for +me that I am to go with Tante." + +"That may be, my dear," Betty returned with a manner as imperturbable as +Madame von Marwitz's; "but I think that you should give him an +opportunity of saying so. He may not care for his wife to go to +strangers without him." + +"They are not strangers. They are friends of Tante's." + +"Gregory may not care for you to make--as Madame von Marwitz suggests--a +different set of friends from his own." + +"If they become my friends they will become his," said Karen. + +During this little altercation, Madame von Marwitz, large and white, her +profile turned to Betty, sat holding Karen's hand and gazing at her with +an almost slumbrous melancholy. + +Mrs. Forrester, controlling her displeasure with some difficulty, +interposed. "I don't think Lady Jardine really quite understands the +position, Karen," she said. "It isn't the normal one, Lady Jardine. +Madame von Marwitz stands, really, to Karen in a mother's place." + +"Oh, but I can't agree with you, Mrs. Forrester," Betty replied. "Madame +von Marwitz doesn't strike me as being in the least like Karen's mother. +And she isn't Karen's mother. And Karen's husband, now, should certainly +stand first in her life." + +A silence followed the sharp report. Mrs. Forrester's and Karen's eyes +had turned on the Baroness who sat still, as though her breast had +received the shot. With tragic eyes she gazed out above Karen's head; +then: "It is true," she said in a low voice, as though communing with +herself; "I am indeed alone." She rose. With the slow step of a Niobe +she moved down the room and disappeared. + +"I do not forgive you for this, Betty," said Karen, following her +guardian. Betty, like a naughty school-girl, was left confronting Mrs. +Forrester across the tea-table. + +"Lady Jardine," said the old lady, fixing her bright eyes on her guest, +"I don't think you can have realised what you were saying. Madame von +Marwitz's isolation is one of the many tragedies of her life, and you +have made it clear to her." + +"I'm very sorry," said Betty. "But I feel what Madame von Marwitz is +doing to be so mistaken, so wrong." + +"These formalities don't obtain nowadays, especially if a wife is so +singularly related to a woman like Madame von Marwitz. And Mercedes is +quite above all such little consciousnesses, I assure you. She is not +aware of sets, in that petty way. It is merely a treat she is giving the +child, for she knows how much Karen loves to be with her. And it is only +in her train that Karen goes." + +"Precisely." Betty had risen and stood smoothing her muff and not +feigning to smile. "In her train. I don't think that Gregory's wife +should go in anybody's train." + +"It was markedly in Mercedes's train that he found her." + +"All the more reason for wishing now to withdraw her from it. Karen has +become something more than Madame von Marwitz's _panache_." + +Mrs. Forrester at this fixed Betty very hard and echoes of Miss Scrotton +rang loudly. "You must let me warn you, Lady Jardine," she said, "that +you are making a position, difficult already for Mercedes, more +difficult still. It would be a grievous thing if Karen were to recognize +her husband's jealousy. I'm afraid I can't avoid seeing what you have +made so plain to-day, that Gregory is trying to undermine Karen's +relation to her guardian." + +At this Betty had actually to laugh. "But don't you see that it is +simply the other way round?" she said. "It is Madame von Marwitz who is +trying to undermine Karen's relation to Gregory. It is she who is +jealous. It's that I can't avoid seeing." + +"I don't think we have anything to gain by continuing this +conversation," Mrs. Forrester replied. "May I give you some more tea +before you go?" + +"No, thanks. Is Karen coming with me, I wonder? We had arranged that I +was to take her home." + +Mrs. Forrester rang the bell and she and Betty stood in an uneasy +silence until the man returned to say that Mrs. Jardine was to spend the +evening with Madame von Marwitz who had suddenly been taken very ill. + +"Oh, dear! Oh, dear!" Mrs. Forrester almost moaned. "This means one of +her terrible headaches and we were to have dined out. I must telephone +excuses at once." + +"I wish I hadn't had to make you think me such a pig," said Betty. + +"I don't think you a pig," said Mrs. Forrester, "but I do think you a +very mistaken and a very unwise woman. And I do beg you, for Gregory and +for Karen's sake, to be careful what you do." + + + + +CHAPTER XXI + + +"I'm afraid you think that I've made a dreadful mess of things, Gregory. +I simply couldn't help myself," said Betty, half an hour later. "If only +she hadn't gone on gazing at Karen in that aggressive way I might have +curbed my tongue, and if only, afterwards, Mrs. Forrester hadn't shown +herself such an infatuated partisan. But I'm afraid she was right in +saying that I was an unwise woman. Certainly I haven't made things +easier for you, unless you want a _situation nette_. It's there to your +hand if you do want it, and in your place I should. It was a challenge +she gave, you know, to you through me. After the other night there was +no mistaking it. I should forbid Karen to go on Saturday." + +Gregory stood before her still wearing his overcoat, for they had driven +up simultaneously to the door below, his hands in his pockets and eyes +of deep cogitation fixed on his sister-in-law. He was inclined to think +that she had made a dreadful mess of things; yet, at the same time, he +was feeling a certain elation in the chaos thus created. + +"You advise me to declare war on Madame von Marwitz?" he inquired. +"Come; the situation is hardly _nette_ enough to warrant that; what?" + +"Ah; you do see it then!" Betty from the sofa where she sat erect, her +hands in her muff, almost joyfully declared. "You do see, then, what she +is after!" + +He didn't intend to let Betty see what he saw, if that were now +possible. "She's after Karen, of course; but why not? It's a jealous and +exacting affection, that is evident; but as long as Karen cares to +satisfy it I'm quite pleased that she should. I can't declare war on +Madame von Marwitz, Betty, even if I wanted to. Because, if she is fond +of Karen, Karen is ten times fonder of her." + +"Expose her to Karen!" Betty magnificently urged. "You can I'm sure. +You're been seeing things more and more clearly, just as I have; you've +been seeing that Madame von Marwitz, as far as her character goes, is a +fraud. Trip her up. Have things out. Gregory, I warn you, she's a +dangerous woman, and Karen is a very simple one." + +"But that's just it, my dear Betty. If Karen is too simple to see, now, +that she's dangerous, how shall I make her look so? It's I who'll look +the jealous idiot Mrs. Forrester thinks me," Gregory half mused to +himself. "And, besides, I really don't know that I should want to trip +her up. I don't know that I should like to have Karen disillusioned. +She's a fraud if you like, and Karen, as I say, is ten times fonder of +her than she is of Karen; but she is fond of Karen; I do believe that. +And she has been a fairy-godmother to her. And they have been through +all sorts of things together. No; their relationship is one that has its +rights. I see it, and I intend to make Madame von Marwitz feel that I +see it. So that my only plan is to go on being suave and acquiescent." + +"Well; you may have to sacrifice me, then. Karen is indignant with me, I +warn you." + +"I'm a resourceful person, Betty. I shan't sacrifice you. And you must +be patient with Karen." + +Betty, who had risen, stood for a moment looking at the Bouddha. +"Patient? I should think so. She is the one I'm sorriest for. Are you +going to keep that ridiculous thing in here permanently, Gregory?" + +"It's symbolic, isn't it?" said Gregory. "It will stay here, I suppose, +as long as Madame von Marwitz and Karen go on caring for each other. +With all my griefs and suspicions I hope that the Bouddha is a fixture." + +He felt, after Betty had gone, that he had burned a good many of his +boats in thus making her, to some extent, his confidant. He had +confessed that he had griefs and suspicions, and that, in itself, was to +involve still further his relation to his wife. But he had kept from +Betty how grave were his grounds for suspicion. The bearing away of +Karen to the ducal week-end wasn't really, in itself, so alarming an +incident; but, as a sequel to Madame von Marwitz's parting declaration +of the other evening, her supremely insolent, "I must see what I can +do," it became sinister and affected him like the sound of a second, +more prolonged, more reverberating clash upon the gong. To submit was to +show himself in Madame von Marwitz's eyes as contemptibly supine; to +protest was to appear in Karen's as meanly petty. + +His reflections were interrupted by the ringing of the telephone and +when he went to it Karen's voice told him that she was spending the +evening with Tante, who was ill, and that she would not be back till +ten. Something chill and authoritative in the tones affected him +unpleasantly. Karen considered that she had a grievance and perhaps +suspected him of being its cause. After all, he thought, hanging up the +receiver with some abruptness, there was such a thing as being too +simple. One had, indeed, to be very patient with her. And one thing he +promised himself whatever came of it; he wasn't going to sacrifice Betty +by one jot or tittle to his duel with Madame von Marwitz. + +It was past ten when Karen returned and his mood of latent hostility +melted when he saw how tired she looked and how unhappy. She, too, had +steeled herself in advance against something that she expected to find +in him and he was thankful to feel that she wouldn't find it. She was to +find him suave and acquiescent; he would consent without a murmur to +Madame von Marwitz's plan for the week-end. + +"Darling, I'm so sorry that she's ill, your guardian," he said, taking +her hat and coat from her as she sank wearily on the sofa. "How is she +now?" + +She looked up at him in the rosy light of the electric lamps and her +face showed no temporizing recognitions or gratitudes. "Gregory," she +said abruptly, "do you mind--does it displease you--if I go with Tante +next Saturday to stay with some friends of hers?" + +"Mind? Why should I?" said Gregory, standing before her with his hands +in his pockets. "I'd rather have you here, of course. I've been feeling +a little deserted lately. But I want you to do anything that gives you +pleasure." + +She studied him. "Betty thought it a wrong thing for me to do. She hurt +Tante's feelings deeply this afternoon. She spoke as if she had some +authority to come between you and me and between me and Tante. I am very +much displeased with her," said Karen, with her strangely mature +decision. + +The moment had come, decisively, not to sacrifice Betty. "Betty sees +things more conventionally and perhaps more wisely," he said, "than you +or I--or Madame von Marwitz, even, perhaps. She feels a sense of +responsibility towards you--and towards me. Anything she said she meant +kindly, I'm sure." + +Karen listened carefully as though mastering herself. "Responsibility +towards me? Why should she? I feel none towards her." + +"But, my dear child, that wouldn't be in your place," he could not +control the ironic note. "You are a younger woman and a much more +inexperienced one. It's merely as if you'd married into a family where +there was an elder sister to look after you." + +Karen's eyes dwelt on him and her face was cold, rocky. "Do you forget, +as she does, that I have still with me a person who, for years, has +looked after me, a person older still and more experienced still than +the little Betty? I don't need any guidance from your sister; for I have +my guardian to tell me, as she always has, what is best for me to do. It +is impertinent of Betty to imagine that she has any right to interfere. +And she was more than impertinent. I had not wished to tell you; but you +must understand that Betty has been insolent." + +"Come, Karen; don't use such unsuitable words. Hasty perhaps; not +insolent. Betty herself has told me all about it." + +A steely penetration came to Karen's eyes. "She has told you? She has +been here?" + +"Yes." + +"She complained of Tante to you?" + +"She thinks her wrong." + +"And you; you think her wrong?" + +Gregory paused and looked at the young girl on the sofa, his wife. There +was that in her attitude, exhausted yet unappealing, in her face, weary +yet implacable, which, while it made her seem pitiful to him, made her +also almost a stranger; this armed hostility towards himself, who loved +her, this quickness of resentment, this cold assurance of right. He +could understand and pity; but he, too, was tired and overwrought. What +had he done to deserve such a look and such a tone from her except +endure, with unexampled patience, the pressure upon his life, soft, +unremitting, sinister, of something hateful to him and menacing to their +happiness? What, above all, was his place in this deep but narrow young +heart? It seemed filled with but one absorbing preoccupation, one +passion of devotion. + +He turned from her and went to the mantelpiece, and shifting the vases +upon it as he spoke, remembering with a bitter upper layer of +consciousness how Madame von Marwitz's blighting gaze had rested upon +these ornaments in her first visit;--"I'm not going to discuss your +guardian with you, Karen," he said; "I haven't said that I thought her +wrong. I've consented that you should do as she wishes. You have no +right to ask anything more of me. I certainly am not going to be forced +by you into saying that I think Betty wrong. If you are not unfair to +Betty you are certainly most unfair to me and it seems to me that it is +your tendency to be fair to one person only. I'm in no danger of +forgetting her control and guidance of your life, I assure you. If you +were to let me forget it, she wouldn't. She is showing me now--after +telling me the other night what she thought of my _monde_--how she +controls you. It's very natural of her, no doubt, and very natural of +you to feel her right; and I submit. So that you have no ground of +grievance against me." He turned to her again. "And now I think you had +better go to bed. You look very tired. I've some work to get through, so +I'll say good-night to you, Karen dear." + +She rose with a curious automatic obedience, and, coming to him, lifted +her forehead, like a child, for his kiss. Her face showed, perhaps, a +bleak wonder, but it showed no softness. She might be bewildered by this +sudden change in their relation, but she was not weakened. She went +away, softly closing the door behind her. + +In their room, Karen stood for a moment before undressing and looked +about her. Something had happened, and though she could not clearly see +what it was it seemed to have altered the aspect of everything, so that +this pretty room, full of light and comfort, was strange to her. She +felt an alien in it; and as she looked round it she thought of how her +little room at Les Solitudes where, with such an untroubled heart, she +had slept and waked for so many years. + +Three large photographs of Tante hung on the walls, and their eyes met +hers as if with an unfaltering love and comprehension. And on the +dressing-table was a photograph of Gregory; the new thing in her life; +the thing that menaced the old. She went and took it up, and Gregory's +face, too, was suddenly strange to her; cold, hard, sardonic. She +wondered, gazing at it, that she had never seen before how cold and hard +it was. Quickly undressing she lay down and closed her eyes. A +succession of images passed with processional steadiness before her +mind; the carriage in the Forest of Fontainebleau and Tante in it +looking at her; Tante in the hotel at Fontainebleau, her arm around the +little waif, saying: "But it is a Norse child; her name and her hair and +her eyes;" Tante's dreadful face as she tottered back to Karen's arms +from the sight at the lake-edge; Tante that evening lying white and +sombre on her pillows with eyelids pressed down as if on tears, saying: +"Do they wish to take my child, too, from me?" + +Then came the other face, the new face; like a sword; thrusting among +the sacred visions. Consciously she saw her husband's face now, as she +had often, with a half wilful unconsciousness, seen it, looking at +Tante--ah, a fierce resentment flamed up in her at last with the +unavoidable clearness of her vision--looking at Tante with a courteous +blankness that cloaked hostility; with cold curiosity; with mastered +irony, suspicion, dislike. He was, then, a man not generous, not large +and wise of heart, a man without the loving humour that would have +enabled him to see past the defects and flaws of greatness, nor with the +heart and mind to recognize and love it when he saw it. He was petty, +too, and narrow, and arrogantly sure of his own small measures. Her +memories heaped themselves into the overwhelming realisation. She was +married to a man who was hostile to what--until he had come--had been +the dearest thing in her life. She had taken to her heart something that +killed its very pulse. How could she love a man who looked such things +at Tante--who thought such things of Tante? How love him without +disloyalty to the older tie? Already her forbearance, her hiding from +him of her fear, had been disloyalty, a cowardly acquiescence in +something that, from the first hint of it, she should openly have +rebelled against. Slow flames of shame and anger burned her. How could +she not hate him? But how could she not love him? He was part of her +life, as unquestionably, as indissolubly, as Tante. + +Then, the visions crumbling, the flames falling, a chaos of mere feeling +overwhelmed her. It was as though her blood were running backward, +knotting itself in clots of darkness and agony. He had sent her away +unlovingly--punishing her for her fidelity. Her love for Tante destroyed +his love for her. He must have known her pain; yet he could speak like +that to her; look like that. The tears rose to her eyes and rolled down +her cheeks as she lay straightly in the bed, on her back, the clothes +drawn to her throat, her hands clasped tightly on her breast. Hours had +passed and here she lay alone. + +Hours had passed and she heard at last his careful step along the +passage, and the shock of it tingled through her with a renewal of fear +and irrepressible joy. He opened, carefully, the dressing-room door. She +listened, stilling her breaths. + +He would come to her. They would speak together. He would not leave her +when she was so unhappy. Even the thought of Tante's wrongs was effaced +by the fear and yearning, and, as the bedroom door opened and Gregory +came in, her heart seemed to lift and dissolve in a throb of relief and +blissfulness. + +But, with her joy, the thought of Tante hovered like a heavy darkness +above her eyes, keeping them closed. She lay still, ashamed of so much +gladness, yet knowing that if he took her in his arms her arms could but +close about him. + +The stillness deceived Gregory. In the dim light from the dressing-room +he saw her, as he thought, sleeping placidly, her broad braids lying +along the sheet. + +He looked at her for a moment. Then, not stooping to her, he turned +away. + + + + +CHAPTER XXII + + +If only, Gregory often felt, in thinking it over and over in the days of +outer unity and inner estrangement that followed, she had not been able +to go to sleep so placidly. + +All resentment had faded from his heart when he went in to her. He had +longed for reconciliation and for reassurance. But as he had looked at +the seeming calm of Karen's face his tenderness and compunction passed +into a bitter consciousness of frustrated love. Her calm was like a +repulse. Their personal estrangement and misunderstanding left her +unmoved. She had said what she had to say to him; she had vindicated her +guardian; and now she slept, unmindful of him. He asked himself, and for +the first time clearly and steadily, as he lay awake for hours +afterwards in the little dressing-room bed, whether Karen's feelings for +him passed beyond a faithful, sober affection that took him for granted, +unhesitatingly and uncritically, as a new asset in a life dedicated +elsewhere. Romance for her was personified in Tante, and her husband was +a creature of mere kindly domesticity. It was to think too bitterly of +Karen's love for him to see it thus, he knew, even while the torment +grasped him; but the pressure of his own love for her, the loveliness, +the romance that she so supremely personified for him, surged too +strongly against the barrier of her mute, unanswering face, for him to +feel temperately and weigh fairly. There was a lack in her, and because +of it she hurt him thus cruelly. + +They met next morning over a mutual misinterpretation, and, with a sense +of mingled discord and relief, found themselves kissing and smiling as +if nothing had happened. Pride sustained them; the hope that, since the +other seemed so unconscious, a hurt dealt so unconsciously need not, for +pride's sake, be resented; the fear that explanation or protest might +emphasise estrangement. The easiest thing to do was to go on acting as +if nothing had happened. Karen poured out his coffee and questioned him +about the latest political news. He helped her to eggs and bacon and +took an interest in her letters. + +And since it was easiest to begin so, it was easiest so to go on. The +routine of their shared life blurred for them the sharp realisations of +the night. But while the fact that such suffering had come to them was +one that could, perhaps, be lived down, the fact that they did not speak +of it spread through all their life with a strange, new savour. + +Karen went to her ducal week-end; but she did not, when she came back +from it, regale her husband with her usual wealth of detailed +description. She could no longer assume the air of happy confidence +where Tante and her doings with Tante were concerned. That air of +determined cheerfulness, that pretence that nothing was really the +matter and that Tante and Gregory were bound to get on together if she +took it for granted that they would, had broken down. There was relief +for Gregory, though relief of a chill, grey order, in seeing that Karen +had accepted the fact that he and Tante were not to get on. Yet he +smarted from the new sense of being shut out from her life. + +It was he who assumed the air; he who pretended that nothing was the +matter. He questioned her genially about the visit, and Karen answered +all his questions as genially. Yes; it had been very nice; the great +house sometimes very beautiful and sometimes very ugly; the beauty +seemed, in a funny way, almost as accidental as the ugliness. The people +had been very interesting to look at; so many slender pretty women; +there were no fat women and no ugly women at all, or, if they were, they +contrived not to look it. It all seemed perfectly arranged. + +Had she talked to many of them? Gregory asked. Had she come across +anybody she liked? Karen shook her head. She had liked them all--to look +at--but it had gone no further than that; she had talked very little +with any of them; and, soberly, unemphatically, she had added: "They +were all too much occupied with Tante--or with each other--to think much +of me. I was the only one not slender and not beautiful!" + +Gregory asked who had taken her in to dinner on the two nights, and +masked ironic inner comments when he heard that on Saturday it had been +a young actor who, she thought, had been a little cross at having her as +his portion. "He didn't try to talk to me; nor I to him, when I found +that he was cross," she said. "I didn't like him at all. He had fat +cheeks and very shrewd black eyes." On Sunday it had been a young son of +the house, a boy at Eton. "Very, very dear and nice. We had a great talk +about climbing Swiss mountains, which I have done a good deal, you +know." + +Tante, it appeared, had had the ambassador on Saturday and the Duke +himself on Sunday. And she and Tante, as usual, had had great fun in +their own rooms every night, talking everybody over when the day was +done. Karen said nothing to emphasise the contrast between the duke's +friends and Gregory's, but she couldn't have failed to draw her +comparison. Here was a _monde_ where Tante was fully appreciated. That +she herself had not been was not a matter to engage her thoughts. But it +engaged Gregory's. The position in which she had been placed was a +further proof to him of Tante's lack of consideration. Where Karen was +placed depended, precisely, he felt sure of it, on where Madame von +Marwitz wished her to be placed. It was as the little camp-follower that +she had taken her. + +After this event came a pause in the fortunes of our young couple. +Madame von Marwitz, with Mrs. Forrester, went to Paris to give her two +concerts there and was gone for a fortnight. In this fortnight he and +Karen resumed, though warily, as it were, some old customs. They read +their political economy again in the evenings when they did not go out, +and he found her at tea-time waiting for him as she had used to do. She +shared his life; she was gentle and thoughtful; yet she had never been +less near. He felt that she guarded herself against admissions. To come +near now would be to grant that it had been Tante's presence that had +parted them. + +She wrote to Madame von Marwitz, and heard from her, constantly. Madame +von Marwitz sent her presents from Paris; a wonderful white silk +dressing-gown; a box of chocolate; a charming bit of old enamel picked +up in a _rive gauche_ curiosity shop. Then one day she wrote to say that +Tallie had been quite ill--_povera vecchia_--and would Karen be a kind, +kind child and run down and see her at Les Solitudes. + +Gregory had not forgotten the plan for having Mrs. Talcott with them +that winter and had reminded Karen of it, but it appeared then that she +had not forgotten, either; had indeed, spoken to Tante of it; but that +Tante had not seemed to think it a good plan. Tante said that Mrs. +Talcott did not like leaving Les Solitudes; and, moreover, that she +herself, might be going down there for the inside of a week at any +moment and Karen knew how Tallie would hate the idea of not being on the +spot to prepare for her. Let them postpone the idea of a visit; at all +events until she was no longer in England. + +Gregory now suggested that Karen might bring Mrs. Talcott back with her. +There was some guile in the suggestion. Encircling this little oasis of +peace where he and Karen could, at all events, draw their breaths, were +storms and arid wastes. Madame von Marwitz would soon be back. She might +even be thinking of redeeming her promise of coming to stay with them. +If old Mrs. Talcott, slightly invalided, could be installed before the +great woman's return, she might keep her out for the rest of her stay in +London, and must, certainly, keep Karen in to a greater extent than when +she had no guest to entertain. + +Karen could not suspect his motive; he saw that from her frank look of +pleasure. She promised to do her best. It was worth while, he reflected, +to lose her for a few days if she were to bring back such a bulwark as +Mrs. Talcott might prove herself to be. And, besides, he would be +sincerely glad to see the old woman. The thought of her gave him a sense +of comfort and security. + +He saw Karen off next morning. She was to be at Les Solitudes for three +or four days, and on the second day of her stay he had his first letter +from her. It was strange to hear from her again, from Cornwall. It was +the first letter he had had from Karen since their marriage and, with +all its odd recalling of the girlish formality of tone, it was a sweet +one. She had found Mrs. Talcott much better, but still quite weak and +jaded, and very glad indeed to see her. And Mrs. Talcott really seemed +to think that she would like to get away. Karen believed that Mrs. +Talcott had actually been feeling lonely, uncharacteristic as that +seemed. She would probably bring her back on Saturday. The letter ended: +"My dear husband, your loving Karen." + +Mrs. Talcott, therefore, was expected, and Mrs. Barker was told to make +ready for her. + +But on Saturday morning, when Karen was starting, he had a wire from her +telling him that plans were altered and that she was coming back alone. + +He went to meet her at Paddington, remembering the meeting when she had +come up after their engagement. It was a different Karen, a Karen furred +and finished and nearly elegant, who stepped from the train; but she +had, as then, her little basket with the knitting and the book; and the +girlish face was scarcely altered; there was even a preoccupation on it +that recalled still more vividly the former meeting at Paddington. +"Well, dearest, and why isn't Mrs. Talcott here, too?" were his first +words. + +Karen took his arm as he steered her towards the luggage. "It is only +put off, I hope, that visit," she said, "because I heard this morning, +Gregory, and wired to you then, that Tante asks if she may come to us +next week." Her voice was not artificial; it expressed determination as +well as gentleness and seemed to warn him that he must not show her if +he were not pleased. Yet duplicity, in his unpleasant surprise, was +difficult to assume. + +"Really. At last. How nice," he said; and his voice rang oddly. "But +poor old Mrs. Talcott. Madame von Marwitz didn't know, I suppose," he +went on, "that we'd just been planning to have her?" + +Karen, her arm still in his, stood looking over the heaped up luggage +and now pointed out her box to the porter. Then, as they turned away and +went towards their cab, she said, more gently and more determinedly: +"Yes; she did know we had planned it. I wrote and told her so, and that +is why she wrote back so quickly to ask if we could not put off Mrs. +Talcott for her; because she will be leaving London very soon and it +will be, this next week, her only chance of being with us. Mrs. Talcott +did not mind at all. I don't think she really wanted to come so much, +Gregory. It is as Tante says, you know," Karen settled herself in a +corner of the hansom, "she really does not like leaving Les Solitudes." + +Gregory had the feeling of being enmeshed. Why had Madame von Marwitz +thrown this web? Had she really divined in a flash his hope and his +intention? Was there any truth in her sudden statement that this was the +only week she could give them? "Oh! Really," was all that he found to +say to Karen's explanations, and then, "Where is Madame von Marwitz +going when she leaves us then?" + +"To the Riviera, with the Duchess of Bannister, I think it is arranged. +I may wire to her, then, Gregory, at once, and say that she is to come?" + +"Of course. How long are we to have the pleasure of entertaining her?" + +"She did not say; for a week at least, I hope. Perhaps, even, for a +fortnight if that will be convenient for you. It will be a great joy to +me," Karen went on, "if only"--she was speaking with that determined +steadiness, looking before her as they drove; now, suddenly, she turned +her eyes on him "if only you will try to enjoy it, too, Gregory." + +It was, in a sense, a challenge, yet it was, too, almost an appeal, and +it brought them nearer than they had been for weeks. + +Gregory's hand caught hers and, holding it tightly, smiling at her +rather tremulously, he said: "I enjoy anything, darling, that makes you +happy." + +"Ah, but," said Karen, her voice keeping its earnest control, "I cannot +be happy with you and Tante unless you can enjoy her for yourself. Try +to know Tante, Gregory," she went on, now with a little breathlessness; +"she wants that so much. One of the first things she asked me when she +came back was that I should try to make you care for her. She felt at +once--and oh! so did I, Gregory--that something was not happy between +you." + +Her hand holding his tightly, her earnest eyes on his, Gregory felt his +blood turn a little cold as he recognized once more the soft, +unremitting pressure. It had begun, then, so early. She had asked Karen +that when she first came back. "But you see, dearest," he said, trying +to keep his head between realizations of Madame von Marwitz's craft and +Karen's candour, "I've never been able to feel that Madame von Marwitz +wanted me to care for her or to come in at all, as it were. I don't mean +anything unkind; only that I imagined that what she did ask of me was to +keep outside and leave your relation and hers alone. And that's what +I've tried to do." + +"Oh, you mistake Tante, Gregory, you mistake her." Karen's hand grasped +his more tightly in the urgency of her opportunity. "She cared for me +too much--yes, it is there that you do not understand--to feel what you +think. For she knows that I cannot be happy while you shut yourself away +from her." + +"Then it's not she who shuts me out?" he tried to smile. + +"No; no; oh, no, Gregory." + +"I must push in, even when I seem to feel I'm not wanted?" + +She would not yield to his attempted lightness. "You mustn't push in; +you must be in; with us, with Tante and me." + +"Do you mean literally? I'm to be a third at your _tête-à-têtes_?" + +"No, Gregory, I do not mean that; but in thought, in sympathy. You will +try to know Tante. You will make her feel that you and I are not parted +when she is there." + +She saw it all, all Tante's side, with a dreadful clearness. And it was +impossible that she should see what he did. He must submit to seeming +blurred and dull, to pretending not to see anything. At all events her +hand was in his. He felt able to face the duel at close quarters with +Madame von Marwitz as long as Karen let him keep her hand. + + + + +CHAPTER XXIII + + +Tante arrived on Monday afternoon and the arrival reminded Gregory of +the Bouddha's installation; but, whereas the Bouddha had overflowed the +drawing-room only, Madame von Marwitz overflowed the flat. + +A multitude of boxes were borne into the passages where, end to end, +like a good's train on a main line, they stood impeding traffic. + +Louise, harassed and sallow, hurried from room to room, expostulating, +explaining, replying in shrill tones to Madame von Marwitz's sonorous +orders. Victor, led by Mrs. Forrester's footman, made his appearance +shortly after his mistress, and, set at large, penetrated unerringly to +the kitchen where he lapped up a dish of custard; while Mrs. Barker, in +the drawing-room, already with signs of resentment on her face, was +receiving minute directions from Madame von Marwitz in regard to a cup +of chocolate. In the dining-room, Gregory found two strange-looking men, +to whom Barker, also clouded, had served whisky and soda; one of these +was Madame von Marwitz's secretary, Schultz; the other a concert +impresario. They greeted Gregory with a disconcerting affability. + +In the midst of the confusion Madame von Marwitz moved, weary and +benignant, her arm around Karen's shoulders, or seated herself at the +piano to run her fingers appraisingly over it in a majestic surge of +arpeggios. Gregory found her hat and veil tossed on the bed in his and +Karen's room, and when he went into his dressing-room he stumbled over +three band-boxes, just arrived from a modiste's, and hastily thrust +there by Louise. + +Victor bounded to greet him as he sought refuge in the library, and +overturned a table that stood in the hall with two fine pieces of +oriental china upon it. The splintering crash of crockery filled the +flat. Mrs. Barker had taken the chocolate to the drawing-room some time +since, and Madame von Marwitz, the cup in her hand, appeared upon the +threshold with Karen. "Alas! The bad dog!" she said, surveying the +wreckage while she sipped her chocolate. + +Rose was summoned to sweep up the pieces and Karen stooped over them +with murmured regret. + +"Were they wedding-presents, my Karen?" Madame von Marwitz asked. +"Console yourself; they were not of a good period--I noticed them. I +will give you better." + +The vases had belonged to Gregory's mother. He was aware that he stood +rather blankly looking at the fragments, as Rose collected them. "Oh, +Gregory, I am so sorry," said Karen, taking upon herself the +responsibility for Victor's mischance. "I am afraid they are broken to +bits. See, this is the largest piece of all. They can't be mended. No, +Tante, they were not wedding-presents; they belonged to Gregory and we +were very fond of them." + +"Alas!" said Madame von Marwitz above her chocolate, and on a deeper +note. + +Gregory was convinced that she had known they were not wedding-presents. +But her manner was flawless and he saw that she intended to keep it so. +She dined with them alone and at the table addressed her talk to him, +fixing, as ill-luck would have it, on the theatre as her theme, and on +_La Gaine d'Or_ as the piece which, in Paris, had particularly +interested her. "You and Karen, of course, saw it when you were there," +she said. + +It was the piece of sinister fame to which he had refused to take Karen. +He owned that they had not seen it. + +"Ah, but that is a pity, truly a pity," said Madame von Marwitz. "How +did it happen? You cannot have failed to hear of it." + +Unable to plead Karen as the cause for his abstention since Madame von +Marwitz regretted that Karen had missed the piece, Gregory said that he +had heard too much perhaps. "I don't believe I should care for anything +the man wrote," he confessed. + +"_Tiens!_" said Madame von Marwitz, opening her eyes. "You know him?" + +"Heaven forbid!" Gregory ejaculated, smiling with some tartness. + +"But why this rigour? What have you against M. Saumier?" + +It was difficult for a young Englishman of conventional tastes to +formulate what he had against M. Saumier. Gregory took refuge in +evasions. "Oh, I've glanced at reviews of his plays; seen his face in +illustrated papers. One gets an idea of a man's personality and the kind +of thing he's likely to write." + +"A great artist," Madame von Marwitz mildly suggested. "One of our +greatest." + +"Is he really? I'd hardly grasped that. I had an idea that he was merely +one of the clever lot. But I never can see why one should put oneself, +through a man's art, into contact with the sort of person one would +avoid having anything to do with in life." + +Madame von Marwitz listened attentively. "Do you refuse to look at a +Cellini bronze?" + +"Literature is different, isn't it? It's more personal. There's more +life in it. If a man's a low fellow I don't interest myself in his +interpretation of life. He's seen nothing that I'm likely to want to +see." + +Madame von Marwitz smiled, now with a touch of irony. "But you frighten +me. How am I to tell you that I know M. Saumier?" + +Gregory was decidedly taken back. "That's a penalty you have to pay for +being a celebrity, no doubt," he said. "All celebrities know each other, +I suppose." + +"By no means. I allow no one to be thrust upon me, I assure you. And I +have the greatest admiration for M. Saumier's talent. A great artist +cannot be a low fellow; if he were one he would be so much more than +that that the social defect would be negligible. Few great artists, I +imagine, have been of such a character as would win the approval of a +garden party at Lambeth Palace. I am sorry, indeed sorry, that you and +Karen missed _La Gaine d'Or_. It is not a play for the _jeune fille_; +no; though, holding as I do that nothing so fortifies and arms the taste +as liberty, I should have allowed Karen to see it even before her +marriage. It is a play cruel and acrid and beautiful. Yes; there is +great beauty, and it flowers, as so often, on a bitter root. Ah, well, +you will waive your scruples now, I trust. I will take Karen with me to +see it when we are next in Paris together, and that must be soon. We +will go for a night or two. You would like to see Paris with me again; +_pas vrai, chérie?_" + +Gregory had been uncomfortably aware of Karen's contemplation while he +defended his prejudices, and he was prepared for an open espousal of her +guardian's point of view; it was, he knew, her own. But he received once +more, as he had received already on several occasions, an unexpected and +gratifying proof of Karen's recognition of marital responsibility. "I +should like to be in Paris with you again, Tante," she said, "but not to +go to that play. I agreed not to go to it when Gregory and I were there. +I should not care to go when he so much dislikes it." Her eyes met her +guardian's while she spoke. They were gentle and non-committal; they +gave Gregory no cause for triumph, nor Tante for humiliation; they +expressed merely her own recognition of a bond. + +Madame von Marwitz rose to the occasion, but--oh, it was there, the soft +pressure, never more present to Gregory's consciousness than when it +seemed most absent--she rose too emphatically, as if to a need. Her eyes +mused on the girl's face, tenderly brooded and understood. And Karen's +voice and look had asked her not to understand. + +"Ah, that is right; that is a wife," she murmured. "Though, believe me, +_chérie_, I did not know that I was so transgressing." And turning her +glance on Gregory, "_Je vous fais mes compliments_," she added. + +Karen said that he must bring his cigar into the drawing-room, for Tante +would smoke her cigarette with him, and there, until bedtime, things +went as well as they had at dinner--or as badly; for part of their +badness, Gregory more and more resentfully became aware, was that they +were made to seem to go well, from her side, not from his. + +She had a genius, veritably uncanny for, with all sweetness and +hesitancy, revealing him as stiff and unresponsively complacent. It was +impossible for him to talk freely with a person uncongenial to him of +the things he felt deeply; and, pertinaciously, over her coffee and +cigarettes, it was the deep things that she softly wooed him to share +with her. + +He might be stiff and stupid, but he flattered himself that he wasn't +once short or sharp--as he would have been over and over again with any +other woman who so bothered him. And he was sincerely unaware that his +courtesy, in its dry evasiveness, was more repudiating than rudeness. + +When Karen went with her guardian to her room that night, the little +room that looked so choked and overcrowded with the great woman's +multiplied necessities, Madame von Marwitz, sinking on the sofa, drew +her to her and looked closely at her, with an intentness almost tragic, +tenderly smoothing back her hair. + +Karen looked back at her very firmly. + +"Tell me, my child," Madame von Marwitz said, as if, suddenly, taking +refuge in the inessential from the pressure of her own thoughts, "how +did you find our Tallie? I have not heard of that from you yet." + +"She is looking rather pale and thin, Tante; but she is quite well +again; already she will go out into the garden," Karen answered, with, +perhaps, an evident relief. + +"That is well," said Madame von Marwitz with quiet satisfaction. "That +is well. I cannot think of Tallie as ill. She is never ill. It is +perhaps the peaceful, happy life she leads--_povera_--that preserves +her. And the air, the wonderful air of our Cornwall. I fixed on Cornwall +for the sake of Tallie, in great part; I sought for a truly halcyon spot +where that faithful one might end her days in joy. You knew that, +Karen?" + +"No, Tante; you never told me that." + +"It is so," Madame von Marwitz continued to muse, her eyes on the fire, +"It is so. I have given great thought to my Tallie's happiness. She has +earned it." And after a moment, in the same quiet tone, she went on. +"This idea of yours, my Karen, of bringing Tallie up to town; was it +wise, do you think?" + +Karen, also, had been looking at the flames. She brought her eyes now +back to her guardian. "Wasn't it wise, Tante? We had asked her to come +and stay--long ago, you know." + +"Had she seemed eager?" + +"Eager? No; I can't imagine Mrs. Talcott eager about anything. We hoped +we could persuade her, that was all. Why not wise, Tante?" + +"Only, my child, that after the quiet life there, the solitude that she +loves and that I chose for her sake, the pure sea air and the life among +her flowers, London, I fear, would much weary and fatigue her. Tallie is +getting old. We must not forget that Tallie is very old. This illness +warns us. It does not seem to me a good plan. It was your plan, Karen?" + +Karen was listening, with a little bewilderment. "It seemed, to me very +good. I had not thought of Mrs. Talcott as so old as that. I always +think of her as old, but so strong and tough. It was Gregory who +suggested it, in the first place, and this time, too. When I told him +that I was going he thought of our plan at once and told me that now I +must persuade her to come to us for a good long visit. He is really very +fond of Mrs. Talcott, Tante, and she of him, I think. It would please +you to see them together." + +Karen spoke on innocently; but, as she spoke, she became aware from a +new steadiness in her guardian's look, that her words had conveyed some +significance of which she was herself unconscious. + +Madame von Marwitz's hand had tightened on hers. "Ah," she said after a +moment. She looked away. + +"What is it, Tante?" Karen asked. + +Madame von Marwitz had begun to draw deep, slow breaths. Karen knew the +sound; it meant a painful control. "Tante, what is it?" she repeated. + +"Nothing. Nothing, my child." Madame von Marwitz laid her arm around +Karen's shoulders and continued to look away from her. + +"But it isn't nothing," said Karen, after a little pause. "Something +that I have said troubles or hurts you." + +"Is it so? Perhaps you say the truth, my child. Hurts are not new to me. +No, my Karen, no. It is nothing for us to speak of. I understand. But +your husband, Karen, he must have found it thoughtless in me, +indelicate, to force myself in when he had hoped so strongly for another +guest." + +A slow flush mounted to Karen's cheek. She kept silence for a moment, +then in a careful voice she said: "No, Tante; I do not believe that." + +"No?" said Madame von Marwitz. "No, my Karen?" + +"He knew, on the contrary, that I hoped to have you soon--at any time +that you could come," said Karen, in slightly trembling tones. + +Madame von Marwitz nodded. "He knew that, as you tell me; and, knowing +it, he asked Tallie; hoping that with her installed--for a long +visit--my stay might be prevented. Do not let us hide from each other, +my Karen. We have hidden too long and it is the beginning of the end if +we may not say to each other what we see." + +Sitting with downcast eyes, Karen was silent, struggling perhaps with +new realisations. + +Madame von Marwitz bent to kiss her forehead and then, resuming the +tender stroking of her hair, she went on: "Your husband dislikes me. Let +us look the ugly thing full in the face. You know it, and I know it, +and--_parbleu!_--he knows it well. There; the truth is out. Ah, the +brave little heart; it sought to hide its sorrow from me. But Tante is +not so dull a person. The loneliness of heart must cease for you. And +the sorrow, too, may pass away. Be patient, Karen. You will see. He may +come to feel more kindly towards the woman who so loves his wife. +Strange, is it not, and a chastisement for my egotism, if I have still +any of that frothy element lingering in my nature, that I should find, +suddenly, at the end of my life--so near me, bound to me by such +ties--one who is unwilling to trust me, oh, for the least little bit; so +unwilling to accept me at merely my face value. Most people," she added, +"have loved me easily." + +Karen sat on in silence. Her guardian knew this apathetic silence, and +that it was symptomatic in her of deep emotion. And, the contagion of +the suffering beside her gaining upon her, her own fictitious calm +wavered. She bent again to look into the girl's averted face. "Karen, +_chérie_," she said, and now with a quicker utterance; "it is not worse +than I yet realise? You do not hide something that I have not yet seen. +It is dislike; I accept it. It is aversion, even. But his love for you; +that is strong, sincere? He will not make it too difficult for me? I am +not wrong in coming here to be with my child?" + +Karen at length turned her eyes on her guardian with a heavy look. "What +would you find too difficult?" she asked. + +Madame von Marwitz hesitated slightly, taken aback. But she grasped in +an instant her advantage. "That by being here I should feel that I came +between you and your husband. That by being here I made it more +difficult for you." + +"I should not be happier if you were away--if what you think is true, +should I?" said Karen. + +"Yes, my child," Madame von Marwitz returned, and now almost with +severity. "You would. You would not so sharply feel your husband's +aversion for me if I were not here. You would not have it in your ears; +before your eyes." + +"I thought that you talked together quite easily to-night," Karen +continued. "I saw, of course, that you did not understand each other; +but with time that might be. I thought that if you were here he would by +degrees come to know you, for he does not know you yet." + +"We talked easily, did we not, my child, to shield you, and you were not +more deceived by the ease than he or I. He does not understand me? I +hope so indeed. But to say that I do not understand him shows already +your wish to shield him, and at my expense. I do understand him; too +well. And if there is this repugnance in him now, may it not grow with +the enforced intimacy? That is my fear, my dread." + +"He has never said that he disliked you." + +"Said it? To you? I should imagine not, _parbleu_!" + +"He has only said," Karen pursued with a curious doggedness, "that he +did not feel that you cared for him to care." + +"Ah! Is it so? You have talked of it, then? And he has said that? And +did you believe it? Of me?" + +But the growing passion and urgency of her voice seemed to shut Karen +more closely in upon herself rather than sweep her into impulsive +confidence. There was a hot exasperation in Madame von Marwitz's eye as +it studied the averted, stubborn head. "No," was the reply she received. + +"No, no, indeed. It was not the truth that he said to you and you know +that it was not the truth. Oh, I make no accusation against your +husband; he believed it the truth; but you cannot believe that I would +rest satisfied with what must make you unhappy. And how can you be happy +if your husband does not care for me? How can you be happy if he feels +repugnance for me? You cannot be. Is it not so? Or am I wrong?" + +"No," Karen again repeated. + +"Then," said Madame von Marwitz, and a sob now lifted her voice, "then +do not let him put it upon me. Not that! Oh promise me, my Karen! For +that would be the end." + +Karen turned to her suddenly, and passed her arms around her. +"Tante--Tante," she said; "what are you saying? The end? There could not +be an end for us! Do not speak so. Do not. Do not." She was trembling. + +"Ah--could there not! Could there not!" With the words Madame von +Marwitz broke into violent sobs. "Has it not been my doom, +always--always to have what I love taken from me! You love this man who +hates me! You defend him! He will part you from me! I foresee it! From +the first it has been my dread!" + +"No one can ever part us, Tante. No one. Ever." Karen whispered, holding +her tightly, and her face, bending above the sobbing woman, was suddenly +old and stricken in its tormented and almost maternal love. "Tante; +remember your own words. You gave me courage. Will you not be patient? +For my sake? Be patient, Tante. Be patient. He does not know you yet." + + + + +CHAPTER XXIV + + +Gregory heard no word of the revealing talk; yet, when he and Karen were +alone, he was aware of a new chill, or a new discretion, in the +atmosphere. It was as if a veil of ice, invisible yet impassable, hung +between them, and he could only infer that she had something to hide, he +could only suspect, with a bitterer resentment, that Madame von Marwitz +had been more directly exerting her pressure. + +The pressure, whatever it had been, had the effect of making Karen, when +they were all three confronted, more calm, more mildly cheerful than +before, more than ever the fond wife who did not even suspect that a +flaw might be imagined in her happiness. + +Gregory had an idea--his only comfort in this sorry maze where he found +himself so involved--that this attitude of Karen's, combined with his +own undeviating consideration, had a disconcerting effect upon Madame +von Marwitz and at moments induced her to show her weapon too openly in +their wary duel. If he ever betrayed his dislike Karen must see that it +was Tante who wouldn't allow him to conceal it, who, sorrowfully and +gently, turned herself about in the light she elicited and displayed +herself to Karen as rejected and uncomplaining. He hoped that Karen saw +it. But he could be sure of nothing that Karen saw. The flawless loyalty +of her outward bearing might be but the shield for a deepening hurt. All +that he could do was what, in former days and in different conditions, +Mrs. Talcott had advised him to do; "hang on," and parry Madame von +Marwitz's thrusts. She had come, he more and more felt sure of it, urged +by her itching jealousy, for the purpose of making mischief; and if it +was not a motive of which she was conscious, that made her but the more +dangerous with her deep, instinctive craft. + +Meanwhile if there were fundamental anxieties to fret one's heart, there +were superficial irritations that abraded one's nerves. + +Karen was accustomed to the turmoil that surrounded the guarded shrine +where genius slept or worked, too much accustomed, without doubt, to +realise its effect upon her husband. + +The electric bells were never silent. Seated figures, bearing band-boxes +or rolls of music, filled the hall at all hours of the day and night. +Alert interviewers button-holed him on his way in and out and asked for +a few details about Mrs. Jardine's youth, and her relationship to Madame +Okraska. + +Madame von Marwitz rose capriciously and ate capriciously; trays with +strange meals upon them were carried at strange hours to her rooms, and +Barker, Mrs. Barker and Rose all quarrelled with Louise. + +Madame von Marwitz also showed oddities of temper which, with all her +determination to appear at her best, it did not occur to her to control, +oddities that met, from Karen, with a fond tolerance. + +It startled Gregory when they saw Madame von Marwitz, emerging from her +room, administer two smart boxes upon Louise's ears, remarking as she +did so, with gravity rather than anger: "_Voilà pour toi, ma fille._" + +"Is Madame von Marwitz in the habit of slapping her servants?" he asked +Karen in their room, aware that his frigid mien required justification. + +She looked at him through the veil of ice. "Tante's servants adore her." + +"Well, it seems a pity to take such an advantage of their adoration." + +"Louise is sometimes very clumsy and impertinent." + +"I can't help thinking that that sort of treatment makes servants +impertinent." + +"I do not care to hear your criticism of my guardian, Gregory." + +"I beg your pardon," said Gregory. + +Betty Jardine met him on a windy April evening in Queen Anne's Gate. "I +see that you had to sacrifice me, Gregory," she said. She smiled; she +bore no grudge; but her smile was tinged with a shrewd pity. + +He felt that he flushed. "You mean that you've not been to see us since +the occasion." + +"I've not been asked!" Betty laughed. + +"Madame von Marwitz is with us, you know," Gregory proffered rather +lamely. + +"Yes; I do know. How do you like having a genius domiciled? I hear that +she is introducing Karen into a very artistic set. After the Bannisters, +Mr. Claude Drew. He is back from America at last, it seems, and is an +assiduous adorer. You have seen a good deal of him?" + +"I haven't seen him at all. Has he been back for long?" + +"Four or five days only, I believe; but I don't know how often he and +Madame von Marwitz and Karen have been seen together. Don't think me a +cat, Gregory; but if she is engaged in a flirtation with that most +unpleasant young man I hope you will see to it that Karen isn't used as +a screen. There have been some really horrid stories about him, you +know." + +Gregory parted from his sister-in-law, perturbed. Indiscreet and naughty +she might be, but Betty was not a cat. The veil of ice was so +impenetrable that no sound of Karen's daily life came to him through it. +He had not an idea of what she did with herself when he wasn't there, +or, rather, of what Madame von Marwitz did with her. + +"You've been seeing something of Mr. Claude Drew, I hear," he said to +Karen that evening. "Do you like him better than you used to do?" They +were in the drawing-room before dinner and dinner had been, as usual, +waiting for half an hour for Madame von Marwitz. + +Gregory's voice betrayed more than a kindly interest, and Karen answered +coldly, if without suspicion; "No; I do not like him better. But Tante +likes him. It is not I who see him, it is Tante. I am only with them +sometimes." + +"And I? Am I to be with them sometimes?" Gregory inquired with an air of +gaiety. + +"If you will come back to tea to-morrow, Gregory," she answered gravely, +"you will meet him. He comes to tea then." + +For the last few days Gregory had fallen into the habit of only getting +back in time for dinner. "You know it's only because I usually find that +you've gone out with your guardian that I haven't come back in time for +tea," he observed. + +"I know," Karen returned, without aggressiveness. "And so, to-morrow, +you will find us if you come." + +He got back at tea-time next day, expecting to make a fourth only of the +small group; but, on his way to the drawing-room, he paused, arrested, +in the hall, where a collection of the oddest looking hats and coats he +had ever seen were piled and hung. + +One of the hats was a large, discoloured, cream-coloured felt, much +battered, with its brown band awry; one was of the type of flat-brimmed +silk, known in Paris as the _Latin Quartier_; another was an enormous +sombrero. Gregory stood frowning at these strange signs somewhat as if +they had been a drove of cockroaches. He had, as never yet before, the +sense of an alien and offensive invasion of his home, and an old, almost +forgotten disquiet smote upon him in the thought that what to him was +strange was to Karen normal. This was her life and she had never really +entered his. + +In the drawing-room, he paused again at the door, and looked over the +company assembled under the Bouddha's smile. Madame von Marwitz was its +centre; pearl-wreathed, silken and silver, she leaned opulently on the +cushions of the sofa where she sat, and Karen at the tea-table seemed +curiously to have relapsed into the background place where he had first +found her. She was watching, with her old contented placidity, a scene +in which she had little part. No, mercifully, though in it she was not +of it. This was Gregory's relieving thought as his eye ran over them, +the women with powdered faces and extravagant clothes and the men with +the oddest collars and boots and hair. "Shoddy Bohemians," was his terse +definition of them; an inaccurate definition; for though, in the main, +Bohemians, they were not, in the main, shoddy. + +Belot was there, with his massive head and sagacious eyes; and a famous +actress, ugly, thin, with a long, slightly crooked face, tinted hair, +and the melancholy, mysterious eyes of a llama. Claude Drew, at a little +table behind Madame von Marwitz, negligently turned the leaves of a +book. Lady Rose Harding, the only one of the company with whom Gregory +felt an affinity, though a dubious one, talked to the French actress and +to Madame von Marwitz. Lady Rose had ridden across deserts on camels, +and sketched strange Asiatic mountains, and paid a pilgrimage to +Tolstoi, and written books on all these exploits; and she had been to +the Adirondacks that summer with the Aspreys and Madame von Marwitz, and +was now writing a book on that. In a corner a vast, though youthful, +German Jew, with finely crisped red-gold hair, large lips and small, +kind eyes blinking near-sightedly behind gold-rimmed spectacles, sat +with another young man, his hands on his widely parted knees, in an +attitude suggesting a capacity to cope with the most unwieldy +instruments of an orchestra; his companion, black and emaciated, talked +in German, with violent gestures and a strange accent, jerking +constantly a lock of hair out of his eyes. A squat, fat little woman, +bundled up, clasping her knees with her joined hands, sat on a footstool +at Madame von Marwitz's feet, gazing at her and listening to her with a +smile of obsequious attention, and now and then, suddenly, and as if +irrelevantly, breaking into a jubilant laugh. Her dusty hair looked as +though, like the White Queen's, a comb and brush might be entangled in +its masses; the low cut neck of her bodice displayed a ruddy throat +wreathed in many strings of dirty seed-pearls, and her grey satin dress +was garnished with dirty lace. + +Gregory had stood for an appreciable moment at the door surveying the +scene, before either Karen or her guardian saw him, and it was then the +latter who did the honours of the occasion, naming him to the bundled +lady, who was an English poetess, and to Mlle. Suzanne Mauret, the +French actress. The inky-locked youth turned out to be a famous Russian +violinist, and the vast young German Jew none other than Herr Franz +Lippheim, to whom--this was the fact that at once, violently, engaged +Gregory's attention--Madame von Marwitz had destined Karen. + +Franz Lippheim, after Gregory had spoken to everybody and when he at +last was introduced, sprang to his feet and came forward, beaming so +intently from behind his spectacles that Gregory, fearing that he might, +conceivably, be about to kiss him, made an involuntary gesture of +withdrawal. But Herr Lippheim, all unaware, grasped his hand the more +vigorously. "Our little Karen's husband!" "Unserer kleinen Karen's +Mann!" he uttered in a deeply moved German. + +In the driest of tones Gregory asked Karen for some tea, and while he +stood above her Herr Lippheim's beam continued to include them both. + +"Sit down here, Franz, near me," said Karen. She, too, had smiled +joyously as Herr Lippheim greeted her husband. The expression of her +face now had changed. + +Herr Lippheim obeyed, placing, as before, his hands on his knees, the +elbows turned outward, and contemplating Karen's husband with a gaze +that might have softened a heart less steeled than Gregory's. + +This, then, was Madame von Marwitz's next move; her next experiment in +seeing what she could "do." Was not Herr Lippheim a taunt? And with what +did he so unpleasantly associate the name of the French actress? The +link clicked suddenly. _La Gaine d'Or_, in its veiling French, was about +to be produced in London, and it was Mlle. Mauret who had created the +heroine's role in Paris. These were the people by means of whom Madame +von Marwitz displayed her power over Karen's life;--a depraved woman (he +knew and cared nothing about Mlle. Mauret's private morality; she was +the more repulsive to him if her morals weren't bad; only a woman of no +morals should be capable of acting in _La Gaine d'Or_;) that impudent +puppy Drew, and this preposterous young man who addressed Karen by her +Christian name and included himself in his inappropriate enthusiasm. + +He drank his tea, standing in silence by Karen's side, and avoiding all +encounter with Herr Lippheim's genial eyes. + +"It is like old times, isn't it, Franz?" said Karen, ignoring her +husband and addressing her former suitor. "It has been--oh, years--since +I have heard such talk. Tante needs all of you, really, to draw her out. +She has been wonderful this afternoon, hasn't she?" + +"_Ah, kolossal!_" said Herr Lippheim, making no gesture, but expressing +the depths of his appreciation by an emphasized solemnity of gaze. + +"You are right, I think, and so does Tante, evidently," Karen continued, +"about the _tempo rubato_ in the Mozart. It is strange that Monsieur +Ivanowski doesn't feel it." + +"Ah! but that is it, he does feel it; it is only that he does not think +it," said Herr Lippheim, now running his fingers through his hair. "Hear +him play the Mozart. He then contradicts in his music all that his words +have said." + +But though Karen talked so pointedly to him, Herr Lippheim could not +keep his eyes or his thoughts from Gregory. "You are a musician, too, +Mr. Jardine?" he smiled, bending forward, blinking up through his +glasses and laboriously carving out his excellent English. "You do not +express, but you have the soul of an artist? Or perhaps you, too, play, +like our Karen here." + +"No," Gregory returned, with a chill utterance. "I know nothing about +music." + +"Is it so, Karen?" Herr Lippheim questioned, his guileless warmth hardly +tempered. + +"My husband is no artist," Karen answered. + +It was from her tone rather than from Gregory's that Herr Lippheim +seemed to receive his intimation; he was a little disconcerted; he could +interpret Karen's tones. "Ach so! Ach so!" he said; but, his good-will +still seeking to find its way to the polished and ambiguous person who +had gained Karen's heart,--"But now you will live amongst artists, Mr. +Jardine, and you will hear music, great music, played to you by the +greatest. So you will come to feel it in the heart." And as Gregory, to +this, made no reply, "You will educate him, Karen; is it not so? With +you and the great Tante, how could it be otherwise?" + +"I am afraid that one cannot create the love of art when it is not +there, Franz," Karen returned. She was neither plaintive nor confiding; +yet there was an edge in her voice which Gregory felt and which, he +knew, he was intended to feel. Karen was angry with him. + +"Have you seen Belot's portrait of Tante, yet, Franz?"--she again +excluded her husband;--"It is just finished." + +Herr Lippheim had seen it only that morning and he repeated, but now in +preoccupied tones, "_Kolossal_!" + +They talked, and Gregory stood above them, aloof from their conversation +frigidly gazing over the company, his elbow in his hand, his neat +fingers twisting his moustache. If he was giving Madame von Marwitz a +handle against him he couldn't help it. Over the heads of Karen and Herr +Lippheim his eyes for a moment encountered hers. They looked at each +other steadily and neither feigned a smile. + +Eleanor Scrotton arrived at six, flushed and flustered. + +"Thank heaven, I haven't missed her!" she said to Gregory, to whom, +to-day, Eleanor was an almost welcome sight. Her eyes had fixed +themselves on Mlle. Mauret. "Have you had a talk with her yet?" + +"I haven't had a talk and I yield my claim to you," said Gregory. "Are +you very eager to meet the lady?" + +"Who wouldn't be, my dear Gregory! What a wonderful face! What thought +and suffering! Oh, it has been the most extraordinary of stories. You +don't know? Well, I will tell you about her some time. She is, +doubtless, one of the greatest living actresses. And she is still quite +young. Barely forty." + +He watched Eleanor make her way to the actress's side, reflecting +sardonically upon the modern growths of British tolerance. Half the +respectable matrons in London would, no doubt, take their girls to see +_La Gaine d'Or_; mercifully, they would in all probability not +understand it; but if they did, was there anything that inartistic +London would not swallow in its terror of being accused of philistinism? + +The company was dispersing. Herr Lippheim stood holding Karen's hands +saying, as she shook them, that he would bring _das Mütterchen_ and _die +Schwesterchen_ to-morrow. Belot came for a last cup of tea and drank it +in sonorous draughts, exchanging a few words with Gregory. He had +nothing against Belot. Mr. Drew leaned on Madame von Marwitz's sofa and +spoke to her in a low voice while she looked at him inscrutably, her +eyes half closed. + +"Lucky man," said Lady Rose to Gregory, on her way out, "to have her +under your roof. I hope you are a scrupulous Boswell and taking notes." +In the hall Barker was assorting the sombrero, the _Latin Quartier_ and +the cream-coloured felt; the last belonged to Herr Lippheim, who was +putting it on when Gregory escorted Lady Rose to the door. + +Gregory gave the young man a listless hand. He couldn't forgive Herr +Lippheim. That he should ever, under whatever encouragements from +Karen's guardian, have dared to aspire to her, was a monstrous fact. + +He watched the thick rims of Herr Lippheim's ears, under the +cream-coloured felt, descending in the lift and wondered if the sight +was to be often inflicted upon him. + +When he went back to the drawing-room, Karen was alone. Madame von +Marwitz had taken Miss Scrotton to her own room. Karen was standing by +the tea-table, looking down at it, her hands on the back of the chair +from which she had risen to say good-bye to her guardian's guests. She +raised her eyes as her husband came in and they rested on him with a +strange expression. + + + + +CHAPTER XXV + + +"Will you shut the door, Gregory?" Karen said. "I want to speak to you." +The feeling with which he looked at her was that with which he had faced +her sleeping, as he thought, after their former dispute. The sense of +failure and disillusion was upon him. As before, it was only of her +guardian that she was thinking. He knew that he had given Madame von +Marwitz a handle against him. + +He obeyed her and when he came and stood before her she went on. "Before +we all meet at dinner again, I must ask you something. Do not make your +contempt of Tante's guests--and of mine--more plain to her than you have +already done this afternoon." + +"Did I make it plain?" Gregory asked, after a moment. + +"I think that if I felt it so strongly, Tante must have felt it," said +Karen, and to this, after another pause, Gregory found nothing further +to say than "I'm sorry." + +"I hardly think," said Karen, holding the back of her chair tightly and +looking down again while she spoke, "that you can have realized that +Herr Lippheim is not only Tante's friend, but mine. I don't think you +can have realized how you treated him. I know that he is very simple and +unworldly; but he is good and kind and faithful; he is a true +artist--almost a great one, and he has the heart of a child. And beside +him, while you were hurting and bewildering him so to-day, you looked to +me--how shall I say it--petty, yes, and foolish, yes, and full of +self-conceit." + +The emotion with which Gregory heard her speak these words, +deliberately, if in a hardened and controlled voice, expressed itself, +as emotion did with him, in a slight, fixed smile. He could not pause to +examine Karen's possible justice; that she should speak so, to him, was +the overpowering fact. + +"I imagined that I behaved with courtesy," he said. + +"Yes, you were courteous," Karen replied. "You made me think of a +painted piece of wood while he was like a growing tree." + +"Your simile is certainly very mortifying," said Gregory, continuing to +smile. But he was not mortified. He was cruelly hurt. + +"I do not wish to mortify you. I have not mortified you, because you +think yourself above it all. But I would like, if I could," said Karen, +"to make you see the truth. I would like to make you see that in +behaving as you have you show yourself not above it but below it." + +"And I would like to make you see the truth, too," Gregory returned, in +the voice of his bitter hurt; "and I ask you, if your prejudice will +permit of it, to make some allowance for my feeling when I found you +surrounded by--this rabble." + +"Rabble? My guardian's friends?" Karen had grown ashen. + +"I hope they're not; but I'm not concerned with her friends; I'm +concerned with you. She can take people in, on the artistic plane, whom +it's not fit that you should meet. That horrible actress,--I wouldn't +have her come within sight of you if I could help it. Your guardian +knows my feeling about the parts she plays. She had no business to ask +her here. As for Herr Lippheim, I have no doubt that he is an admirable +person in his own walk of life, but he is a preposterous person, and it +is preposterous that your guardian should have thought of him as a +possible husband for you." Gregory imagined that he was speaking +carefully and choosing his words, but he was aware that his anger +coloured his voice. He had also been aware, some little time before, in +a lower layer of consciousness, of the stir and rustle of steps and +dresses in the passage outside--Madame von Marwitz conducting Eleanor +Scrotton to the door. And now--had she actually been listening, or did +his words coincide with the sudden opening of the door?--Madame von +Marwitz herself appeared upon the threshold. + +Her face made the catastrophe all too evident. She had heard him. She +had, he felt convinced, crept quietly back and stood to listen before +entering. His memory reconstructed the long pause between the departing +rustle and this apparition. + +Madame von Marwitz's face had its curious look of smothered heat. The +whites of her eyes were suffused though her cheeks were pale. + +"I must apologise," she said. "I overheard you as I entered, Mr. +Jardine, and what I heard I cannot ignore. What is it that you say to +Karen? What is it that you say of the man I thought of as a possible +husband for her?" + +She advanced into the room and laying her arm round Karen's shoulders +she stood confronting him. + +"I don't think I can discuss this with you," said Gregory. "I am very +sorry that you overheard me." The slight smile of his pain had gone. He +looked at Madame von Marwitz with a flinty eye. + +"Ah, but you must discuss it; you shall," said Madame von Marwitz. "You +say things to my child that I am not to overhear. You seek to poison her +mind against me. You take her from me and then blacken me in her eyes. A +possible husband! Would to God," said Madame von Marwitz, with sombre +fury, "that the possibility had been fulfilled! Would to God that it +were my brave, deep-hearted Franz who were her husband--not you, most +ungrateful, most ungenerous of men." + +"Tante," said Karen, who still stood looking down, grasping her +chair-back and encircled by her guardian's arm, "he did not mean you to +hear him. Forgive him." + +"I beg your pardon, Karen," said Gregory, "I am very sorry that Madame +von Marwitz overheard me; but I have said nothing for which I wish to +apologize." + +"Ah! You hear him!" cried Madame von Marwitz, and the inner +conflagration now glittered in her eyes like flames behind the windows +of a burning house. "You hear him, Karen? Forgive him! How can I forgive +him when he has made you wretched! How can I ever forgive him when he +tears your life by thrusting me forth from it--me--and everything I am +and mean! You have witnessed it, Karen--you have seen my efforts to win +your husband. You have seen his contempt for me, his rancour, his +half-hidden insolence. Never--ah, never in my life have I faced such +humiliation as has been offered to me beneath his roof--humiliations, +endured for your sake, Karen--for yours only! Ah"--releasing Karen +suddenly, she advanced a step towards Gregory, with a startling cry, +stretching out her arm--"ungrateful and ungenerous indeed! And you find +yourself one to scorn my Franz! You find yourself one to sneer at my +friends, to stand and look at them and me as if we were vermin infesting +your room! Did I not see it! You! _justes cieux!_ with your bourgeois +little world; your little--little world--so small--so small! your people +like dull beasts pacing in a cage, believing that in the meat thrust in +between their bars and the number of steps to be taken from side to side +lies all the meaning of life; people who survey with their heavy eyes of +surfeit the free souls of the world! Hypocrites! Pharisees! And to this +cage you have consigned my child! and you would make of her, too, a +creature of counted paces and of unearned meat! You would shut her in +from the life of beauty and freedom that she has known! Ah never! never! +there you do not triumph! You have taken her from me; you have won her +love; but her mind is not yours; she sees the cage as I do; you do not +share the deep things of the soul with her. And in her loyal heart--ah, +I know it--will be the cry, undying, for one whose heart you have trod +upon and broken!" + +With these last words, gasped forth on rising sobs, Madame von Marwitz +sank into the chair where Karen still leaned and broke into passionate +tears. + +Gregory again was smiling, with the smile now of decorum at bay, of +embarrassment rather than contempt; but to Karen's eyes it was the smile +of supercilious arrogance. She looked at him sternly over her guardian's +bowed and oddly rolling head. "Speak, Gregory! Speak!" she commanded. + +"My dear," said Gregory--their voices seemed to pass above the clash and +uproar of stormy waters, Madame von Marwitz had abandoned herself to an +elemental grief--"I have nothing to say to your guardian." + +"To me, then," Karen clenched her hands on the back of the chair; "to +me, then, you have something to say. Is it not true? Have you not +repulsed her efforts to come near you? Have you not, behind her back, +permitted yourself to speak with scorn of the man she hoped I would +marry?" + +Gregory paused, and in the pause, as he observed, Madame von Marwitz was +able to withhold for a moment her strange groans and gaspings while she +listened. "I don't think there has been any such effort," he said. "We +were both keeping up appearances, your guardian and I; and I think that +I kept them up best. As for Herr Lippheim, it was only when you accused +me of rudeness to him that I confessed how much it astonished me to find +that he was the man your guardian had wished you to marry. It does +astonish me. Herr Lippheim isn't even a gentleman." + +"Enough!" cried Madame von Marwitz. She sprang to her feet. "Enough!" +she said, half suffocated. "It is the voice of the cage! We will not +stay to hear its standards applied. Come with me, Karen, that I may say +farewell to you." + +She caught Karen by the arm. Her face was strange, savage, suffused. +Gregory went to open the door for them. "Base one!" she said to him. +"Ignominious one!" + +She drew Karen swiftly along the passage and, still keeping her sharp +clasp of her wrist while she opened and closed the door of her room, she +sank, encircling her with her arms, upon the sofa, and wept loudly over +her. + +Karen, too, was now weeping; heavy, shaking sobs. + +"My child! My poor child!" Madame von Marwitz murmured brokenly after a +little time had gone. "I would have spared you this. It has come. We +have both seen it. And now, so that your life may not be ruined, I must +leave it." + +"But Tante--my Tante--" sobbed Karen--Madame von Marwitz did not remember +that Karen had ever so sobbed before--"you cannot mean those words. What +shall I do if you say this? What is left for me?" + +"My child, your life is left you," said Madame von Marwitz, holding her +close and speaking with her lips in the girl's hair. "Your husband's +love is left; the happiness that you chose and that I shall shatter if I +stay; ah, yes, my Karen, how deny it now? I see my path. It is plain +before me. To-night I go to Mrs. Forrester and to-morrow I breathe the +air of Cornwall." + +"But Tante--wait--wait. You will see Gregory again? You will let him +explain? Oh, let me first talk with him! He says bitter things, but so +do you, Tante; and he does not mean to offend as much as you think." + +At this, after a little pause, Madame von Marwitz drew herself slightly +away and put her handkerchief to her eyes and cheeks. The violence of +her grief was over. "Does he still so blind you, Karen?" she then asked. +"Do you still not see that your husband hates me--and has hated me from +the beginning?" + +"Not hate!--Not hate!" Karen sobbed. "He does not understand you--that +is all. Only wait--till to-morrow. Only let me talk to him!" + +"No. He does not understand. That is evident," said Madame von Marwitz +with a bitter smile. "Nor will he ever understand. Will you talk to him, +Karen, so that he shall explain why he smirches my love and my +sincerity? You know as well as I what was the meaning of those words of +his. Can you, loving me, ask me to sue further for the favour of a man +who has so insulted me? No. It cannot be. I cannot see him again. You +and I are still to meet, I trust; but it cannot again be under this +roof." + +Karen now sobbed helplessly, leaning forward, her face in her hands, and +Madame von Marwitz, again laying an arm around her shoulders, gazed with +majestic sorrow into the fire. "Even so," she said at last, when Karen's +sobs had sunken to long, broken breaths; "even so. It is the law of +life. Sacrifice: sacrifice: to the very end. Life, to the artist, must +be this altar where he lays his joys. We are destined to be alone, +Karen. We are driven forth into the wilderness for the sins of the +people. So I have often seen it, and cried out against it in my tortured +youth, and struggled against it in my strength and in my folly. But now, +with another strength, I am enabled to stand upright and to face the +vision of my destiny. I am to be alone. So be it." + +No answer came, from Karen and Madame von Marwitz, after a pause, +continued, in gentler, if no less solemn tones: "And my child, too, is +brave. She, too, will stand upright. She, too, has her destiny to +fulfil--in the world--not in the wilderness. And if the burden should +ever grow too heavy, and the road cut her feet too sharply, and the joy +turn to dust, she will remember--always--that Tante's arms and heart are +open to her--at all times, in all places, and to the end of life. And +now," this, with a sigh of fatigue, came on a more matter-of-fact +note--"let a cab be called for me. Louise will follow with my boxes." + +Karen's tears had ceased. She made no further protest or appeal. + +Rising, she dried her eyes, rang and ordered the cab to be called and +found her guardian's white cloak and veiled hat. + +And while she shrouded her in these, Madame von Marwitz, still gazing, +as if at visions, in the fire, lifted her arms and bent her head with +almost the passivity of a dead thing. Once or twice she murmured broken +phrases: "My ewe-lamb;--taken;--I am very weary. _Mon Dieu, mon +Dieu_,--and is this, then, the end...." + +She rested heavily on Karen's shoulder in rising. "Forgive me," she +said, leaning her head against hers, "forgive me, beloved one. I have +done harm where I meant to make a safer happiness. Forgive me, too, for +my bitter words. I should not have spoken as I did. My child knows that +it is a hot and passionate heart." + +Karen, in silence, turned her face to her guardian's breast. + +"And do not," said Madame von Marwitz, speaking with infinite +tenderness, while she stroked the bent head, "judge your husband too +hardly because of this. He gives what love he can; as he knows love. It +is as my child said; he does not understand. It is not given to some to +understand. He has lived in a narrow world. Do not judge him hardly, +Karen; it is for the wiser, stronger, more loving soul to lift the +smaller towards the light. He can still give my child happiness. In that +trust I find my strength." + +They went down the passage together. Gregory came to the drawing-room +door. He would have spoken, have questioned, but, shrinking from him and +against Karen, as if from an intolerable searing, Madame von Marwitz +hastened past him. He heard the front door open and the last silent +pause of farewell on the threshold. + +Louise scuttled by past him to her mistress's vacated rooms. She did not +see him and he heard that she muttered under her breath: "_Ah! par +exemple! C'est trop fort, ma parole d'honneur!_" + +As Karen came back from the door he went to meet her. + +"Karen," he said, "will you come and talk with me, now?" + +She put aside his hand. "I cannot talk. Do not come to me," she said. "I +must think." And going into their room she shut the door. + + + + +CHAPTER XXVI + + +The telephone sounded while Gregory next morning ate his solitary +breakfast, and the voice of Mrs. Forrester, disembodied of all but its +gravity, asked him, if he would, to come and see her immediately. + +Gregory asked if Madame von Marwitz were with her. He was not willing, +after the final affront that she had put upon him, to encounter Madame +von Marwitz again in circumstances where he might seem to be justifying +himself. But, with a deeper drop, the disembodied voice informed him +that Madame von Marwitz, ten minutes before, had driven to the station +on her way to Cornwall. "You will understand, I think, Gregory," said +Mrs. Forrester, "that it is hardly possible for her to face in London, +as yet, the situation that you have made for her." + +Gregory, to this, replied, shortly, that he would come to her at once, +reserving his comments on the imputed blame. + +He had passed an almost sleepless night, lying in his little +dressing-room bed where, by a tacit agreement, never explicitly +recognized, he had slept, now, for so many nights. Cold fears, shaped at +last in definite forms, stood round him and bade him see the truth. His +wife did not love him. From the beginning he had been as nothing to her +compared with her guardian. The pale, hard light of her eyes as she had +said to him that afternoon, "Speak!" seemed to light the darkness with +bitter revelations. He knew that he was what would be called, +sentimentally, a broken-hearted man; but it seemed that the process of +breaking had been gradual; so that now, when his heart lay in pieces, +his main feeling was not of sharp pain but of dull fatigue, not of +tragic night, but of a grey commonplace from which all sunlight had +slowly ebbed away. + +He found Mrs. Forrester in her morning-room among loudly singing +canaries and pots of jonquils; and as he shook hands with her he saw +that this old friend, so old and so accustomed that she was like a part +of his life, was embarrassed. The wrinkles on her withered, but oddly +juvenile, face seemed to have shifted to a pattern of perplexity and +pained resolution. He was not embarrassed, though he was beaten and done +in a way Mrs. Forrester could not guess at; yet he felt an awkwardness. + +They had known each other for a life-time, he and Mrs. Forrester, but +they were not intimate; and how intimate they would have to become if +they were to discuss with anything like frankness the causes and +consequences of Madame von Marwitz's conduct! A gloomy indifference +settled on Gregory as he realized that her dear friend's conduct was the +one factor in the causes and consequences that Mrs. Forrester would not +be able to appraise at its true significance. + +She shook his hand, and seating herself at a little table and slightly +tapping it with her fingers, "Now, my dear Gregory," she said, "will +you, please, tell me why you have acted like this?" + +"Isn't my case prejudged?" Gregory asked, reconstructing the scene that +must have taken place last night when Madame von Marwitz had appeared +before her friend. + +"No, Gregory; it is not," Mrs. Forrester returned with some terseness, +for she felt his remark to be unbecoming. "I hope to have some sort of +explanation from you." + +"I'm quite ready to explain; but it's hardly possible that my +explanation will satisfy you," said Gregory. "You spoke, just now, when +you called me up, of a situation and said I'd made it. My explanation +can only consist in saying that I didn't make it; that Madame von +Marwitz made it; that she came to us in order to make it and then to fix +the odium of it on me." + +Already Mrs. Forrester had flushed. She looked hard at the pot of +jonquils near her. "You really believe that?" + +"I do. She can't forgive me for not liking her," said Gregory. + +"And you don't like her. You own to it." + +"I don't like her. I own to it," Gregory replied with a certain frosty +relief. It was like taking off damp, threadbare garments that had +chilled one for a long time and facing the winter wind, naked, but +invigorated. "I dislike her very much." + +"May I ask why?" Mrs. Forrester inquired, with careful courtesy. + +"I distrust her," said Gregory. "I think she's dangerous, and tyrannous, +and unscrupulous. I think that she's devoured by egotism. I'm sorry. But +if you ask me why, I can only tell you." + +Mrs. Forrester sat silent for a moment, and then, the flush on her +delicate old cheek deepening, she murmured: "It is worse, far worse, +than Mercedes told me. Even Mercedes didn't suspect this. Gregory,--I +must ask you another question: Do you really imagine that you and your +cruel thoughts of her would be of the slightest consequence to Mercedes +Okraska, if you had not married the child for whose happiness she holds +herself responsible?" + +"Of course not. She wouldn't give me another thought, if I weren't +there, in her path; I am in her path, and she feels that I don't like +her, and she hasn't been able to let me alone." + +"She has not let you alone because she hoped to make your marriage +secure in the only way in which security was possible for you and Karen. +What happiness could she see for Karen's future if she were to have cut +herself apart from her life; dropped you, and Karen with you? That, +doubtless, would have been the easy thing to do. There is indeed no +reason why women like Mercedes Okraska, women with the world at their +feet, should trouble to think of the young men they may chance to meet, +whose exacting moral sense they don't satisfy. I am glad you see that," +said Mrs. Forrester, tapping her table. + +"It would have been far kinder to have dropped Karen than deliberately +to set to work, as she has done, to ruin her happiness. She hasn't been +able to keep her hands off it. She couldn't stand it--a happiness she +hadn't given; a happiness for which gratitude wasn't due to her." + +"Gregory, Gregory," Mrs. Forrester raised her eyes to him now; "you are +frank with me, very frank; and I must be frank with you. There is more +than dislike here, and distrust, and morbid prejudice. There is +jealousy. Hints of it have come to me; I've tried to put them aside; +I've tried to believe, as my poor Mercedes did, that, by degrees, you +would adjust yourself to the claims on Karen's life, and be generous and +understanding, even when you had no spontaneous sympathy to give. But it +is all quite clear to me now. You can't accept the fact of your wife's +relation to Mercedes. You can't accept the fact of a devotion not wholly +directed towards yourself. I've known you since boyhood, Gregory, and +I've always had regard and fondness for you; but this is a serious +breach between us. You seem to me more wrong and arrogant than I could +trust myself to say. And you have behaved cruelly to a woman for whom my +feeling is more than mere friendship. In many ways my feeling for +Mercedes Okraska is one of reverence. She is one of the great people of +the world. To know her has been a possession, a privilege. Anyone might +be proud to know such a woman. And when I think of what you have now +said of her to me--when I think of how I saw her--here--last +night,--broken--crushed,--after so many sorrows--" + +Tears had risen to Mrs. Forrester's eyes. She turned her head aside. + +"Do you mean," said Gregory after a moment, in which it seemed to him +that his grey world preceptibly, if slightly, darkened, "do you mean +that I've lost your friendship because of Madame von Marwitz?" + +"I don't know, Gregory; I can't tell you," said Mrs. Forrester, not +looking at him. "I don't recognize you. As to Karen, I cannot imagine +what your position with her can be. How is she to bear it when she knows +that it is said that you insulted her guardian's friends and then turned +her out of your house?" + +"I didn't turn her out," said Gregory; he walked to the window and +stared into the street. "She went because that was the most venomous +thing she could do. And I didn't insult her friends." + +"You said to her that the man she had thought of as a husband for Karen +was not a gentleman. You said that you did not understand how Mercedes +could have chosen such a man for her. You said this with the child +standing between you. Oh, you cannot deny it, Gregory. I have heard in +detail what took place. Mercedes saw that unless she left you Karen's +position was an impossible one. It was to save Karen--and your relation +to Karen--that she went." + +Gregory, still standing at the window, was silent, and then asked: "Have +you seen Herr Lippheim?" + +"No, Gregory," Mrs. Forrester returned, and now with trenchancy, the +concrete case being easier to deal with openly. "No; I have not seen +him; but Mercedes spoke to me about him last winter, when she hoped for +the match, and told me, moreover, that she was surprised by Karen's +refusal, as the child was much attached to him. I have not seen him; but +I know the type--and intimately. He is a warm-hearted and intelligent +musician." + +"Your bootmaker may be warm-hearted and intelligent." + +"That is petulant--almost an insolent simile, Gregory. It only reveals, +pitifully, your narrowness and prejudice--and, I will add, your +ignorance. Herr Lippheim is an artist; a man of character and +significance. Many of my dearest friends have been such; hearts of gold; +the salt of the world." + +"Would you have allowed a daughter of yours, may I ask, to marry one of +these hearts of gold?" + +"Certainly; most certainly," said Mrs. Forrester, but with a haste and +heat somewhat suspicious. "If she loved him." + +"If he were personally fit, you mean. Herr Lippheim is undoubtedly +warm-hearted and, in his own way, intelligent, but he is as unfit to be +Karen's husband as your bootmaker to be yours." + +They had come now, on this lower, easier level, to one of the points +where temper betrays itself as it cannot do on the heights of contest. +Gregory's reiteration of the bootmaker greatly incensed Mrs. Forrester. + +"My dear Gregory," she said, "I yield to no one in my appreciation of +Karen; owing to the education and opportunities that Mercedes has given +her, she is a charming young woman. But, since we are dealing with, +facts, the bare, bald, worldly aspects of things, we must not forget the +facts of Karen's parentage and antecedents. Herr Lippheim is, in these +respects, I imagine, altogether her equal. A rising young musician, the +friend and _protégé_ of one of the world's great geniuses, and a +penniless, illegitimate girl. Do not let your rancour, your jealousy, +blind you so completely." + +Gregory turned from the window at this, smiling a pallid, frosty smile +and Mrs. Forrester was now aware that she had made him very angry. "I +may be narrow," he said, "and conventional and ignorant; but I'm +unconventional and clear-sighted enough to judge people by their actual, +not their market, value. Of Herr Lippheim I know nothing, except that +his parentage and antecedents haven't made a gentleman, or anything +resembling one, of him; while of Karen I know that hers, unfortunate as +they certainly were, have made a lady and a very perfect one. I don't +forgive Madame von Marwitz for a great many things in regard to her +treatment of Karen," Gregory went on with growing bitterness, "chief +among them that she has taken her at her market value and allowed her +friends to do the same. I've been able, thank goodness, to rescue Karen, +at all events, from that. Madame von Marwitz can't carry her about any +longer like a badge from some charitable society on her shoulder. No +woman who really loved Karen, or who really appreciated her," Gregory +added, falling back on his concrete fact, "could have thought of Herr +Lippheim as a husband for her." + +Mrs. Forrester sat looking up at him, and she was genuinely aghast. + +"You are incredible to me, Gregory," she said. "You set your one year of +devotion to Karen against Mercedes's life-time, and you presume to +discredit hers." + +"Yes. I do. I don't believe in her devotion to Karen." + +"Do you realize that your attitude may mean a complete rupture between +Karen and her guardian?" + +"No such luck; I'm afraid!" said Gregory with a grim laugh. "My only +hope is that it may mean a complete rupture between Madame von Marwitz +and me. It goes without saying, feeling as I do, that, if it wouldn't +break Karen's heart, I'd do my best to prevent Madame von Marwitz from +ever seeing her again." + +There was a little silence and then Mrs. Forrester got up sharply. + +"Very well, Gregory," she said. "That will do." + +"Are you going to shake hands with me?" he asked, still with the grim +smile. + +"Yes. I will shake hands with you, Gregory," Mrs. Forrester replied. +"Because, in spite of everything, I am fond of you. But you must not +come here again. Not now." + +"Never any more, do you really mean?" + +"Not until you are less wickedly blind." + +"I'm sorry," said Gregory. "It's never any more then, I'm afraid." + +He was very sorry. He knew that as he walked away. + + + + +CHAPTER XXVII + + +Mrs. Forrester remained among her canaries and jonquils, thinking. She +was seriously perturbed. She was, as she had said, fond of Gregory, but +she was fonder, far, of Mercedes von Marwitz, whom Gregory had caused to +suffer and whom he would, evidently, cause to suffer still more. + +She controlled the impulse to telephone to Eleanor Scrotton and consult +with her; a vague instinct of loyalty towards Gregory restrained her +from that. Eleanor would, in a day or two, hear from Cornwall and what +she would hear could not be so bad as what Mrs. Forrester herself could +tell her. After thinking for the rest of the morning, Mrs. Forrester +decided to go and see Karen. She was not very fond of Karen. She had +always been inclined to think that Mercedes exaggerated the significance +of the girl's devotion, and Gregory's exaggeration, now, of her general +significance--explicable as it might be in an infatuated young +husband--disposed her the less kindly towards her. She felt that Karen +had been clumsy, dull, in the whole affair. She felt that, at bottom, +she was somewhat responsible for it. How had Gregory been able, living +with Karen, to have formed such an insensate conception of Mercedes? The +girl was stupid, acquiescent; she had shown no tact, no skill, no +clarifying courage. Mrs. Forrester determined to show them all--to talk +to Karen. + +She drove to St. James's at four o'clock that afternoon and Barker told +her that Mrs. Jardine was in the drawing-room. Visitors, evidently, were +with her, and it affected Mrs. Forrester very unpleasantly, as Barker +led her along the passage, to hear rich harmonies of music filling the +flat. She had expected to be perhaps ushered into a darkened bedroom; to +administer comfort and sympathy to a shattered creature before +administering reproof and counsel. But Karen not only was up; she was +not alone. The strains were those of chamber-music, and a half-perplexed +delight mingled with Mrs. Forrester's displeasure as she recognized the +heavenly melodies of Schumann's Pianoforte Quintet. The performers were +in the third movement. + +Karen rose, as Barker announced her, from the side of a stout lady at +the piano, and Mrs. Forrester, nodding, her finger at her lips, dropped +into a chair and listened. + +The stout lady at the piano had a pale, fat, pear-shaped face, her +grizzled hair parted above it and twisted to a large outstanding knob +behind. She wore eyeglasses and peered through them at her music with +intelligent intensity and profound humility. The violin was played by an +enormous young man with red hair, and the viola, second violin and +'cello by three young women, all of the black-and-tan Semitic type. + +Mrs. Forrester was too much preoccupied with her wonder to listen as she +would have wished to, but by the time the end of the movement was come +she had realized that they played extremely well. + +Karen came forward in the interval. She was undoubtedly pale and +heavy-eyed; but in her little dress of dark blue silk, with her narrow +lawn ruffles and locket and shining hair, she showed none of the +desperate signs appropriate to her circumstances nor any embarrassment +at the incongruous situation in which Mrs. Forrester found her. + +"This is Frau Lippheim, Mrs. Forrester," she said. "And these are +Fräulein Lotta and Minna and Elizabeth, and this is Herr Franz. I think +you have often heard Tante speak of our friends." + +Her ears buzzing with the name of Lippheim since the night before, Mrs. +Forrester was aware that she showed confusion, also that for a brief, +sharp instant, while her eyes rested on Herr Franz, a pang of perverse +sympathy for Gregory, in a certain aspect of his wickedness, +disintegrated her state of mind. He was singular looking indeed, this +untidy young man, whose ill-kept clothes had a look of insecurity, like +arrested avalanches on a mountain. "No, I can feel for Gregory somewhat +in this," Mrs. Forrester said to herself. + +"We are having some music, you see," said Karen. "Herr Lippheim promised +me yesterday that they would all come and play to me. Can you stay and +listen for a little while? They must go before tea, for they have a +rehearsal for their concert," she added, as though to let Mrs. Forrester +know that she was not unconscious of the matter that must have brought +her. + +There was really no reason why she shouldn't stay. She could not very +well ask to have the Lippheims and their instruments turned out. +Moreover she was very fond of the Quintet. Mrs. Forrester said that she +would be glad to stay. + +When they went on to the fourth movement, and while she listened, giving +her mind to the music, Mrs. Forrester's disintegration slowly recomposed +itself. It was not only that the music was heavenly and that they played +so well. She liked these people; they were the sort of people she had +always liked. She forgot Herr Franz's uncouth and mountainous aspect. +His great head leaning sideways, his eyes half closed, with the +musician's look of mingled voluptuous rapture and cold, grave, listening +intellect, he had a certain majesty. The mother, too, all devout +concentration, was an artist of the right sort; the girls had the gentle +benignity that comes of sincere self-dedication. They pleased Mrs. +Forrester greatly and, as she listened, her severity towards Gregory +shaped itself anew and more forcibly. Narrow, blind, bigoted young man. +And it was amusing to think, as a comment on his fierce consciousness of +Herr Lippheim's unfitness, that here Herr Lippheim was, admitted to the +very heart of Karen's sorrow. It was inconceivable that anyone but very +near and dear friends should have been tolerated by her to-day. Karen, +too, after her fashion, was an artist. The music, no doubt, was helpful +to her. Soft thoughts of her great, lacerated friend, speeding now +towards her solitudes, filled Mrs. Forrester's eyes more than once with +tears. + +They finished and Frau Lippheim, rubbing her hands with her +handkerchief, stood smiling near-sightedly, while Mrs. Forrester +expressed her great pleasure and asked all the Lippheims to come and see +her. She planned already a musical. Karen's face showed a pale beam of +gladness. + +"And now, my dear child," said Mrs. Forrester, when the Lippheims had +departed and she and Karen were alone and seated side by side on the +sofa, "we must talk. I have come, of course you know, to talk about this +miserable affair." She put her hand on Karen's; but already something in +the girl's demeanour renewed her first displeasure. She looked heavy, +she looked phlegmatic; there was no response, no softness in her glance. + +"You have perhaps a message to me, Mrs. Forrester, from Tante," she +said. + +"No, Karen, no," Mrs. Forrester with irrepressible severity returned. "I +have no message for you. Any message, I think should come from your +husband and not from your guardian." + +Karen sat silent, her eyes moving away from her visitor's face and +fixing themselves on the wall above her head. + +The impulse that had brought Mrs. Forrester was suffering alterations. + +Gregory had revealed the case to her as worse than she had supposed; +Karen emphasized the revelation. And what of Mercedes between these two +young egoists? "I must ask you, Karen," she said, "whether you realise +how Gregory has behaved, to the woman to whom you, and he, owe so much?" + +Karen continued to look fixedly at the wall and after a moment of +deliberation replied: "Tante did not speak rightly to Gregory, Mrs. +Forrester. She lost her temper very much. You know that Tante can lose +her temper." + +Mrs. Forrester, at this, almost lost hers. "You surprise me, Karen. Your +husband had spoken insultingly of her friends--and yours--to her. Why +attempt to shield him? I heard the whole story, in detail, from your +guardian, you must remember." + +Again Karen withdrew into a considering silence; but, though her face +remained impassive, Mrs. Forrester observed that a slight flush rose to +her cheeks. + +"Gregory did not intend Tante to overhear what he said," she produced at +last. "It was said to me--and I had questioned him--not to her. Tante +came in by chance. It is not likely, Mrs. Forrester, that my version +would differ in any way from hers." + +"You mustn't take offence at what I say, Karen," Mrs. Forrester spoke +with more severity; "your version does differ. To my astonishment you +seem actually to defend your husband." + +"Yes; from what is not true: that is not to differ from Tante as to what +took place." Karen brought her eyes to Mrs. Forrester's. + +"From what is not true. Very well. You will not deny that he so +intensely dislikes your guardian and has shown it so plainly to her that +she has had to leave you. You will not deny that, Karen?" + +"No. I will not deny that," Karen replied. + +"My poor child--it is true, and it is only a small part of the truth. I +don't know what Gregory has said to you in private, but even Mercedes +had not prepared me for what he said to me this morning." + +"What did he say to you this morning, Mrs. Forrester?" + +"He believes her to be a bad woman, Karen; do you realise that; has he +told you that; can you bear it? Dangerous, unscrupulous, tyrannous, +devoured by egotism, were the words he used of her. I shall not forget +them. He accused her of hypocrisy in her feeling for you. He hoped that +you might never see her again. It is terrible, Karen. Terrible. It puts +us all--all of us who love Mercedes, and you through her, into the most +impossible position." + +Karen sat, her head erect, her eyes downcast, with a rigidity of +expression almost torpid. + +"Do you see the position he puts us in, Karen?" Mrs. Forrester went on +with insistence. "Have you had the matter out with Gregory? Did you +realise its gravity? I must really beg you to answer me." + +"I have not yet spoken with my husband," said Karen, in a chill, +lifeless tone. + +"But you will? You cannot let it pass?" + +"No, Mrs. Forrester. I will not let it pass." + +"You will insist that he shall make a full apology to Mercedes?" + +"Is he to apologise to her for hating her?" Karen at this asked +suddenly. + +"For hating her? What do you mean?" Mrs. Forrester was taken aback. + +"If he is to apologise," said Karen, in a still colder, still more +lifeless voice, "it must be for something that can be changed. How can +he apologise to her for hating her if he continues to hate her?" + +"He can apologise for having spoken insultingly to her." + +"He has not done that. It was Tante who overheard what she was not +intended to hear. And it was Tante who spoke with violence." + +"It amazes me to hear you put it on her shoulders, Karen. He can +apologise, then, for what he has said to me," said Mrs. Forrester with +indignation. "You will not deny that what he said of her to me was +insulting." + +"He is to tell her that he has said those words and then apologise, Mrs. +Forrester? Oh, no; you do not think what you say." + +"Really, my dear Karen, you have a most singular fashion of speaking to +a person three times your age!" Mrs. Forrester exclaimed, the more +incensed for the confusion of thought into which the girl's persistence +threw her. "The long and short of it is that he must make it possible +for Mercedes to meet him, with decency, in the future." + +"But I do not know how that can be," said Karen, rising as Mrs. +Forrester rose; "I do not know how Tante, now, can see him. If he thinks +these things and does not say them, there may be pretence; but if he +says them, to Tante's friends, how can there be pretence?" + +There was no appeal in her voice. She put the facts, so evident to +herself, before her visitor and asked her to look at them. Mrs. +Forrester was suddenly aware that her advice might have been somewhat +hasty. She also felt suddenly as though, on a reconnoitring march down a +rough but open path, she found herself merging in the gloomy mysteries +of a forest. There were hidden things in Karen's voice. + +"Well, well," she said, taking the girl's hand and casting about in her +mind for a retreat; "that's to see it as hopeless, isn't it, and we +don't want to do that, do we? We want to bring Gregory to reason, and +you are the person best fitted to do that. We want to clear up these +dreadful ideas he has got into his head, heaven knows how. And no one +but you can do it. No one in the world, my dear Karen, is more fitted +than you to make him understand what our wonderful Tante really is. +There is the trouble, Karen," said Mrs. Forrester, finding now the +original clue with which she had started on her expedition; "he +shouldn't have been able, living with you, seeing your devotion, seeing +from your life, as you must have told him of it, what it was founded on, +he shouldn't have been able to form such a monstrous conception of our +great, dear one. You have been in fault there, my dear, you see it now, +I am sure. At the first hint you should have made things clear to him. I +know that it is hard for a young wife to oppose the man she loves; but +love mustn't make us cowardly," Mrs. Forrester murmured on more +cheerfully as they moved down the passage, "and Gregory will only love +you more wisely and deeply if he is made to recognize, once for all, +that you will not sacrifice your guardian to please him." + +They were now at the door and Karen had not said a word. + +"Well, good-bye, my dear," said Mrs. Forrester. Oddly she did not feel +able to urge more strongly upon Karen that she should not sacrifice her +guardian to her husband. "I hope I've made things clearer by coming. It +was better that you should, realize just what your guardian's friends +felt--and would feel--about it, wasn't it?" Karen still made no reply +and on the threshold Mrs. Forrester paused to add, with some urgency: +"It was right, you see that, don't you, Karen, that you should know what +Gregory is really feeling?" + +"Yes," Karen now assented. "It is better that I should know that." + + + + +CHAPTER XXVIII + + +Gregory when he came in that evening thought at first, with a pang of +fear, that Karen had gone out. It was time for dressing and she was not +in their room. In the drawing-room it was dark; he stood in the doorway +for a moment and looked about it, sad and tired and troubled, wondering +if Karen had gone to Mrs. Forrester's, wondering whether, in her grave +displeasure with him, she had even followed her guardian. And then, from +beside him, came her voice. "I am here, Gregory. I have been waiting for +you." + +His relief was so intense that, turning up the lights, seeing her +sitting there on a little sofa near the door, he bent involuntarily over +her to kiss her. + +But her hand put him away. + +"No; I must speak to you," she said. + +Gregory straightened himself, compressing his lips. + +Karen had evidently not thought of changing. She wore her dark-blue silk +dress. She had, indeed, been sitting there since Mrs. Forrester went. He +looked about the room, noting, with dull wonder, the grouped chairs, and +open piano. "You have had people here?" + +"Yes. The Lippheims came and played to me. I would have written to them +and told them not to come; but I forgot. And Mrs. Forrester has been +here." + +"Quite a reception," said Gregory. He walked to the window and looked +out. "Well," he said, not turning to his wife, "what have you to say to +me, Karen?" His tone was dry and even ironic. + +"Mrs. Forrester came to tell me," said Karen, "that you had seen her +this morning." + +"Yes. Well?" + +"And she told me," Karen went on, "that you had a great deal to say to +her about my guardian--things that you have never dared to say to me." + +He turned to her now and her eyes from across the room fixed themselves +upon him. + +"I will say them to you if you like," said Gregory, after a moment. He +leaned against the side of the window and folded his arms. And he +examined his wife with, apparently, the cold attention that he would +have given to a strange witness in the box. And indeed she was strange +to him. Over his aching and dispossessed heart he steeled himself in an +impartial scrutiny. + +"It is true, then," said Karen, "that you believe her tyrannous and +dangerous and unscrupulous, and that you think her devoured by egotism, +and hypocritical in her feeling for me, and that you hope that I may +never see her again?" + +She catalogued the morning's declarations accurately, like the witness +giving unimpeachable testimony. But it was rather absurd to see her as +the witness, when, so unmistakably, she considered herself the judge and +him the criminal in the dock. There was relief in pleading guilty to +everything. "Yes: it's perfectly true," he said. + +She looked at him and he could discover no emotion on her face. + +"Why did you not tell me this when you asked me to marry you?" she +questioned. + +"Oh--I wasn't so sure of it then," said Gregory. "And I loved you and +hoped it would never come out. I didn't want to give you pain. That's +why I never dared tell you, as you put it." + +"You wanted to marry me and you knew that if you told me the truth I +would not marry you; that is the reason you did not dare," said Karen. + +"Well, there's probably truth in that," Gregory assented, smiling; "I'm +afraid I was an infatuated creature, perhaps a dishonest one. I can't +expect you to make allowances for my condition, I know." + +She lowered her eyes and sat for so long in silence that presently, +rather ashamed of the bitterness of his last words, he went on in a +kinder tone: "I know that I can never make you understand. You have your +infatuation and it blinds you. You've been blind to the way in which, +from the very beginning, she has tracked me down. You've been blind to +the fact that the thing that has moved her hasn't been love for you but +spite, malicious spite, against me for not giving her the sort of +admiration she's accustomed to. If I've come to hate her--I didn't in +the least at first, of course--it's only fair to say that she hates me +ten times worse. I only asked that she should let me alone." + +"And let me alone," said Karen, who had listened without a movement. + +"Oh no," Gregory said, "that's not at all true. You surely will be fair +enough to own that it's not; that I did everything I could to give you +both complete liberty." + +"As when you applauded and upheld Betty for her insolent interference; +as when you complained to me of my guardian because she asked that I +should have a wider life; as when you hoped to have Mrs. Talcott here so +that my guardian might be kept out." + +"Did she suggest that?" + +"She showed it to me. I had not seen it even then. Do you deny it?" + +"No; I don't suppose I can, though it was nothing so definite. But I +certainly hoped that Madame von Marwitz would not come here." + +"And yet you can tell me that you have not tried to come between us." + +"Yes; I can. I never tried to come between you. I tried to keep away. +It's been she, as I say, who has tracked me down. That was what I was +afraid of if she came here; that she'd force me to show my dislike. Can +you deny, Karen, I ask you this, that from the beginning she has made +capital to you out of my dislike, and pointed it out to you?" + +"I will not discuss that with you," said Karen; "I know that you can +twist all her words and actions." + +"I don't want to do that. I can see a certain justice in her malice. It +was hard for her, of course, to find that you'd married a man she didn't +take to and who didn't take to her; but why couldn't she have left it at +that?" + +"It couldn't be left at that. It wasn't only that," said Karen. "If she +had liked you, you would never have liked her; and if you had liked her +she would have liked you." + +The steadiness of her voice as she thus placed the heart of the matter +before him brought him a certain relief. Perhaps, in spite of his cold +realizations and the death of all illusion as to Karen's love for him, +they could really, now, come to an understanding, an accepted +compromise. His heart ached and would go on aching until time had +blunted its hurts, and a compromise was all he had to hope for. He had +nothing to expect from Karen but acceptance of fact and faithful +domesticity. But, after all the uncertainties and turmoils, this bitter +peace had its balms. He took up her last words. + +"Ah, well, she'd have liked my liking," he analysed it. "I don't know +that she'd have liked me;--unless I could have managed to give her +actual worship, as you and her friends do. But I'm not going to say +anything more against her. She has forced the truth from me, and now we +may bury it. You shall see her, of course, whenever you want to. But I +hope that I shall never have to speak of her to you again." + +The talk seemed to have been brought to an end. Karen, had risen and +Barker, entering at the moment, announced dinner. + +"By Jove, is it as late as that," Gregory muttered, nodding to him. He +turned to Karen when Barker was gone and, the pink electric lights +falling upon her face, he saw as he had not seen before how grey and +sunken it was. She had made no movement towards the door. + +"Gregory," she said, fixing her eyes upon him, and he then saw that he +had misinterpreted her quiet, "I tell you that these things are not +true. They are not true. Will you believe me?" + +"What things?" he asked. But he was temporizing. He saw that the end had +not come. + +"The things you believe of Tante. That she is a heartless woman, using +those who love her--feeding on their love. I say it is not true. Will +you believe me?" + +She stood on the other side of the room, her arms hanging at her sides, +her hands hanging open, all her being concentrated in the ultimate +demand of her compelling gaze. + +"Karen," he said, "I know that she must be lovable; I know, of course, +that she has power, and charm, and tenderness. I think I can understand +why you feel for her as you do. But I don't think that there is any +chance that I shall change my opinion of her; not for anything you say. +I believe that she takes you in completely." + +Karen gazed at him. "You will still believe that she is tyrannous, and +dangerous, and false, whatever I may say?" + +"Yes, Karen. I know it sounds horrible to you. You must try to forgive +me for it. We won't speak of it again; I promise you." + +She turned from him, looking before her at the Bouddha, but not as if +she saw it. "We shall never speak of it again," she said. "I am going to +leave you, Gregory." + +For a moment he stared at her. Then he smiled. "You mustn't punish me +for telling you the truth, Karen, by silly threats." + +"I do not punish you. You have done rightly to tell me the truth. But I +cannot live with a man who believes these things." + +She still gazed at the Bouddha and again Gregory stared at her. His face +hardened. "Don't be absurd, Karen. You cannot mean what you say." + +"I am going to-night. Now," said Karen. + +"Going? Where?" + +"To Cornwall, back to my guardian. She will take care of me again. I +will not live with you." + +"If you really mean what you say," said Gregory, after a moment, "you +are telling me that you don't love me. I've suspected it for some time." + +"I feel as if that were true," said Karen, looking now down upon the +ground. "I think I have no more love for you. I find you a petty man." +It was impossible to hope that she was speaking recklessly or +passionately. She had come to the conclusion with deliberation; she had +been thinking of it since last night. She was willing to cast him off +because he could not love where she loved. How deeply the roots of hope +still knotted themselves in him he was now to realize. He felt his heart +and mind rock with the reverberation of the shattering, the pulverizing +explosion, and he saw his life lying in a wilderness of dust about him. + +Yet the words he found were not the words of his despair. "Even if you +feel like this, Karen," he said, "there is no necessity for behaving +like a lunatic. Go and stay with your guardian, by all means, and +whenever you like. Start to-morrow morning. Spend most of your time with +her. I shall not put the smallest difficulty in your way. But--if only +for your own sake--have some common-sense and keep up appearances. You +must remain my wife in name and the mistress of my house." + +"Thank you, you mean to be kind, I know," said Karen, who had not looked +at him since her declaration; "But I am not a conventional woman and I +do not wish to live with a man who is no longer my husband. I do not +wish to keep up appearances. I do not wish it to be said--by those who +know my guardian and what she has done for me and been to me--that I +keep up the appearance of regard for a man who hates her. I made a +mistake in marrying you; you allowed me to make it. Now, as far as I +can, I undo it by leaving you. Perhaps," she added, "you could divorce +me. That would set you free." + +The remark in its childishness, callousness, and considerateness struck +him as one of the most revealing she had made. He laughed icily. "Our +laws only allow of divorce for one cause and I advise you not to seek +freedom for yourself--or for me--by disgracing yourself. It's not worth +it. The conventions you scorn have their solid value." + +She had now turned her head and was looking at him. "I think you are +insulting me," she said. + +For the first time he observed a trembling in her voice and interpreted +it as anger. It gave him a hurting satisfaction to have made her angry. +She had appalled and shattered him. + +"I am not insulting you, I am warning you, Karen," he said. "A woman who +can behave as you are behaving is capable of acts of criminal folly. You +don't believe in convention, and in your guardian's world you will meet +many men who don't." + +"What do you mean by criminal folly?" + +"I mean living with a man you're not married to." + +He had simply and sincerely forgotten something. Karen's face grew +ashen. + +"You mean that my mother was a criminal?" + +Even at this moment of his despair Gregory was horribly sorry. Yet the +memory that she recalled brought a deeper fear for her future. He had +spoken with irony of her suggestion about divorce and freedom. But did +not her very blood, as well as her environment, give him reason to +emphasise his warning? + +"I didn't mean that. I wasn't thinking of that," he said, "as you must +know. And to be criminally foolish is a very different thing from being +a criminal. But I'm convinced that to break social laws--and these laws +about men and women have deeper than merely social sanctions--to break +them, I'm convinced, can bring no happiness. I feel about your mother, +and what she did--I say it with all reverence--that she was as mistaken +as she was unfortunate. And I beg of you, Karen, never to follow her +example." + +"It is not for you to speak of her!" Karen said, not moving from her +place but uttering the words with a still and sudden passion that he had +never heard from her. "It is not for you to preach sermons to me on the +text of my mother's misfortunes. I do not call them misfortunes--nor did +she. I do not accept your laws, and she was not afraid of them. How dare +you call her unfortunate? She lost nothing that she valued and she +gained great happiness, and gave it, for she was happy with my father. +It was a truer marriage than any I have known. She was more married than +you or I have ever been or could ever have been; for there was deep love +between them, and trust and understanding. Do not speak to me of her. I +forbid it." + +She turned to the door. Gregory sprang to her side and seized her wrist. +"Karen! Where are you going? Wait till to-morrow!" he exclaimed, fear +for her actual safety surmounting every other feeling. + +She stood still under his hand and looked at him with her still passion +of repudiation. "I will not wait. I shall go to-night to Frau Lippheim. +And to-morrow I shall go to Cornwall. I shall tell Mrs. Barker to pack +my clothes and send them to me there." + +"You have no money." + +"Frau Lippheim will lend me money. My guardian will take care of me. It +is not for you to have any thought for me." + +He dropped her arm. "Very well. Go then," he said. + +He turned from her. He heard that she paused, the knob of the door in +her hand. "Good-bye," she then said. + +Again it was, inconceivably, the mingled childishness, callousness and +considerateness. That, at the moment, she could think of the formality, +suffocated him. "Good-bye," he replied, not looking round. + +The door opened and closed. He heard her swift feet passing down the +passage to their room. + +She was not reckless. She needed her hat and coat at least. Quiet, +rational determination was in all her actions. + +Yet, as he waited to hear her come out again, a hope that he knew to be +chimerical rose in him. She would, perhaps, return, throw herself in his +arms and, weeping, say that she loved him and could not leave him. +Gregory's heart beat quickly. + +But when he heard her footsteps again they were not returning. They +passed along to the kitchen; she was speaking to Mrs. Barker--Gregory +had a shoot of surface thought for Mrs. Barker's astonishment; they +entered the hall again, the hall door closed behind them. + +Gregory stood looking at the Bouddha. The tears kept mounting to his +throat and eyes and, furiously, he choked them back. He did not see the +Bouddha. + +But, suddenly becoming aware of the bland contemplative gaze of the +great bronze image, his eyes fixed themselves on it. + +He had known it from the first to be an enemy. Its presage was +fulfilled. The tidal wave had broken over his life. + + + + +PART II + + + + +CHAPTER XXIX + + +Karen sat in her corner of the railway carriage looking out at familiar +scenery. + +Reading and the spring-tide beauties of the Thames valley had gone by in +the morning. Then, after the attendant had passed along the corridor +announcing lunch, and those who were lunching had followed him in single +file, had come the lonely majesty of the Somerset downs, lying like +great headlands along the plain, a vast sky of rippled blue and silver +above them. They had passed Plymouth where she had always used to look +down from the high bridges and wonder over the lives of the midshipmen +on the training-ships, and now they were winding through wooded Cornish +valleys. + +Karen had looked out of her window all day. She had not read, though +kind Frau Lippheim had put the latest _tendenz-roman_, paper-bound, into +the little basket, which was also stocked with stout beef-sandwiches, a +bottle of milk, and the packet of chocolate and bun in paper bag that +Franz had added to it at the station. + +Poor Franz. He and his mother had come to see her off and they had both +wept as the train moved away, and strange indeed it must have been for +them to see the Karen Jardine who, only yesterday, had been, apparently, +so happy, and so secure in her new life, carried back to the old; a wife +who had left her husband. + +Karen had slept little the night before, and kind Franz must have slept +less; for he had given her his meagre bedroom and spent the night on the +narrowest, hardest, most slippery of sofas in the sitting-room of the +Bayswater lodging-house where Karen had found the Lippheims very +cheaply, very grimly, not to say greasily, installed. It was no wonder +that Franz's eyes had been so heavy, his face so puffed and pale that +morning; and his tears had given the last touch of desolation to his +countenance. + +Karen herself had not wept, either at the parting or at the meeting of +the night before. She had told them, with no explanations at all, that +she had left her husband and was going back to her guardian, and the +Lippheims had asked no questions. + +It might have been possible that Franz, as he sat at the table, his +fingers run through his hair, clutching his head while he and his mother +listened to her, was not so dazed and lost as was Frau Lippheim, who had +not seen Gregory. Franz might have his vague perceptions. "_Ach! Ach!_" +he had ejaculated once or twice while she spoke. + +And Frau Lippheim had only said: "_Liebes Kind! Liebes, armes Kind!_" + +She was, after all, going back to the great Tante and they felt, no +doubt, that no grief could be ultimate which had that compensatory +refuge. + +She was going back to Tante. As the valleys, in their deepened shadows, +streamed past her, Karen remembered that it had hardly been at all of +Tante that she had thought while the long hours passed and her eyes +observed the flying hills and fields. Perhaps she had thought of +nothing. The heavy feeling, as of a stone resting on her heart, of doom, +defeat and bitterness, could hardly have been defined as thought. She +had thought and thought and thought during these last dreadful days; +every mental cog had been adjusted, every wheel had turned; she had held +herself together as never before in all her life, in order to give +thought every chance. For wasn't that to give him every chance? and +wasn't that, above all, to give herself any chance that might still be +left her? + +And now the machinery seemed to lie wrecked. There was not an ember of +hope left with which to kindle its activity. How much hope there must +have been to have made it work so firmly and so furiously during these +last days! how much, she hadn't known until her husband had come in last +night, and, at last, spoken openly. + +Even Mrs. Forrester's revelations, though they had paralyzed her, had +not put out the fires. She had still hoped that he could deny, explain, +recant, own that he had been hasty, perhaps; perhaps mistaken; give her +some loophole. She could have understood--oh, to a degree almost +abject--his point of view. Mrs. Forrester had accused her of that. And +Tante had accused her of it, too. But no; it had been slowly to freeze +to stillness to hear his clear cold utterance of shameful words, see the +folly of his arrogance and his complacency, realise, in his glacial look +and glib, ironic smile, that he was blind to what he was destroying in +her. For he could not have torn her heart to shreds and then stood +bland, unaware of what he had done, had he loved her. Her young spirit, +unversed in irony, drank in the bitter draught of disillusion. They had +never loved each other; or, worse, far worse, they had loved and love +was this puny thing that a blow could kill. His love for her was dead. + +She still trembled when the ultimate realization surged over her, +looking fixedly out of the window lest she should weep aloud. + +She had only one travelling companion, an old woman who got out at +Plymouth. Karen had found her curiously repulsive and that was one +reason why she had kept her eyes fixed on the landscape. She had been +afraid that the old woman would talk to her, perhaps offer her +refreshments, or sympathy; for she was a kind old woman, with bland eyes +and a moist warm face and two oily curls hanging forward from her +old-fashioned bonnet upon her shoulders. She was stout, dressed in tight +black cashmere, and she sat with her knees apart and her hands, gloved +in grey thread gloves, lying on them. She held a handkerchief rolled +into a ball, and from time to time, as if furtively, she would raise +this handkerchief to her brow and wipe it. And all the time, Karen felt, +she looked mildly and humbly at her and seemed to divine her distress. + +Karen was thankful when she got out. She had been ashamed of her +antipathy. + +Bodmin Road was now passed and the early spring sunset shone over the +tree-tops in the valleys below. Karen leaned her head back and closed +her eyes. She was suddenly aware of her great fatigue, and when they +reached Gwinear Road she found that she had been dozing. + +The fresh, chill air, as she walked along the platform, waiting for the +change of trains, revived her. She had not been able to eat her beef +sandwiches and the thought that so much of Frau Lippheim's good food +should be wasted troubled her; she was glad to find a little wandering +fox-terrier who ate the meat eagerly. She herself, sitting beside the +dog, nibbled at Franz's chocolate. She had had nothing on her journey +but the milk and part of the bun which Franz had given her. + +Now she was in the little local train and the bleak Cornish country, +nearing the coast, spread before her eyes like a map of her future life. +She began to think of the future, and of Tante. + +She had not sent word to Tante that she was coming. She felt that it +would be easiest to appear before her in silence and Tante would +understand. There need be no explanations. + +She imagined that Tante would find it best that she should live, +permanently now, in Cornwall with Mrs. Talcott. It could hardly be +convenient for her to take about with her a wife who had left her +husband. Karen quite realized that her status must be a very different +one from that of the unshadowed young girl. + +And it would be strange to take up the old life again and to look back +from it at the months of life with Gregory--that mirage of happiness +receding as if to a blur of light seen over a stretch of desert. Still +with her quiet and unrevealing young face turned towards the evening +landscape, Karen felt as if she had grown very old and were looking +back, after a life-time without Gregory, at the mirage. How faint and +far it would seem to be when she was really old--like a nebulous star +trembling on the horizon. But it would never grow invisible; she would +never forget it; oh never; nor the dreadful pain of loss. To the very +end of life, she was sure of it, she would keep the pang of the shining +memory. + +When they reached Helston, dusk had fallen. She found a carriage that +would drive her the twelve miles to the coast. It was a quiet, grey +evening and as they jolted slowly along the dusty roads and climbed the +steep hills at a snail's pace, she leaned back too tired to feel +anything any longer. And now they were out upon the moors where the +gorse was breaking into flowers; and now, over the sea, she saw at last +the great beacon of the Lizard lighthouse sweeping the country with its +vast, desolate, yet benignant beam. + +They reached the long road and the stile where, a year before, she had +met Gregory. Here was the hedge of fuchsia; here the tamarisks on their +high bank; here the entrance to Les Solitudes. The steeply pitched grey +roofs rose before her, and the white walls with their squares of orange +light glimmered among the trees. + +She alighted, paid the man, and rang. + +A maid, unknown to her, came to the door and showed surprise at seeing +her there with her bag. + +Yes; Madame von Marwitz was within. Karen had entered with the asking. +"Whom shall I announce, Madam?" the maid inquired. + +Karen looked at her vaguely. "She is in the music-room? I do not need to +be announced. That will go to my room." She put down the bag and crossed +the hall. + +She was not aware of feeling any emotion; yet a sob had taken her by the +throat and tears had risen to her eyes; she opened them widely as she +entered the dusky room, presenting a strange face. + +Madame von Marwitz rose from a distant sofa. + +In her astonishment, she stood still for a moment; then, like a great, +white, widely-winged moth, she came forward, rapidly, yet with hesitant, +reconnoitring pauses, her eyes on the girl who stood in the doorway +looking blindly towards her. + +"Karen!" she exclaimed sharply. "What brings you here?" + +"I have come back to you, Tante," said Karen. + +Tante stood before her, not taking her into her arms, not taking her +hands. + +"Come back to me? What do you mean?" + +"I have left Gregory," said Karen. She was bewildered now. What had +happened? She did not know; but it was something that made it impossible +to throw herself in Tante's arms and weep. + +Then she saw that another person was with them. A man was seated on the +distant sofa. He rose, wandering slowly down the room, and revealed +himself in the dim light that came from the evening sky and sea as Mr. +Claude Drew. Pausing at some little distance he fixed his eyes on Karen, +and in the midst of all the impressions, striking like chill, moulding +blows on the melted iron of her mood, she was aware of these large, dark +eyes of Mr. Drew's and of their intent curiosity. + +The predominant impression, however, was of a changed aspect in +everything, and as Tante, now holding her hands, still stood silent, +also looking at her with intent curiosity, the impression vaguely and +terribly shaped itself for her as a piercing question: Was Tante not +glad to have her back? + +There came from Tante in another moment a more accustomed note. + +"You have left your husband--because of me--my poor child?" + +Karen nodded. Mr. Drew's presence made speech impossible. + +"He made it too difficult for you?" + +Karen nodded again. + +"And you have come back to me." Madame von Marwitz summed it up rather +than inquired. And then, after another pause, she folded Karen in her +arms. + +The piercing question seemed answered. Yet Karen could not now have +wept. A dry, hard desolation filled her. "May I go to my room, Tante?" + +"Yes, my child. Go to your room. You will find Tallie. Tallie is in the +house, I think--or did I send her in to Helston?--no, that was for +to-morrow." She held Karen's hand at a stretch of her arm while she +seemed, with difficulty still, to collect her thoughts. "But I will come +with you myself. Yes; that is best. Wait here, Claude." This to the +silent, dusky figure behind them. + +"Do not let me be a trouble." Karen controlled the trembling of her +voice. "I know my way." + +"No trouble, my child; no trouble. Or none that I am not glad to take." + +Tante had her now on the stair--her arm around her shoulders. "You will +find us at sixes and sevens; a household hastily organized, but Tallie, +directed by wires, has done wonders. So. My poor Karen. You have left +him. For good? Or is it only to punish him that you come to me?" + +"I have left him for good." + +"So," Madame von Marwitz repeated. + +With all the veils and fluctuations, one thing was growing clear to +Karen. Tante might be glad to have her back; but she was confused, +trying to think swiftly, to adjust her thoughts. They were in Karen's +little room overlooking the trees at the corner of the house. It was +dismantled; a bare dressing-table, the ewer upturned in the basin, the +bed and its piled bedding covered with a sheet. Madame von Marwitz sat +down on the bed and drew Karen beside her. + +"But is not that to punish him too much?" + +"It is not to punish him. I cannot live with him any longer." + +"I see; I see;" said Madame von Marwitz, with a certain briskness, as +though, still, to give herself time to think. "It might have been wiser +to wait--to wait for a little. I would have written to you. We could +have consulted. It is serious, you know, my Karen, very serious, to +leave one's husband. I went away so that this should not come to you." + +"I could not wait. I could not stay with him any longer," said Karen +heavily. + +"There is more, you mean. You had words? He hates me more than you +thought?" + +Karen paused, and then assented: "Yes; more than I thought." + +Above the girl's head, which she held pressed down on her shoulder, +Madame von Marwitz pondered for some moments. "Alas!" she then uttered +in a deep voice. And, Karen saying nothing, she repeated on a yet more +melancholy note: "Alas!" + +Karen now raised herself from Tante's shoulder; but, at the gesture of +withdrawal, Madame von Marwitz caught her close again and embraced her. +"I feared it," she said. "I saw it. I hoped to hide it by my flight. My +poor child! My beloved Karen!" + +They held each other for some silent moments. Then Madame von Marwitz +rose. "You are weary, my Karen; you must rest; is it not so? I will send +Tallie to you. You will see Tallie--she is a perfection of discretion; +you do not shrink from Tallie. And you need tell her nothing; she will +not question you. Between ourselves; is it not so? Yes; that is best. +For the present. I will come again, later--I have guests, a guest, you +see. Rest here, my Karen." She moved towards the door. + +Karen looked after her. An intolerable fear pressed on her. She could +not bear, in her physical weakness, to be left alone with it. "Tante!" +she exclaimed. + +Madame von Marwitz turned. "My child?" + +"Tante--you are glad to have me back?" + +Her pride broke in a sob. She hid her face in her hands. + +Madame von Marwitz returned to the bed. + +"Glad, my child?" she said. "For all the sorrow that it means? and to +know that I am the cause? How can I be glad for my child's unhappiness?" + +She spoke with a touch of severity, as though in Karen's tears she felt +an unexpressed accusation. + +"Not for that," Karen spoke with difficulty. "But to have me with you +again. It will not be a trouble?" + +There was a little silence and then, her severity passing to melancholy +reproof, Madame von Marwitz said: "Did we not, long since, speak of +this, Karen? Have you forgotten? Can you so wound me once again? Only my +child's grief can excuse her. It is a sorrow to see your life in ruins; +I had hoped before I died to see it joyous and secure. It is a sorrow to +know that you have maimed yourself; that you are tied to an unworthy +man. But how could it be a trouble to me to have you with me? It is a +consolation--my only consolation in this calamity. With me you shall +find peace and happiness again." + +She laid her hand on Karen's head. Karen put her hand to her lips. + +"There. That is well," said Madame von Marwitz with a sigh, bending to +kiss her. "That is my child. Tante is sad at heart. It is a heavy blow. +But her child is welcome." + +When she had gone Karen lay, her face in the billows of the bed, while +she fixed her thoughts on Tante's last words. + +They became a sing-song monotone. "Tante is sad at heart. But her child +is welcome. It is a heavy blow. But her child is welcome." + +After the anguish there was a certain ease. She rested in the given +reassurance. Yet the sing-song monotone oppressed her. + +She felt presently that her hat, wrenched to one side, and still fixed +to her hair by its pins, was hurting her. She unfastened it and dropped +it to the floor. She felt too tired to do more just then. + +Soon after this the door opened and Mrs. Talcott appeared carrying a +candle, a can of hot water, towels and sheets. + +Karen drew herself up, murmuring some vague words of welcome, and Mrs. +Talcott, after setting the candle on the dressing-table and the hot +water in the basin, remarked: "Just you lie down again, Karen, and let +me wash your face for you. You must be pretty tired and dirty after that +long journey." + +But Karen put her feet to the ground. They just sustained her. "Thank +you, Mrs. Talcott. I will do it," she said. + +She bent over the water, and, while she washed, Mrs. Talcott, with +deliberate skill, made up the bed. Karen sank in a chair. + +"You poor thing," said Mrs. Talcott, turning to her as she smoothed down +the sheet; "Why you're green. Sit right there and I'll undress you. Yes; +you're only fit to be put to bed." + +She spoke with mild authority, and Karen, under her hands, relapsed to +childhood. + +"This all the baggage you've brought?" Mrs. Talcott inquired, finding a +nightdress in Karen's dressing-case. She expressed no surprise when +Karen said that it was all, passed the nightdress over her head and, +when she had lain down, tucked the bed-clothes round her. + +"Now what you want is a hot-water bottle and some dinner. I guess you're +hungry. Did you have any lunch on the train?" + +"I've had some chocolate and a bun and some milk, oh yes, I had enough," +said Karen faintly, raising her hand to her forehead; "but I must be +hungry; for my head aches so badly. How kind you are, Mrs. Talcott." + +"You lie right there and I'll bring you some dinner." Mrs. Talcott was +swiftly tidying the room. + +"But what of yours, Mrs. Talcott? Isn't it your dinner-time?" + +"I've had my supper. I have supper early these days." + +Karen dimly reflected, when she was gone, that this was an innovation. +Whoever Madame von Marwitz's guests, Mrs. Talcott had, until now, always +made an _acte de présence_ at every meal. She was tired and not feeling +well enough after her illness, she thought. + +Mrs. Talcott soon returned with a tray on which were set out hot +_consommée_ and chicken and salad, a peach beside them. Hot-house fruit +was never wanting when Madame von Marwitz was at Les Solitudes. + +"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?" + +"Yes, she and Mr. Drew are going off for the day." Mrs. Talcott adjusted +Karen's pillow. + +"But I shall see Tante before she goes?" It was the formless, +featureless fear that came closer. + +"My, yes! You'll see her all right," said Mrs. Talcott. "She was asking +after you the first thing and hoped you'd stay in bed till lunch. Now +you eat your breakfast right away like a good girl." + +Karen tried to eat her breakfast like a good girl and the sound of the +_Wohltemperirtes Clavier_ seemed again to encircle and sustain her. + +"How'd you sleep, honey?" Mrs. Talcott inquired. The term hardly +expressed endearment, yet it was such an unusual one from Mrs. Talcott +that Karen could only surmise that her tears had touched the old woman. + +"Very, very well," she said. + +"How'd you like me to bring up some mending I've got to do and sit by +you till Mercedes comes?" Mrs. Talcott pursued. + +"Oh, please do, Mrs. Talcott," said Karen. She felt that she would like +to have Mrs. Talcott there with her very much. She would probably cry +unless Mrs. Talcott stayed with her, and she did not want Tante to find +her crying. + +So Mrs. Talcott brought her basket of mending and sat by the window, +sewing in silence for the most part, but exchanging with Karen now and +then a quiet remark about the state of the garden and how the plants +were doing. + +At eleven the sound of the piano ceased and soon after the stately tread +of Madame von Marwitz was heard outside. Mrs. Talcott, saying that she +would come back later on, gathered up her mending as she appeared. She +was dressed for motoring, with a long white cloak lined with white fur +and her head bound in nun-like fashion with a white coif and veil. +Beautiful she looked, and sad, and gentle; a succouring Madonna; and +Karen's heart rose up to her. It clung to her and prayed; and the +realisation of her own need, her own dependence, was a new thing. She +had never before felt dependence on Tante as anything but proud and +glad. To pray to her now that she should never belie her loveliness, to +cling to that faith in her without which all her life would be a thing +distorted and unrecognisable, was not pride or gladness and seemed to be +the other side of fear. Yet so gentle were the eyes, so tender the smile +and the firm clasp of the hands taking hers, while Tante murmured, +stooping to kiss her: "Good morning to my child," that the prayer seemed +answered, the faith approved. + +If Madame von Marwitz had been taken by surprise the night before, if +she had had to give herself time to think, she had now, it was evident, +done her thinking. The result was this warmly cherishing tenderness. + +"Ah," she said, still stooping over Karen, while she put back her hair, +"it is good to have my child back again, mine--quite mine--once more." + +"I have slept so well, Tante," said Karen. She was able to smile up at +her. + +Madame von Marwitz looked about the room. "And now it is to gather the +dear old life closely about her again. Gardening, and reading; and quiet +times with Tante and Tallie. Though, for the moment, I must be much with +my guest; I am helping him with his work. He has talent, yes; it is a +strange and complicated nature. You did not expect to find him here?" + +Karen held Tante's hand and her gaze was innocent of surmise. Mr. Drew +had never entered her thoughts. "No. Yes. No, Tante. He came with you?" + +"Yes, he came with me," said Madame von Marwitz. "I had promised him +that he should see Les Solitudes one day. I was glad to find an +occupation for my thoughts in helping him. I told him that if he were +free he might join me. It is good, in great sorrow, to think of others. +Now it is, for the young man and for me, our work. Work, work; we must +all work, _ma chérie_. It is our only clue in the darkness of life; our +only nourishment in the desert places." Again she looked about the room. +"You came without boxes?" + +"Yes, Mrs. Barker is to send them to me." + +"Ah, yes. When," said Madame von Marwitz, in a lower voice, "did you +leave? Yesterday morning?" + +"No, Tante. The night before." + +"The night before? So? And where did you spend the night? With Mrs. +Forrester? With Scrotton? I have not yet written to Scrotton." + +"No. I went to the Lippheims." + +"The Lippheims? So?" + +"The others, Tante, would have talked to me; and questioned me. I could +not have borne that. The Lippheims were so kind." + +"I can believe it. They have hearts of gold, those Lippheims. They would +cut themselves in four to help one. And the good Lise? How is she? I am +sorry to have missed Lise." + +"And she was, oh, so sorry to have missed you, Tante. She is well, I +think, though tired; she is always tired, you remember. She has too much +to do." + +"Indeed, yes; poor Lise. She might have been an artist of the first rank +if she had not given herself over to the making of children. Why did she +not stop at Franz and Lotta and Minna? That would have given her the +quartette,"--Madame von Marwitz smiled--she was in a mildly merry mood. +"But on they go--four, five, six, seven, eight--how many are there--_bon +Dieu!_ of how many am I the god-mother? One grows bewildered. It is +almost a rat's family. Lise is not unlike a white mother-rat, with the +small round eye and the fat body." + +"Oh--not a rat, Tante," Karen protested, a little pained. + +"A rabbit, you think? And a rabbit, too, is prolific. No; for the rabbit +has not the sharpness, not the pointed nose, the anxious, eager look--is +not so the mother, indeed. Rat it is, my Karen; and rat with a golden +heart. How do you find Tallie? She has been with you all the morning? +You have not talked with Tallie of our calamities?" + +"Oh, no, Tante." + +"She is a wise person, Tallie; wise, silent, discreet. And I find her +looking well; but very, very well; this air preserves her. And how old +is Tallie now?" she mused. + +Though she talked so sweetly there was, Karen felt it now, a +perfunctoriness in Tante's remarks. She was, for all the play of her +nimble fancy, preoccupied, and the sound of the motor-horn below seemed +a signal for release. "Tallie is, _mon Dieu_," she computed, +rising--"she was twenty-three when I was born--and I am nearly +fifty"--Madame von Marwitz was as far above cowardly reticences about +her age as a timeless goddess--"Tallie is actually seventy-two. Well, I +must be off, _ma chérie_. We have a long trip to make to-day. We go to +Fowey. He wishes to see Fowey. I pray the weather may continue fine. You +will be with us this evening? You will get up? You will come to dinner?" + +She paused at the mantelpiece to adjust her veil, and Karen, in the +glass, saw that her eyes were fixed on hers with a certain intentness. + +"Yes, I will get up this morning, Tante," she said. "I will help Mrs. +Talcott with the garden. But dinner? Mrs. Talcott says that she has +supper now. Shall I not have my supper with her? Perhaps she would like +that?" + +"That would perhaps be well," said Madame von Marwitz. "That is perhaps +well thought." Still she paused and still, in the glass, she fixed +cogitating eyes on Karen. She turned, then, abruptly. "But no; I do not +think so. On second thoughts I do not think so. You will dine with us. +Tallie is quite happy alone. She is pleased with the early supper. I +shall see you, then, this evening." + +A slight irritation lay on her brows; but she leaned with all her +tenderness to kiss Karen, murmuring, "_Adieu, mon enfant_." + +When the sound of the motor had died away Karen got up, dressed and went +downstairs. + +The music-room, its windows open to the sea, was full of the signs of +occupancy. + +The great piano stood open. Karen went to it and, standing over it, +played softly the dearly loved notes of the prelude in D flat. + +She practised, always, on the upright piano in the morning-room; but +when Tante was at home and left the grand piano open she often played on +that. It was a privilege rarely to be resisted and to-day she sat down +and played the fugue through, still very softly. Then, covering the +keys, she shut the lid and looked more carefully about the room. + +Flowers and books were everywhere. Mrs. Talcott arranged flowers +beautifully; Karen recognized her skilful hand in the tall branches of +budding green standing high in a corner, the glasses of violets, the +bowls of anemones and the flat dishes of Italian earthenware filled with +primroses. + +On a table lay a pile of manuscript; she knew Mr. Drew's small, thick +handwriting. A square silver box for cigarettes stood near by; it was +marked with Mr. Drew's initials in Tante's hand. How kind she was to +that young man; but Tante had always been lavish with those of whom she +was fond. + +Out on the verandah the vine-tendrils were already green against the +sky, and on a lower terrace she saw Mrs. Talcott at work, as usual, +among the borders. Mrs. Talcott then, had not yet gone to Helston and +she would not be alone and she was glad of that. In the little cupboard +near the pantry she found a pair of old gardening gloves and her own old +gardening hat. The day was peaceful and balmy; all was as it had always +been, except herself. + +She worked all the morning in the garden and walked in the afternoon on +the cliffs with Victor. Victor had come down with Tante. + +Mrs. Talcott had adjourned the trip to Helston; so they had tea +together. Her boxes had not yet come and when it was time to dress for +dinner she had nothing to change to but the little white silk with the +flat blue bows upon it, the dress in which Gregory had first seen her. +She had left it behind her when she married and found it now hanging in +a cupboard in her room. + +The horn of the returning motor did not sound until she was dressed and +on going down she had the music-room to herself for nearly half an hour. +Then Mr. Drew appeared. + +The tall white lamps with their white shades had been brought in, but +the light from the windows mingled a pale azure with the gold. Mr. Drew, +Karen reflected, looked in the dual illumination like a portrait by +Besnard. He had, certainly, an unusual and an interesting face, and it +pleased her to verify and emphasize this fact; for, accustomed as she +was to watching Tante's preoccupations with interesting people, she +could not quite accustom herself to her preoccupation with Mr. Drew. To +account for it he must be so very interesting. + +She was not embarrassed by conjectures as to what, after her entry of +last night, Mr. Drew might be thinking about her. It occurred to her no +more than in the past to imagine that anybody attached to Tante could +spare thought to her. And as in the past, despite all the inner +desolation, it was easy to assume to this guest of Tante's the attitude +so habitual to her of the attendant in the temple, the attendant who, +rising from his seat at the door, comes forward tranquilly to greet the +worshipper and entertain him with quiet comment until the goddess shall +descend. + +"Did you have a nice drive?" she inquired. "The weather has been +beautiful." + +Mr. Drew, coming up to her as she stood in the open window, looked at +her with his impenetrable, melancholy eyes, smiling at her a little. + +There was no tastelessness in his gaze, nothing that suggested a +recollection of what he had heard or seen last night; yet Karen was made +vaguely aware from his look that she had acquired some sort of +significance for him. + +"Yes, it's been nice," he said. "I'm very fond of motoring. I'd like to +spend my days in a motor--always going faster and faster; and then drop +down in a blissful torpor at night. Madame von Marwitz was so kind and +made the chauffeur go very fast." + +Karen was somewhat disturbed by this suggestion. "I am sure that she, +too, would like going very fast. I hope you will not tempt her." + +"Oh, but I'm afraid I do," Mr. Drew confessed. "What is the good of a +motor unless you go too fast in it? A motor has no meaning unless it's a +method of intoxication." + +Karen received the remark with inattention. She looked out over the sea, +preoccupied with the thought of Tante's recklessness. "I do not think +that going so fast can be good for her music," she said. + +"Oh, but yes," Mr. Drew assured her, "nothing is so good for art as +intoxication. Art is rooted in intoxication. It's all a question of how +to get it." + +"But with motoring you only get torpor, you say," Karen remarked. And, +going on with her own train of thoughts, "So much shaking will be bad, +perhaps, for the muscles. And there is always the danger to consider. I +hope she will not go too fast. She is too important a person to take +risks." There was no suggestion that Mr. Drew should not take them. + +"Don't you like going fast? Don't you like taking risks? Don't you like +intoxication?" Mr. Drew inquired, and his eyes travelled from the blue +bows on her breast to the blue bows on her elbow-sleeves. + +"I have never been intoxicated," said Karen calmly--she was quite +accustomed to all manner of fantastic visitors in the temple--"I do not +think that I should like it. And I prefer walking to any kind of +driving. No, I do not like risks." + +"Ah yes, I can see that. Yes, that's altogether in character," said Mr. +Drew. He turned, then, as Madame von Marwitz came in, but remained +standing in the window while Karen went forward to greet her guardian. +Madame von Marwitz, as she took her hands and kissed her, looked over +Karen's shoulder at Mr. Drew. + +"Why did you not come to my room, _chérie_?" she asked. "I had hoped to +see you alone before I came down." + +"I thought you might be tired and perhaps resting, Tante," said Karen, +who had, indeed, paused before her guardian's door on her way down, and +then passed on with a certain sense of shyness; she did not want in any +way to force herself on Tante. + +"But you know that I like to have you with me when I am tired," Madame +von Marwitz returned. "And I am not tired: no: it has been a day of +wings." + +She walked down the long room, her arm around Karen, with a buoyancy of +tread and demeanour in which, however, Karen, so deep an adept in her +moods discovered excitement rather than gaiety. "Has it been a good day +for my child?" she questioned; "a happy, peaceful day? Yes? You have +been much with Tallie? I told Tallie that she must postpone the trip to +Helston so that she might stay with you." Tante on the sofa encircled +her and looked brightly at her; yet her eye swerved to the window where +Mr. Drew remained looking at a paper. + +Karen said that she had been gardening and walking. + +"Good; bravo!" said Tante, and then, in a lower voice: "No news, I +suppose?" + +"No; oh no. That could not be, Tante," said Karen, with a startled look, +and Tante went on quickly: "But no; I see. It could not be. And it has, +then, been a happy day for my Karen. What is it you read, Claude?" + +Karen's sense of slight perplexity in regard to Tante's interest in Mr. +Drew was deepened when she called him Claude, and her tone now, half +vexed, half light, was perplexing. + +"Some silly things that are being said in the House," Mr. Drew returned, +going on reading. + +"What things?" said Tante sharply. + +"Oh, you wouldn't expect me to read a stupid debate to you," said Mr. +Drew, lifting his eyes with a smile. + +Dinner was announced and they went in, Tante keeping her arm around +Karen's shoulders and sweeping ahead with an effect of unawareness as to +her other guest. She had, perhaps, a little lost her temper with him; +and his manner was, Karen reflected, by no means assiduous. At the +table, however, Tante showed herself suave and sweet. + +One reason why things seemed a little strange, Karen further reflected, +was that Mrs. Talcott came no longer to dinner; and she was vaguely +sorry for this. + + + + +CHAPTER XXXI + + +Karen's boxes arrived next day, neatly packed by Mrs. Barker. And not +only her clothes were in them. She had left behind her the jewel-box +with the pearl necklace that Gregory had given her, the pearl and +sapphire ring, the old enamel brooch and clasp and chain, his presents +all. The box was kept locked, and in a cupboard of which Gregory had the +key; so that he must have given it to Mrs. Barker. The photographs, too, +from their room, not those of him, but those of Tante; of her father; +and a half a dozen little porcelain and silver trinkets from the +drawing-room, presents and purchases particularly hers. + +It was right, quite right, that he should send them. She knew it. It was +right that he should accept their parting as final. Yet that he should +so accurately select and send to her everything that could remind him of +her seemed to roll the stone before the tomb. + +She looked at the necklace, the ring, all the pretty things, and shut +the box. Impossible that she should keep them yet impossible to send +them back as if in a bandying of rebuffs. She would wait for some years +to pass and then they should be returned without comment. + +And the clothes, all these dear clothes of her married life; every dress +and hat was associated with Gregory. She could never wear them again. +And it felt, not so much that she was locking them away, as that Gregory +had locked her out into darkness and loneliness. She took up the round +of the days. She practised; she gardened, she walked and read. Of Tante +she saw little. + +She was accustomed to seeing little of Tante, even when Tante was there; +quite accustomed to Tante's preoccupations. Yet, through the fog of her +own unhappiness, it came to her, like an object dimly perceived, that in +this preoccupation of Tante's there was a difference. It showed, itself +in a high-pitched restlessness, verging now and again on irritation--not +with her, Karen, but with Mr. Drew. To Karen she was brightly, +punctually tender, yet it was a tenderness that held her away rather +than drew her near. + +Karen did not need to be put aside. She had always known how to efface +herself; she needed no atonement for the so apparent fact that Tante +wanted to be left alone with Mr. Drew as much as possible. The +difficulty in leaving her came with perceiving that though Tante wanted +her to go she did not want to seem to want it. + +She caressed Karen; she addressed her talk to her; she kept her; yet, +under the smile of the eyes, there was an intentness that Karen could +interpret. It devolved upon her to find the excuse, the necessity, for +withdrawal. Mrs. Talcott, in the morning-room, was a solution. Karen +could go to her almost directly after dinner, as soon as coffee had been +served; for on the first occasion when she rose, saying that she would +have her coffee with Mrs. Talcott, Tante said with some sharpness--after +a hesitation: "No; you will have your coffee here. Tallie does not have +coffee." Groping her way, Karen seemed to touch strange forms. Tante +cared so much about this young man; so much that it was almost as if she +would be willing to abandon her dignity for him. It was more than the +indulgent, indolent interest, wholly Olympian, that she had so often +seen her bestow. She really cared. And the strangeness for Karen was in +part made up of pain for Tante; for it almost seemed that Tante cared +more than Mr. Drew did. Karen had seen so many men care for Tante; so +many who were, obviously, in love with her; but she had seen Tante +always throned high above the prostrate adorers, idly kind; holding out +a hand, perhaps, for them to kiss; smiling, from time to time, if they, +fortunately, pleased her; but never, oh never, stepping down towards +them. + +It seemed to her now that she had seen Tante stepping down. It was only +a step; she could never become the suppliant, the pursuing goddess; and, +as if with her hand still laid on the arm of her throne, she kept all +her air of high command. + +But had she kept its power? Mr. Drew's demeanour reminded Karen +sometimes of a cat's. Before the glance and voice of authority he would, +metaphorically, pace away; pausing to blink up at some object that +attracted his attention or to interest himself in the furbishing of +flank or chest. At a hint of anger or coercion, he would tranquilly +disappear. Tante, controlling indignation, was left to stare after him +and to regain the throne as best she might, and at these moments Karen +felt that Tante's eye turned on her, gauging her power of +interpretation, ready, did she not feign the right degree of +unconsciousness, to wreak on her something of the controlled emotion. +The fear that had come on the night of her arrival pressed closely on +Karen then, but, more closely still, the pain for Tante. Tante's clear +dignity was blurred; her image, in its rebuffed and ineffectual +autocracy, became hovering, uncertain, piteous. And, in seeing and +feeling all these things, as if with a lacerated sensitiveness, Karen +was aware that, in this last week of her life, she had grown much older. +She felt herself in some ways older than her guardian. + +It was on the morning of her seventh day at Les Solitudes that she met +Mr. Drew walking early in the garden. + +The sea was glittering blue and gold; the air was melancholy in its +sweetness; birds whistled. + +Karen examined Mr. Drew as he approached her along the sunny upper +terrace. + +With his dense, dark eyes, delicate face and golden hair, his white +clothes and loose black tie, she was able to recognize in him an object +that might charm and even subjugate. To Karen he seemed but one among +the many strange young men she had seen surrounding Tante; yet this +morning, clearly, and for the first time, she saw why he subjugated +Tante and why she resented her subjugation. There was more in him than +mere pose and peculiarity; he had some power; the power of the cat: he +was sincerely indifferent to anything that did not attract him. And at +the same time he was unimportant; insignificant in all but his +sincerity. He was not a great writer; Tante could never make a great +writer out of him. And he was, when all was said and done, but one among +many strange young men. + +"Good morning," he said. He doffed his hat. He turned and walked beside +her. They were in full view of the house. "I hoped that I might find +you. Let us go up to the flagged garden," he suggested; "the sea is +glittering like a million scimitars. One has a better view up there." + +"But it is not so warm," said Karen. "I am walking here to be in the +sun." + +Mr. Drew had also been walking there to be in the sun; but they were in +full view of the house and he was aware of a hand at Madame von +Marwitz's window-curtain. He continued, however, to walk beside Karen up +and down the terrace. + +"I think of you," he said, "as a person always in the sun. You suggest +glaciers and fields of snow and meadows full of flowers--the sun pouring +down on all of them. I always imagine Apollo as a Norse God. Are you +really a Norwegian?" + +Karen was, as we have said, accustomed to young men who talked in a +fantastic manner. She answered placidly: "Yes. I am half Norwegian." + +"Your name, then, is really yours?--your untamed, yet intimate, name. It +is like a wild bird that feeds out of one's hand." + +"Yes; it is really mine. It is quite a common name in Norway." + +"Wild birds are common," Mr. Drew observed, smiling softly. + +He found her literalness charming. He was finding her altogether +charming. From the moment that she had appeared at the door in the dusk, +with her white, blind, searching face, she had begun to interest him. +She was stupid and delightful; a limpid and indomitable young creature +who, in a clash of loyalties, had chosen, without a hesitation, to leave +the obvious one. Also she was married yet unawakened, and this, to Mr. +Drew, was a pre-eminently charming combination. The question of the +awakened and the unawakened, of the human attitude to passion, +preoccupied him, practically, more than any other. His art dealt mainly +in themes of emotion as an end in itself. + +The possibilities of passion in Madame von Marwitz, as artist and +genius, had strongly attracted him. He had genuinely been in love with +Madame von Marwitz. But the mere woman, as she more and more helplessly +revealed herself, was beginning to oppress and bore him. + +He had amused himself, of late, by imaging his relation to her in the +fable of the sun and the traveller. Her beams from their high, sublime +solitudes had filled him with delight and exhilaration. Then the +radiance had concentrated itself, had begun to follow him--rather in the +manner of stage sunlight--very unflaggingly. He had wished for intervals +of shade. He had been aware, even during his long absence in America, of +sultriness brooding over him, and now, at these close quarters, he had +begun to throw off his cloak of allegiance. She bored him. It wasn't +good enough. She pretended to be sublime and far; but she wasn't sublime +and far; she was near and watchful and exacting; as watchful and +exacting as a mistress and as haughty as a Diana. She was not, and had, +evidently, no intention of being, his mistress, and for the mere +pleasure of adoring her Mr. Drew found the price too high to pay. He did +not care to proffer, indefinitely, a reverent passion, and he did not +like people, when he showed his weariness, to lose their tempers with +him. Already Madame von Marwitz had lost hers. He did not forget what +she looked like nor what she said on these occasions. She had mentioned +the large-mouthed children at Wimbledon--facts that he preferred to +forget as much as possible--and he did not know that he forgave her. +There was a tranquil malice in realizing that as Madame von Marwitz +became more and more displeasing to him, Mrs. Jardine, more and more, +became pleasing. A new savour had come into his life since her +appearance and he had determined to postpone a final rupture with his +great friend and remain on for some time longer at Les Solitudes. He +wondered if it would be possible to awaken Mrs. Jardine. + +"Haven't I heard you practising, once or twice lately?" he asked her +now, as they turned at the end of the terrace and walked back. + +"Yes," said Karen; "I practise every morning." + +"I'd no idea you played, too." + +"It is hardly a case of 'too', is it," Karen said, mildly amused. + +"I don't know. Perhaps it is. One may look at a Memling after a Michael +Angelo, you know. I wish you'd play to me." + +"I am no Memling, I assure you." + +"You can't, until I hear you. Do play to me. Brahms; a little Brahms." + +"I have practised no Brahms for a long time. I find him too difficult." + +"I heard you doing a Bach prelude yesterday; play that." + +"Certainly, if you wish it, I will play it to you," said Karen, "though +I do not think that you will much enjoy it." + +Mrs. Talcott was in the morning-room over accounts; so Karen went with +the young man into the music-room and opened the grand piano there. + +She then played her prelude, delicately, carefully, composedly. She knew +Mr. Drew to be musicianly; she did not mind playing to him. + +More and more, Mr. Drew reflected, looking down at her, she reminded him +of flower-brimmed, inaccessible mountain-slopes. He must discover some +method of ascent; for the music brought her no nearer; he was aware, +indeed, that it removed her. She quite forgot him as she played. + +The last bars had been reached when the door opened suddenly and Madame +von Marwitz appeared. + +She had come in haste--that was evident--and a mingled fatigue and +excitement was on her face. Her white cheeks had soft, sodden +depressions and under her eyes were little pinches in the skin, as +though hot fingers had nipped her there. She looked almost old, and she +smiled a determined, adjusted smile, with heavy eyes. "_Tiens, tiens_," +she said, and, turning elaborately, she shut the door. + +Karen finished her bars and rose. + +"This is a new departure," said Madame von Marwitz. She came swiftly to +them, her loose lace sleeves flowing back from her bare arms. "I do not +like my piano touched, you know, Karen, unless permission is given. No +matter, no matter, my child. Let it not occur again, that is all. You +have not found the right balance of that phrase," she stooped and +reiterated with emphasis a fragment of the prelude. "And now I will +begin my work, if you please. Tallie waits for you, I think, in the +garden, and would be glad of your help. Tallie grows old. It does not do +to forget her." + +"Am I to go into the garden, too?" Mr. Drew inquired, as Madame von +Marwitz seated herself and ran her fingers over the keys. "I thought we +were to motor this morning." + +"We will motor when I have done my work. Go into the garden, by all +means, if you wish to." + +"May I come into the garden with you? May I help you there?" Mr. Drew +serenely drawled, addressing Karen, who, with a curious, concentrated +look, stood gazing at her guardian. + +She turned her eyes on him and her glance put him far, far away, like an +object scarcely perceived. "I am not going into the garden," she said. +"Mrs. Talcott is working in the morning-room and does not need me yet." + +"Ah. She is in the morning-room," Madame von Marwitz murmured, still not +raising her eyes, and still running loud and soft scales up and down. +Karen left the room. + +As the door closed upon her, Madame von Marwitz, with a singular effect +of control, began to weave a spider's-web of intricate, nearly +impalpable, sound. "Go, if you please," she said to Mr. Drew. + +He stood beside her, placid. "Why are you angry?" he asked. + +"I am not pleased that my rules should be broken. Karen has many +privileges. She must learn not to take, always, the extra inch when the +ell is so gladly granted." + +He leaned on the piano. Her controlled face, bent with absorption above +the lacey pattern of sound that she evoked, interested him. + +"When you are angry and harness your anger to your art like this, you +become singularly beautiful," he remarked. He felt it; and, after all, +if he were to remain at Les Solitudes and attempt to scale those Alpine +slopes he must keep on good terms with Madame von Marwitz. + +"So," was her only reply. Yet her eyes softened. + +He raised the lace wing of her sleeve and kissed it, keeping it in his +hand. + +"No foolishness if you please," said Madame von Marwitz. "Of what have +you and Karen been talking?" + +"I can't get her to talk," said Mr. Drew. "But I like to hear her play." + +"She plays with right feeling," said Madame von Marwitz. "She is not a +child to express herself in speech. Her music reveals her more truly." + +"_Nur wo du bist sei alles, immer kindlich_," Mr. Drew mused. "That is +what she makes me think of." With anybody of Madame von Marwitz's +intelligence, frankness was far more likely to allay suspicion than +guile. And for very pride now she was forced to seem reassured. "Yes. +That is so," she said. And she continued to play. + + + + +CHAPTER XXXII + + +Karen meanwhile made her way to the cliff-path and, seating herself on a +grassy slope, she clasped her knees with her hands and gazed out over +the sea. She was thinking hard of something, and trying to think only of +that. It was true, the permission had been that she was to play on the +grand-piano when it was left open. There had been no rule set; it had +not been said that she was not to play at other times and indeed, on +many occasions, she had played unrebuked, before Tante came down. But +the thing to remember now, with all her power, was that, technically, +Tante had been right. To hold fast to that thought was to beat away a +fear that hovered about her, like a horrible bird of prey. She sat there +for a long time, and she became aware at last that though she held so +tightly to her thought, it had, as it were, become something lifeless, +inefficacious, and that fear had invaded her. Tante had been unkind, +unjust, unloving. + +It was as though, in taking refuge with Tante, she had leaped from a +great height, seeing security beneath, and as though, alighting, she +slipped and stumbled on a sloping surface with no foothold anywhere. +Since she came, there had been only this sliding, sliding, and now it +seemed to be down to unseen depths. For this was more and worse than the +first fear of her coming. Tante had been unkind, and she so loved Mr. +Drew that she forgot herself when he bestowed his least attention +elsewhere. + +Karen rose to her feet suddenly, aware that she was trembling. + +She looked over the sea and the bright day was dreadful to her. Where +was she and what was she, and what was Tante, if this fear were true? +Not even on that far day of childhood when she had lost herself in the +forest had such a horror of loneliness filled her. She was a lost, an +unwanted creature. + +She turned from the unanswering immensities and ran down the cliff-path +towards Les Solitudes. She could not be alone. To think these things was +to feel herself drowning in fear. + +Emerging from the higher trees she caught sight below her of Mrs. +Talcott's old straw hat moving among the borders; and, in the midst of +the emptiness, the sight was strength and hope. The whole world seemed +to narrow to Mrs. Talcott. She was secure and real. She was a spar to be +clung to. The nightmare would reveal itself as illusion if she kept near +Mrs. Talcott. She ran down to her. + +Mrs. Talcott was slaying slugs. She had placed pieces of orange-peel +around cherished young plants to attract the depredators and she held a +jar of soot; into the soot the slugs were dropped as she discovered +them. + +The sight of her was like a draught of water to parching lips. Reality +slowly grew round Karen once more. Tante had been hasty, even unkind; +but she was piteous, absorbed in this great devotion; and Tante loved +her. + +She walked beside Mrs. Talcott and helped her with the slugs. + +"Been out for a walk, Karen?" Mrs. Talcott inquired. They had reached +the end of the border and moved on to a higher one. + +"Only to the cliff," said Karen. + +"You look kind of tired," Mrs. Talcott remarked, and Karen owned that +she felt tired. "It's so warm to-day," she said. + +"Yes; it's real hot. Let's walk under the trees." Mrs. Talcott took out +her handkerchief and wiped her large, saffron-coloured forehead. + +They walked slowly in the thin shadow of the young foliage. + +"You're staying on for a while, aren't you?" Mrs. Talcott inquired +presently. She had as yet asked Karen no question and Karen felt that +something in her own demeanour had caused this one. + +"For more than a while," she said. "I am not going away again." In the +sound of the words she found a curious reassurance. Was it not her home, +Les Solitudes? + +Mrs. Talcott said nothing for some moments, stooping to nip a drooping +leaf from a plant they passed. Then she questioned further: "Is Mr. +Jardine coming down here?" + +"I have left my husband," said Karen. + +For some moments, Mrs. Talcott, again, said nothing, but she no longer +had an eye for the plants. Neither did she look at Karen; her gaze was +fixed before her. "Is that so," was at last her comment. + +The phrase might have expressed amazement, commiseration or protest; its +sound remained ambiguous. They had come to a rustic bench. "Let's sit +down for a while," she said; "I'm not as young as I was." + +They sat down, the old woman heavily, and she drew a sigh of relief. +Looking at her Karen saw that she, too, was very tired. And she, +too--was it not strange that to-day she should see it for the first +time?--was very lonely. A sudden pity, profound and almost passionate, +filled her for Mrs. Talcott. + +"You'll not mind having me here--for all the time now--again, will you?" +she asked, smiling a little, with determination, for she did not wish +Mrs. Talcott to guess what she had seen. + +"No," said Mrs. Talcott, continuing to gaze before her, and shaking her +head. "No, I'll be glad of that. We get on real well together, I think." +And, after another moment of silence, she went on in the same +contemplative tone: "I used to quarrel pretty bad with my husband when I +was first married, Karen. He was the nicest, mildest kind of man, as +loving as could be. But I guess most young things find it hard to get +used to each other all at once. It ain't easy, married life; at least +not at the beginning. You expect such a high standard of each other and +everything seems to hurt. After a while you get so discouraged, perhaps, +finding it isn't like what you expected, that you commence to think you +don't care any more and it was all a mistake. I guess every young wife +thinks that in the first year, and it makes you feel mighty sick. Why, +if marriage didn't tie people up so tight, most of 'em would fly apart +in the first year and think they just hated each other, and that's why +it's such a good thing that they're tied so tight. Why I remember once +the only thing that seemed to keep me back was thinking how Homer--Homer +was my husband's name, Homer G. Talcott--sort of snorted when he +laughed. I was awful mad with him and it seemed as if he'd behaved so +mean and misunderstood me so that I'd got to go; but when I thought of +that sort of childish snort he'd give sometimes, I felt I couldn't leave +him. It's mighty queer, human nature, and the teeny things that seem to +decide your mind for you; I guess they're not as teeny as they seem. But +those hurt feelings are almost always a mistake--I'm pretty sure of it. +Any two people find it hard to live together and get used to each other; +it don't make any difference how much in love they are." + +There was no urgency in Mrs. Talcott's voice and no pathos of +retrospect. Its contemplative placidity might have been inviting another +sad and wise old woman to recognize these facts of life with her. + +Karen's mood, while she listened to her, was hardening to the iron of +her final realization, the realization that had divided her and Gregory. +"It isn't so with us, Mrs. Talcott," she said. "He has shown himself a +man I cannot live with. None of our feelings are the same. All my sacred +things he despises." + +"Mercedes, you mean?" Mrs. Talcott suggested after a moment's silence. + +"Yes. And more." Karen could not name her mother. + +Mrs. Talcott sat silent. + +"Has Tante not told you why I was here?" Karen presently asked. + +"No," said Mrs. Talcott. "I haven't had a real talk with Mercedes since +she got back. Her mind is pretty well taken up with this young man." + +To this Karen, glancing at Mrs. Talcott in a slight bewilderment, was +able to say nothing, and Mrs. Talcott pursued, resuming her former tone: +"There's another upsetting thing about marriage, Karen, and that is that +you can't expect your families to feel about each other like you feel. +It isn't in nature that they should, and that's one of the things that +young married people can't make up their minds to. Now Mr. Jardine isn't +the sort of young man to care about many people; few and far between +they are, I should infer, and Mercedes ain't one of them. Mercedes +wouldn't appeal to him one mite. I saw that as plain as could be from +the first." + +"He should have told me so," said Karen, with her rocky face and voice. + +"Well, he didn't tell you he found her attractive, did he?" + +"No. But though I saw that there was blindness, I thought it was because +he did not know her. I thought that when he knew her he would care for +her. And I could forgive his not caring. I could forgive so much. But it +is worse, far worse than that. He accuses Tante of dreadful things. It +is hatred that he feels for her. He has confessed it." The colour had +risen to Karen's cheeks and burned there as she spoke. + +"Well now!" Mrs. Talcott imperturbably ejaculated. + +"You can see that I could not live with a man who hated Tante," said +Karen. + +"What sort of things for instance?" Mrs. Talcott took up her former +statement. + +"How can I tell you, Mrs. Talcott. It burns me to think of them. +Hypocrisy in her feeling for me; selfishness and tyranny and deceit. It +is terrible. In his eyes she is a malignant woman." + +"Tch! Tch!" Mrs. Talcott made an indeterminate cluck with her tongue. + +"I struggled not to see," said Karen, and her voice took on a sombre +energy, "and Tante struggled, too, for me. She, too, saw from the very +first what it might mean. She asked me, on the very first day that they +met, Mrs. Talcott, when she came back, she asked me to try and make him +like her. She was so sweet, so magnanimous," her voice trembled. Oh the +deep relief, so deep that it seemed to cut like a knife--of remembering, +pressing to her, what Tante had done for her, endured for her! "So +sweet, so magnanimous, Mrs. Talcott. She did all that she could--and so +did I--to give him time. For it was not that I lacked love for my +husband. No. I loved him. More, even more, than I loved Tante. There was +perhaps the wrong. I was perhaps cowardly, for his sake. I would not +see. And it was all useless. It grew worse and worse. He was not rude to +her. It was not that. It was worse. He was so careful--oh I see it +now--not to put himself in the wrong. He tried, instead, to put her in +the wrong. He misread every word and look. He sneered--oh, I saw it, and +shut my eyes--at her little foibles and weaknesses; why should she not +have them as well as other people, Mrs. Talcott? And he was +blind--blind--blind," Karen's voice trembled more violently, "to all the +rest. So that it had to end," she went on in broken sentences. "Tante +went because she could bear it no longer. And because she saw that I +could bear it no longer. She hoped, by leaving me, to save my happiness. +But that could not be. Mrs. Talcott, even then I might have tried to go +on living with that chasm--between Tante and my husband--in my life; but +I learned the whole truth as even I hadn't seen it; as even she hadn't +seen it. Mrs. Forrester came to me, Mrs. Talcott, and told me what +Gregory had said to her of Tante. He believes her a malignant woman," +said Karen, repeating her former words and rising as she spoke. "And to +me he did not deny it. Everything, then, was finished for us. We saw +that we did not love each other any longer." + +She stood before Mrs. Talcott in the path, her hands hanging at her +sides, her eyes fixed on the wall above Mrs. Talcott's head. + +Mrs. Talcott did not rise. She sat silent, looking up at Karen, and so +for some moments they said nothing, while in the spring sunshine about +them the birds whistled and an early white butterfly dipped and +fluttered by. + +"I feel mighty tired, Karen," Mrs. Talcott then said. Her eyelid with +the white mole twitched over her eye, the lines of her large, firm old +mouth were relaxed. Karen's eyes went to her and pity filled her. + +"It is my miserable story," she said. "I am so sorry." + +"Yes, I feel mighty tired," Mrs. Talcott repeated, looking away and out +at the sea. "It's discouraging. I thought you were fixed up all safe and +happy for life." + +"Dear Mrs. Talcott," said Karen, earnestly. + +"I don't like to see things that ought to turn out right turning out +wrong," Mrs. Talcott continued, "and I've seen a sight too many of them +in my life. Things turning out wrong that were meant to go right. Things +spoiled. People, nice, good people, like you and Mr. Jardine, all upset +and miserable. I've seen worse things, too," Mrs. Talcott slowly rose as +she spoke. "Yes, I've seen about as bad things happen as can happen, and +it's always been when Mercedes is about." + +She stood still beside Karen, her bleak, intense old gaze fixed on the +sea. + +Karen thought that she had misheard her last words. "When Tante is +about?" she repeated. "You mean that dreadful things happen to her? That +is one of the worst parts of it now, Mrs. Talcott--only that I am so +selfish that I do not think of it enough--to know that I have added to +Tante's troubles." + +"No." Mrs. Talcott now said, and with a curious mildness and firmness. +"No, that ain't what I mean. Mercedes has had a sight of trouble. I +don't deny it, but that ain't what I mean. She makes trouble. She makes +it for herself and she makes it for other people. There's always trouble +going, of some sort or other, when Mercedes is about." + +"I don't understand you, Mrs. Talcott," said Karen. An uncanny feeling +had crept over her while the old woman spoke. It was as if, helplessly, +she were listening to a sleep-walker who, in tranced unconsciousness, +spoke forth mildly the hidden thought of his waking life. + +"No, you don't understand, yet," said Mrs. Talcott. "Perhaps it's fair +that you don't. Perhaps she can't help it. She was born so, I guess." +Mrs. Talcott turned and walked towards the house. + +The panic of the cliff was rising in Karen again. Mrs. Talcott was worse +than the cliff and the unanswering immensities. She walked beside her, +trying to control her terror. + +"You mean, I think," she said, "that Tante is a tragic person and people +who love her must suffer because of all that she has had to suffer." + +"Yes, she's tragic all right," said Mrs. Talcott. "She's had about as +bad a time as they make 'em--off and on. But she spoils things. And it +makes me tired to see it going on. I've had too much of it," said Mrs. +Talcott, "and if this can't come right--this between you and your nice +young husband--I don't feel like I could get over it somehow." Leaning +on Karen's arm with both hands she had paused and looked intently down +at the path. + +"But Mrs. Talcott," Karen's voice trembled; it was incredible, yet one +was forced by Mrs. Talcott's whole demeanour to ask the question without +indignation--"you speak as if you were blaming Tante for something. You +do not blame her, do you?" + +Mrs. Talcott still paused and still looked down, as if deeply pondering. +"I've done a lot of thinking about that very point, Karen," she said. +"And I don't know as I've made up my mind yet. It's a mighty intricate +question. Perhaps we've all got only so much will-power and when most of +it is ladled out into one thing there's nothing left to ladle out into +the others. That's the way I try, sometimes, to figure it out to myself. +Mercedes has got a powerful sight of will-power; but look at all she's +got to use up in her piano-playing. There she is, working up to the last +notch all the time, taking it out of herself, getting all wrought up. +Well, to live so as you won't be spoiling things for other people needs +about as much will-power as piano-playing, I guess, when you're as big a +person as Mercedes and want as many things. And if you ain't got any +will-power left you just do the easiest thing; you just take what you've +a mind to; you just let yourself go in every other way to make up for +the one way you held yourself in. That's how it is, perhaps." + +"But Mrs. Talcott," said Karen in a low voice, "all this--about me and +my husband--has come because Tante has thought too much of us and too +little of herself. It would have been much easier for her to let us +alone and not try and make Gregory like her. I do not recognise her in +what you are saying. You are saying dreadful things." + +"Well, dreadful things have happened, I guess," said Mrs. Talcott. "I +want you to go back to your nice husband, Karen." + +"No; no. Never. I can never go back to him," said Karen, walking on. + +"Because he hates Mercedes?" + +"Not only that. No. He is not what I thought. Do not ask me, Mrs. +Talcott. We do not love each other any longer. It is over." + +"Well, I won't say anything about it, then," said Mrs. Talcott, who, +walking beside her, kept her hand on her arm. "Only I liked Mr. Jardine. +I took to him right off, and I don't take to people so easy. And I take +to you, Karen, more than you know, I guess. And I'll lay my bottom +dollar there's some mistake between you and him, and that Mercedes is +the reason of it." + +They had reached the house. + +"But wait," said Karen, turning to her. She laid both her hands on the +old woman's arm while she steadied her voice to speak this last thought. +"Wait. You are so kind to me, Mrs. Talcott; but you have made everything +strange--and dreadful. I must ask you--one question, Mrs. Talcott. You +have been with Tante all her life. No one knows her as you do. Tell me, +Mrs. Talcott. You love Tante?" + +They faced each other at the top of the steps, on the verandah. And the +young eyes plunged deep into the old eyes, passionately searching. + +For a moment Mrs. Talcott did not reply. When she did speak, it was +decisively as if, while recognising Karen's right to ask, Karen must +recognise that the answer must suffice. "I'd be pretty badly off if I +didn't love Mercedes. She's all I've got in the world." + + + + +CHAPTER XXXIII + + +The sound of the motor, whirring skilfully among the lanes, was heard at +six, and shortly after Madame von Marwitz's return Mrs. Talcott knocked +at her door. + +Madame von Marwitz was lying on the sofa. Louise had removed her wraps +and dress and was drawing off her shoes. Her eyes were closed. She +seemed weary. + +"I'll see to Madame," said Mrs. Talcott with her air of composed and +unassuming authority. It was somewhat the air of an old nurse, sure of +her prerogatives in the nursery. + +Louise went and Mrs. Talcott took off the other shoe and fetched the +white silk _mules_. + +Madame von Marwitz had only opened her eye for a glimmer of recognition, +but as Mrs. Talcott adjusted a _mule_, she tipped it off and muttered +gloomily: "Stockings, please. I want fresh stockings." + +There was oddity--as Mrs. Talcott found, and came back, with a pair of +white silk stockings--in the sight of the opulent, middle-aged figure on +the sofa, childishly stretching out first one large bare leg and then +the other to be clothed; and it might have aroused in Mrs. Talcott a +vista of memories ending with the picture of a child in the same +attitude, a child as idle and as autocratic. + +"Thank you, Tallie," Madame von Marwitz said, wearily but kindly, when +the stockings were changed. + +Mrs. Talcott drew a chair in front of the sofa, seated herself and +clasped her hands at her waist. "I've come for a talk, Mercedes," she +said. + +Madame von Marwitz now was sleepily observing her. + +"A talk! _Bon Dieu!_ But I have been talking all day long!" + +She yawned, putting a folded arm under her head so that, slightly +raising it, she could look at Mrs. Talcott more comfortably. "What do +you want to talk about?" she inquired. + +Mrs. Talcott's eyes, with their melancholy, immovable gaze, rested upon +her. "About Karen and her husband," she said. "I gathered from some talk +I had with Karen to-day that you let her think you came away from London +simply and solely because you'd had a quarrel with Mr. Jardine." + +Madame von Marwitz lay as if arrested by these words for some moments of +an almost lethargic interchange, and then in an impatient voice she +returned: "What business is it of Karen's, pray, if I didn't leave +London simply and solely on account of my quarrel with her husband? I +had found it intolerable to be under his roof and I took the first +opportunity for leaving it. The opportunity happened to coincide with my +arrangements for coming here. What has that to do with Karen?" + +"It has to do with her, Mercedes, because the child believes you were +thinking about her when, as a matter of fact, you weren't thinking about +her or about anyone but this young man you've gotten so taken up with. +Karen believes you care for her something in the same way she does for +you, and it's a sin and a shame, Mercedes," Mrs. Talcott spoke with no +vehemence at all of tone or look, but with decision, "a sin and a shame +to let that child ruin her life because of you." + +Again Madame von Marwitz, now turning her eyes on the ceiling, seemed to +reflect dispassionately. "I never conceived it possible that she would +leave him," she then said. "I found him insufferable and I saw that +unless I went Karen also would come to see him as insufferable. To spare +the poor child this I came away. And I was amazed when she appeared +here. Amazed and distressed," said Madame von Marwitz. And after another +moment she took up: "As for him, he has what he deserves." + +Mrs. Talcott eyed her. "And what do you deserve, I'd like to know, for +going meddling with those poor happy young things? Why couldn't you let +them alone? Karen's been a bother to you for years. Why couldn't you be +satisfied at having her nicely fixed up and let her tend to her own +potato-patch while you tended to yours? You can't make me believe that +it wasn't your fault--the whole thing--right from the beginning. I know +you too well, Mercedes." + +Again Madame von Marwitz lay, surprisingly still and surprisingly +unresentful. It was as if, placidly, she were willing to be undressed, +body or soul, by her old nurse and guardian. But after a moment, and +with sudden indignation, she took up one of Mrs. Talcott's sentences. + +"A bother to me? I am very fond of Karen. I am devoted to Karen. I +should much like to know what right you have to intimate that my feeling +for her isn't sincere. My life proves the contrary. As for saying that +it is my fault, that is merely your habit. Everything is always my fault +with you." + +"It always has been, as far as I've been able to keep an eye on your +tracks," Mrs. Talcott remarked. + +"Well, this is not. I deny it. I absolutely," said Madame von Marwitz, +and now with some excitement, "deny it. Did I not give her to him? Did I +not go to them with tenderest solicitude and strive to make possible +between him and me some relation of bare good fellowship? Did I not curb +my spirit, and it is a proud and impatient one, as you know, to endure, +lest she should see it, his veiled insolence and hostility? Oh! when I +think of what I have borne with from that young man, I marvel at my own +forbearance. I have nothing to reproach myself with, Tallie; nothing; +and if his life is ruined I can say, with my hand on my heart,"--Madame +von Marwitz laid it there--"that he alone is to blame for it. A more +odious, arrogant, ignorant being," she added, "I have never encountered. +Karen is well rid of him." + +Mrs. Talcott remained unmoved. "You don't like him because he don't like +you and that's about all you've got against him, I reckon, if the truth +were known," she said. "You can make yourself see it all like that if +you've a mind to, but you can't make me; I know you too well, Mercedes. +You were mad at him because he didn't admire you like you're used to +being admired, and you went to work pinching and picking here and there, +pretending it was all on Karen's account, but really so as you could get +even with him. You couldn't stand their being happy all off by +themselves without you. Why I can see it all as plain and clear as if +I'd been there right along. Just think of your telling that poor deluded +child that you wanted her to make her husband like you. That was a nice +way, wasn't it, for setting her heart at rest about you and him. If you +didn't like him and saw he didn't like you, why didn't you keep your +mouth shut? That's all you had to do, and keep out of their way all you +could. If you'd been a stupid woman there might have been some excuse +for you, but you ain't a stupid woman, and you know precious well what +you're about all the time. I don't say you intended to blow up the whole +concern like you've done; but you wanted to get even with Mr. Jardine +and show him that Karen cared as much for you as she did for him, and +you didn't mind two straws what happened to Karen while you were doing +it." + +Madame von Marwitz had listened, turning on her back and with her eyes +still on the ceiling, and the calm of her face might have been that of +indifference or meditation. But now, after a moment of receptive +silence, indignation again seemed to seize her. "It's false!" she +exclaimed. + +"No it ain't false, Mercedes, and you know it ain't," said Mrs. Talcott +gloomily. + +"False, and absolutely false!" Madame von Marwitz repeated. "How could I +keep my mouth shut--as you delicately put it--when I saw that Karen saw? +How keep my mouth shut without warping her relation to me? I spoke to +her with lightest, most tender understanding, so that she should know +that my heart was with her while never dreaming of the chasms that I saw +in her happiness. It was he who forced me to an open declaration and he +who forced me to leave; for how was happiness possible for Karen if I +remained with them? No. He hated me, and was devoured by jealousy of +Karen's love for me." + +"I guess if it comes to jealousy you've got enough for two in any +situation. It don't do for you to talk to me about jealousy, Mercedes," +Mrs. Talcott returned, "I've seen too much of you. You can't persuade me +it wasn't your fault, not if you were to talk till the cows come home. I +don't deny but what it was pretty hard for you to see that Mr. Jardine +didn't admire you. I make allowances for that; but my gracious me," said +Mrs. Talcott with melancholy emphasis, "was that any reason for a big +middle-aged woman like you behaving like a spiteful child? Was it any +reason for your setting to work to spoil Karen's life? No, Mercedes, +you've done about as mean a thing as any I've seen you up to and what I +want to know now is what you're going to do about it." + +"Do about it?" Madame von Marwitz wrathfully repeated. "What more can I +do? I open my house and my heart to the child. I take her back. I mend +the life that he has broken. What more do you expect of me?" + +"Don't talk that sort of stage talk to me, Mercedes. What I want you to +do is to make it possible so as he can get her back." + +"He is welcome to get her back if he can. I shall not stand in his way. +It would be a profound relief to me were he to get her back." + +"I can see that well enough. But how'll you help standing in his way? +The only thing you could do to get out of his way would be to help Karen +to be quit of you. Make her see that you're just as bad as he thinks +you. I guess if you told her some things about yourself she'd begin to +see that her husband wasn't so far wrong about you." + +"_Par exemple!_" said Madame von Marwitz with a short laugh. She raised +herself to give her pillow a blow and turning on her side and +contemplating more directly her ancient monitress she said, "I sometimes +wonder what I keep you here for." + +"I do, too, sometimes," said Mrs. Talcott, "and I make it out that you +need me." + +"I make it out," Madame von Marwitz repeated the phrase with a noble +dignity of manner, "that I am too kind of heart, too aware of what I owe +you in gratitude, to resent, as I have every right to do, the license +you allow yourself in speaking to me." + +"Yes; you'll always get plain speaking from me, Mercedes," Mrs. Talcott +remarked, "just as long as you have anything to do with me." + +"Indeed I shall. I am but too well aware of the fact," said Madame von +Marwitz, "and I only tolerate it because of our life-long tie." + +"You'll go on tolerating it, I guess, Mercedes. You'd feel mighty queer, +I expect, if the one person in the world who knew you through and +through and had stood by you through everything wasn't there to fall +back on." + +"I deny that you know me through and through," Madame von Marwitz +declared, but with a drop from her high manner; sulkily rather than with +conviction. "You have always seen me with the eye of a lizard." Her +simile amused her and she suddenly laughed. "You have somewhat the +vision of a lizard, Tallie. You scrutinize the cracks and the fissures, +but of the mountain itself you are unaware. I have cracks and fissures, +no doubt, like all the rest of our sad humanity; but, _bon Dieu!_--I am +a mountain, and you, Tallie," she went on, laughing softly, "are a +lizard on the mountain. As for Mr. Jardine, he is a mole. But if you +think that Karen will be happier burrowing underground with him than +here with me, I will do my best. Yes;" she reflected; "I will write to +Mrs. Forrester. She shall see the mole and tell him that when he sends +me an apology I send him Karen. It is a wild thing to leave one's +husband like this. I will make her see it." + +"Now you see here, Mercedes," said Mrs. Talcott, rising and fixing an +acute gaze upon her, "don't you go and make things worse than they are. +Don't you go interfering between Karen and her husband. The first move's +got to come from them. I don't trust you round the corner where your +vanity comes in, and I guess what you've got in your mind now is that +you'd like to make it out to your friends how you've tried to reconcile +Karen and her husband after he's treated you so bad. If you want to tell +Karen that he was right in all the things he believed about you and that +this isn't the first time by a long shot that you've wrecked people with +your jealousy, and that he loves her ten times more than you do, that's +a different thing, and I'll stand by you through it. But I won't have +you meddling any more with those two poor young things, so you may as +well take it in right here." + +Madame von Marwitz's good humour fell away. "And for you, may I ask you +kindly to mind your own business?" she demanded. + +"I'll make this affair of Karen's my business if you ain't real careful, +Mercedes," said Mrs. Talcott, standing solid and thick and black, in the +centre of the room. "Yes, you'd better go slow and sure or you'll find +there are some things I can't put up with. This affair of Karen has made +me feel pretty sick, I can tell you. I've seen you do a sight of mean +things in your life, but I don't know as I've seen you do a meaner. I +guess," Mrs. Talcott continued, turning her eyes on the evening sea +outside, "it would make your friends sit up--all these folks who admire +you so much--if they could know a thing or two you've done." + +"Leave the room," said Madame von Marwitz, now raising herself on her +elbow and pointing to the door. "Leave the room at once. I refuse to lie +here and be threatened and insulted and brow-beaten by you. Out of my +sight." + +Mrs. Talcott looked at the sea for a moment longer, in no provocative +manner, but rather as if she had hardly heard the words addressed to +her; and then she looked at Mercedes, who, still raised on her elbow, +still held her arm very effectively outstretched. This, too, was no +doubt a scene to which she was fully accustomed. + +"All right," she said, "I'm going." She moved towards the door. At the +door she halted, turned and faced Madame von Marwitz again. "But don't +you forget, Mercedes Okraska," she said, "that I'll make it my affair if +you ain't careful." + + + + +CHAPTER XXXIV + + +Karen, during the two or three days that followed her strange +conversation with Mrs. Talcott, felt that while she pitied and cared for +Mrs. Talcott as she had never yet pitied and cared for her, she was also +afraid of her. Mrs. Talcott had spoken no further word and her eyes +rested on her with no more than their customary steadiness; but Karen +knew that there were many words she could speak. What were they? What +was it that Mrs. Talcott knew? What secrets were they that she carried +about in her lonely, ancient heart? + +Mrs. Talcott loomed before her like a veiled figure of destiny bearing +an urn within which lay the ashes of dead hopes. Mrs. Talcott's eyes +looked at her above the urn. It was always with them. When they gardened +together it was as if Mrs. Talcott set it down on the ground between +them and as if she took it up again with a sigh of fatigue--it was +heavy--when they turned to go. Karen felt herself tremble as she +scrutinized the funereal shape. There was no refuge with Mrs. Talcott. +Mrs. Talcott holding her urn was worse than the lonely fears. + +And, for those two or three days of balmy, melancholy spring, the lonely +fears did not press so closely. They wheeled far away against the blue. +Tante was kinder to her and was more aware of her. She almost seemed a +little ashamed of the scene with the piano. She spoke to Karen of it, +flushing a little, explaining that she had slept badly and that Karen's +rendering of the Bach had made her nervous, emphasizing, too, the rule, +new in its explicitness, that the grand piano was only to be played on +by Karen when it was left open. "You did not understand. But it is well +to understand rules, is it not, my child?" said Madame von Marwitz. "And +this one, I know, you will not transgress again." + +Karen said that she understood. She had something of her rocky manner in +receiving these implicit apologies and commands, yet her guardian could +see an almost sick relief rising in her jaded young eyes. + +Other things were different. Tante seemed now to wish very constantly to +have her there when Mr. Drew was with her. She made much of her to Mr. +Drew. She called his attention to her skill in gardening, to her +directness of speech, to her individuality of taste in dress. These +expositions made Karen uncomfortable, yet they seemed an expression of +Tante's desire to make amends. And Mr. Drew, with his vague, +impenetrable regard, helped her to bear them. It was as if, a clumsy +child, she were continually pushed forward by a fond, tactless mother, +and as if, mildly shaking her hand, the guest before whom she was +displayed showed her, by kind, inattentive eyes, that he was paying very +little attention to her. Mr. Drew put her at her ease and Tante +embarrassed her. She became, even, a little grateful to Mr. Drew. But +now, aware of this strange bond, it was more difficult to talk to him +when they were alone and when, once or twice, he met her in the garden +or house, she made always an excuse to leave him. She and Mr. Drew could +have nothing to say to each other when Tante was not there. + +One evening, returning to Les Solitudes after a walk along the cliffs, +Karen found that tea was over, as she had intended that it should be, +Tante and Mr. Drew not yet come in from their motoring, and Mrs. Talcott +safely busied in the garden. There was not one of them with whom she +could be happily alone, and she was glad to find the morning-room empty. +Mrs. Talcott had left the kettle boiling for her on the tea-table and +the small tea-pot, which they used in their usual _tête-à-tête_, ready, +and Karen made herself a cup. + +She was tired. She sat down, when she had had her tea, near the window +and looked out over the ranged white flowers growing in their low white +pots on the window-seat, at the pale sea and sky. She sat quietly, her +cheek on one hand, the other in her lap, and from time to time a great +involuntary sigh lifted her breast. It seemed nearer peace than fear, +this mood of immeasurable, pale sorrow. It folded her round like the +twilight falling outside. + +The room was dim when she heard the sound of the returning motor and she +sat on, believing that here she would be undisturbed. Tante rarely came +to the morning-room. But it was Tante who presently appeared, wearing +still her motoring cloak and veil, the nun-like veil bound round her +head. Karen thought, as she rose, and looked at her, that she was like +one of the ghost-like white flowers. And there was no joy for her in +seeing her. She seemed to be part of the sadness. + +She turned and closed the door with some elaboration, and as she came +nearer Karen recognized in her eyes the piteous look of quelled +watchfulness. + +"You are sitting here, alone, my child?" she said, laying her hand, but +for a moment only, on Karen's shoulder. Karen had resumed her seat, and +Tante moved away at once to take up a vase of flowers from the +mantelpiece, smell the flowers, and set it back. "Where is Tallie?" + +"Still in the garden, I think. I worked with her this morning and before +tea. Since tea I have had a walk." + +"Where did you walk?" Madame von Marwitz inquired, moving now over to +the upright piano and bending to examine in the dusk the music that +stood on it. Karen described her route. + +"But it is lonely, very lonely, for you, is it not?" Tante murmured +after a moment's silence. Karen said nothing and she went on, "And it +will be still more lonely if, as I think probable, I must leave you here +before long. I shall be going; perhaps to Italy." + +A sensation of oppression that she could not have analyzed passed over +Karen. Why was Tante going to Italy? Why must she leave Les Solitudes? +Her mind could not rest on the supposition that her own presence drove +Tante forth, that the broken _tête-à-tête_ was to be resumed under less +disturbing circumstances. She could not ask Tante if Mr. Drew was to be +in Italy; yet this was the question that pressed on her heart. + +"Oh, but I am very used to Les Solitudes," she said. + +"Used to it. Yes. Too used to it," said Madame von Marwitz, seating +herself now near Karen, her eyes still moving about the room. "But it is +not right, it is not fitting, that you should spend your youth here. +That was not the destiny I had hoped for you. I came here to find you, +Karen, so that I might talk to you." Her fingers slightly tapped her +chair-arm. "We must talk. We must see what is to be done." + +"Do you mean about me, Tante?" Karen asked after a moment. The look of +the ghostly room and of the white, enfolded figure seated before her +with its restless eyes seemed part of the chill that Tante's words +brought. + +"About you. Yes. About who else, _parbleu_!" said Madame von Marwitz +with a slight laugh, her eyes shifting about the room; and with a change +of tone she added: "I have it on my heart--your situation--day and +night. Something must be done and I am prepared to do it." + +"To do what?" asked Karen. Her voice, too, had changed, but not, as +Madame von Marwitz's, to a greater sweetness. + +"Well, to save it--the situation; to help you." Madame von Marwitz's ear +was quick to catch the change. "And I have come, my Karen, to consult +with you. It is a matter, many would say, for my pride to consider; but +I will not count my pride. Your happiness, your dignity, your future are +the things that weigh with me. I am prostrated, made ill, by the +miserable affair; you see it, you see that I am not myself. I cannot +sleep. It haunts me--you and your broken life. And what I have to +propose," Tante looked down at her tapping fingers while she spoke, "is +that I offer myself as intermediary. Your husband will not take the +first step forward. So be it. I will take it. I will write to Mrs. +Forrester. I will tell her that if your husband will but offer me the +formal word of apology I will myself induce you to return to him. What +do you say, my Karen? Oh, to me, as you know, the forms are indifferent; +it is of you and your dignity that I think. I know you; without that +apology from him to me you could not contemplate a reconciliation. But +he has now had his lesson, your young man, and when he knows that, +through me, you would hold out the olive-branch, he will, I predict, +spring to grasp it. After all, he is in love with you and has had time +to find it out; and even if he were not, his mere man's pride must +writhe to see himself abandoned. And you, too, have had your lesson, my +poor Karen, and have seen that romance is a treacherous sand to build +one's life upon. Dignity, fitness, one's rightful place in life have +their claims. You are one, as I told you, to work out your destiny in +the world, not in the wilderness. What do you say, Karen? I would not +write without consulting you. _Hein!_ What is it?" + +Karen had risen, and Madame von Marwitz's eyelashes fluttered a little +in looking up at her. + +"I will never forgive you, I will never forgive you," said Karen in a +harsh voice, "if you speak of this again." + +"What is this that you say to me, Karen?" Madame von Marwitz, too, rose. + +"Never speak to me of this again," said Karen. + +In the darkening room they looked at each other as they had never in all +their lives looked before. They were equals in maturity of demand. + +For a strange moment sheer fury struggled with subtler emotions in +Madame von Marwitz's face, and then self-pity, overpowering, engulfing +all else. "And is this the return you make me for my love?" she cried. +Her voice broke in desperate sobs and long-pent misery found relief. She +sank into her chair. + +"I asked for no reconciliation," said Karen. "I left him and we knew +that we were parting forever. There is no love between us. Have you no +understanding at all, and no thought of my pride?" + +It was woman addressing woman. The child Karen was gone. + +"Your pride?" Madame von Marwitz repeated in her sobs. "And what of +mine? Was it not for you, stony-hearted girl? Is it not your happiness I +seek? If I have been mistaken in my hopes for you, is that a reason for +turning upon me like a serpent!" + +Karen had walked to the long window that opened to the verandah and +looked out, pressing her forehead to the pane. "You must forgive me if I +was unkind. What you said burned me." + +"Ah, it is well for you to speak of burnings!" Madame von Marwitz +sobbed, aware that Karen's wrath was quelled. "I am scorched by all of +you! by all of you!" she repeated incoherently. "All the burdens fall +upon me and, in reward, I am spurned and spat upon by those I seek to +serve!" + +"I am sorry, Tante. It was what you said. That you should think it +possible." + +"Sorry! Sorry! It is easy to say that you are sorry when you have rolled +me in the dust of your insults and your ingratitude!" Yet the sobs were +quieter. + +"Let us say, then, that it has been misunderstanding," said Karen. She +still stood in the window, but as she spoke the words she drew back +suddenly. She had found herself looking into Mr. Drew's eyes. His face, +gazing in oddly upon her, was at the other side of the pane, and, in the +apparition, its suddenness, its pallor, rising from the dusk, there was +something almost horrible. + +"Who is that?" came Tante's voice, as Karen drew away. She had turned in +her chair. + +It seemed to Karen, then, that the room was filled with the whirring +wings of wild emotions, caught and crushed together. Tante had sprung up +and came with long, swift strides to the window. She, too, pressed her +face against the pane. "Ah! It is Claude," she said, in a hushed strange +voice, "and he did not see that I was here. What does he mean by looking +in like that?" she spoke now angrily, drying her eyes as she spoke. She +threw open the window. "Claude. Come here." + +Mr. Drew, whose face seemed to have sunk, like a drowned face, back into +dark water, returned to the threshold and paused, arrested by his +friend's wretched aspect. "Come in. Enter," said Madame von Marwitz, +with a withering stateliness of utterance. "You have the manner of a +spy. Did you think that Karen and I were quarrelling?" + +"I couldn't think that," said Mr. Drew, stepping into the room, "for I +didn't see that you were here." + +"We have had a misunderstanding," said Madame von Marwitz. "No more. And +now we understand again. Is it not so, my Karen? You are going?" + +"I think I will go to my room," said Karen, who looked at neither Madame +von Marwitz nor Mr. Drew. "You will not mind if I do not come to dinner +to-night." + +"Certainly not. No. Do as you please. You are tired. I see it. And I, +too, am tired." She followed Karen to the door, murmuring: "_Sans +rancune, n'est-ce-pas?_" + +"Yes, Tante." + +As the door closed upon Karen, Madame von Marwitz turned to Mr. Drew. + +"If you wish to see her, why not seek her openly? Who makes it difficult +for you to approach her?" Her voice had the sharpness of splintering +ice. + +"Why, no one, _ma chére_," said Mr. Drew. "I wasn't seeking her." + +"No? And what did it mean, then, your face pressed close to hers, there +at the window?" + +"It meant that I couldn't see who it was who stood there. Just as I can +hardly now see more than that you are unhappy. What is the matter, my +dear and beautiful friend?" His voice was solicitous. + +Madame von Marwitz dropped again into her chair and leaning forward, her +hands hanging clasped between her knees, she again wept. "The matter is +the old one," she sobbed. "Ingratitude! Ingratitude on every hand! My +crime now has been that I have sought--at the sacrifice of my own +pride--to bring a reconciliation between that stubborn child and her +husband, and for my reward she overwhelms me with abuse!" + +"Tell me about it," said Mr. Drew, seating himself beside her and, +unreproved, taking her hand. + + + + +CHAPTER XXXV + + +Karen did not go to her room. She was afraid that Mrs. Talcott would +come to her there. She asked the cook for a few sandwiches and going to +one of the lower terraces she found a seat there and sat down. She felt +ill. Her mind was sore and vague. She sat leaning her head on her hand, +as she had sat in the morning-room, her eyes closed, and did not try to +think. + +She had escaped something--mercifully. Yes, the supreme humiliation that +Tante had prepared for her was frustrated. And she had been strangely +hard and harsh to Tante and in return Tante had been piteous yet +unmoving. Her heart was dulled towards Tante. She felt that she saw her +from a great distance. + +The moon had risen and was shining brightly when she at last got up and +climbed the winding paths up to the house. + +A definite thought, after the hours that she had sat there, had at last +risen through the dull waters of her mind. Why should Tante go away? Why +should not she herself go? There need be no affront to Tante, no +alienation. But, for a time, at least, would it not be well to prove to +Tante that she could be something more than a problem and a burden? +Could she not go to the Lippheims in Germany and teach English and +French and Italian there--she knew them all--and make a little money, +and, when Tante wanted her again to come to Les Solitudes, come as an +independent person? + +It was a curious thought. It contradicted the assumptions upon which her +life was founded; for was she not Tante's child and Tante's home her +home? So curious it was that she contemplated it like an intricate +weapon laid in her hand, its oddity concealing its significance. + +She turned the weapon over. She might be Tante's child and Tante's home +might be hers; yet a child could gain its own bread, could it not? What +was there to pierce and shatter in the thought that it would be well for +her to gain her bread? "Tante has worked for me too long," she said to +herself. She was not pierced or shattered. Something very strange was in +her hand, but she was only reasonable. + +She had stood still, in the midst of her swift climbing towards the +house, to think it all out clearly, and it was as she stood there that +she saw the light of a cigarette approaching her. It was Mr. Drew and he +had seen her. Karen was aware of a deep stirring of displeasure and +weariness. "But, please," he said, as, slightly bowing her head, and +murmuring, "Good-night," she passed him; "I want--I very particularly +want--to see you." He turned to walk beside her, tossing away his +cigarette. "There is something I particularly want to say." + +His tone was grave and kind and urgent. It reproached her impatient +impulse. He might have come with a message from Tante. + +"Where is my guardian?" she asked. + +"She has gone to bed. She has a horrible headache, poor thing," said Mr. +Drew, who was leading her through the little copse of trees and along +the upper paths. "Here, shall we sit down here? You are not cold?" + +They were in the flagged garden. Karen, vaguely expectant, sat down on +the rustic bench and Mr. Drew sat beside her. The moonlight shone +through the trees and fell fantastically on the young man's face and +figure and on Karen, sitting upright, her little shawl of white knitted +wool drawn closely about her shoulders and enfolding her arms. "Not for +long, please," she said. "It is growing late and although I am not cold +I am tired. What have you to say, Mr. Drew?" + +He had so much to say and it was, so obviously, his opportunity, his +complete opportunity at last, that, before the exquisite and perilous +task of awakening this creature of flowers and glaciers, Mr. Drew +collected his resources with something of the skill and composure of an +artist preparing canvas and palette. He must begin delicately and +discreetly, and then he must be sudden and decisive. + +"I want to make you feel, in the first place, if I can," he said, +leaning forward to look into her face and observing with satisfaction +that she made no movement of withdrawal as he came a little nearer in so +doing, "that I'm your friend. Can I, do you think, succeed in making you +feel that?" His experience had told him that it really didn't matter so +much what one said. To come near was the point, and to look deeply. +"I've had so few chances of showing you how much your friend I am." + +"Thank you," said Karen. "You are kind." She did not say that he would +succeed in making her feel him a friend. + +"We have been talking about you, talking a great deal, since you left +us, your guardian and I," Mr. Drew continued, and he looked at the one +of Karen's hands that was visible, emerging from the shawl to clasp her +elbow, the left hand with its wedding-ring, "and ludicrous as it may +seem to you, I can't but feel that I understand you a great deal better +than she does. She still thinks of you as a child--a child whose little +problems can be solved by facile solutions. Forgive me, I know it may +sound fatuous to you, but I see what she does not see, that you are a +suffering woman, and that for some problems there are no solutions." His +eyes now came back to hers and found them fixed on him with a wide +astonished gaze. + +"Has my guardian asked you to say anything to me?" she said. + +"No, not exactly that," said Mr. Drew, a little disconcerted by her tone +and look, while at the same time he was marvelling at the greater and +greater beauty he found in the impassive moonlit face--how had he been +so unconscionably stupid as not to see for so long how beautiful she +was!--"No, she certainly hasn't asked me to say anything to you. She is +going away, you know, to Italy; it's a sudden decision and she's been +telling me about it. I can't go with her. I don't think it a good plan. +I can stay on here, but I can't go to Italy. Perhaps she'll give it up. +She didn't find me altogether sympathetic and I'm afraid we've had +something of a disagreement. I am sure you've seen since you've been +here that if your guardian doesn't understand you she doesn't understand +me, either." + +"But I cannot speak of my guardian to you," said Karen. She had kept her +eyes steadily upon him waiting to hear what he might have to say, but +now the thought of Tante in her rejected queenliness broke insufferably +upon her making her sick with pity. This man did not love Tante. She +rose as she spoke. + +"Do not speak of her to me," she said. + +"But we will not speak of her. I do not wish to speak of her," said Mr. +Drew, also rising, a stress of excitement and anxiety making itself felt +in his soft, sibilant, hurried tones; "I understand every exquisite +loyalty that hedges your path. And I'm hedged, too; you see that. Wait, +wait--please listen. We won't speak of her. What I want to speak of is +you. I want to ask you to make use of me. I want to ask you to trust me. +You love her, but how can you depend on her? She is a child, an +undisciplined, capricious child, and she is displeased with you, +seriously displeased. Who is there in the world you can depend on? You +are unutterably alone. And I ask you to turn to me." + +Her frosty scrutiny disconcerted him. He had not touched her in the +least. + +"These are things you cannot say to me," she said. "There is nothing +that you can do for me. I only know you as my guardian's friend; you +forgot that, I think, when you brought me here." She turned from him. + +"Oh, but you do not understand! I have made you angry! Oh, please, Mrs. +Jardine;" his voice rose to sharp distress. He caught her hand with a +supplicating yet determined grasp. "You can't understand. You are so +inconceivably unaware. It is because of you; all because of you. Haven't +you really seen or understood? She can't forgive you because I love you. +I love you, you adorable child. I have only stayed on and borne with her +because of you!" + +His passion flamed before her frozen face. And as, for a transfixed +moment of stupor, she stood still, held by him, he read into her +stillness the pause of the woman to whom the apple of the tree of life +is proffered, amazed, afraid, yet thrilled through all her being, +tempted by the very suddenness, incapable of swift repudiation. He threw +his arms around her, taking, in a draught of delight, the impression of +silvery, glacial loveliness that sent dancing stars of metaphor +streaming in his head, and pressed his lips to her cheek. + +It was but one moment of attainment. The thrust that drove him from her +was that, indeed, of the strong young goddess, implacable and outraged. +Yet even as he read his deep miscalculation in her aspect he felt that +the moment had been worth it. Not many men, not even many poets, could +say that they had held, in such a scene, on such a night, an unwilling +goddess to their breast. + +She did not speak. Her eyes did not pause to wither. They passed over +him. He had an image of the goddess wheeling to mount some chariot of +the sky as, with no indignity of haste, she turned from him. She turned. +And in the path, in the entrance to the flagged garden, Tante stood +confronting them. + +She stood before them in the moonlight with a majesty at once +magnificent and ludicrous. She had come swiftly, borne on the wings of a +devouring suspicion, and she maintained for a long moment her Medusa +stare of horror. Then, it was the ugliest thing that Karen had ever +seen, the mask broke. Hatred, fury, malice, blind, atavistic passions +distorted her face. It was to fall from one nightmare to another and a +worse; for Tante seized her by the shoulders and shook and shook and +shook her, till the blood sprang and rang in her ears and eyeballs, and +her teeth chattered together, and her hair, loosened by the great jerks, +fell down upon her shoulders and about her face. And while she shook +her, Tante snarled--seeming to crush the words between her grinding +teeth, "Ah! _perfide! perfide! perfide!_" + +From behind, other hands grasped Karen's shoulders. Mr. Drew grappled +with Tante for possession of her. + +"Leave me--with my guardian," she gathered her broken breath to say. She +repeated it and Mr. Drew, invisible to her, replied, "I can't. She'll +tear you to pieces." + +"Ah! You have still to hear from me--vile seducer!" Madame von Marwitz +cried, addressing the young man over Karen's shoulder. "Do you dare +dispute my right to save her from you--foul serpent! Leave us! Does she +not tell you to leave us?" + +"I'll see her safely out of your hands before I leave her," said Mr. +Drew. "How dare you speak of perfidy when you saw her repulse me? You'd +have found it easier to forgive, no doubt, if she hadn't." + +These insolent words, hurled at it, convulsed the livid face that +fronted Karen. And suddenly, holding Karen's shoulders and leaning +forward, Madame von Marwitz broke into tears, horrible tears--in all her +life Karen had never pitied her as she pitied her then--sobbing with +raking breaths: "No, no; it is too much. Have I not loved him with a +saintly love, seeking to uplift what would draw me down? Has he not +loved me? Has he not sought to be my lover? And he can spit upon me in +the dust!" She raised her head. "Did you believe me blind, infatuated? +Did you think by your tricks and pretences to evade me? Did I not see, +from the moment that she came, that your false heart had turned from +me?" Her eyes came back to Karen's face and fury again seized her. "And +as for you, ungrateful girl--perfidious, yes, and insolent one--you +deserve to be denounced to the world. Oh, we understand those retreats. +What more alluring to the man who pursues than the woman who flees? What +more inflaming than the pose of white, idiotic innocence? You did not +know. You did not understand--" fiercely, in a mincing voice, she +mimicked a supposed exculpation. "You are so young, so ignorant of +life--so _immer kindlich_! Ah!" she laughed, half strangled, "until the +man seizes you in his arms you are quite unaware--but quite, quite +unaware--of what he seeks from you. Little fool! And more than fool. +Have I not seen your wiles? From day to day have I not watched you? Now +it is the piano. You must play him your favourite little piece; so +small; you have so little talent; but you will do your best. Now the +chance meeting in the garden; you are so fond of flowers; you so love +the open air, the sea, the wandering on the cliffs; such a free, wild +creature you are. And now we have the frustrated _rendezvous_ of this +evening; he should find you dreaming, among your flowers, in the dusk. +The pretty picture. And no, you want no dinner; you will go to your own +room. But you are not to be found in your own room. Oh, no; it is again +the garden; the moon; the sea and solitude that you seek! Be silent!" +this was almost shouted at Claude Drew, who broke in with savage +denials. "Do you think still to impose on me--you traitor?--No," her +eyes burned on Karen's face. "No; you are wiser. You do not speak. You +know that the time for insolence has passed. What! You take refuge with +me here. You fly from your husband and throw yourself on my hands and +say to me,"--again she assumed the mincing tones--"Yes, here I am again. +Continue, pray, to work for me; continue, pray, to clothe and feed and +lodge me; continue to share your life with me and all of rich and wide +and brilliant it can offer; continue, in a word, to hold me high--but +very high--above the gutter from which I came--and I take you, I receive +you in my arms, I shelter you from malicious tongues, I humble myself in +seeking to mend your shattered life; and for my reward you steal from me +the heart of the one creature in the world I loved--the one--the only +one! Until you came he was mine. Until you came he yearned for me--only +for me. Oh, my heart is broken! broken! broken!" She leaned forward, +wildly sobbing, and raising herself she shook the girl with all her +force, crying: "Out of my sight! Be off! Let me see no more of you!" +Covering her face with her hands, she reeled back, and Karen fled down +the path, hearing a clamour of sobs and outcries behind her. + +She fled along the cliff-path and an incomparable horror was in her +soul. Her life had been struck from her. It seemed a ghost that ran, +watched by the moon, among the trees. + +On the open cliff-path it was very light. The sky was without a cloud. +The sea lay like a vast cloth of silk, diapered in silver. + +Karen ran to where the path led to a rocky verge. + +From here, in daylight, one looked down into a vast hollow in the coast +and saw at the bottom, far beneath, a stony beach, always sad, and set +with rocks. To-night the enormous cup was brimmed with blackness. + +Karen, pausing and leaning forward, resting on her hands, stared across +the appalling gulf of inky dark, and down into the nothingness. + +Horror had driven her to the spot, and horror, like a presence, rose +from the void, and beckoned her down to oblivion. Why not? Why not? The +question of despair seemed, like a vast pendulum, to swing her to and +fro between the sky and the blackness, so that, blind and deaf and dumb, +she felt only the horror, and her own pulse of life suspended over +annihilation. And while her fingers clutched tightly at the rock, the +thought of Gregory's face, as it had loved her, dimly, like a far +beacon, flashed before her. Their love was dead. He did not love her. +But they had loved. She moved back, trembling. She did not want to die. +She lay down with her face to the ground on the grassy cliff. + +When she raised herself it was as if after a long slumber. She was +immensely weary, with leaden limbs. Horror was spent; but a dull +oppression urged her up and on. There was something that she must never +see again; something that would open before her again the black abyss of +nothingness; something like the moon, that once had lived, but was now a +ghost, white, ghastly, glittering. She must go. At once. And, as if far +away, a tiny picture rose before her of some little German town, where +she might earn a living and be hidden and forgotten. + +But first she must see Mrs. Talcott. She must say good-bye to Mrs. +Talcott. There was nothing now that Mrs. Talcott could show her. + +She went back softly and carefully, pausing to listen, pushing through +unused, overgrown paths and among thickets of gorse and stunted Cornish +elms. In the garden all was still; the dreadful clamour had ceased. By +the back way she stole up to her room. + +A form rose to meet her as she opened the door. Mrs. Talcott had been +waiting for her. Taking her hand, Mrs. Talcott drew her in and closed +the door. + + + + +CHAPTER XXXVI + + +Mrs. Talcott sat down on the bed and Karen knelt before her with her +head in her lap. The old woman's passed quietly over her hair while she +wept, and the homely gentleness, like the simplicity of milk to famished +lips, flowed into her horror-haunted mind. + +She tried to tell Mrs. Talcott what had happened. "She does not love me, +Mrs. Talcott. She has turned me out. Tante has told me to go." + +"I've seen her," said Mrs. Talcott, stroking on. "I was just going out +to look for you if you didn't come in. Did she tear your hair down like +this? It's all undone." + +"It was when she shook me, Mrs. Talcott. She found me with Mr. Drew. He +had kissed me. I could not help it. She knew that I could not help it. +She knows that I am not a bad woman." + +"You mustn't take Mercedes at her word when she's in a state like that, +Karen. She's in an awful state. She's parted from that young man." + +"And I am going, Mrs. Talcott." + +"Well, I've wanted you to go, from the first. Now you've found her out, +this ain't any place for you. You can't go hanging on for all your life, +like I've done." + +"But Mrs. Talcott--what does it mean? What have I found out? What is +Tante?" Karen sobbed. "For all these years so beautiful--so +beautiful--to me, and suddenly to become my enemy--someone I do not +know." + +"You never got in her way before. She's got no mercy, Mercedes hasn't, +if you get in her way. Where'd you thought of going, Karen?" + +"To Frau Lippheim. She is still in London, I think. I could join her +there. You could lend me a little money, Mrs. Talcott. Enough to take me +to London." + +Mrs. Talcott was silent for a moment. "Come up here, on the bed, Karen," +she then said. "Here, wrap this cloak around you; you're awful cold. +That's right. Now I want you to sit quiet while I explain things to you +the best I can. I've made up my mind to do it. Mercedes will be in her +right mind to-morrow and frantic to get hold of you again and get you to +forgive her. Oh, I know her. And I don't want her to get hold of you +again. I want you to be quit of her. I want you to see, as clear as day, +how your husband was right about Mercedes, all along." + +"Oh, do not speak of him--" Karen moaned, covering her face as she sat on +the bed beside Mrs. Talcott. + +"I ain't going to speak about him. I'm going to tell you about me and +Mercedes," said Mrs. Talcott. "I'm going to explain Mercedes. And I'm +going way back to the very beginning to do it." + +"Explain it to me. What is she? Has it all been false--all her +loveliness?" + +"I don't know about false," said Mrs. Talcott. "Mercedes ain't all bad; +not by a long shot. She feels good sometimes, like most folks, when it +ain't too much trouble. You know how it began, Karen. You know how I'm a +sort of connection of Mercedes's mother and I've told you about Dolores. +The prettiest creature you ever set eyes on. Mercedes looks like her; +only it was a softer face than Mercedes's with great, big black eyes. I +can see her now, walking round the galleries of that lovely house in New +Orleans with a big white camellia in her black hair and a white muslin +dress, standing out round her--like they wore then; singing--singing--so +young and happy--it almost breaks my heart to think about her. I've told +you about Mercedes's father, too, Pavelek Okraski, and how he came out +to New Orleans and gave lessons to Dolores Bastida and made love to her +on the sly and got her to run away with him--poor silly thing. When I +think it all over I seem to piece things out and see how Mercedes came +to be what she is. Her mother was just as sweet and loving as she could +be, but scatter-brained and hot-tempered. And Pavelek was a mighty mean +man and a mighty bad man, too, a queer, tricky, sly sort of man; but +geniusy, with very attractive manners. Mercedes has got his eyes and his +way of laughing; she shows her teeth just like he used to do when he +laughed. Well, he took Dolores off to Poland and spent all her money as +fast as he could get it, and then Señor Bastida and the two boys--nice, +hot-tempered boys they were and perfect pictures--all got killed in a +vendetta they had with another family in Louisiana, and poor Señora +Bastida got sick and died and all the family fortunes went to pieces and +there was no more home and no more money either, for Dolores. She just +lost everything straight off. + +"She sent for me then. Her baby was coming and Pavelek had gone off and +she didn't know where he was and she was about distracted. I'd been +married before she ran away with Pavelek, but Homer only lived four +years and I was a widow then. I had folks left still in Maine; but no +one very near and there wasn't anybody I seemed to take to so much as I +always had to Dolores. You may say she had a sort of fascination for me. +So I sold out what I had and came. My, what a queer journey that was. I +don't know how I got to Cracow. I only spoke English and travelling +wasn't what it is nowadays. But I got there somehow and found that poor +child. She was the wretchedest creature you ever set eyes on; thin as +thin; and all haggard and wild. Pavelek neglected her and ran after +other women and drank, and when he got drunk and she used to fly out at +him--for she was as hot-tempered as she could be--he used to beat her. +Yes; that man used to beat Dolores." A note of profound and enduring +anger was in Mrs. Talcott's voice. + +"He came back after I got there. I guess he thought I'd brought some +money, and he came in drunk one day and tried to hit her before me. He +didn't ever try it again after that. I just got up and struck him with +all my might and main right in the face and he fell down and hurt his +head pretty bad and Dolores began to shriek and said I'd killed her +husband; but he didn't try it again. He was sort of scared of me, I +guess. No: I ain't forgiven Pavelek Okraski yet and I reckon I never +shall. I don't seem to want to forgive him, neither in this world nor +the next--if there is a next," Mrs. Talcott commented. + +"Well, the time for the baby came and on the day Mercedes was born the +Austrians bombarded Cracow; it was in '48. I took Dolores down to the +cellar and all day long we heard the shells bursting, and the people +screeching. And that was the time Mercedes came into the world. Dolores +most died, but she got through. But afterwards I couldn't get proper +care for her, or food either. She just pined off and died five months +after the baby came. Pavelek most went off his head. He was always fond +of her in his own mean way, and I guess he suffered considerable when +she died. He went off, saying he'd send some money for me and the baby, +but precious little of it did I ever see. I made some by sewing and +giving lessons in English--I reckon some of those young Poles got queer +ways of speaking from me, I was never what you'd call a polished +speaker--and I scraped on. Time and time again we were near starving. +My! that little garret room, and that big church--Panna Marya they +called it--where I'd go and sit with the baby when the services were on +to see if I could keep warm in the crowd! And the big fire in '50, when +I carried the baby out in a field with lots of other people and slept +out. It lasted for ten days that fire. + +"It seems like a dream sometimes, all that time," Mrs. Talcott mused, +and the distant sorrow of her voice was like the blowing of a winter +wind. "It seems like a dream to think I got through with the child +alive, and that my sweet, pretty little Dolores went under. There's some +things that don't bear thinking about. Well, I kept that baby warm and I +kept it fat, and it got to be the prettiest, proudest thing you ever set +eyes on. She might have been a queen from the very beginning. And as for +Pavelek, she just ruled him from the time she began to have any sense. +It was mighty queer to see that man, who had behaved so bad to her +mother, cringing before that child. He doted on her, and she didn't care +a button for him. It used to make me feel almost sorry for Pavelek, +sometimes. She'd look at him, when he tried to please her and amuse her, +like he was a performing dog. It kept Pavelek in order, I can tell you, +and made things easier for me. She'd just say she wanted things and if +she didn't get them straight off she'd go into a black rage, and he'd be +scared out of his life and go and work and get 'em for her. And then she +began to show she was a prodigy. Pavelek taught her the violin first and +then the piano and when he realized she was a genius he most went off +his head with pride. Why that man--the selfishest, laziest creature by +nature--worked himself to skin and bone so that she should have the best +lessons and everything she needed. We both held our noses to the +grindstone just as tight as ever we could, and Mercedes was brought up +pretty well, I think, considering. + +"She gave that first concert in Warsaw--we'd moved to Warsaw--and then +Pavelek seemed to go to pieces. He just drank himself to death. Well, +after that, rich relations of Mercedes's turned up--cousins of the +Bastidas', who lived in Paris. They hadn't lifted a finger to help +Dolores, or me with the baby after Dolores died; but they remembered +about us now Mercedes was famous and made us come to live with them in +Paris and said they had first claim on Mercedes. I didn't take to the +Bastidas. But I stayed on because of Mercedes. I got to be a sort of +nurse for her, you may say. Well, as she got older, and prettier and +prettier, and everyone just crazy about her, I saw she didn't have much +use for me. I didn't judge her too hard; but I began to see through her +then. She'd behaved mighty bad to me again and again, she used to fly at +me and bite me and tear my hair, when she was a child, if I thwarted +her; but I always believed she really loved me; perhaps she did, as much +as she can. But after these rich folks turned up and her life got so +bright and easy she just seemed to forget all about me. So I went home. + +"I stayed home for four or five years and then Mercedes sent for me. She +used to write now and then to her 'Dearest Tallie' as she always called +me, and I'd heard all about how she'd come out in Paris and Vienna as a +great pianist, and how she'd quarrelled with her relations and how she'd +run away with a young English painter and got married to him. It was an +awful silly match, and they'd all opposed it; but it pleased me somehow. +I thought it showed that Mercedes was soft-hearted like her mother, and +unworldly. Well, she wrote that she was miserable and that her husband +was a fiend and broke her heart and that she hated all her relations and +they'd all behaved like serpents to her--Mercedes is always running +across serpents--and how I was the only true friend she had and the only +one who understood her, and how she longed for her dear Tallie. So I +sold out again--I'd just started a sort of little farm near the old +place in Maine, raising chickens and making jam--and came over again. I +don't know what it is about Mercedes, but she gets a hold over you. And +guess I always felt like she was my own baby. I had a baby, but it died +when it was born. Well, she was living in Paris then and they had a fine +flat and a big studio, and when Mercedes got into a passion with her +husband she'd take a knife and slash up his canvases. She quarrelled +with him day and night, and I wasn't long with them before I saw that it +was all her fault and that he was a weak, harmless sort of young +creature--he had yellow hair, longish, and used to wear a black velvet +cap and paint sort of dismal pictures of girls with long necks and wild +sort of eyes--but that the truth was she was sick of him and wanted to +marry the Baron von Marwitz. + +"You can commence to get hold of the story now, Karen. You remember the +Baron. A sad, stately man he was, as cultured and intellectual as could +be and going in the best society. Mercedes had found pretty quick that +there wasn't much fun in being married to a yellow-haired boy who lived +on the money she made and wasn't a mite in society. And the Baron was +just crazy over her in his dignified, reverential way. Poor fellow!" +said Mrs. Talcott pausing in a retrospect over this vanished figure, +"Poor fellow! I guess he came to rue the day he ever set eyes on her. +Well, Mercedes made out to him how terrible her life was and how she was +tied to a dissipated, worthless man who lived on her and was unfaithful +to her. And it's true that Baldwin Tanner behaved as he shouldn't; but +he was a weak creature and she'd disillusionized him so and made him so +miserable that he just got reckless. And he'd never asked any more than +to live in a garret with her and adore her, and paint his lanky people +and eat bread and cheese; he told me so, poor boy; he just used to lay +his head down on my lap and cry like a baby sometimes. But Mercedes made +it out that she was a victim and he was a serpent; and she believed it, +too; that's the power of her; she's just determined to be in the right +always. So at last she made it all out. She couldn't divorce Baldwin, +being a Catholic; but she made it out that she wasn't really married to +him. It appears he didn't get baptized by his folks; they hadn't +believed in baptizing; they were free-thinkers. And the Baron got his +powerful friends to help and they all set to work at the Pope, and they +got him to fix it up, and Mercedes's marriage was annulled and she was +free to marry again. That's what was in her mind in sending for me, you +see; she'd quarrelled with her folks and she wanted a steady respectable +person who knew all about her to stand by her and chaperon her while she +was getting rid of Baldwin. Mercedes has always been pretty careful +about her reputation; she's hardly ever taken any risks. + +"Well, she was free and she married the Baron, and poor Baldwin got a +nice young English girl to marry him, and she reformed him, and they're +alive and happy to this day, and I guess he paints pretty poor pictures. +And it makes Mercedes awful mad to hear about how happy they are; she +has a sort of idea, I imagine, that Baldwin didn't have any right to get +married again. I've always had a good deal of satisfaction over +Baldwin," said Mrs. Talcott. "It's queer to realize that Mercedes was +once just plain Mrs. Baldwin Tanner, ain't it? It was a silly match and +no mistake. Well, it took two or three years to work it all out, and +Mercedes was twenty-five when she married the Baron. I didn't see much +of them for a while. They put me around in their houses to look after +things and be there when Mercedes wanted me. She'd found out she +couldn't get along without me in those two or three years. Mercedes was +the most beautiful creature alive at that time, I do believe, and all +Europe was wild about her. She and the Baron went about and she gave +concerts, and it was just a triumphal tour. But after a spell I began to +see that things weren't going smooth. Mercedes is the sort of person +who's never satisfied with what she's got. And the Baron was beginning +to find her out. My! I used to be sorry for that man. I'll never forget +his white, sick face the first time she flew out at him and made one of +her scenes. '_Emprisonné ma jeunesse_,'" Mrs. Talcott quoted with a +heavy accent. "That's what she said he'd done to her. He was twenty +years older than Mercedes, the Baron. Mercedes always liked to have men +who were in love with her hanging about, and that's what the trouble was +over. The more they cared the worse she treated them, and the Baron was +a very dignified man and didn't like having them around. And she was +dreadful jealous of him, too, and used to fly out at him if he so much +as looked at another woman; in her way I guess he was the person +Mercedes cared for most in all her life; she respected him, too, and she +knew he was as clever as she was and more so, and as for him, in spite +of everything, he always stayed in love with her. They used to have +reconciliations, and when he'd look at her sort of scornful and loving +and sad all together, it would make her go all to pieces. She'd throw +herself in his arms and cry and cry. No, she ain't all bad, Mercedes. +And she thought she could make things all right with him after she'd let +herself go; she depended on his caring for her so much and being sorry +for her. But I saw well enough as the years went on that he got more and +more depressed. He was a depressed man by nature, I reckon, and he read +a sight of philosophy of the gloomy kind--that writer Schopenhauer was a +favourite of his, I recollect, and Mercedes thought a sight of him, +too--and after ten years or so of Mercedes I expect the Baron was pretty +sick of life. + +"Well, you came. You thought it was Mercedes who was so good to you, and +it was in a way. But it was poor Ernst who really cared. He took to you +the moment he set eyes on you, and he'd liked your father. And he wanted +to have you to live with them and be their adopted daughter and inherit +their money when they died. It had always been a grief to him that +Mercedes wouldn't have any children. She just had a horror of having +children, and he had to give up any hope of it. Well, the moment +Mercedes realized how he cared for you she got jealous and they had a +scene over you right off, in that hotel at Fontainebleau. She took on +like her heart would break and put it that she couldn't bear to have any +one with them for good, she loved him so. It was true in a way. I didn't +count of course. He looked at her, sick and scornful and loving, and he +gave way. That was why you were put to school. She tried to make up by +being awful nice to you when you came for your holidays now and then; +but she never liked having you round much and Ernst saw it and never +showed how much he cared for you. But he did care. You had a real friend +in him, Karen. Well, after that came the worst thing Mercedes ever did." +Mrs. Talcott paused, gazing before her in the dimly lighted room. "Poor +things! Poor Mercedes! It nearly killed her. She's never been the same +since. And it was all her fault and she knows it and that's why she's +afraid. That's why," she added in a lower voice, "you're sorry for her +and put up with everything, because you know she's a miserable woman and +it wouldn't do for her to be alone. + +"A young man turned up. His name don't matter now, poor fellow. He was +just a clever all-over-the-place young man like so many of them, +thinking they know more about everything than God Almighty;--like this +young man in a way, only not a bad young man like him;--and downright +sick with love of Mercedes. He followed her about all over Europe and +went to every concert she gave and laid himself out to please her in all +the ways he could. And he had a great charm of manner--he was a Russian +and very high-bred--and he sort of fascinated her, and she liked it all, +I can tell you. Her youth was beginning to go, and the Baron was mighty +gloomy, and she just basked in this young man's love, and pretty soon +she began to think she was in love with him--perhaps she was--and had +never loved before, and she certainly worked herself up to suffer +considerably. Well, the Baron saw it. He saw she didn't treat him the +way she'd treated the others; she was kind of humble and tender and +distracted all the time. The Baron saw it all, but she never noticed +that he was getting gloomier and gloomier. I sometimes wonder if things +might have been different if he'd been willing to confide in me some. It +does folks a sight of good if there's someone they can tell things to. +But the Baron was very reserved and never said a word. And at last she +burst out with a dreadful scene. You were with them; yes, it was that +summer at Felsenschloss; but you didn't know anything about it of +course. I was pretty much in the thick of it all, as far as Mercedes +went, and I tried to make her see reason and told her she was a sinful +woman to treat her husband so; but I couldn't hold her back. She broke +out at him one day and told him he was like a jailor to her, and that he +suffocated her talent and that he hung on her like a vampire and sucked +her youth, and that she loved the other man. I can see her now, rushing +up and down that long saloon on that afternoon, with the white blinds +drawn down and the sun filtering through them, snatching with her hands +at her dress and waving her arms up and down in the air. And the Baron +sat on a sofa leaning on his elbow with his hand up over his eyes and +watched her under it. And he didn't say one word. When she fell down on +another sofa and cried and cried, he got up and looked at her for a +moment; but it wasn't the scornful, loving look; it was a queer, dark, +dead way. And he just went out. And we never saw him alive again. + +"You know the rest, Karen. You found him. But no one knows why he did +it, no one but you and me. He put an end to himself, because he couldn't +stand it any longer, and to set her free. They called it suicidal mania +and the doctors said he must have had melancholia for years. But I +shan't ever forget his face when he went out, and no more will Mercedes. +After he was gone she thought she'd never cared for anything in the +world but him. She never saw that young man again. She wrote him a +letter and laid the blame on him, and said he'd tried to take her from +her adored husband and that she'd never forgive him and loathed the +thought of him, and that he had made her the most wretched of women, and +he went and blew his brains out and that was the end of him. I had +considerable difficulty in getting hold of that letter. It was on him +when he killed himself. But I managed to talk over the police and hush +it up. Mercedes gave me plenty of money to manage with. I don't know +what she thinks about that poor fellow; she's never named his name since +that day. And she went on like a mad thing for two years or more. You +remember about that, Karen. She said she'd never play the piano again or +see anybody and wanted to go and be a nun. But she had a friend who was +a prioress of a convent, and she advised her not to. I guess poor +Mercedes wouldn't have stayed long in a convent. And the reason she was +nice to you was because the Baron had been fond of you and she wanted to +make up all she could for that dreadful thing in her life. She had you +to come and live with her. You didn't interfere with anything any longer +and it sort of soothed her to think it was what he'd have liked. She's +fond of you, too. She wouldn't have put up with you for so long if she +hadn't been. She'd have found some excuse for being quit of you. But as +for loving you, Karen child, like you thought she did, or like you love +her, why it's pitiful. I used to wonder how long it would be before you +found her out." + +Karen's face was hidden; she had rested it upon her hands, leaning +forward, her elbows on her knees, and she had not moved while Mrs. +Talcott told her story. Now, as Mrs. Talcott sat silent, she stirred +slightly. + +"Tante! Tante!" she muttered. "My beautiful!" + +Mrs. Talcott did not reply to this for some moments; then she laid her +hand on Karen's shoulder. "That's it," she said. "She's beautiful and it +most kills us to find out how cruel and bad she can be. But I guess we +can't judge people like Mercedes, Karen. When you go through life like a +mowing-machine and see everyone flatten out before you, you must get +kind of exalted ideas about yourself. If anything happens that makes a +hitch, or if anybody don't flatten out, why it must seem to you as if +they were wrong in some way, doing you an injury. That's the way it is +with Mercedes. She don't mean to be cruel, she don't mean to be bad; but +she's a mowing-machine and if you get in her way she'll cut you up fine +and leave you behind. And the thing for you to do, Karen, is to get out +of her way as quick as you can." + +"Yes, I am going," said Karen. + +Again Mrs. Talcott sat silent. "I'd like to talk to you about that, +Karen," she then said. "I want to ask you to give up going to Frau +Lippheim. There ain't any sense in that. It's a poor plan. What you +ought to do, Karen, is to go right back to your nice young husband." + +Karen, who sat on as if crushed beyond the point where anything could +crush her further, shook her head. "Do not ask me that, Mrs. Talcott," +she said. "I can never go back to him." + +"But, Karen, I guess you've got to own now that he was right and you +were wrong in that quarrel of yours. I guess you'll have to own that it +must have made him pretty sick to see her putting him in the wrong with +you all the time and spoiling everything; and there's no one on earth +can do that better than Mercedes." + +"I see it all," said Karen. "But that does not change what happened +between Gregory and me. He does not love me. I saw it plainly. If he had +me back it would only be because he cares for conventions. He said cruel +things to me." + +"I guess you said cruel things to him, Karen." + +Karen shook her head slightly, with weariness rather than impatience. + +"No, for he saw that it was my loyalty to her--my love of her--that he +was wounding. And he never understood. He never helped me. I can never +go back to him, for he does not love me." + +"Now, see here, Karen," said Mrs. Talcott, after a pause, "you just let +me work it out. You'll have a good sleep and to-morrow morning I'll see +you off, before Mercedes is up, to a nice little farm near here that I +know about--just a little way by train--and there you'll stay, nice and +quiet, and I'll not let Mercedes know where you are. And I'll write to +Mr. Jardine and tell him just what's happened and what you meant to do, +and that you want to go to Frau Lippheim; and you mark my words, Karen, +that nice young husband of yours'll be here quicker than you can say +Jack Robinson." + +Karen had dropped her hands and was looking at her old friend intently. +"Mrs. Talcott, you do not understand," she said. "You cannot write to +him. Have I not told you that he does not love me?" + +"Shucks!" said Mrs. Talcott. "He'll love you fast enough now that +Mercedes is out of the way." + +"But, Mrs. Talcott," said Karen, rising and looking down at the old +woman, whose face, in the dim light, had assumed to her reeling mind an +aspect of dangerous infatuation--"I do not think you know what you are +saying. What do I want of a man who only loves me when I cease to love +my guardian?" + +"Well, say you give up love, then," Mrs. Talcott persisted, and a panic +seized Karen as she heard the unmoved tones. "Say you don't love him and +he don't love you. You can have conventions, then--he wants that you +say, and so can you--and a good home and a nice husband who won't treat +you bad in any way. That's better than batting about the world all by +yourself, Karen; you take my word for it. And you can take my word for +it, too, that if you behave sensible and do as I say, you'll find out +that all this is just a miserable mistake and that he loves you just as +much as ever. Now, see here," Mrs. Talcott, also, had risen, and stood +in her habitual attitude, resting heavily on one hip, "you're not fit to +talk and I'm not going to worry you any more. You go to sleep and we'll +see about what to do to-morrow. You go right to sleep, Karen," she +patted the girl's shoulder. + +The panic was deepening in Karen. She saw guile on Mrs. Talcott's +storm-beaten and immutable face; and she heard specious reassurance in +her voice. Mrs. Talcott was dangerous. She had set her heart on this +last desire of her passionless, impersonal life and had determined that +she and Gregory should come together again. It was this desire that had +unsealed her lips: she would never relinquish, it. She might write to +Gregory; she might appeal to him and put before him the desperate plight +in which his wife was placed. And he might come. What were a wife's +powers if she was homeless and penniless, and a husband claimed her? +Karen did not know; but panic breathed upon her, and she felt that she +must fly. She, too, could use guile. "Yes," she said. "I will go to +sleep. And to-morrow we will talk. But what you hope cannot be. +Good-night, Mrs. Talcott." + +"Good-night, child," said Mrs. Talcott. + +They had joined hands and the strangeness of this farewell, the +knowledge that she might never see Mrs. Talcott again, and that she was +leaving her to a life empty of all that she had believed it to contain, +rose up in Karen so strongly that it blotted out for a moment her own +terror. + +"You have been so good to me," she said, in a trembling voice. "Never +shall I forget what you have done for me, Mrs. Talcott. May I kiss you +good-night?" + +They had never kissed. + +Mrs. Talcott's eyes blinked rapidly, and a curious contortion puckered +her mouth and chin. Karen thought that she was going to cry and her own +eyes filled with tears. + +But Mrs. Talcott in another moment had mastered her emotion, or, more +probably, it could find no outlet. The silent, stoic years had sealed +the fount of weeping. Only that dry contortion of her face spoke of her +deep feeling. Karen put her arms around her and they kissed each other. + +"Good-night, child," Mrs. Talcott then said in a muffled voice, and +disengaging herself she went out quickly. + +Karen stood listening to the sound of her footsteps passing down the +corridor. They went down the little flight of stairs that led to another +side of the house and faded away. All was still. + +She did not pause or hesitate. She did not seem to think. Swiftly and +accurately she found her walking-shoes and put them on, her hat and +cloak; her purse with its half-crown, its sixpence and its few coppers. +Swiftly she laid together a change of underwear and took from her +dressing-table its few toilet appurtenances. She paused then, looking at +the ornaments of her girlhood. She must have money. She must sell +something; yet all these her guardian had given her. + +No; not all. Her little gold watch ticked peacefully, lying on the table +beside her bed as it had lain beside her for so many years; her +beautiful little watch, treasured by her since the distant birthday when +Onkel Ernst had given it. + +She clutched it tightly in her hand and it seemed to her, as she had +once said to Gregory, that the iron drove deep into her heart and turned +up not only dark forgotten things but dark and dreadful things never +seen before. + +She leaned against the table, putting the hand that held Onkel Ernst's +watch to her eyes, and his agony became part of her own. How he had +suffered. And the other man, the young, forgotten Russian. Mrs. +Talcott's story became real to her as it had not yet been. It entered +her; it filled her past; it linked itself with everything that she had +been and done and believed. And the iron drove down deeper, until of her +heart there seemed only to be left a deep black hole. + + + + +CHAPTER XXXVII + + +Mrs. Talcott had a broken night and it was like a continuation of some +difficult and troubled dream when she heard the voice of Mercedes saying +to her: "Tallie, Tallie, wake up. Tallie, will you wake! _Bon Dieu!_ how +she sleeps!" + +The voice of Mercedes when she had heard it last had been the voice of +passion and desperation, but its tone was changed this morning; it was +fretful, feverishly irritable, rather than frantic. + +Mrs. Talcott opened her eyes and sat up in bed. She wore a Jaeger +nightgown and her head, with its white hair coiled at the top, was +curiously unaltered by its informal setting. + +"What do you mean by coming waking me up like this after the night +you've given me," she demanded, fully awakened now. "Go right straight +away or I'll put you out." + +"Don't be a fool, Tallie," said Madame von Marwitz, who, in a silken +dressing-gown and with her hair unbound, had an appearance at once +childish and damaged. "Where is Karen? I've been to her room and she is +not there. The door downstairs is unbolted. Is she gone out to walk so +early?" + +Mrs. Talcott sat still and upright in her bed. "What time is it?" she +asked. + +"It is seven. I have been awake since dawn. Do you imagine that I have +had a pleasant night?" + +Mrs. Talcott did not answer this query. She sprang out of bed. + +"Perhaps she's gone to meet the bus at the cross-roads. But I told her I +was going to take her. Tell Burton to come round with the car as quick +as he can. I'll go after her and see that she's all right. Why, the +child hasn't got any money," Mrs. Talcott muttered, deftly drawing on +her clothes beneath her nightgown which she held by the edge of the neck +between her teeth. + +Madame von Marwitz listened to her impeded utterance frowning. + +"The bus? What do you mean? Why is she meeting the bus?" + +"To take her to London where she's going to the Lippheims," said Mrs. +Talcott, casting aside the nightgown and revealing herself in chemise +and petticoat. "You go and order that car, Mercedes," she added, as she +buckled together her sturdy, widely-waisted stays. "This ain't no time +for talk." + +Madame von Marwitz looked at her for another moment and then rang the +bell. She put her head outside the door to await the housemaid and, as +this person made some delay, shouted in a loud voice: "Handcock! Jane! +Louise! Where are you? _Fainéantes!_" she stamped her foot, and, as the +housemaid appeared, running; "Burton," she commanded. "The car. At once. +And tell Louise to bring me my tea-gown, my shoes and stockings, my fur +cloak, at once; but at once; make haste!" + +"What are you up to, Mercedes?" Mrs. Talcott inquired, as Madame von +Marwitz thrust her aside from the dressing-table and began to wind up +her hair before the mirror. + +"I am getting ready to go with you, _parbleu_!" Madame von Marwitz +replied. "Is that you, Louise? Come in. You have the things? Put on my +shoes and stockings; quickly; _mais dépêchez-vous donc_! The +tea-gown--yes, over this--over it I say! So. Now bring me a motor-veil +and gloves. I shall do thus." + +Mrs. Talcott, while Louise with an air of profoundest gloom arrayed her +mistress, kept silence, but when Louise had gone in search of the +motor-veil she remarked in a low but imperative voice: "You'll get out +at the roadside and wait for me, that's what you'll do. I won't have you +along when I meet Karen. She couldn't bear the sight of you." + +"Peace!" Madame von Marwitz commanded, adjusting the sash of her +tea-gown. "I shall see Karen. The deplorable misunderstanding of last +night shall be set right. Her behaviour has been undignified and +underhanded; but I misunderstood her, and, pierced to the heart by the +treachery of a man I trusted, I spoke wildly, without thought. Karen +will understand. I know my Karen." + +It was not the moment for dispute. Louise had re-entered with the veil +and Madame von Marwitz bound it about her head, standing before the +mirror, and gazing at herself, fixedly and unseeingly, with dark eyes +set in purpled orbits. She turned then and swept from the room, and Mrs. +Talcott, pinning on her hat as she went, followed her. + +Not until they were speeding through the fresh, chill air, did Mrs. +Talcott speak. Madame von Marwitz, leaning to one side of the open car, +scanned the stretch of road before them, melancholy and monotonous under +the pale morning sky, and Mrs. Talcott, moving round determinedly in her +corner, faced her. + +"I want to tell you, right now, Mercedes," said Mrs. Talcott, "that +Karen's done with you. There's no use in your coming, for you'll never +get her back. I've told her all about you, Mercedes;--yes, I ain't +afraid of you and you know it;--I told her. I made up my mind to it last +night after I'd seen you and heard all your shameful story and how you'd +treated her. I made up my mind that you shouldn't get hold of her again, +not if I could help it. The time had come to tell that child that her +husband was right all along and that you ain't a woman to be trusted. +She'd seen for herself what you could do, and I made a sure thing of it. +I've held my tongue for all my life, but I spoke out last night. I want +her to be quit of you for good. I want her to go back to her husband. +Yes, Mercedes; I've burst up the whole concern." + +Madame von Marwitz, her hand holding tightly the side of the car and her +eyes like large, dark stones in her white face, was sitting upright and +was staring at her. She could not speak and Mrs. Talcott went on. + +"She knows all about you now; about you and Baldwin Tanner and you and +Ernst, and about that pitiful young Russian. She knows how you treated +them. She knows how it wasn't you but Ernst who was her real friend, and +how you didn't want her to live with you. She knows that you're a mighty +unfortunate creature and a mighty dangerous one; and what I advise you +to do, Mercedes, is to get out here and go right home. Karen won't ever +come back to you again, I'm as sure of it as I'm sure my name's Hannah +Talcott." + +They sped, with softly singing speed, through the chill morning air. The +hard, tight, dark eyeballs still fixed themselves on the old woman +almost lifelessly, and still she sat grasping the side of the car. She +had the look of a creature shot through the heart and maintaining the +poise and pride of its startled and arrested life. Mechanical forces +rather than volition seemed to sustain her. + +"Say, Mercedes, will you get out?" Mrs. Talcott repeated. And the rigid +figure then moved its head slightly in negation. + +They reached the cross-roads where a few carts and an ancient fly stood +waiting for the arrival of the omnibus that plied between the Lizard and +Helston. Karen was nowhere to be seen. + +"Perhaps she went across the fields and got into the bus at the Lizard," +said Mrs. Talcott. "We'll wait and see, and if she isn't in the bus +we'll go on to Helston. Perhaps she's walking." + +Madame von Marwitz continued to say nothing, and in a moment they heard +behind them the clashing and creaking of the omnibus. It drew up at the +halt and Karen was not in it. + +"To Helston," said Mrs. Talcott, standing up to speak to the chauffeur. + +They sped on before the omnibus had resumed its journey. + +Tints of azure and purple crept over the moors; the whitening sky showed +rifts of blue; it was a beautiful morning. Mrs. Talcott, keeping a keen +eye on the surrounding country, became aware presently that Mercedes had +turned her gaze upon her and was examining her. + +She looked round. + +There was no anger, no resentment, even, on the pallid face. It seemed +engaged, rather, in a deep perplexity--that of a child struck down by +the hand that, till then, had cherished it. It brooded in sick wonder on +Mrs. Talcott, and Mrs. Talcott looked back with her ancient, weary eyes. +Madame von Marwitz broke the silence. She spoke in a toneless voice. +"Tallie--how could you?" she said. "Oh, Tallie--how could you have told +her?" + +"Mercedes," said Mrs. Talcott, gently but implacably, "I had to. It was +right to make sure you shouldn't get hold of her again. She had to go, +and she had to go for good. If you want me to go, too, I will, but it's +only fair to tell you that I never felt much sorrier for you than I do +at this minute." + +"There have been tragedies in my life," Madame von Marwitz went on in +the low, dulled voice. "I have been a passion-tossed woman. Yes, I have +not been guiltless. But how could you cut out my heart with all its +scars and show it to my child?" + +"It was right to do it, Mercedes, so as you shouldn't ruin her life. +She's not your child, and you've shown her she's not. A mother don't +behave so to her child, however off her head she goes." + +"I was mad last night." The tears ran slowly down Madame von Marwitz's +cheeks. "I can tell that to Karen. I can explain. I can throw myself on +her mercy. I loved him and my heart was broken. One is not responsible. +It is the animal, wounded to death, that shrieks and tears at the spear +it feels entering its flesh." + +"I'm awful sorry for you, Mercedes," said Mrs. Talcott. + +And now, hiding her face in her hands and leaning back in her cushions, +Madame von Marwitz began to weep with the soft reiterated sobbing of a +miserable child. "I have no one left. I am alone," she sobbed. "Even you +have turned against me." + +"No, I haven't turned against you," said Mrs. Talcott. "I'm here." And +presently, while Mercedes wept, Mrs. Talcott took her hand and held it. + +They reached Helston and climbed the steep, stony road to the station. +There was no sign of Karen. Mrs. Talcott got out and made inquiries. She +might have gone to London by the train that left at dawn; but no one had +noticed such a young lady. Mrs. Talcott came back to the car with her +fruitless story. + +Mercedes, by this time, had dried her eyes and was regaining, +apparently, her more normal energies. "Not here? Not seen? Not heard +of?" she repeated. "But where is she then?" + +Mrs. Talcott stood at the door of the car and looked at her charge. +"Well, I'm afraid she made off in the night, straight away, after I'd +talked to her." + +"Made off in the night?" A dark colour suddenly suffused Madame von +Marwitz's face. + +"Yes, that's it, I reckon. I must have said something to scare her about +her going back to her husband. Perhaps she thought I'd bring him down +without her knowing, and perhaps she wasn't far wrong. I'm afraid I've +played the fool. She thought I'd round on her in some way and so she +just lit out." + +Madame von Marwitz stared at her. The expression of her face had +entirely altered; there was no trace of the dazed and wretched child. +Dark forces lit her eyes and the relaxed lines of her lips tightened. + +"Get in," she commanded. "Tell him to drive back, and get in." And when +Mrs. Talcott had taken her place beside her she went on in a low, +concentrated voice: "Is it not possible that she has joined that vile +seducer?" + +Mrs. Talcott eyed her with the fixity of a lion-tamer. Their moment of +instinctive closeness had passed. "Now see here, Mercedes," she said; "I +advise you to be careful what you say." + +"Careful! I am half mad! Between you all you will drive me mad!" said +Madame von Marwitz with intensity of fury. "You fill Karen's mind with +lies about my past--oh, there are two sides to every story! she shall +hear my side!--you drive her forth with your threats to hand her over to +the man she loathes, and she takes refuge--where else?--with that +miscreant. Why not? Where else had she to go? You say that she had no +money. We call now at the hotel. If he is gone, and if within the day we +do not hear that she is with Lise, we will send at once for detectives." + +"You'd better control yourself, Mercedes," said Mrs. Talcott. "If Karen +ain't found it'll be a mighty ugly story for you to face up to, and if +she's found it won't be all plain sailing for you either; you've got to +pay the price for what you've done. But if it gets round that you drove +her out and then spread scandal about her, you'll do for yourself--just +keep your mind on that if you can." + +"Scandal! What scandal shall I spread? If he disappears and she with +him, will the facts not shriek aloud? If she is found she will be found +by me. I will wire at once to Lise." + +"We'll wire to Lise and we'll wire to Mr. Jardine, that's what we'll do. +Karen may have changed her mind. She may have felt shy of telling me she +had. She may have come to see that he's the thing she's got to hang on +to. What I hope for is that if she ain't in London already with him, +she's hiding somewhere about here and has sent for him herself." + +"Ah, I understand your hope; it is of a piece with all your treachery," +said Madame von Marwitz in a voice suffocated by conflicting angers. "If +she is with her husband he, too, will hear the story--the false, garbled +story of my crimes. He is my enemy, you know it; my malignant enemy; you +know that he will spread this affair broadcast. And you can rejoice in +this! You are glad for my disgrace and ruin!" Tears again streamed from +her eyes. + +"Don't take on so, Mercedes," said Mrs. Talcott. "If Karen's with her +husband all they're likely to be thinking about is that he was right and +has got her back again. Karen's bound to tell him something about what +happened, and you can depend upon Karen for saying as little as she can. +But if you imagine that you're going to be let off from being found out +by that young man, you're letting yourself in for a big disappointment, +and you can take my word for it. It's because he's right about you that +Karen'll go back to him." + +Madame von Marwitz turned her head away and fixed her eyes on the +landscape. + +They reached the little village near Les Solitudes, and at the little +hotel, with its drowsy, out-of-season air, Mrs. Talcott descended, +leaving Mercedes proudly seated in the car, indifferent to the possible +gaze from above of her faithless devotee. Mrs. Talcott returned with the +information that Mr. Drew was upstairs and not yet awake. "Go up. Go up +to him," said the tormented woman, after a moment of realized relief or +disappointment--who can say? "He may have seen her. He may have given +her money for her journey. They may have arranged to meet later." + +Mrs. Talcott again disappeared and she only returned after some ten +minutes. "Home," she then said to Burton, climbing heavily into the car. +"Yes, there he was, sleeping as peaceful as a dormouse in his silk +pyjamas," she remarked. "I startled him some, I reckon, when I waked him +up. No, he don't know anything about her. Wanted to jump up and look for +her when I told him she was missing. Keep still, Mercedes--what do you +mean by bouncing about like that--folks can see you. I talked to him +pretty short and sharp, that young man, and I told him the best thing he +could do now was to pack his grip-sack and clear out. He's going right +away and he promised to send me a telegram from London to-night. He can +catch the second train." + +Madame von Marwitz leaned back. She closed her eyes. The car had climbed +to the entrance of Les Solitudes and the fuchsia hedge was passing on +each side. Mrs. Talcott, looking at her companion, saw that she had +either actually fainted or was simulating a very realistic fainting-fit. +Mercedes often had fainting-fits at moments of crisis; but she was a +robust woman, and Mrs. Talcott had no reason to believe that any of them +had been genuine. She did not believe that this one was genuine, yet she +had to own, looking at the leaden eyelids and ashen face, that Mercedes +had been through enough in the last twelve hours to break down a +stronger person. And it was appropriate that she should return to her +desolate home in a prostrate condition. + +Mrs. Talcott, as often before, played her part. The maids were summoned; +they supported Madame von Marwitz's body; Burton took her shoulders and +Mrs. Talcott her feet. So the afflicted woman was carried into the house +and upstairs and laid upon her bed. + +Mrs. Talcott then went and sent telegrams to Frau Lippheim and to +Gregory Jardine. She asked them to let her know if Karen arrived in +London during the day. She had her answers that evening. That from +Gregory ran--"Not seen or heard of Karen. What has happened? Write by +return. Or shall I come to you?" The other was from the Lippheims' +landlady and said that the Lippheims had returned to Germany four days +before and that no one had arrived to see them. + +The evening post had gone. Mrs. Talcott went out and answered Gregory by +wire: "Writing to-morrow morning. We think Karen is in London. Stay +where you are." + + + + +CHAPTER XXXVIII + + +Mrs. Talcott went early to Madame von Marwitz's room next morning, as +soon, in fact, as she had seen her breakfast-tray carried away. She had +shown Mercedes her telegrams the evening before, and Mercedes, lying on +her bed where she had passed the day in heavy slumbers, had muttered, +"Let me sleep. The post is gone. We can do nothing more till to-morrow." +Like a wounded creature she was regaining strength and wholeness in +oblivion. When Mrs. Talcott had gone softly into her room at bedtime, +she had found her soundly sleeping. + +But the fumes and torpors of grief and pain were this morning dispersed. +Mercedes sat at the desk in her bedroom attired in a _robe-de-chambre_, +and rapidly and feverishly wrote. + +"I'm glad to see you're feeling better, Mercedes," said Mrs. Talcott, +closing the door and coming to her side. "We've got a lot to talk over +this morning. I guess we'll have to send for those detectives. What are +you writing there?" + +Madame von Marwitz, whose face had the sodden, slumbrous look that +follows long repose, drew the paper quickly to one side and replied: +"You may mind your affairs and leave me to mind my own. I write to my +friend. I write to Mrs. Forrester." + +"You hand me that letter, Mercedes," said Mrs. Talcott, in a mild but +singularly determined tone, and after a moment Madame von Marwitz did +hand it to her. + +Mrs. Talcott perused the first page. Then she lifted her eyes to her +companion, who, averting hers with a sullen look, fixed them on the sea +outside. It was raining and the sea was leaden. + +"Now just you listen to me, Mercedes Okraska," said Mrs. Talcott, +heavily emphasizing her words and leaning the hand that held the letter +on the writing-table, "I'll go straight up to London and tell the whole +story to Mr. Jardine and Mrs. Forrester--the same as I told it to Karen +with all that's happened here besides--I will as sure as my name's +Hannah Talcott--if you write one word of that shameful idea to your +friends. Lay down that pen." + +Madame von Marwitz did not lay it down, but she turned in her chair and +confronted her accuser, though with averted eyes. "You say 'shameful.' I +say, yes; shameful, and true. She has not gone to her husband. She has +not gone to the Lippheims. I believe that he has joined her. I believe +that it was arranged. I believe that she is with him now." + +"You can't look me in the eye and say you believe it, Mercedes," said +Mrs. Talcott. + +Madame von Marwitz looked her in the eye, sombrely, and she then varied +her former statement. "He has pursued her. He has found her. He will try +to keep her. He is a depraved and dangerous man." + +"We'll let him alone. We're done with him for good and all, I guess. My +point is this: don't you write any lies to your friends thinking that +you're going to whiten yourself by blackening Karen. I'm speaking the +sober truth when I say I'll go straight off to London and tell Mr. +Jardine and Mrs. Forrester the whole story, unless you write a letter, +right now, as you sit here, that I can pass." + +Again averting her eyes, Madame von Marwitz clutched her pen in rigid +fingers and sat silent. + +"It is blackmail! Tyranny!" she ejaculated presently. + +"All right. Call it any name you like. But my advice to you, Mercedes, +is to pull yourself together and see this thing straight for your own +sake. I know what's the matter with you, you pitiful, silly thing; it's +this young man; it makes you behave like a distracted creature. But +don't you see as plain as can be that what Karen's probably done is to +go to London and that Mr. Jardine'll find her in a day or two. Now when +those two young people come together again, what kind of a story will +Karen tell her husband about you--what'll he think of you--what'll your +friends think of you--if they all find out that in addition to behaving +like a wild-cat to that poor child because you were fairly daft with +jealousy, and driving her away--oh, yes you did, Mercedes, it don't do +any good to deny it now--if in addition to all that they find out that +you've been trying to save your face by blackening her character? Why, +they'll think you're the meanest skunk that ever walked on two legs; and +they'll be about right. Whereas, Mercedes," Mrs. Talcott had been +standing square and erect for some time in front of her companion, and +now, as her tone became more argumentative and persuasive, she allowed +her tired old body to sag and rest heavily on one hip--"whereas if you +write a nice, kind, loving, self-reproachful letter, all full of your +dreadful anxiety and affection--why, if Karen ever sees it it'll soften +her towards you perhaps; and it'll make all your friends sorry for you, +too, and inclined to hush things up if Mr. Drew spreads the story +around--won't it, Mercedes?"--Madame von Marwitz had turned in her chair +and was staring before her with a deeply thoughtful eye.--"Why, it's as +plain as can be, Mercedes, that that's your line." + +"True," Madame von Marwitz now said. "True." Her voice was deep and +almost solemn. "You are right. Yes; you are right, Tallie." + +She leaned her forehead on her hand, shading her eyes as she pondered. +"A letter of noble admission; of sorrow; of love. Ah! you recall me to +my better self. It will touch her, Tallie; it is bound to touch her, is +it not? She cannot feel the bitterness she now feels if she reads such a +letter; is not that so, Tallie?" + +"That's so. You've got it," said Mrs. Talcott. + +Madame von Marwitz, however, continued to lean on her desk and to shade +her eyes, and some moments of silence passed thus. Then, as she leaned, +the abjectness of her own position seemed suddenly borne in upon her. +She pushed back her chair and clutching the edge of the desk with both +hands, gave a low cry. + +Mrs. Talcott looked at her, inquiring, but unmoved. + +"Oh--it is easy for you--standing there--watching my humiliation--making +your terms!" Madame von Marwitz exclaimed in bitter, trembling tones. +"You see me in the dust,--and it is you who strike me there. I am to +drag myself--with precautions--apologies--to that child's feet--that +waif!--that bastard!--that thing I picked up and made! I am to be glad +because I may hope to move her to mercy! Ah!--it is too much! too much! +I curse the day that I saw her! I had a presentiment--I remember it +now--as I saw her standing there in the forest with her foolish face. I +felt in my inmost soul that she was to bring me sorrow. She takes him +from me! She puts me to shame before the world! And I am to implore her +to take pity on me!" + +She had extended her clenched hand in speaking and now struck it +violently on the desk. The silver blotter, the candlesticks, the +pen-tray and ink-stand leaped in their places and the ink, splashing up, +spattered her white silk robe. + +"There now," said Mrs. Talcott, eyeing her impassively, "you've gone and +spoiled your nice dress." + +"Damn the dress!" said Madame von Marwitz. Leaning her elbows on the +desk and her face on her hands, she wept; the tears trickled between her +fingers. + +But in a very little while the storm passed. She straightened herself, +found her lace-edged handkerchief and dried her eyes and cheeks; then, +taking a long breath, she drew forward a pad of paper. + +"I am a fool, am I not, Tallie," she remarked. "And you are wise; a +traitor, yet wise. I will do as you say. Wait there and you shall see." + +Mrs. Talcott now subsided heavily into a chair and for some fifteen +minutes there was no sound but the scratching of Madame von Marwitz's +pen and the deep sighs that from time to time she heaved. + +Then: "So: will that do?" she asked, leaning back with the deepest of +the sighs and handing the pages to Mrs. Talcott. + +Her dark, cold eyes, all clouded with weeping, had a singularly +child-like expression as she thus passed on her letter for inspection. +And--as when she had stretched out her legs for Mrs. Talcott to put on +her stockings--one saw beyond the instinctively confiding gesture a long +series of scenes reaching back to childhood, scenes where, in crises, +her own craft and violence and unscrupulous resource having undone her, +she had fallen back in fundamental dependence on the one stable and +inalienable figure in her life. + +Mrs. Talcott read: + + "My Friend--Dearest and best Beloved,--I am in the straits of a + terrible grief.--I am blind with weeping, dazed from a sleepless + night and a day of anguish.--My child, my Karen, is gone and, oh my + friend, I am in part to blame.--I am hot of blood, quick of tongue, + as you know, and you know that Karen is haughty, resentful, + unwilling to brook reproof even from me. But I do not attempt to + exonerate myself. I will open my heart to you and my friend will + read aright and interpret the broken words. You know that I cared + for Claude Drew; you guessed perhaps how strong was the hold upon + me of the frail, ambiguous, yet so intelligent modern spirit. It + was to feel the Spring blossom once more on my frosty branches when + this young life fell at my knees and seemed to find in me its + source and goal. Mine was a sacred love and pain mingled with my + maternal tenderness when he revealed himself to me as seeking from + me the lesser things of love, the things I could not give, that + elemental soil of sense and passion without which a man's devotion + so strangely withers,--I could give him water from the wells and + light from the air; I could not give him earth. My friend, he was + here when Karen came, and, already I had seen it, his love was + passing from me. Her youth, her guilelessness, her courage and the + loyalty of her return to me, aroused his curiosity, his indolent + and--you will remember--his unsatisfied, passion. I saw at once, + and I saw danger. I knew him to be a man believing in neither good + nor evil, seeking only beauty and the satisfaction of desire. Not + once--but twice, thrice, did I warn Karen, and she resented my + warnings. She is a creature profoundly pure and profoundly simple + and her stubborn spirit rests in security upon its own assurances. + She resented my warnings and she repulsed my attempts to lead and + guard her. Another difference had also come between us. I hoped to + effect a reconciliation between her and her husband; I suggested to + Karen that I should write to you and offer myself as an + intermediary; I could not bear to see her young life ruined for my + sake. Karen was not kind to me; the thought of her husband is + intolerable to her and she turned upon me with bitterness. I was + hurt and I told her so. She brought me to tears. My friend, it was + late on the night of that day--the night before last--that I found + her with Claude Drew in the garden; and found her in his arms. Do + not misunderstand; she had not returned his love; she repulsed him + as I came upon them; but I, in my consternation, my anger, my + dismay, snatched her from him and spoke to them both with + passionate reproof. I sent Karen to the house and remained behind + to deal with the creature who had so betrayed my trust. He is now + my avowed enemy. So be it. I do not see him again. + + "At dawn, after a sleepless night, I went to Karen's room to take + her in my arms and to ask her pardon for my harsh words. She was + gone. Gone, my friend. Tallie tells me that she believed me to have + said that unless she could obey me I must forbid her to remain + under my roof. These were not my words; but she had misunderstood + and had fiercely resented my displeasure. She told Tallie that she + would go to the Lippheims,--for them, as I have told you, she has a + deep affection. Tallie urged upon her that she should communicate + with her husband, let him know what had happened, return to + him--even if it were to blacken me in his eyes--and would to God + that it had been so!--But she repulsed the suggestion with + bitterness. It must also have filled her with terror lest we should + ourselves make some further attempt to bring about a + reconciliation; for it was in the night, and immediately after her + talk with Tallie, that she went, although she and Tallie had + arranged that she was to go to the Lippheims next day. + + "We have wired to the Lippheims and find that they have left + England. And we have wired to Mr. Jardine, and she is not with him. + She may be on her way to Germany; she may be concealed in the + country near here; she may be in London. Unless we have news of her + to-morrow I send for a detective. Oh, to hold her in my arms! I am + crushed to the earth with sorrow and remorse. Show this letter to + her husband. I have no thought of pride. + + "Your devoted and unhappy Mercedes." + +Mrs. Talcott read and remained for some moments reflecting after she had +read. "Well, I suppose that's got to do," she commented, "though I don't +call it a satisfactory letter. You've fixed it up real smart, but it's a +long way off the truth." + +Madame von Marwitz, while Mrs. Talcott read, had been putting back the +disordered strands of her hair, adjusting her laces, and dabbing vaguely +with her handkerchief at the splashes of ink that disfigured the front +of her dress--thereby ruining the handkerchief; she looked up sharply +now. + +"I deny that it is a long way off the truth." + +"A long way off," Mrs. Talcott repeated colourlessly; "but I guess it'll +have to do. I'm willing you should make the best story out for yourself +you can to your friends, so long as Karen knows the truth and so long as +you don't spread scandal about her. Now I'll write to Mr. Jardine." + +Madame von Marwitz's eyes were still fixed sharply on her and a sudden +suspicion leapt to them. "Here then!" she exclaimed. "You write in my +presence as I have done in yours. And we go to the village together that +I may see you post the self-same letter. I have had enough of +betrayals!" + +Mrs. Talcott allowed a grim smile to touch her lips. "My, but you're +silly, Mercedes," she said. "Get up, then, and let me sit there. I'd +just as leave I'm sure. You know I'm determined that Karen shall go back +to her husband and that I'm going to do all I can so as she shall. So +there's nothing I want to hide." + +She took up the pen and Madame von Marwitz leaned over her shoulder and +read as she wrote: + + "Dear Mr. Jardine,--Mercedes and Karen have had a disagreement and + Karen took it very hard and has made off, we don't know where. Go + round to Mrs. Forrester and see what Mercedes has got to say about + it. Karen will tell you her side when you see her. She feels very + bad about you yet; and thinks things are over between you; but you + hang on, Mr. Jardine, and it'll all come right. You'd better find + out whether Karen's called at the Lippheims' and get a detective + and try and trace her out. If she's with them in Germany I advise + you to go right over and see her.--Yours sincerely, + + "Hannah Talcott." + +Mrs. Talcott, as she finished, heard that the breathing of Mercedes, +close upon her, had become heavier. She did not look at her. She knew +what Mercedes was feeling, and dreading; and that Mercedes was helpless. + +"There's no reason under the sun why Handcock shouldn't take these +letters as usual," she remarked; "but if you're set on it that you're +being betrayed, put on your shoes and dress and we'll walk down and mail +them together." + + + + +CHAPTER XXXIX + + +It was on the second morning after this that the letters were brought in +to Madame von Marwitz while she and Mrs. Talcott sat in the music-room +together. + +The two days had told upon them both. The face of Mercedes was like a +beautiful fruit, rain-sodden and gnawed at the heart by a worm. Mrs. +Talcott's was more bleached, more desolate, more austere. + +The one letter that Handcock brought to Mrs. Talcott was from Gregory +Jardine: + + "Dear Mrs. Talcott," it said, "Thank you for your kind note. I am + very unhappy and only a little less unhappy than when Karen left + me. One cause of our estrangement is, perhaps, removed; but the + fact borne in upon me at the time of that parting was that, while + she was everything in life to me, she hardly knew the meaning of + the words love and marriage. I need not tell you that I will do all + in my power to induce her to return to me, and all in my power to + win her heart. It was useless to make any attempt at reconciliation + while her guardian stood between us. I cannot pretend that I feel + more kindly towards Madame von Marwitz now; rather the reverse. It + is plain to me that she has treated Karen shamefully. You must + forgive me for my frankness.--Sincerely yours, + + "Gregory Jardine." + +Mrs. Talcott when she looked up from this letter saw that Mercedes was +absorbed in hers. Her expression had stiffened as she read, and when she +had finished the hand holding it dropped to her side. She sat looking +down in a dark contemplation. + +Mrs. Talcott asked no question. United in the practical exigencies of +their search for Karen, united in their indestructible relation of +respective dependence and stability, which the last catastrophe had +hardly touched--for Mercedes had accepted her betrayal with a singular +passivity, as if it had been a force of nature that had overtaken +her--there was yet a whole new region of distrust between them. She and +Mercedes, as Mrs. Talcott cheerlessly imaged it, were like a constable +and his captive adrift, by a curious turn of fortune, on the waters of a +sudden inundation. Together they baled out water and worked at the oar, +but both were aware that when the present peril was past a sentence had +still to be carried out on one of them. Mercedes could not evade her +punishment. If Karen were found Gregory Jardine must come to know that +her guardian had, literally, driven her from her home. In that case it +rested with Gregory's sense of mercy whether Mercedes should be exposed +to the world or not. And after reading Gregory's letter Mrs. Talcott +reflected that there was not much to hope of mercy from him. So she +showed a tactful consideration of her companion's state of nerves by +pressing her no further than was necessary. + +On this occasion, however, there was no need for pressure; Mercedes, in +her dismal plight, turned to her with the latest development of it. + +"Ah," she said, while she still continued to gaze down fixedly, "this it +is to have true friends. This is human loyalty. It is well." + +"What's the matter, Mercedes?" Mrs. Talcott asked, as she was evidently +invited to do. + +"Read if you will," said Madame von Marwitz. She held out the letter +which Mrs. Talcott rose to take. + +It was from Mrs. Forrester and was full of sympathy for her afflicted +friend, and full of sympathy for foolish, headstrong little Karen. The +mingled sympathies rang strangely. She avowed self-reproach. She was +afraid that she had precipitated the rupture between Karen and her +husband, not quite, perhaps, understanding the facts. She had seen +Gregory, she was very sorry for him. She was, apparently, sorry for +everyone; except of course, Mr. Drew, the villain of the piece; but of +Mr. Drew and of Mercedes's sacred love for him, she made no mention. +Mrs. Forrester was fond, but she was wary. She had received, evidently, +her dim thrust of disillusion. Mercedes had blamed herself and Mrs. +Forrester did not deny that Mercedes must be to blame. + +"Yes; she's feeling pretty sick," Mrs. Talcott commented when she had +read. "The trouble is that anybody who knows how much Karen loved you +knows that she wouldn't have made off like that without you'd treated +her ugly. That'll be the trouble with most of your friends, I reckon. +Who's your other letter from?" + +Madame von Marwitz roused herself from her state of contemplation. She +opened the second letter saying, tersely: "Scrotton." + +"She ain't likely to take sides with Karen," Mrs. Talcott observed, +inserting her hand once more in the stocking she was darning, these +homely occupations having for the last few days been brought into the +music-room, since Mercedes would not be left alone. "She was always just +as jealous of Karen as could be." + +She proceeded to darn and Madame von Marwitz to read, and as she read a +dark flush mounted to her face. Clenching her hand on Miss Scrotton's +letter, she brought it down heavily on the back of the chair she sat in. +Then, without speaking, she got up, tossed the letter to Mrs. Talcott, +and began to pace the room, setting the furniture that she encountered +out of her way with vindictive violence. + + "My Darling, Darling Mercedes," Miss Scrotton wrote, "This is too + terrible. Shall I come to you at once? I thought this morning after + I had seen Mrs. Forrester and read your heartbreaking letter that I + would start to-day; but let me hear from you, you may be coming up + to town. If you stay in Cornwall, Mercedes, you must not be alone; + you must not; and I am, as you know, devoted heart and soul. If all + the world turned against you, Mercedes, I should keep my faith in + you. I need hardly tell you what is being said. Claude Drew is in + London and though, naturally, he does not dare face your friends + with his story, rumours are abroad. Betty Jardine does not know + him, but already she has heard; I met her only a few hours ago and + the miserable little creature was full of malicious satisfaction. + The story that she has heard--and believes--and that London will + believe--is the crude, gross one that facts, so disastrously, have + lent colour to; you, in a fit of furious jealousy, driving Karen + away. My poor, great, suffering friend, I need not tell you that I + understand. Your letter rings true to me in every line, and is but + too magnanimous.--Oh Mercedes!--had you but listened to my warnings + about that wretched man. Do you remember that I told you that you + were scattering your pearls before swine? And your exculpation of + Karen did not convince me as it seemed to do Mrs. Forrester. A + really guileless woman is not found--late at night--in a man's + arms. I cannot forget Karen's origins. There must be in her the + element of reckless passion. Mr. Drew is spreading a highly + idealised account of her and says that to see you together was to + see Antigone in the clutches of Clytemnestra. There is some + satisfaction in knowing that the miserable man is quite distracted + and is haunted by the idea that Karen may have committed suicide. + Betty Jardine says that in that case you and he would have to + appear at the inquest.--Oh, my poor Mercedes!--But I feel sure that + this is impossible. Temper, not tragedy, drove Karen from you and + it was on her part a dastardly action. I am seeing everybody that I + can; they shall have my version. The Duchess is in the country; I + have wired to her that I will go to her at once if you do not send + for me; it is important that she should have the facts as I see + them before these abominable rumours reach her. Dear Mrs. Forrester + means, I am sure, to do loyally; you may count upon her to listen + to no scandal; but its breath alarms and chills her: she does not + interpret your letter as I do. + + "Good-bye, my dear one. Wire to me please, at once. Ever and always + _ton Eleanor devouée_." + +"Well," Mrs. Talcott commented warily, folding the letter and glancing +at Madame von Marwitz; "she don't let any grass grow under her feet, +does she? Do you want her down?" + +"Want her! Why should I want her! The insufferable fool!" cried Madame +von Marwitz still striding to and fro with tigerish regularity. "Does +she think me, too, a fool, to be taken in by her grimaces of loyalty +when it is as apparent as the day that delight is her chief emotion. +Here is her opportunity--_parbleu!_--At last! I am in the dust--and if +also in the dock so much the better. She will stand by me when others +fall away. She will defend the prostrate Titaness from the vultures that +prey upon her and gain at last the significance she has, for so long, so +eagerly and so fruitlessly pursued. Ah!--_par exemple!_ Let her come to +me expecting gratitude. I will spurn her from me like a dog!" Madame von +Marwitz, varying her course, struck a chair aside as she spoke. + +"Well, I shouldn't fly out at her if I was you," said Mrs. Talcott. +"She's as silly as they make 'em, I allow, but it's all to the good if +her silliness keeps her sticking to you through thick and thin. It's +just as well to have someone around to drive off the vultures, even if +it's only a scarecrow--and Miss Scrotton is better than that. She's a +pretty brainy woman, for all her silliness, and she's pretty fond of +you, too, only you haven't treated her as well as she thinks you ought +to have, and it makes her feel kind of spry and cheerful to see that her +time's come to show you what a fine fellow she is. Most folks are like +that, I guess," Mrs. Talcott mused, returning to her stocking, "they +don't suffer so powerful over their friends' misfortunes if it gives +them a chance of showing what fine fellows they are." + +"Friends!" Madame von Marwitz repeated with scorching emphasis. +"Friends! Truly I have proved them, these friends of mine. Cowards and +traitors all, or crouching hounds. I am to be left, I perceive, with the +Scrotton as my sole companion." But now she paused in her course, struck +by a belated memory. "You had a letter. You have heard from the +husband." + +"Yes, I have," said Mrs. Talcott, "and you may as well see it." She drew +forth Gregory's letter from under the heap of darning appliances on her +lap. + +Madame von Marwitz snatched it from her and read it, once rapidly, once +slowly; and then, absorbed again in dark meditations, she stood holding +it, her eyes fixed on the ground. + +"He ain't as violent as might be expected, is he?" Mrs. Talcott +suggested. Distrust was abroad in the air between her and Mercedes; she +offered the fact of Gregory's temperateness as one that might mitigate +some anticipations. + +"He is as insolent as might be expected," said Madame von Marwitz. She +flung the letter back to Mrs. Talcott, resuming her pacing, with a +bitter laugh. "And to think," she said presently, "that I hoped--but +truly hoped--with all my heart--to reconcile them! To think that I +offered myself to Karen as an intermediary. It was true--yes, literally +true--what I told Mrs. Forrester--that I spoke to Karen of it--with all +love and gentleness and that she turned upon me like a tigress." + +"And you'll recollect," said Mrs. Talcott, "that I told you to keep your +hands off them and that you'd made enough mischief as it was. Why I +guess you did hope she'd go back. You wanted to get rid of Karen and to +have that young man to yourself; that's the truth, but you didn't tell +that to Mrs. Forrester." + +"I deny it," said Madame von Marwitz; but mechanically; her thoughts +were elsewhere. She still paced. + +"Well," said Mrs. Talcott, "you'd better send that telegram to Miss +Scrotton, telling her not to come, or you'll have her down here as soon +as she's seen the Duchess." + +"Send it; send it at once," said Madame von Marwitz. "Tell her that I do +not need her. Tell her that I will write." The force of her fury had +passed; counsels of discretion were making themselves felt. "Go at once +and send it." + +She paused again as Mrs. Talcott rose. "If Karen is not found within +three days, Tallie, I go to London. I believe that she is in London." + +Mrs. Talcott faced her. "If she's in London she'll be found as soon by +Mr. Jardine as by you." + +"Yes; that may be," said Mercedes, and discretion, now, had evidently +the mastery; "but Karen will not refuse to see me. I must see her. I +must implore her forgiveness. You would not oppose that, would you, +Tallie?" + +"No, I'd not oppose your asking her to forgive you," Mrs. Talcott +conceded, "when she's got back to her husband. Only I advise you to stay +where you are till you hear she's found." + +"I will do as you say, Tallie," said Madame von Marwitz meekly. She went +to the piano, and seating herself began to play the _Wohltemperirtes +Clavier_. + + + + +CHAPTER XL + + +Six days had passed since Karen's disappearance. The country had been +searched; London, still, was being examined, and the papers were +beginning to break into portraits of the missing girl. Karen became +remote, non-existent, more than dead, it seemed, when her face, like +that of some heroine of a newspaper novelette, gazed at one from the +breakfast-table. The first time that this happened, Madame von Marwitz, +flinging the sheet from her, had burst into a violent storm of weeping. + +She sat, on the afternoon of the sixth day, in a sunny corner of the +lower terrace and turned the leaves of a book with a listless hand. She +was to be alone till dinner-time; Tallie had gone in to Helston by bus, +and she had the air of one who feels solitude at once an oppression and +a relief. She read little, raising her eyes to gaze unseeingly over the +blue expanses stretched beneath her or to look down as vaguely into the +eyes of Victor, who lay at her feet. The restless spirit of the house +had reached Victor. He lay with his head on his extended paws in an +attitude of quiescence; but his ears were pricked to watchfulness, his +eyes, as he turned them now and again up to his mistress, were troubled. +Aware of his glance, on one occasion, Madame von Marwitz stooped and +caressed his head, murmuring: "_Nous sommes des infortunés, hein, mon +chien._" Her voice was profoundly sad. Victor understood her. Slightly +thudding his tail he gave a soft responsive groan; and it was then, +while she still leaned to him and still caressed his head, that shrill, +emphatic voices struck on Madame von Marwitz's ear. + +The gravelled nook where she sat, her garden chair, with its adjusted +cushions, set against a wall, was linked by ascending paths and terraces +to the cliff-path, and this again, though only through a way overgrown +with gorse and bramble, to the public coast-guards' path along the +cliff-top. The white stones that marked the way for the coast-guards +made a wide _détour_ behind Madame von Marwitz's property and this +nearer egress to the cliff was guarded by a large placard warning off +trespassers. Yet, looking in the direction of the voices, Madame von +Marwitz, to her astonishment, saw that three ladies, braving the +interdict, were actually marching down in single file upon her. + +One was elderly and two were young; they wore travelling dress, and, as +she gazed at them in chill displeasure, the features of the first became +dimly familiar to her. Where, she could not have said, yet she had seen +that neat, grey head before, that box-like hat with its depending veil, +that firmly corseted, matronly form, with its silver-set pouch, +suggesting, typical of the travelling American lady as it was, a +marsupial species. She did not know where she had seen this lady; but +she was a travelling American; she accosted one in determined tones, +and, at some time in the past, she had waylaid and inconvenienced her. +Madame von Marwitz, as the three trooped down upon her, did not rise. +She pointed to the lower terrace. "This is private property," she said, +and her aspect might well have turned the unwary visitors, Acteon-like, +into stags, "I must ask you to leave it at once. You see the small door +in the garden wall below; it is unlocked and it leads to the village. +Good-day to you." + +But, with a singularly bright and puckered look, the look of a +surf-bather, who measures with swift eye the height of the rolling +breaker and plunges therein, the elderly lady addressed her with +extraordinary volubility. + +"Baroness, you don't remember us--but we've met before, we have a mutual +friend:--Mrs. General Tollman of St. Paul's, Minnesota.--Allow me to +introduce myself again:--Mrs. Slifer--Mrs. Hamilton K. Slifer:--my +girls, Maude and Beatrice. We had the privilege of making your +acquaintance over a year ago, Baroness, at the station in London, just +before you sailed, and we had some talks on the steamer to that +perfectly charming woman, Miss Scrotton. I hope she's well. We're over +again this year, you see; we pine for dear old England and come just as +often as we can. We feel we belong here more than over there sometimes, +I'm afraid,"--Mrs. Slifer laughed swiftly and deprecatingly.--"My girls +are so often taken for English girls, the Burne-Jones type you know. +We've got friends staying at Mullion, so we thought we'd just drop down +on Cornwall for a little tour after we landed at Southampton, and we +drove over this afternoon and came down by the cliff--we are just crazy +about your scenery, Baroness--it's just the right setting for you--we've +been saying so all day--to have a peek at the house we've heard so much +about; and we don't want to disturb you, but it's the greatest possible +pleasure, Baroness, to have this beautiful glimpse of you--with your +splendid dog--how d' ye do, Victor--why I do believe he remembers me; we +petted him so much at the station when your niece was holding him. We +saw Mrs. Jardine the other day, Baroness--such a pleasant surprise that +was, too--only we're sorry to see she's so delicate. The New Forest will +be just the place for her. We stayed there three days after landing, +because my Beatrice here was very sea-sick and I wanted her to have a +little rest. We were simply crazy over it. I do hope Mrs. Jardine's +getting better." + +All this had been delivered with such speed, such an air of decision and +purpose, that Madame von Marwitz, who had risen in her bewildered +indignation and stood, her book beneath her arm, her white cloak caught +about her, had found no opportunity to check the torrent of speech, and +as these last words came as swiftly and as casually as the rest she +could hardly, for a moment, collect her faculties. + +"My niece? Mrs. Jardine?" she repeated, with a wild, wan utterance. +"What do you say of her?" + +It was at this moment that Miss Beatrice began, in the background, to +adjust her camera. She told her mother and sister afterwards that she +seemed to feel it in her bones that something was doing. + +Mrs. Slifer, emerging from her breaker in triumph, struck out, blinking +and smiling affably. "We heard all about the wedding in America," she +said, "and we thought we might call upon her in London and see that +splendid temple you'd given her--we heard all about that, too. I never +saw a picture of him, but I knew her in a minute, naturally, though she +did look so pulled down. Why, Baroness--what's the matter!" + +Madame von Marwitz had suddenly clutched Mrs. Slifer's arm with an +almost appalling violence of mien and gesture. + +"What is the matter?" Madame von Marwitz repeated, shaking Mrs. Slifer's +arm. "Do you know what you are saying? My niece has been lost for a +week! The whole country is searching for her! Where have you seen her? +When was it? Answer me at once!" + +"Why Baroness, by all means, but you needn't shake my head off," said +Mrs. Slifer, not without dignity, raising her free hand to straighten +her hat. "We've never heard a word about it. Why this is perfectly +providential.--Baroness--I must ask you not to go on shaking me like +that. I've got a very delicate stomach and the least thing upsets my +digestion." + +"_Justes cieux!_" Madame von Marwitz cried, dropping Mrs. Slifer's arm +and raising her hands to her head, while, in the background, Miss +Beatrice's kodak gave a click--"Will the woman drive me mad! Karen! My +child! Where is she!" + +"Why, we saw her at the station at Brockenhurst--in the New +Forest--didn't we Maude," said Mrs. Slifer, "and it must have been--now +let me see--" poor Mrs. Slifer collected her wits, a bent forefinger at +her lips. "To-day's Thursday and we got to Mullion yesterday--and we +stopped at Winchester for a day and night on our way to the New Forest, +it was on Saturday last of course. We'd been having a drive about that +part of the forest and we were taking the train and they had just come +and we saw them on the opposite platform. He was just helping her out of +the train and we didn't have any time to go round and speak to them--" + +"They!" Madame von Marwitz nearly shouted. "She was with a man! Last +Saturday! Who was it? Describe him to me! Was he slender--with fair +hair--dark eyes--the air of a poet?" She panted. And her aspect was so +singular that Miss Beatrice, startled out of her professional readiness, +failed to snap it. + +"Why no," said Mrs. Slifer, keeping her clue. "I shouldn't say a +poetical looking man, should you, Maude? A fleshy man--very big and +fleshy, and he was taking such good care of her and looked so kind of +tender and worried that I concluded he was her husband. She looked like +a very sick woman, Baroness." + +"Fleshy?" Madame von Marwitz repeated, and the word, in her moan, was +almost graceful. "Fleshy, you say? An old man? A stout old man?" she +held her hands distractedly pressed to her head. "What stout old man +does Karen know? Is it a stranger she has met?" + +"No, he wasn't old. This was a young man, Baroness. He had--now let me +see--his hair was sort of red--I remember noticing his hair; and he wore +knee-pants and a soft hat with a feather in it and was very high +coloured." + +"_Bon Dieu!_" Madame von Marwitz gasped. She had again, while Mrs. +Slifer spoke, seized her by the arm as though afraid that she might +escape her and she now gazed with a fixed gaze above Mrs. Slifer's head +and through the absorbed Maude and Beatrice. "Red hair?--A large young +man?--Was he clean shaven? Did he wear eyeglasses? Had he the face of a +musician? Did he look like an Englishman--an English gentleman?" + +Mrs. Slifer, nodding earnest assent to the first questions, shook her +head at the latter. "No, he didn't. What I said to Maude and Beatrice +was that Mr. Jardine looked more German than English. He looked just +like a German student, Baroness." + +"Franz Lippheim!" cried Madame von Marwitz. She sank back upon the seat +from which she had risen, putting a hand before her eyes. + +Victor, at her knees, laid a paw upon her lap and whined an +interrogative sympathy. The three American ladies gathered near and +gazed in silence upon the great woman, and Beatrice, carefully adjusting +her camera, again took a snap. The picture of Madame von Marwitz, with +her hand before her eyes, her anxious dog at her knees, found its way +into the American press and illustrated touchingly the story of the lost +adopted child. Madame von Marwitz was not sorry when, among a batch of +press-cuttings, she came across the photograph and saw that her most +genuine emotion had been thus made public. + +She looked up at last, and the dizziness of untried and perilous freedom +was in her eyes; but curious, now, of other objects, they took in, +weighed and measured the little group before her; power grew in them, an +upwelling of force and strategy. + +She smiled upon the Slifers and she rose. + +"You have done me an immeasurable service," she said, and as she spoke +she took Mrs. Slifer's hand with a noble dignity. "You have lifted me +from despair. It is blessed news that you bring. My child is safe with a +good, a talented man; one for whom I have the deepest affection. And in +the New Forest--at Brockenhurst--on Saturday. Ah, I shall soon have her +in my arms." + +Still holding Mrs. Slifer's hand she led them up the terraces and +towards the house. "The poor child is ill, distraught. She had parted +from her husband--fled from him. Ah, it has been a miserable affair, +that marriage. But now, all will be well. _Bon Dieu!_ what joy! What +peace of heart you have brought me! I shall be with her to-morrow. I +start at once. And you, my good friends, let me hear your plans. Let me +be of service to you. Come with me for the last stage of your journey. I +will not part with you willingly." + +"It's all simply too wonderful, Baroness," Mrs. Slifer gasped, as she +skipped along on her short legs beside the goddess-like stride of the +great woman, who held her--who held her very tightly. "We were just +going to drift along up to Tintagel and then work up to London, taking +in all the cathedrals we could on our way." + +"And you will change your route in order to give me the pleasure of your +company. You will forfeit Tintagel: is it not so?" Madame von Marwitz +smiled divinely. "You will come with me in my car to Truro where we take +the train and I will drop you to-night at the feet of a cathedral. So. +Your luggage is at Mullion? That is simple. We wire to your friends to +pack and send it on at once. Leave it to me. You are in my hands. It is +a kindness that you will do me. I need you, Mrs. Slifer," she pressed +the lady's arm. "My old friend, who lives with me, has left me for the +day, and, moreover, she is too old to travel. I must not be alone. I +need you. It is a kindness that you will do me. Now you will wait for me +here and tea will be brought to you. I shall keep you waiting but for a +few moments." + +It was to be lifted on the back of a genie. She had wafted them up, +along the garden paths, across the verandah, into the serenity and +spaciousness and dim whites and greens and silvers of the great +music-room, with a backward gaze that had, in all its sweetness, +something of hypnotic force and fixity. + +She left them with the Sargent portrait looking down at them and the +room in its strangeness and beauty seemed part of the spell she laid +upon them. The Slifers, herded together in the middle of it, gazed about +them half awe-struck and spoke almost in whispers. + +"Why, girls," said Mrs. Slifer, who was the first to find words, "this +is the most thrilling thing I ever came across." + +"You've pulled it off this time, mother, and no mistake," said Maude, +glancing somewhat furtively up at the Sargent. "Do look at that +perfectly lovely dress she has on in that picture. Did you ever see such +pearls; and the eyes seem to follow you, don't they?" + +"The poor, distracted thing just clings to us," said Mrs. Slifer. "I +shouldn't wonder if she was as lonely as could be." + +"All the same," Beatrice, the doubting Thomas of the group, now +commented, "I don't think however excited she was she ought to have +shaken you like that, mother." Beatrice had examined the appurtenances +of the great room with a touch of nonchalance. It was she whom Gregory +had seen at the station, seated on the pile of luggage. + +"That's petty of you, Bee," said Mrs. Slifer gravely. "Real small and +petty. It's a great soul at white heat we've been looking at." + +Handcock at this point brought in tea, and after she had placed the tray +and disposed the plates of cake and bread-and-butter and left the +Slifers alone again, Mrs. Slifer went on under her breath, seating +herself to pour out the tea. "And do look at this tea-pot, girls; isn't +it too cute for words. My! What will the Jones say when they hear about +this! They'd give their eye-teeth to be with us now." + +The Slifers, indeed, were never to forget their adventure. It was to be +impressed upon their minds not only by its supreme enviableness but by +its supreme discomfort. It was almost five when, like three Ganymedes +uplifted by the talons of a fierce, bright bird, they soared with Madame +von Marwitz towards Truro, and at Truro, in spite of a reckless speed +which desperately dishevelled their hair and hats, they arrived too late +to catch the 6.40 train for Exeter. + +Madame von Marwitz strode majestically along the platform, her white +cloak trailing in the dust, called for station-masters, demanded special +trains, fixed haughty, uncomprehending eyes upon the officials who +informed her that she could not possibly get a train until ten, resigned +herself, with sundry exclamations of indignation and stamps of the foot, +to the tedious wait, sailed into the refreshment room only to sail out +again, mounted the car not yet dismissed, bore the Slifers to a hotel +where they had a dinner over which she murmured at intervals "_Bon Dieu, +est-ce-donc possible!_" and then, in the chill, dark evening, toured +about in the adjacent country until ten, when Burton was sent back to +Les Solitudes and when they all got into the train for Exeter. + +She had never in all her life travelled alone before. She hardly knew +how to procure her ticket, and her helplessness in regard to box and +dressing-case was so apparent that Mrs. Slifer saw to the one and Maude +carried the other, together with the fur-lined coat when this was thrown +aside. + +The hours that they passed with her in the train were the strangest that +the Slifers had ever passed. They were chilled, they were sleepy, they +were utterly exhausted; but they kept their eyes fixed on the +perplexing, resplendent object that upbore them. + +Beatrice, it is true, showed by degrees, a slight sulkiness. She had not +liked it when, at Truro, Madame von Marwitz had supervised their wires +to the Jones, and she liked it less when Madame von Marwitz explained to +them in the train that she relied upon them not to let the Jones--or +anybody for the present--know anything about Mrs. Jardine. Something in +Madame von Marwitz's low-toned and richly murmured confidences as she +told Maude and Mrs. Slifer that it was important for Mrs. Jardine's +peace of mind, and for her very sanity, that her dreaded husband should +not hear of her whereabouts, made Beatrice, as she expressed it to +herself, "tired." + +She looked out of the window while her mother and sister murmured, "Why +certainly, Baroness; why yes; we perfectly understand," leaning forward +in the illuminated carriage like docile conspirators. + +After this Madame von Marwitz said that she would try to sleep; but, +propped in her corner, she complained so piteously of discomfort that +Mrs. Slifer and Maude finally divested themselves of their jackets and +contrived a pillow for her out of them. They assured her that they were +not cold and Madame von Marwitz, reclining now at full length, murmured +"_Mille remerciements_." Soon she fell asleep and Mrs. Slifer and Maude, +very cold and very unresentful, sat and watched her slumbers. From time +to time she softly snored. She was very comfortable in her fur-lined +cloak. + +It was one o'clock when they reached Exeter and drove, dazed and numbed, +to a hotel. Here Madame von Marwitz further availed herself of the +services of Maude and Mrs. Slifer, for she was incapable of unpacking +her box and dressing-case. Mrs. Slifer maided her while Maude, with +difficulty at the late hour, procured her hot water, bouillon and toast. +Beatrice meanwhile, callously avowing her unworthiness, said that she +was "dead tired" and went to bed. + +Madame von Marwitz bade Mrs. Slifer and Maude the kindest good-night, +smiling dimly at them over her bedroom candlestick as she ushered them +to the door. "So," she said; "I leave you to your cathedral." + +When the Slifers arose next day, late, for they were very weary, they +found that Madame von Marwitz had departed by an early train. + + * * * * * + +Meanwhile, at Les Solitudes, old Mrs. Talcott turned from side to side +all night, sleepless. Her heart was heavy with anxiety. + +Karen was found and to-morrow Mercedes would be with her; she had sent +for Mercedes, so the note pinned to Mrs. Talcott's dressing-table had +informed her, and Mercedes would write. + +What had happened? Who were the unknown ladies who had appeared from no +one knew where during her absence at Helston and departed with Mercedes +for Truro? + +"Something's wrong. Something's wrong," Mrs. Talcott muttered to herself +during the long hours. "I don't believe she's sent for Mercedes--not +unless she's gone crazy." + +At dawn she fell at last into an uneasy sleep. She dreamed that she and +Mercedes were walking in the streets of Cracow, and Mercedes was a +little child. She jumped beside Mrs. Talcott, holding her by the hand. +The scene was innocent, yet the presage of disaster filled it with a +strange horror. Mrs. Talcott woke bathed in sweat. + +"I'll get an answer to my telegram this morning," she said to herself. +She had telegraphed to Gregory last night, at once: "Karen is found. +Mercedes has gone to her. That's all I know yet." + +She clung to the thought of Gregory's answer. Perhaps he, too, had news. +But she had no answer to her telegram. The post, instead, brought her a +letter from Gregory that had been written the morning before. + + "Dear Mrs. Talcott," it ran. "Karen is found. The detectives + discovered that Mr. Franz Lippheim had not gone to Germany with his + family. They traced him to an inn in the New Forest. Karen is with + him and has taken his name. May I ask you, if possible, to keep + this fact from her guardian for the present.--Yours sincerely, + + "Gregory Jardine." + +When Mrs. Talcott had read this she felt herself overcome by a sudden +sickness and trembling. She had not yet well recovered from her illness +of the Spring. She crept upstairs to her room and went to bed. + + + + +CHAPTER XLI + + +It seemed to Karen, after hours had passed, that she had ceased to be +tired and that her body, wafted by an involuntary rhythm, was as light +as thistle-down on the wind. + +She had crossed the Goonhilly Downs where the moonlight, spreading far +and wide with vast unearthly brightness, filled all the vision with +immensities of space and brought memories of strains from Schubert's +symphonies, silver monotonies of never-ending sound. + +She had plunged down winding roads, blackly shadowed by their hedgerow +trees, passing sometimes a cottage that slept between its clumps of +fuchsia and veronica. She had climbed bare hill-sides where abandoned +mines or quarries had left desolate mementoes that looked in the +moonlight like ancient tombs and catacombs. + +Horror lay behind her at Les Solitudes, a long, low cloud on the horizon +to which she had turned her back. The misery that had overpowered and +made her one with its dread realities lay beneath her feet. She was +lifted above it in a strange, disembodied enfranchisement all the night, +and the steady blowing of the wind, the leagues of silver, the mighty +sky with its far, high priestess, were part of an ecstasy of sadness, +impersonal, serene, hallucinated, like that of the music that +accompanied the rhythm of her feet. + +The night was almost over and dawn was coming, when, on a long uphill +road, she felt her heart flag and her footsteps stagger. + +The moon still rode sharp and high, but its light seemed concentrated in +its own glittering disk and the world was visible in an uncanny darkness +that was not dark. The magic of the night had vanished and the beat of +vast, winding melodies melted from Karen's mind leaving her dry and +brittle and empty, like a shell from which the tides have drawn away. + +She knew what she had still to do. At the top of the road she was to +turn and cut across fields to a headland above Falmouth--from which a +path she knew led to the town. She had not gone to Helston, but had +taken this cross-country way to Falmouth because she knew that at any +hour of the night she might be missed and followed and captured. They +would not think of Falmouth; they would not dream that she could walk so +far. In the town she would pawn Onkel Ernst's watch and take the early +train to London and by evening she would be with Frau Lippheim. So she +had seen it all, in flashes, last night. + +But now, toiling up the interminable road, clots of darkness floating +before her eyes, cold sweats standing on her forehead, the sense of her +exhaustion crushed down upon her. She tried to fix her thoughts on the +trivial memories and forecasts that danced in her mind. The odd blinking +of Mrs. Talcott's eyelid as she had told her story; the pattern of the +breakfast set that she and Gregory had used--ah, no!--not that! she must +not fix that memory!--the roofs and chimneys of some little German town +where she was to find a refuge; for though it was to join the Lippheims +that she fled, she did not see her life as led with theirs. Leaning upon +these pictures as if upon a staff she held, she reached the hill-top. +Her head now seemed to dance like a balloon, buffeted by the great +throbs of her blood. She trailed with leaden feet across the fields. In +the last high meadow she paused and looked down at the bend of the great +bay under the pallid sky and at the town lying like a scattering of +shells along its edge. How distant it was. How like a mirage. + +A little tree was beside her and its leaves in the uncanny light looked +like crisp black metal. The sea was grey. The sunrise was still far off. +Karen sank beneath the tree and leaned her head against it. What should +she do if she were unable to walk on? There was still time--hours and +hours of time--till the train left Falmouth; but how was she to reach +Falmouth? Fears rolled in upon her like dark breakers, heaping +themselves one upon the other, stealthy, swift, not to be escaped. She +saw the horrible kindness in Mrs. Talcott's eyes, relegated, not +relinquished. She saw herself pursued, entrapped, confronted by Gregory, +equally entrapped, forced by her need, her helplessness, to come to her +and coldly determined--as she had seen him on that dreadful evening of +their parting--to do his duty by her, to make her and to keep her safe, +and his own dignity secure. To see him again, to strive against him +again, weaponless, now, without refuge, and revealed to herself and to +him as a creature whose whole life had been founded on illusion, to +strive not only against his ironic authority but, worst of all, against +a longing, unavowed, unlooked at, a longing that crippled and unstrung +her, and that ran under everything like a hidden river under granite +hills--she would die, she felt, rather than endure it. + +She had closed her eyes as she leaned her head against the tree and when +she opened them she saw that the leaves of the tree had turned from +black to green and that the grass was green and the sea and sky faintly +blue. Above her head the long, carved ripples of the morning cirri +flushed with a heavenly pink and there came from a thicket of a little +wood the first soft whistle of a wakened bird. Another came and then +another, and suddenly the air was full of an almost jangling sweetness. +Karen felt herself trembling. Shudders ran over her. She was ravished to +life, yet without the answering power of life. Her longing, her +loneliness, her fear, were part of the intolerable loveliness and they +pierced her through and through. + +She struggled to her feet, holding the tree in her clasp, and, after the +galvanised effort, she closed her eyes again, and again leaned her head +upon the bark. + +Then it was that she heard footsteps, sudden footsteps, near. For a +moment a paralysis of fear held down her eyelids. "_Ach Gott!_" she +heard. And opening her eyes, she saw Franz Lippheim before her. + +Franz Lippheim was dressed, very strangely dressed, in tweeds and +knicker-bockers and wore a soft round hat with a quill in it--the oddest +of hats--and had a knapsack on his back. The colours of the coming day +were caricatured in his ruddy face and red-gold hair, his bright green +stockings and bright red tie. He was Germanic, flagrant, incredible, and +a Perseus, an undreamed of, God-sent Perseus. + +"_Ach Gott!_ Can it be so!" he was saying, as he approached her, walking +softly as though in fear of dispersing a vision. + +And as, not speaking, still clasping her tree, she held out her hand to +him, he saw the extremity of her exhaustion and put his arm around her. + +She did not faint; she kept her consciousness of the blue sky and the +cirri--golden now--and even of Franz's tie and eyeglasses, glistening +golden in the rising sunlight; but he had lowered her gently to the +ground, kneeling beside her, and was supporting her shoulders and +putting brandy to her lips. After a little while he made her drink some +milk and then she could speak to him. + +She must speak and she must tell him that she had left her guardian. She +must speak of Tante. But what to say of her? The shame and pity that had +gone with her for days laid their fingers on her lips as she thought of +Tante and of why she had left her. Her mind groped for some availing +substitute. + +"Franz," she said, "you must help me. I have left Tante. You will not +question me. There is a breach between us; she has been unkind to me. I +can never see her again." And now with clearer thought she found a +sufficient truth. "She has not understood about me and my husband. She +has tried to make me go back to him; and I have fled from her because I +was afraid that she would send for him. She is not as fond of me as I +thought she was, Franz, and I was a burden to her when I came. Franz, +will you take me to London, to your mother? I am going with you all to +Germany. I am going to earn my living there." + +"_Du lieber Gott!_" Herr Lippheim ejaculated. He stared at Karen in +consternation. "Our great lady--our great Tante--has been unkind to you? +Is it then possible, Karen?" + +"Yes, Franz; you must believe me. You must not question me." + +"Trust me, my Karen," said Herr Lippheim now; "do not fear. It shall be +as you say. But I cannot take you to the Mütterchen in London, for she +is not there. They have gone back to Germany, Karen, and it is to +Germany that we must go." + +"Can you take me there, Franz, at once? I have no money; but I am going +to pawn this watch that Onkel Ernst gave me." + +"That is all simple, my Karen. I have money. I took with me the money +for my tour; I was on a walking-tour, do you see, and reached Falmouth +last night and had but started now to pay my respects at Les Solitudes. +I wished to see you, Karen, and to see if you were well. But it is very +far to your village. How have you come so far, at night?" + +"I walked. I have walked all night. I am so tired, Franz. So tired. I do +not know how I shall go any further." She closed her eyes; her head +rested against his shoulder. + +Franz Lippheim looked down at her with an infinite compassion and +gentleness. "It will all be well, my Karen; do not fear," he said. "The +train does not go from Falmouth for three hours still. We will take it +then and go to Southampton and sail for Germany to-night. And for now, +you will drink this milk--so, yes; that is well;--and eat this +chocolate;--you cannot; it will be for later then. And you will lie +still with my cloak around you, so; and you will sleep. And I will sit +beside you and you will have no troubled thoughts. You are with your +friends, my Karen." While he spoke he had wrapped her round and laid her +head softly on a folded garment that he drew from his knapsack; and in a +few moments he saw that she slept, the profound sleep of complete +exhaustion. + +Franz Lippheim sat above her, not daring to light his pipe for fear of +waking her. He, watched the glory of the sunrise. It was perhaps the +most wonderful hour in Franz's life. + +Phrases of splendid music passed through his mind, mingling with the +sound of the sea. No personal pain and no personal hope was in his +heart. He was uplifted, translated, with the beauty of the hour and its +significance. + +Karen needed him. Karen was to come to them. He was to see her +henceforward in his life. He was to guard and help her. He was her +friend. The splendour and the peace of the golden sky and golden sea +were the angels of a great initiation. Nothing could henceforth be as it +had been. His brain stirred with exquisite intuitions, finding form for +them in the loved music that, henceforth, he would play as he had never +before played it. And when he looked from the sea and sky down at the +sleeping face beside him, wasted and drawn and piteous in its repose, +large tears rose in his eyes and flowed down his cheeks, and the sadness +was more beautiful than any joy that he had known. + +What she had suffered!--the dear one. What they must help her to forget! +To her, also, the hour would send it angels: she would wake to a new +life. + +He turned his eyes again to the rising sun, and his heart silently +chanted its love and pride and sadness in the phrases of Beethoven, of +Schubert and of Brahms, and from time to time, softly, he muttered to +himself, this stout young German Jew with the red neck-tie and the +strange round hat: "_Süsses Kind! Unglückliches Kind! Oh--der schöne +Tag!_" + + + + +CHAPTER XLII + + +Madame Von Marwitz looked out from her fly at the ugly little wayside +inn with its narrow lawn and its bands of early flowers. Trees rose +round it, the moors of the forest stretched before. It was remote and +very silent. + +Here it was, she had learned at the station, some miles away, that the +German lady and gentleman were staying, and the lady was said to be very +ill. Madame von Marwitz's glance, as it rested upon the goal of her +journey, had in it the look of vast, constructive power, as when, for +the first time, it rested on a new piece of music, realized it, mastered +it, possessed it, actual, in her mind, before her fingers gave it to the +world. So, now, she realized and mastered and possessed the scene that +was to be enacted. + +She got out of the fly and told the man to carry in her box and +dressing-case and then to wait. She opened the little gate, and as she +did so, glancing up, she saw Franz Lippheim standing looking out at her +from a ground-floor window. His gaze was stark in its astonishment. She +returned it with a solemn smile. In another moment she had put the +landlady aside with benign authority and was in the little sitting-room. +"My Franz!" she exclaimed in German. "Thank God!" She threw her arms +around his neck and burst into sobs. + +Franz, holding a pipe extended in his hand, stood for a moment in +silence his eyes still staring their innocent dismay over her shoulder. +Then he said: "How have you come here, _gnädige Frau_?" + +"Come, Franz!" Madame von Marwitz echoed, weeping: "Have I not been +seeking my child for the last six days! Love such as mine is a torch +that lights one's path! Come! Yes; I am come. I have found her! She is +safe, and with my Franz!" + +"But Karen is ill, very ill indeed," said Franz, speaking with some +difficulty, locked as he was in the great woman's arms. "The doctor +feared for her life three days ago. She has been delirious. And it is +you, _gnädige Frau_, whom she fears;--you and her husband." + +Madame von Marwitz leaned back her head to draw her hand across her +eyes, clearing them of tears. + +"But do I not know it, Franz?" she said, smiling a trembling smile at +him. "Do I not know it? I have been in fault; yes; and I will make +confession to you. But--oh!--my child has punished me too cruelly. To +leave me without a word! At night! It was the terror of her husband that +drove her to it, Franz. Yes; it has been a delirium of terror. She was +ill when she went from me." + +She had released him now, though keeping his hands in hers, and she +still held them as they sat down at the centre table in the little room, +he on one side, she on the other, she leaning to him across it; and she +read in his face his deep discomfort. + +"But you see, _gnädige Frau_," Franz again took up his theme; "she +believes that you wish to send her back to him; she has said it; she +could not trust you. And so she fled from you. And I have promised to +take care of her. I am to take her to my mother in Germany as soon as +she can travel. We were on our way to Southampton and would have been, +days since, with the Mütterchen, if in the train Karen had not become so +ill--so very ill. It was a fever that grew on her, and delirium. I did +not know what was best to do. And I remembered this little inn where the +Mütterchen and we four stayed some years ago, when we came first to +England. The landlady was very good; and so I thought of her and brought +Karen here. But when she is better I must take her to Germany, _gnädige +Frau_. I have promised it." + +While Franz thus spoke a new steadiness had come to Madame von Marwitz's +eyes. They dilated singularly, and with them her nostrils, as though she +drew a deep new breath of realisation. It was as if Franz had let down a +barrier; pointed out a way. There was no confession to be made to Franz. +Karen had spared her. + +She looked at him, looked and looked, and she shook her head with +infinite gentleness. "But Franz," she said, "I do not wish her to go +back to her husband. I was in fault, yes, grave fault, to urge it upon +her; but Karen's terror was her mistake, her delirium. It was for my +sake that she had left him, Franz, because to me he had shown insolence +and insult;--for your sake, too, Franz, for he tried to part her from +all her friends and of you he spoke with an unworthy jealousy. But +though my heart bled that Karen should be tied to such a man, I knew him +to be not a bad man; hard, narrow, but in his narrowness upright, and +fond, I truly believed it, of his wife. And I could not let her break +her marriage--do you not see, Franz,--if it were for my sake. I could +not see her young life ruined in its dawn. I wished to write to my good +friend Mrs. Forrester--who is also Karen's friend, and his, and I +offered myself as intermediary, as intercessor from him to Karen, if +need be. Was it so black, my fault? For it was this that Karen resented +so cruelly, Franz. Our Karen can be harsh and quick, you know that, +Franz. But no! Can she--can you, believe for one moment that I would now +have her return to him, if, indeed, it were any longer possible? No, +Franz; no; no; no; Karen shall never see that man again. Only over my +dead body should he pass to her. I swear it, not only to you, but to +myself. And Franz, dear Franz, what I think of now is you, and your love +and loyalty to my Karen. You have saved her; you have saved me; it is +life you bring--a new life, Franz," and smiling upon him, her cheeks +still wet with tears, she softly sang Tristan's phrase to Kurvenal: +"_Holder! Treuer!--wie soll dir Tristan danken!_" + +Her joy, her ecstasy of gratitude, shone upon him. She was the tutelary +goddess of his family. Trust, for himself and for his loved Karen, went +out to her and took refuge beneath the great wings she spread. And as +she held his hands and smiled upon him he told her in his earnest, +honest German, all that had happened to him and Karen; of his +walking-tour; and of the meeting on the Falmouth headland at dawn; and +of their journey here. "And one thing, _gnädige Frau_," he said, "that +troubled me, but that will now be well, since you are come to us, is +that I have told them here that Karen is my wife. See you, _gnädige +Frau_, the good landlady knows us all and knows that Lotta, Minna and +Elizabeth are the only daughters that the Mütterchen has--besides the +little ones. I remembered that the Mütterchen had told her this; she +talked much with her; it was but three years ago, _gnädige Frau_; it was +not time enough for a very little one to grow up; so I could not say +that Karen was my sister; and I have to be much with her; I sit beside +her all through the night--for she is afraid to be alone, the _armes +Kind_; and the good landlady and the maid must sleep. So it seemed to me +that it was right to tell them that Karen was my wife. You think so, +too, _nicht wahr, gnädige Frau_?" + +Madame von Marwitz had listened, her deeply smiling eyes following, +understanding all; and as the last phase of the story came they deepened +to only a greater sweetness. They showed no surprise. A content almost +blissful shone on Franz Lippheim. + +"It is well, Franz," she said. "Yes, you have done rightly. All is well; +more well than you yet perhaps see. Karen is safe, and Karen shall be +free. What has happened is God-sent. The situation is in our hands." + +For a further moment, silent and weighty, she gazed at him and then she +added: "There need be no fear for you and Karen. I will face all pain +and difficulty for you both. You are to marry Karen, Franz." + +The shuttle that held the great gold thread of her plan was thrown. She +saw the pattern stretch firm and fair before her. Silently and sweetly, +with the intentness of a sibyl who pours and holds forth a deep potion, +she smiled at him across the table. + +Franz, who all this time had been leaning on his arms, his hands in +hers, his eyes, through their enlarging pince-nez, fixed on her, did not +move for some moments after the astounding statement reached him. His +stillness and his look of arrested stupor suggested, indeed, a large +blue-bottle slung securely in the subtle threads of a spider's web and +reduced to torpid acquiescence by the spider's stealthy ministrations. +He gazed with mildness, almost with blandness, upon the enchantress, as +if some prodigy of nature overtopping all human power of comment had +taken place before him. Then in a small, feeble voice he said: "_Wass +meinen Sie, gnädige Frau?_" + +"Dear, dear Franz," Madame von Marwitz murmured, pressing his hands with +maternal solicitude, and thus giving him more time to adjust himself to +his situation. "It is not as strange as your humility finds it. And it +is now inevitable. You do not I think realize the position in which you +and Karen are placed. I am not the only witness; the landlady, the +doctor, the maid, and who knows who else,--all will testify that you +have been here with Karen as your wife, that you have been with her day +and night. Do not imagine that Mr. Jardine has sought to take Karen back +or would try to. He has made no movement to get her back. He has most +completely acquiesced in their estrangement. And when he hears that she +has fled with you, that she has passed here, for a week almost, as your +wife, he will be delighted--but delighted, with all his anger against +you--to seize the opportunity for divorcing her and setting himself +free." + +But while she spoke Franz's large and ruddy face had paled. He had drawn +his hands from hers though she tried to retain them. He rose from his +chair. "But, _gnädige Frau_," he said, "that is not right. No; that is +wrong. He may not divorce Karen." + +"How will you prevent him from divorcing her, Franz?" Madame von Marwitz +returned, holding him with her eye, while, in great agitation, he passed +his hand repeatedly over his forehead and hair. "You have been seen. I +have been told by those who had seen you that you and Karen were here. +Already Karen's husband must know it. And if you could prevent it, would +you wish to, Franz? Would you wish, if you could, to bind her to this +man for life? Try to think clearly, my friend. It is Karen's happiness +that hangs in the balance. It is upon that that we must fix our eyes. My +faith forbids divorce; but I am not _dévote_, and Karen is not of my +faith, nor is her husband, nor are you. I take my stand beside Karen. I +say that one so young, so blameless, so unfortunate, shall not have her +life wrecked by one mistake. With me as your champion you and Karen can +afford to snap your fingers at the world's gross verdict. Karen will be +with me. I will take her abroad. I will cherish her as never child was +cherished. We make no defence. In less than a year the case is over. +Then you will come for Karen and you will be married from my house. I +will give Karen a large dot; she shall want for nothing in her life. And +you and she will live in Germany, with your friends and your great +music, and your babies, Franz. What I had hoped for two years ago shall +come to pass and this bad dream shall be forgotten." + +Franz, looking dazedly about him while she spoke, now dropped heavily on +his chair and joining his hands before his eyes leaned his head upon +them. He muttered broken ejaculations. "_Ach Gott! Unbegreiflich!_ Such +happiness is not to think on! You are kind, kind, _gnädige Frau_. You +believe that all is for the best. But Karen--_gnädige Frau_, our little +Karen! She does not love me. How could she be happy with me? Never for +one moment have I hoped. It was against my wish that the Mütterchen +wrote to you that time two years ago. No; always I saw it; she had +kindness only for me and friendliness; but no love; never any love. And +it will be to smirch our Karen's name, _gnädige Frau_. It will be to +accept disgrace for her. We must defend her from this accusation, for it +is not true. Ah, _gnädige Frau_, you are powerful in the world. Can you +not make it known that it is untrue, that Karen did not come to me?" + +He leaned his forehead on his clasped hands, protesting, appealing, +expostulating, and Madame von Marwitz, leaning slightly back in her +chair, resting her cheek against her finger, scrutinized his bent head +with a change of expression. Intently, almost fiercely, with half-closed +lids, she examined Franz's crisp upstanding hair, the thick rims of his +ruddy ears, the thick fingers with their square and rather dirty nails +and the large turquoise that adorned one of them. Cogitation, +self-control and fierce determination were in her gaze; then it veiled +itself again in gentleness and, with a steady and insistent patience, +she said: "You are astray, my friend, much astray, and very ignorant. +Look with me at fact, and then say, if you can, that we can make it +known that it is untrue. You are known to be in love with Karen; you are +known to have asked me for her hand. Karen makes a marriage that is +unhappy; it is known that she is not happy with her husband. Did you not +yourself see that all was not well with them? It has been known for +long. You arrive in London; Karen sees you again; next day she flies +from Mr. Jardine and takes refuge with you at your lodgings. Yes, you +will say, but your mother, your sisters, too, were there. Yes, the world +will answer, and she came to me to wait till they were gone and you free +to join her. In a fortnight's time she seizes a pretext for leaving +me--I speak of what the world will say Franz--and meets you. Will the +world, will Karen's husband, believe that it was by chance? She is found +hidden with you here, those who see you come to me; it is so I find you, +and she is here bearing your name. Come, my friend, it is no question of +saving Karen from smirches; the world will say that it is your duty as +an honourable man to marry Karen. Better that she should be known as +your wife than as your abandoned mistress. So speaks the world, Franz. +And though we know that it speaks falsely we have no power to undeceive +it. But now, mark me, my friend; I have no wish to undeceive it. I do +not see the story, told even in these terms, as disgraceful; I do not +see my Karen smirched. I am not one who weighs the human heart and its +needs in the measures of convention. Bravely and in truth, Karen frees +herself. So be it. You say that she does not love you. I say, Franz, how +do you know that? I say that if she does not love you yet, she will love +you; and I add, Franz, for the full ease of your conscience, that if +Karen, when she is free, does not wish to marry you, then--it is very +simple--she remains with me and does not marry. But what I ask of you +now is bravery and discretion, for our Karen's sake. She must be freed; +in your heart you know that it is well that Karen should be freed. In +your heart you know that Karen must not be bound till death to this man +she loathes and dreads and will never see again. If not you, Franz, is +it not possible that Karen may love another man one day? But it is you +that she will love; nay, it is you she loves. I know my Karen's heart. +Tell me, Franz, am I not right in what I say?" + +For some time now Franz had been looking at her and her voice grew more +tender and more soft as she saw that he found no word of protest. He sat +upright, still, at intervals, running his fingers through his hair, +breathing deeply, near tears, yet arrested and appeased. And hope, +beautiful, strange hope, linking itself to the intuitions of the dawn +when he had sat above Karen's sleep, stole into his heart. Why could it +not be true? Why should not Karen come to love him? She would be with +him, free, knowing how deep and tender was his love for her, and that it +made no claim. Would not her heart answer his one day? And as if +guessing at his thoughts Madame von Marwitz added, the dimness of tears +in her own eyes: "See, my Franz, let it be in this wise. I bring Karen +to your mother in a few days; she will be strong enough for travel in a +few days, is it not so? She will then be with you and yours in Germany, +and I watching over you. So you will see her from day to day? So you +will gently mend the torn young heart and come to read it. And you may +trust a wise old woman, Franz, when I prophesy to you that Karen's heart +will turn and grow to yours. You may trust one wise in hearts when she +tells you that Karen is to be your loving wife." + +She rose, and the sincerity of her voice was unfeigned. She was moved, +deeply moved, by the beauty of the pattern she wove. She was deeply +convinced by her own creation. + +Franz, too, got up, stumbling. + +"And now, Franz," she said, "we say _au revoir_. I have come and it is +not seemly that you remain here longer. You go to Germany to make ready +for us and I write to your mother to-day. Ah!--the dear Lise! Her heart +will rejoice! Where is your room, Franz, and where is Karen's?" + +There were three doors in the little sitting-room. She had entered from +the passage by one. She looked now towards the others. + +Franz opened one, it showed a flight of stairs. "Karen's room is up +those stairs," he said, closing it very softly. "And mine is here, next +this one where we are. We are very quiet, you see, and shut in to +ourselves. There is no other way to Karen's room but this, and her room +is at the back, so that no disturbance reaches her. I think that she +still sleeps, _gnädige Frau_; we must not wake her if she sleeps. I will +take you to her as soon as she is awake." + +Madame von Marwitz, with her unchanging smile, was pressing him towards +the door of his own room. + +"I will wait. I will wait until she wakes, Franz. Your luggage? It is +here? I will help you to pack, my Franz." + +She had drawn him into his room, her arm passed into his, and, even +while she spoke, she pointed out the few effects scattered here and +there. And, with his torpid look of a creature hypnotized, Franz obeyed +her, taking from her hands the worn brush, the shaving appliances, the +socks and book and nightshirt. + +When all were laid together in his knapsack and he had drawn the straps, +he turned to her, still with the dazzled gaze. "But this may wait," he +said, "until I have said good-bye to Karen." + +Madame von Marwitz looked at him with an almost musing sweetness. She +had the aspect of a conjuror who, with a last light puff of breath or +touch of a magic finger, puts forth the final resource of a stupefying +dexterity. So delicately, so softly, with a calm that knew no doubt or +hesitation, she shook her head. "No; no farewells, now, my Franz. That +would not be well. That would agitate her. She could not listen to all +our story. She could not understand. Later, when she is in my arms, at +peace, I will tell her all and that you are gone to wait for us, and +give her your adieu." + +He gazed at the conjuror. "But, _gnädige Frau_, may I not say good-bye +to Karen? Together we could tell her. It will be strange to her to wake +and find that I am gone." + +Her arm was passed in his again. She was leading him through the +sitting-room. And she repeated with no change of voice: "No, my Franz. I +know these illnesses. A little agitation is very bad. You will write to +her daily. She shall have your letters, every day. You promise me--but I +need not ask it of our Franz--to write. In three days, or in four, we +will be with you." + +She had got him out of his room, out of the sitting-room, into the +passage. The cab still waited, the cabman dozed on his box in the spring +sunlight. Before the landlady Madame von Marwitz embraced Franz and +kissed and blessed him. She kept an arm round him till she had him at +the cab-door. She almost lifted him in. + +"You will tell Karen--that you did not find it right--that I should say +good-bye to her," he stammered. + +And with a last long pressure of the hand she said: "I will tell her, +Franz. We will talk much of you, Karen and I. Trust me, I am with you +both. In my hands you are safe." + +The cab rolled away and Franz's face, from under the round hat and the +quill, looked back at the triumphant conjuror, dulled and dazed rather +than elated, by the spectacle of her inconceivable skill. + + + + +CHAPTER XLIII + + +Karen lay sleeping in the little room above. She had slept so much since +they had carried her, Franz, and the two women with kind faces, into +this little room; deep draughts of sleep, as though her exhausted nature +could never rest enough. Fever still drowsed in her blood and a haze of +half delirious visions often accompanied her waking. They seemed to +gather round her now, as, in confused and painful dreams, she rose from +the depths towards consciousness again. Dimly she heard the sound of +voices and her dream wove them into images of fear and sorrow. + +She was running along the cliff-top. She had run for miles and it was +night and beside her yawned the black gulfs of the cliff-edge. And from +far below, in the darkness, she heard a voice wailing as if from some +creature lost upon the rocky beach. It was Gregory in some great peril. +Pity and fear beat upon her like black wings as she ran, and whether it +was to escape him or to succour him she did not know. + +Then from the waking world came distinctly the sound of rolling wheels, +and opening her eyes she looked out upon her room, its low uneven +ceiling, its coloured print of Queen Victoria over the mantelpiece, its +text above the washhand-stand and chest of drawers. On the little table +beside her bed Onkel Ernst's watch ticked softly. The window was open +and a tree rustled outside. And through these small, familiar sounds she +still heard the rolling of retreating wheels. The terror of her dream +fastened upon this sound until another seemed to strike, like a soft, +stealthy blow, upon her consciousness. + +Footsteps were mounting the stairs to her room. Not Franz's footsteps, +nor the doctor's, nor the landlady's, nor Annie the housemaid's. She +knew all these. + +Who was it then who mounted, softly rustling, towards her? The terror of +the dream vanished in a tense, frozen panic of actuality. + +She wished to scream, and could not; she wished to leap up and fly, but +there was no way of escape. It was Tante who came, slowly, softly, +rustling in silken fabrics; the very scent of her garments seemed wafted +before her, and Karen's heart stopped in its heavy beating as the door +handle gently turned and Tante stood within the room. + +Karen looked at her and Madame von Marwitz looked back, and Madame von +Marwitz's face was almost as white as the death-like face on the pillow. +She said no word, nor did Karen, and in the long stillness delirium +again flickered through Karen's brain, and Tante, standing there, became +a nightmare presence, dead, gazing, immutable. Then she moved again, and +the slow, soft moving was more dreadful than the stillness, and coming +forward Tante fell on her knees beside the bed and hid her face in the +bed-clothes. + +Karen gave a strange hoarse cry. She heard herself crying, and the sound +of her own voice seemed to waken her again to reality: "Franz! Franz! +Franz!" + +Madame von Marwitz was weeping; her large white shoulders shook with +sobs. "Karen," she said, "forgive me! Karen, it is I. Forgive me!" + +"Franz!" Karen repeated, turning her head away on the pillow. + +"Karen, you know me?" said Madame von Marwitz. She had lifted her head +and she gazed through her tears at the strange, changed, yet so +intimately known, profile. It was as if Karen were the more herself, +reduced to the bare elements of personality; rocky, wasted, alienated. +"Do not kill me, my child," she sobbed, "Listen to me, Karen! I have +come to explain all, and to implore for your forgiveness." She possessed +herself of one of the hot, emaciated hands. Karen drew it away, but she +turned her head towards her. + +Tante's tears, her words and attitude of abjection, dispersed the +nightmare horror. She understood that Tante had come not as a ghastly +wraith; not as a pursuing fury; but as a suppliant. Her eyes rested on +her guardian and their gaze, now, was like cold, calm daylight. "Why are +you here?" she asked. + +Madame von Marwitz's sobs, at this, broke forth more violently. "You +remember our parting, my child! You remember my mad and shameful words! +How could I not come!" she articulated brokenly. "Oh, I have sought you +in terror, in unspeakable longing! My child--it was a madness. Did you +not see it? I went to you at dawn that day to kneel before you, as I +kneel now, and to implore your pardon. And you were gone! Oh, Karen--you +will listen to me now!" + +"You need not tell me," said Karen. "I understand." + +"Ah, no: ah, no:" said Madame von Marwitz, laying her supplicating hand +on the sleeve of Karen's nightdress. "You do not understand. How could +you--young and cold and flawless--understand my heart, my wild, stained +heart, Karen, my fierce and desolate and broken heart. You are air and +water; I am earth and fire; how could you understand my darkness and my +rage?" She spoke, sobbing, with a sincerity dreadful and irrefragable, +as if she stripped herself and showed a body scarred and burning. With +all the forces of her nature she threw herself on Karen's pity, tearing +from herself, with a humility far above pride and shame, the glamour +that had held Karen's heart to hers. Deep instinct guided her +spontaneity. Her glamour, now, must consist in having none; her nobility +must consist in abasement, her greatness in being piteous. + +"Listen to me, Karen," she sobbed, "The world knows but one side of +me--you have known but one side;--even Tallie, who knows so much, who +understands so much--does not know the other--the dark and tortured +soul. I am not a good woman, Karen, the blood that flows in my veins is +tainted, ambiguous. I have sinned. I have been savage and dastardly; but +it has always been in a madness when I could not seize my better self: +flames seem to sweep me on. Listen, Karen, you are so strong, so calm, +how could you dream of what a woman's last wild passion can be, a woman +whose whole soul is passion? Love! it is all that I have craved. Love! +love! all my inner life has been enmeshed in it--in craving, in seeking, +in destroying. It is like a curse upon me, Karen. You will not +understand; yet that love of love, is it not so with all us wretched +women; do we not long, always, all of us, for the great flame to which +we may surrender, the flame that will appease and exalt us, annihilate +us, yet give us life in its supremacy? So I have always longed; and not +grossly; mine has never been the sensual passion; it has been beauty and +the heights of life that I have sought. And my curse has been that for +me has come no appeasement, no exaltation, but only, always, a dark +smouldering of joylessness. With my own hand I broke the great and +sacred devotion that blessed my life, because I was thus cursed. +Jealousy, the craving for a more complete possession, for the ecstasy I +had not found, blind forces in my blood, drove me on to the destruction +of that precious thing. I wrecked myself, I killed him. Oh, Karen, you +know of whom I speak." Convulsively, the blackness of her memories +assailing her in their old forms of horror, Madame von Marwitz sobbed, +burying her face in the bed-clothes, her hand forgetting to clutch at +Karen's sleeve. She lifted her face and the tears streamed from under +her closed lids. "Let me not think of it or I shall go mad. How could I, +having known that devotion, sink to the place where you have seen me? Be +pitiful. He needed me so much--I believed. My youth was fading; I was +growing old. Soon the time was to come when no man's heart would turn to +me. Be pitiful. You do not know what it is to look without and see life +slowly growing dark and look within and see only sinister memories. It +came to me like late sunlight--like cool, sweet water--his love. I +believed in it. I loved him. Oh--" she sobbed, "how I loved him, Karen! +How my heart was torn with sick jealousy when I saw that his had turned +from me to you. I loved you, Karen, yet I hated you. Open your generous +heart to me, my child; do not spurn me from you. Understand how it may +be that one can strike at the thing one loves. I knew myself in the +grasp of an evil passion, but I could not tear it from me. I even +feared, with a savage fear that seemed to eat into my brain, that you +responded to his love. Oh, Karen, it was not I who spoke those shameful +words, when I found you with him, but a creature maddened with pain and +jealousy, who for days had fought against her madness and knew when she +spoke that she was mad. When I had sent him from me, when he was gone +from my life, and I knew that all was over, the evil fury passed from my +brain like a mist. I knew myself again. I saw again the sweet and sacred +places of my life. I saw you, Karen. Oh, my child," again the pleading +hand trembled on Karen's sleeve, "it has not all been misplaced, your +love for me; not all illusion. I am still the woman who has loved you +through so many years. You will not let one hour of frenzy efface our +happy years together?" + +The words, the sobbing questions that waited for no answer, the wailing +supplications, had been poured forth in one great upwelling. Through the +tears that streamed she had seen Karen's face in blurred glimpses, lying +in profile to her on its pillow. Now, when all had been said and her +mind was empty, waiting, she passed her hand over her eyes, clearing +them of tears, and fixed them on Karen. + +And silence followed. So long a silence that wonder came. Had she +understood? Was she half unconscious? Had all the long appeal been +wasted? + +But Karen at last spoke and the words, in their calm, seemed to the +listening woman to pass like a cold wind over buds and tendrils of +reviving life, blighting them. + +"I am sorry for you," said Karen. "And I understand." + +Madame von Marwitz stared at her for another silent moment. "Yes," she +then said, "you are sorry for me. You understand. It is my child's great +heart. And you forgive me, Karen?" + +Again came silence; then, restlessly turning her head as if the effort +to think pained her, Karen said, "What do you mean by forgiveness?" + +"I mean pity, Karen," said Madame von Marwitz. "And compassion, and +tenderness. To be forgiven is to be taken back." + +"Taken back?" Karen repeated. "But I do not feel that I love you any +longer." She spoke in a dull, calm voice. + +Madame von Marwitz remained kneeling for some moments longer. Then a +dark flush mounted to her face. She became aware that her knees were +stiff with kneeling and her cheeks salt with tears. Her head ached and a +feeling of nausea made her giddy. She rose and looked about her with dim +eyes. + +A small wooden chair stood against the wall at a little distance from +the bed. She went to it and sank down upon it, and leaning her head upon +her hand she wept softly to herself. Her desolation was extreme. + +Karen listened to her for a long time, and without any emotion. Now that +the horror had passed, her only feeling was one of sorrow and +oppression. She was very sorry for the weeping woman; but she wished +that she would go away. And her mind at last wandered from the thought +of Tante. "Where is Franz?" she asked. + +The fount of Madame von Marwitz's tears was exhausted. She dried her +eyes and cheeks. She blew her nose. She gathered together her thoughts. +"Karen," she said, "I will not speak of myself. You say that you do not +love me. I can only pray that my love for you may in time win you to me +again. Never again, I know it, can I stand before you, untarnished, as I +stood before; but I will trust my child's deep heart as strength once +more comes to her. Pity will grow to love. I will love you; that will be +enough. But I have come to you not only as a mother to her child. I have +come to you as a friend to whom your welfare is of the first importance. +I have much to say to you, Karen." + +Madame von Marwitz rose. She went to the washhand-stand and bathed her +face. The triumph that she had held in her hand seemed melting through +her fingers; but, thinking rapidly and deeply, she drew the scattered +threads of the plan together once more, faced her peril and computed her +resources. + +The still face on the pillow was unchanged, its eyes still calmly +closed. She could not attempt to take the hand of this alien Karen, nor +even to touch her sleeve. She went back to her chair. + +"Karen," she said, "if you cannot love me, you can still think of me as +your friend and counsellor. I am glad to hear you speak of our Franz. +That lights my way. I have had much talk with our good and faithful +Franz. Together we have faced all that there is of difficult and sad to +face. My child shall be spared all that could trouble her. Franz and I +are beside you through it all. Your husband, Karen, is to divorce you +because of Franz. You are to be set free, my child." + +A strange thing happened then. If Madame von Marwitz had plunged a +dagger into Karen's heart, the change that transformed her deathly face +could hardly have been more violent. It was as if all the amazed and +desperate life fled to her eyes and lips and cheeks. Colour flooded her. +Her eyes opened and shone. Her lips parted, trembled, uttered a loud +cry. She turned her head and looked at her guardian. Her dream was with +her. What was that loud cry for help, hers or his? + +Madame von Marwitz looked back and her face, too, was changed. +Realizations, till then evaded, flashed over it as though from Karen's +it caught the bright up-flaming of the truth. Fear followed, darkening +it. Karen's truth threatened the whole fabric of the plan, threatened +her life in all that it held of value. Resentment for a moment convulsed +it. Then, with a steady mastery, yet the glance, sunken, sickened, of +one who holds off disabling pity while he presses out a fluttering life +beneath his hand, she said: "Yes, my child. Your wild adventure is +known. You have been here for days and nights with this young man who +loves you and he has given you his name. Your husband seizes the +opportunity to free himself. Can you not rejoice, Karen, that it is to +set you free also? It is of that only that I have thought. I have +rejoiced for you. And I have told Franz that I will stand by you and by +him so that no breath of shame or difficulty shall touch you. In me you +have the staunchest friend." + +Madame von Marwitz, while she addressed these remarks to the strange, +vivid face that stared at her with wide and shining eyes, was aware of a +sense of nausea and giddiness so acute that she feared she might succumb +to sickness. She put her hand before her eyes, reflecting that she must +have some food if she were to think clearly. She sat thus for some +moments, struggling against the invading weakness. When she looked up +again, the flame whose up-leaping had so arrested her, which had, to be +just, so horrified her, was fallen to ashes. + +Karen's eyes were closed. A bitter composure, like that sometimes seen +on the face of the dead, folded her lips. + +Madame von Marwitz, suddenly afraid, rose and went to her and stooped +over her. And, for a dreadful moment, she did not know whether it was +with fear or hope that she scanned the deathly face. Abysses of horror +seemed to fall within her as she thus bent over Karen and wondered +whether she had died. + +It had been a foolish fear. The child had not even fainted. Madame von +Marwitz's breath came back to her, almost in a sob, as, not opening her +eyes, Karen repeated her former question: "Where is Franz?" + +"He will be back soon; Franz will soon be here," said Madame von Marwitz +gently and soothingly. + +"I must see him," said Karen. + +"You shall. You shall see him, my Karen," said Madame von Marwitz. "You +are with those who love you. Have no fear. Franz is of my mind in this +matter, Karen. You will not wish to defend yourself against your +husband's suit, is it not so? Defence, I fear, my Karen, would be +useless. The chain of evidence against you is complete. But even if it +were not, if there were defence to make, you would not wish to sue to +your husband to take you back?" + +Karen still with closed eyes, turned her head away on the pillow. "Let +him be free," she said. "He knows that I wished him to be free. When I +left him I told him that I hoped to set him free. Let him believe that I +have done so." + +Madame von Marwitz still leaned above her and, as when Franz had +imparted the unlooked-for tidings of Karen's reticence, so now her eyes +dilated with a deepened hope. + +"You told him so, Karen?" she repeated gently, after a moment. + +"Yes," said Karen, "I told him so. I shall make no defence. Will you go +now? I am tired. And will you send Franz to me when he comes back?" + +"Yes, my child; yes," said Madame von Marwitz. "It is well. I will be +below. I will watch over you." She raised herself at last. "There is +nothing that I can do for you, my Karen?" + +"Nothing," said Karen. Her voice, too, seemed sinking into ashes. + +Madame von Marwitz opened the door to the dark little staircase and +closed it. In the cloaking darkness she paused and leaned against the +wall. "_Bon Dieu!_" she murmured to herself "_Bon Dieu!_" + +She felt sick. She wished to sleep. But she could not sleep yet. She +must eat and restore her strength. And she had letters to write; a +letter to Mrs. Forrester, a letter to Frau Lippheim, and a note to +Tallie. It was as if she had thrown her shuttle across a vast loom that, +drawing her after the thread she held, enmeshed her now with all the +others in its moving web. She no longer wove; she was being woven into +the pattern. Even if she would she could not extricate herself. + +The thought of this overmastering destiny sustained and fortified her. +She went on down the stairs and into the little sitting-room. + + + + +CHAPTER XLIV + + +The days that passed after her arrival at the inn were to live in Madame +von Marwitz's memory as a glare of intolerable anxiety, obliterating all +details in its heat and urgency. She might, during the hours when she +knelt supplicating beside Karen's bed, have been imaged as a furnace and +Karen as a corpse lying in it, strangely unconsumed, passive and +unresponsive. There was no cruelty in Karen's coldness, no unkindness +even. Pity and comprehension were there; but they were rocks against +which Madame von Marwitz dashed herself in vain. + +When she would slip from her kneeling position and lie grovelling and +groaning on the ground, Karen sometimes would say: "Please get up. +Please don't cry," in a tone of distress. But when the question, +repeated in every key, came: "Karen, will you not love me again?" +Karen's answer was a helpless silence. + +Schooling the fury of her eagerness, and in another mood, Madame von +Marwitz, after long cogitations in the little sitting-room, would mount +to point out to Karen that to persist in her refusal to marry Franz, +when she was freed, would be to disgrace herself and him, and to this +Karen monotonously and immovably would reply that she would not marry +Franz. + +Madame von Marwitz had not been able to keep from her beyond the evening +of the first day that Franz had gone. "To Germany, my Karen, where he +will wait for you." Karen's eyes had dwelt widely, but dully, on her +when she made this announcement and she had spoken no word; nor had she +made any comment on Madame von Marwitz's further explanations. + +"He felt it right to go at once, now that I had come, and bring no +further scandal on your head. He would not have you waked to say +good-bye." + +Karen lay silent, but the impassive bitterness deepened on her lips. +When Franz's first letter to Karen arrived Madame von Marwitz opened, +read and destroyed it. It revealed too plainly, in its ingenuous +solicitude and sorrow, the coercion under which Franz had departed. Yes; +the plan was there and they were all enmeshed in it; but what was to +happen if Karen would not marry Franz? How could that be made to match +the story she had now written to Mrs. Forrester? And what was to happen +if Karen refused to come with her? It would not do, Madame von Marwitz +saw that clearly, for an alienated Karen to be taken to the Lippheims'. +Comparisons and disclosures would ensue that would send the loom, with a +mighty whirr, weaving rapidly in an opposite direction to that of the +plan. Franz, in Germany, must be pacified, and Karen be carried off to +some lovely, lonely spot until the husband's suit was safely won. It was +not fatal to the plan that Karen should be supposed, finally, to refuse +to marry Franz; that might be mitigated, explained away when the time +came; but a loveless Karen at large in the world was a figure only less +terrifying than a Karen reunited to her husband. She felt as if she had +drawn herself up from the bottom of the well where Karen's flight had +precipitated her and as if, breathing the air, seeing the light of the +happy world, she swung in a circle, clutching her wet rope, horrible +depths below her and no helping hand put out to draw her to the brink. + +Gregory's letter in answer to the letter she had sent to Mrs. Forrester, +with the request that he should be informed of its contents, came on the +second morning. It fortified her. There was no questioning; no doubt. He +formally assured her that he would at once take steps to set Karen free. + +"Ah, he does not love her, that is evident," said Madame von Marwitz to +herself, and with a sense of quieted pulses. The letter was shown to +Karen. + +Mrs. Forrester's note was not quite reassuring. It, also, accepted her +story; but its dismay constituted a lack of sympathy, even, Madame von +Marwitz felt, a reproach. + +She wrote of Gregory's broken heart. She lamented the breach that had +come between him and Karen and made this disaster possible. + +Miss Scrotton's pæan was what it inevitably would be. From Tallie came +no word, and this implied that Tallie, too, was convinced, though +Tallie, no doubt, was furious, and would, as usual, lay the blame on +her. + +Danger, however, lurked in Tallie's direction, and until she was safely +out of England with Karen she should not feel herself secure. +Pertinaciously and blandly she insisted to the doctor that Frau Lippheim +was now quite well enough to make a short sea voyage. She would secure +the best of yachts and the best of trained nurses, and a little voyage +would be the very thing for her. The doctor was recalcitrant, and Madame +von Marwitz was in terror lest, during the moments they spent by her +bedside, Karen should burst forth in a sudden appeal to him. + +A change for the worse, very much for the worse, had, he said, come over +his patient. He was troubled and perplexed. "Has anything happened to +disturb her?" he asked in the little sitting-room, and something in his +chill manner reminded her unpleasantly of Gregory Jardine;--"her +husband's sudden departure?" + +Madame von Marwitz felt it advisable, then, to take the doctor into her +confidence. He grew graver as she spoke. He looked at her with eyes more +scrutinizing, more troubled and more perplexed. But, reluctantly, he saw +her point. The unfortunate young woman upstairs, a fugitive from her +husband, must be spared the shock of a possible brutal encounter. +Perhaps, in a day or two, it might be possible to move her. She could be +taken in her bed to Southampton and carried on board the yacht. + +Madame von Marwitz wired at once and secured the yacht. + +It was after this interview with the doctor, after the sending of the +wire, that she mounted the staircase to Karen's room with the most +difficult part of her task still before her. She had as yet not openly +broached to Karen the question of what the immediate future should be. +She approached it now by a circuitous way, seating herself near Karen's +bed and unfolding and handing to her a letter she had that morning +received from Franz. It was a letter she could show. Franz was in +Germany. + +"The dear Franz. The good Franz," Madame von Marwitz mused, when Karen +had finished and her weak hand dropped with the letter to the sheet. "No +woman had ever a truer friend than Franz. You see how he writes, Karen. +He will never trouble you with his hopes." + +"No; Franz will never trouble me," said Karen. + +"Poor Franz," Madame von Marwitz repeated. "He will be seen by the world +as a man who refuses to marry his mistress when she is freed." + +"I am not his mistress," said Karen, who, for all her apathy, could show +at moments a disconcerting vehemence. + +"You will be thought so, my child." + +"Not by him," said Karen. + +"No; not by him," Madame von Marwitz assented with melancholy. + +"Not by his mother and sisters," said Karen. "And not by Mrs. Talcott." + +"Nor by me, my Karen," said Madame von Marwitz with a more profound +gloom. + +"No; not by you. No one who knows me will think so," said Karen. + +Madame von Marwitz paused after this for a few moments. Experience had +taught her that to abandon herself to her grief was not the way to move +Karen. When she spoke again it was in a firm, calm voice. + +"Listen, my Karen," she said. "I see that you are fixed in this resolve +and I will plead with you no further. I will weary you no more. Remember +only, in fairness, that it is for your sake that I have pleaded. You +will be divorced; so be it. And you will not marry Franz. But after this +Karen? and until this?" + +Karen lay silent for a moment and then turned her head restlessly away. + +"Why do you ask me? How can I tell?" she said. "I wish to go to Frau +Lippheim. When I am well again I wish to work and make my living." + +"But, my Karen," said Madame von Marwitz with great gentleness, "do you +not see that for you to go to Franz's mother now, in her joy and belief +in you, is a cruelty? Later on, yes; you could then perhaps go to her, +though it will be at any time, with this scandal behind you, to place +our poor Lise, our poor Franz, in an ambiguous position indeed. But now, +Karen? While the case is going on? Your husband says, you remember, that +he starts proceedings at once." + +Karen lay still. And suddenly the tears ran down her cheeks. "Why cannot +I see Franz?" she said. "Why do you ask me questions that I cannot +answer? How do I know what I shall do?" She sobbed, quick, dry, alarming +sobs. + +"Karen--my Karen," Madame von Marwitz murmured, "do not weep, my dear +one. You exhaust yourself. Do not speak so harshly to me, Karen. Will +you let me think for you? See, my child, I accept all. I ask for +nothing. You do not forgive me--oh, not truely--you do not love me. Our +old life is dead. I have killed it with my own hand. I see it all, +Karen. And I accept my doom. But even so, can you not be merciful to me +and let me help you now? Do not break my heart, my child. Do not crush +me down into the dust. Come with me. I will take you to quiet and +beautiful shores. I will trouble you in nothing. There will be no more +pleading; no more urgency. You shall do as it pleases you in all things, +and I will ask only to watch over you. Let me do this until you are free +and can choose your own life. Do not tell me that you hate me so much +that you will not do this for me." + +Her voice was weighted with its longing, its humility, its tenderness. +The sound of it seemed to beat its way to Karen through mists that lay +about her as Tante's cries and tears had not done. A sharper thrust of +pity pierced her. "I do not hate you," she said. "You must not think +that. I understand and I am very sorry. But I do not love you. I shall +not love you again. And how could I come with you? You said--what did +you say that night?" She put her hand before her eyes in the effort of +memory. "That I was ungrateful;--that you fed and clothed me;--that I +took all and gave nothing. And other, worse things; you said them to me. +How can that be again? How could I come with a person who said those +things to me?" + +"Oh--but--my child--" Madame von Marwitz's voice trembled in its hope and +fear, though she restrained herself from rising and bending to the girl: +"did I not make you believe me when I told you that I was mad? Do you +not know that the vile words were the weapons I took up against you in +my madness? That you gave nothing, Karen? When you are my only stay in +life, the only thing near me in the world--you and Tallie--the thing +that I have thought of as mine--as if you were my child. And if you came +to me now you would give still more. If it is known that you will not +return--that you will not forgive me and come with me--I am disgraced, +my child. All the world will believe that I have been cruel to you. All +the world will believe that you hate me and that hatred is all that I +have deserved from you." + +Karen again had put her hand to her head. "What do you mean?" she +questioned faintly. "Will it help you if I come with you?" + +Madame von Marwitz steadied her voice that now shook with rising sobs. +"If you will not come I am ruined." + +"You ask to have me to come--though I do not love you?" + +"I ask you to come--on any terms, my Karen. And because I love you; +because you will always be the thing dearest in the world to me." + +"I could go to Frau Lippheim, if you would help to send me to her," said +Karen, still holding her hand to her head; "I could, I am sure, explain +to her and to Franz so that they would not blame me. But people must not +think that I hate you." + +"No; no?" Madame von Marwitz hardly breathed. + +"They must not think that; for it is not true. I do not love you, but I +have no hatred for you," said Karen. + +"You will come then, Karen?" + +Still with her eyes hidden the girl hesitated as if bewildered by the +pressure of new realisations. "You would leave me much alone? You would +not talk to me? I should be quiet?" + +"Oh, my Karen--quiet--quiet--" Madame von Marwitz was now sobbing. "You +will send for me if you feel that you can see me; unless you send I do +not obtrude myself on you. You will have an attendant of your own. All +shall be as you wish." + +"And when I am free I may choose my own life?" + +"Free! free! the world before you! all that I have at your feet, to +spurn or stoop to!" Tante moaned incoherently. + +"When will it be--that we must go?" Karen then, more faintly, asked. +Madame von Marwitz had risen to her feet. In her ecstasy of gladness she +could have clapped her hands above her head and danced. And the strong +control she put upon herself gave to her face almost the grimace of a +child that masters its weeping. She was drawn from her well. She stood +upon firm ground. "In two days, my child, if you are strong enough. In +two days we will set sail." + +"In two days," Karen repeated. And, dully, she repeated again; "I come +with you in two days." + +Madame von Marwitz now noticed that tears ran from under the hand. These +tears of Karen's alarmed her. She had not wept at all before to-day. + +"My child is worn and tired. She would rest. Is it not so? Shall I leave +her?" she leaned above the girl to ask. + +"Yes; I am tired," said Karen. + +And leaning there, above the hidden face, above the heart wrung with its +secret agony, in all her ecstasy and profound relief, Madame von Marwitz +knew one of the bitterest moments of her life. She had gained safety. +But what was her loss, her irreparable loss? In the dark little +staircase she leaned, as on the day of her coming, against the wall, and +murmured, as she had murmured then: "_Bon Dieu! Bon Dieu!_" But the +words were broken by the sobs that, now uncontrollably, shook her as she +stumbled on in the darkness. + + + + +CHAPTER XLV + + +Some years had passed since Mrs. Talcott had been in London, and it +seemed to her, coming up from her solitudes, noisier, more crowded, more +oppressive than when she had seen it last. She had a jaded yet an acute +eye for its various aspects, as she drove from Paddington towards St. +James's, and a distaste, born of her many years of life in cities, took +more definite shape in her, even while the excitement of the movement +and uproar accompanied not inappropriately the strong impulses that +moved her valorous soul. + +Mrs. Talcott wore a small, round, black straw hat trimmed with a black +bow. It was the shape that she had worn for years; it was unaffected by +the weather and indifferent to the shifting of fashion. Her neck-gear +was the one invariable with her in the daytime; a collar of lawn turned +down over a black silk stock. About her shoulders was a black cloth +cape. Sitting there in her hansom, she looked very old, and she looked +also very national and typical; the adventurous, indomitable old girl of +America, bent on seeing all that there was to see, emerged for the first +time in her life from her provinces, and carrying, it might have been, a +Baedeker under her arm. + +It was many years since Mrs. Talcott had passed beyond the need of +Baedekers, and her provinces were a distant memory; yet she, too, was +engaged, like the old American girl, in the final adventure of her life. +She did not know, as she drove along in her hansom with her shabby +little box on the roof, whether she were ever to see Les Solitudes +again. + +"Carry it right up," she said to the porter at the mansions in St. +James's when she arrived there. "I've come for the night, I expect." + +The porter had told her that Mr. Jardine had come in. And he looked at +Mrs. Talcott curiously. + +At the door of Gregory's flat Mrs. Talcott encountered a check. Barker, +mournful and low-toned as an undertaker, informed her firmly that Mr. +Jardine was seeing nobody. He fixed an astonished eye upon Mrs. +Talcott's box which was being taken from the lift. + +"That's all right," said Mrs. Talcott. "Mr. Jardine'll see me. You tell +him that Mrs. Talcott is here." + +She had walked past Barker into the hall and her box was placed beside +her. + +Barker was very much disconcerted, yet he felt Mrs. Talcott to be a +person of weight. He ushered her into the drawing-room. + +In the late sunlight it was as gay and as crisp as ever, but for the +lack of flowers, and the Bouddha still sat presiding in his golden +niche. + +"Mr. Jardine is in the smoking-room, Madam," said Barker, and, gauging +still further the peculiar significance of this guest whose name he now +recovered as one familiar to him on letters, he added in a low voice: +"He has not used this room since Mrs. Jardine left us." + +"Is that so?" said Mrs. Talcott gravely. "Well, you go and bring him +here right away." + +Mrs. Talcott stood in the centre of the room when Barker had gone and +gazed at the Bouddha. And again her figure strongly suggested that of +the sight-seer, unperturbed and adequate amidst strange and alien +surroundings. Gregory found her before the Bouddha when he came in. If +Mrs. Talcott had been in any doubt as to one of the deep intuitions that +had, from the first, sustained her, Gregory's face would have reassured +her. It had a look of suffocated grief; it was ravaged; it asked nothing +and gave nothing; it was fixed on its one devouring preoccupation. + +"How do you do, Mrs. Talcott," he said. They shook hands. His voice was +curiously soft. + +"I've come up, you see," said Mrs. Talcott. "I've come up to see you, +Mr. Jardine." + +"Yes?" said Gregory gently. He had placed a chair for her but, when she +sat down, he remained standing. He did not, it was evident, imagine her +errand to be one that would require a prolonged attention from him. + +"Mr. Jardine," said Mrs. Talcott, "what was your idea when you first +found out about Karen from the detective and asked me not to tell?" + +Gregory collected his thoughts, with difficulty. "I don't know that I +had any idea," he answered. "I was stunned. I wanted time to think." + +"And you hoped it wasn't true, perhaps?" + +"No; I hadn't any hope. I knew it was true. Karen had said things to me +that made it nothing of a surprise. But perhaps my idea was that she +would be sorry for what she had done and write to me, or to you. I think +I wanted to give Karen time." + +"Well, and then?" Mrs. Talcott asked. "If she had written?" + +"Well, then, I'd have gone to her." + +"You'd have taken her back?" + +"If she would have come, of course," said Gregory, in his voice of +wraith-like gentleness. + +"You wanted her back if she'd gone off with another man like that and +didn't love you any more?" + +Gregory was silent for a moment and she saw that her persistence +troubled and perplexed him. + +"As to love," he said, "Karen was a child in some things. I believe that +she would have grown to love me if her guardian hadn't come between us. +And it might have been to escape from her guardian as well as with the +idea of freeing herself from me that she took refuge with this man. I am +convinced that her guardian behaved badly to her. It's rather difficult +for me to talk to you, Mrs. Talcott," said Gregory, "though I am +grateful for your kindness, because I so inexpressibly detest a person +whom you care for." + +"Mr. Jardine," said Mrs. Talcott, fixing her eyes upon him, "I want to +say something right here, so as there shan't be any mistake about it. +You were right about Mercedes, all along; do you take that in? I don't +want to say any more about Mercedes than I've got to; I've cut loose +from my moorings, but I guess I do care more about Mercedes than +anyone's ever done who's known her as well as I do. But you were right +about her. And I'm your friend and I'm Karen's friend, and it pretty +near killed me when all this happened." + +Gregory now had taken a chair before her and his eyes, with a new look, +gazed deeply into hers as she went on: "I wouldn't have accepted what +your letter said, not for a minute, if I hadn't got Mercedes's next +thing and if I hadn't seen that Mercedes, for a wonder, wasn't telling +lies. I was a mighty sick woman, Mr. Jardine, for a few days; I just +seemed to give up. But then I got to thinking. I got to thinking, and +the more I thought the more I couldn't lie there and take it. I thought +about Mercedes, and what she's capable of; and I thought about you and +how I felt dead sure you loved Karen; and I thought about that poor +child and all she'd gone through; and the long and short of it was that +I felt it in my bones that Mercedes was up to mischief. Karen sent for +her, she said; but I don't believe Karen sent for her;--I believe she +got wind somehow of where Karen was and lit out before I could stop her; +yes, I was away that day, Mr. Jardine, and when I came back I found that +three ladies had come for Mercedes and she'd made off with them. It may +be true about Karen; she may have done this wicked thing; but if she's +done it I don't believe it's the way Mercedes says she has. And I've +worked it out to this: you must see Karen, Mr. Jardine; you must have it +from her own mouth that she loves Franz and wants to go off with him and +marry him before you give her up." + +Gregory's face, as these last words were spoken, showed a delicate +stiffening. "She won't see me," he said. + +"Who says so?" asked Mrs. Talcott. + +"Don't imagine that I'd have accepted her guardian's word for it," said +Gregory, "but everything Madame von Marwitz has written has been merely +corroborative. She told us that Karen was there with this man and I knew +it already. She said that Karen had begun to look to him as a rescuer +from me on the day she saw him here in London, and what I remembered of +that day bore it out. She said that I should remember that on the night +we parted Karen told me that she would try to set herself free. Karen +has confided in her; it was true. And it's true, isn't it, that Karen +was in terror of falling into my hands. You can't deny this, can you? +Why should I torture Karen and myself by seeing her?" said Gregory. He +had averted his eyes as he spoke. + +"But do you want her back, Mr. Jardine?" Mrs. Talcott had faced his +catalogue of evidence immovably. + +"Not if she loves this man," said Gregory. "And that's the final fact. I +know Karen; she couldn't have done this unless she loved him. The +provocation wasn't extreme enough otherwise. She wouldn't, from sheer +generosity, disgrace herself to free me, especially since she knew that +I considered that that would be to disgrace me, too. No; her guardian's +story has all the marks of truth on it. She loves the man and she had +planned to meet him. And all I've got to do now is to see that she is +free to marry him as soon as possible." He got up as he spoke and walked +up and down the room. + +Mrs. Talcott's eye followed him and his despair seemed a fuel to her +faith. "Mr. Jardine," she said, after a moment of silence, "I'll stake +my life on it you're wrong. I know Karen better than you do; I guess +women understand each other better than a man ever understands them. The +bed-rock fact about a woman is that she'll hide the thing she feels most +and she'll say what she hopes ain't true so as to give the man a chance +for convincing her it ain't true. And the blamed foolishness of the man +is that he never does. He just goes off, sick and mournful, and leaves +her to fight it out the best she can. Karen don't love Franz Lippheim, +Mr. Jardine; nothing'll make me believe she loves him. And nothing'll +make me believe but what you could have got her to stay that time she +left you if you'd understood women better. She loves you, Mr. Jardine, +though she mayn't know it, and it's on the cards she knows it so well +that she's dead scared of showing it. Because Karen's a wife through and +through; can't you see it in her face? You're youngish yet, and a man, +so I don't feel as angry with you as you deserve, perhaps, for not +understanding better and for letting Karen get it into her head you +didn't love her any more; for that's what she believes, Mr. Jardine. And +what I'm as sure of as that my name's Hannah Talcott is that she'll +never get over you. She's that kind of woman; a rare kind; rocky; she +don't change. And if she's gone and done this thing, like it appears she +has, it isn't in the way Mercedes says; it's only to set you free and to +get away from the fear of being handed over to a man who don't love her. +For she didn't understand, either, Mr. Jardine. Women are blamed foolish +in their way, too." + +Gregory had stopped in his walk and was standing before Mrs. Talcott +looking down at her; and while Mrs. Talcott fixed the intense blue of +her eyes upon him he became aware of an impression almost physical in +its vividness. It was as if Mrs. Talcott were the most wise, most +skilful, most benevolent of doctors who, by some miraculous modern +invention, were pumping blood into his veins from her own +superabundance. It seemed to find its way along hardened arteries, to +creep, to run, to tingle; to spread with a radiant glow through all his +chilled and weary body. Hope and fear mounted in him suddenly. + +He could not have said, after that, exactly what happened, but he could +afterwards recall, brokenly, that he must have shed tears; for his first +distinct recollection was that he was leaning against the end of the +piano and that Mrs. Talcott, who had risen, was holding him by the hand +and saying: "There now, yes, I guess you've had a pretty bad time. You +hang on, Mr. Jardine, and we'll get her back yet." + +He wanted to put his head on Mrs. Talcott's shoulder and be held by her +to her broad breast for a long time; but, since such action would have +been startlingly uncharacteristic of them both, he only, when he could +speak, thanked her. + +"What shall I do, now?" he asked. He was in Mrs. Talcott's hands. "It's +no good writing to Karen. Madame von Marwitz will intercept my letter if +what you believe is true. Shall we go down to the New Forest directly? +Shall I force my way in on Karen?" + +"That's just what you'll have to do; I don't doubt it," said Mrs. +Talcott. "And I'll go with you, to manage Mercedes while you get hold of +Karen. And I'm not fit for it till I've had a night's rest, so we'll go +down first thing to-morrow, Mr. Jardine. I'm spending the night here so +as we can talk it all out to-night. But first I'm going round to Mrs. +Forrester's. If I'm right, Mr. Jardine, and there ain't any 'if' about +it in my own mind, it's important that people should know what the truth +is now, before we go. We don't want to have to seem to work up a story +to shield Karen if she comes back to you. I'm going to Mrs. Forrester's +and I'm going to that mighty silly woman, Miss Scrotton, and I'll have +to tell them a thing or two that'll make them sit up." + +"But wait first, you must be so tired. Do have some tea first," Gregory +urged, as the indomitable old woman made her way towards the door. "And +what can you say to them, after all? We are sure of nothing." + +Mrs. Talcott paused with her hand on the door knob; "I'm sure of one +thing, and they've got to hear it; and that is that Mercedes treated +Karen so bad she had to go. Mercedes isn't going to get let off that. I +told her so. I told her I'd come right up and tell her friends about her +if she stole a march on me, and that's what she's done. Yes," said Mrs. +Talcott, opening the door, "I've cut loose from my moorings and +Mercedes's friends have got to hear the truth of that story and I'm +going to see that they do right away. Good-bye, Mr. Jardine. I don't +want any tea; I'll be back in time for dinner, I guess." + + + + +CHAPTER XLVI + + +Peace had descended upon the little room where Karen lay, cold, still +peace. There were no longer any tears or clamour, no appeals and +agonies. Tante was often with her; but she seldom spoke now and Karen +had ceased to feel more than a dull discomfort when she came into the +room. + +Tante smiled at her with the soft, unmurmuring patience of her exile, +she tended her carefully, she told her that in a day or two, at +furthest, they would be out at sea in the most beautiful of yachts. "All +has been chosen for my child," she said. "The nurse meets us at +Southampton and we wing our way straight to Sicily." + +Karen was willing that anything should be done with her except the one +thing. It had surprised her to find how much it meant to Tante that she +should consent to go back to her. It had not been difficult to consent, +when she understood that that was all that Tante wanted and why she +wanted it so much. It was the easier since in her heart she believed +that she was dying. + +All these days it had been like holding her way through a whirlpool. The +foam and uproar of the water had beat upon her fragile bark of life, had +twisted it and turned it again and again to the one goal where she would +not be. Tante had been the torrent, at once stealthy and impetuous, and +the goal where she had wished to drive her had been marriage to Franz. +Karen had known no fear of yielding, it would have been impossible to +her to yield; yet she had thought sometimes that the bark would crack +under the onslaught of the torrent and she be dragged down finally to +unconsciousness. + +All that torment was over. She seemed to be sliding rapidly and smoothly +down a misty river. She could see no banks, no sky; all was white, soft, +silent. There was no strength left in her with which to struggle against +the thought of death, no strength with which to fear it. + +But, as she lay in the little room, her hands folded on her breast, +corpse-like already in her placidity, something wailed within her and +lamented. And sometimes tears rose slowly and swelled her eyelids and +she felt herself a creature coffined and underground, put away and +forgotten, though not yet a creature dead. Her heart in the darkness +still lived and throbbed. Thoughts of Gregory were with her always, +memories of him and of their life together which, now that she had lost +him forever, she might cherish. She felt, though she lay so still, that +she put out her hands always, in supplication, to Gregory. He would +forget her, or remember her only as his disgrace. It seemed to her that +if she could feel Gregory lean to her and kiss her forehead in +tenderness and reconciliation her breath could sweetly cease. + +The day before the departure was come and it was a warm, quiet +afternoon. Tante had been with her in the morning, engaged in +preparations for the journey. She had brought to show to Karen the +exquisite nightgowns and wrappers, of softest wool and silk, that she +was to wear on the yacht. The long cloak, too, of silk all lined with +swansdown, such a garment as the tenderest, most cherished of mortals +should wear. This was for Karen when she lay on deck in the sun. And +there was a heavier fur-lined cloak for chilly days and the loveliest of +shoes and stockings and scarves. All these things Tante had sent for for +Karen, and Karen thanked her, as she displayed them before her, gently +and coldly. She felt that Tante was piteous at these moments, but +nothing in her was moved towards her. Already she was dead to Tante. + +She was alone now, again, and she would not see Tante till tea-time. +Tante had asked her if she could sleep and she had said yes. She lay +with eyes closed, vaguely aware of the sounds that rose to her from the +room beneath, where Tante was engaged with the landlady in arranging the +new possessions in boxes, and of the fainter sounds from the road in +front of the house. Wheels rolled up and stopped. They often came, +during these last days; Tante's purchases were arriving by every post. +And the voices below seemed presently to alter in pitch and rhythm, +mounting to her in a sonorous murmur, dully rising and falling. Karen +listened in indifference. + +But suddenly there came another sound and this was sharp and near. + +There was only one window in the little room; it was open, and it looked +out at the back of the house over a straggling garden set round with +trees and shrubberies. The sound was outside the window, below it and +approaching it, the strangest sound, scratching, cautious, deliberate. + +Karen opened her eyes and fixed them on the window. The tree outside +hardly stirred against the blue spring sky. Someone was climbing up to +her window. + +She felt no fear and little surprise. She wondered, placidly, fixing her +eyes upon the patterned square of blue and green. And upon this +background, like that of some old Italian picture, there rose the head +and shoulders of Mrs. Talcott. + +Karen raised herself on her elbow and stared. The river stopped in its +gliding; the mists rolled away; the world rocked and swayed and settled +firmly into a solid, visible reality; Mrs. Talcott's face and her round +black straw hat and her black caped shoulders, hoisting themselves up to +the window-sill. Never in her life was she to forget the silhouette on +the sky and the branching tree, nor Mrs. Talcott's resolute, large, old, +face, nor the gaze that Mrs. Talcott's eyes fixed on her as she came. + +Mrs. Talcott put her knee on the window-sill and then struggled for a +moment, her foot engaged in the last rung of the ladder; then she turned +and stepped down backwards into the room. + +Karen, raised on her elbow, was trembling. + +"Lay down, honey," said Mrs. Talcott, gently and gravely, as they looked +at each other; and, as she came towards the bed, Karen obeyed her and +joined her hands together. "Oh, will you come with us?" she breathed. +"Will you stay with me? I can live if you stay with me, Mrs. +Talcott--dear Mrs. Talcott." + +She stretched out her hands to her, and Mrs. Talcott, sitting down on +the bed beside her, took her in her arms. + +"You're all right, now, honey. I'm not going to leave you," she said, +stroking back Karen's hair. + +Karen leaned her head against her breast, and closed her eyes. + +"Listen, honey," said Mrs. Talcott, who spoke in low, careful tones: "I +want to ask you something. Do you love Franz Lippheim? Just answer me +quiet and easy now. I'm right here, and you're as safe as safe can be." + +Karen, on Mrs. Talcott's breast, shook her head. "Oh, no, Mrs. Talcott; +you could not believe that. Why should I love dear Franz?" + +"Then it's only so as to set your husband free that you're marrying +Franz?" Mrs. Talcott went on in the same even voice. + +"But no, Mrs. Talcott," said Karen, "I am not going to marry Franz." And +now she lifted her head and looked at Mrs. Talcott. "Why do you ask me +that? Who has told you that I am to marry Franz?" + +Mrs. Talcott, keeping an arm around her, laid her back on the pillow. + +"But, Karen, if you run off like that with Franz and come here and stay +as his wife," she said, "and get your husband to divorce you by acting +so, it's natural that people should think that you're going to marry the +young man, ain't it?" + +A burning red had mounted to Karen's wasted cheeks. Her sunken eyes +dwelt on Mrs. Talcott with a sort of horror. "It is true," she said. "He +may think that; he must think that; because unless he does he cannot +divorce me and set himself free, and he must be free, Mrs. Talcott; he +has said that he wishes to be free. But I did not run away with Franz. I +met him, on the headland, that morning, and he was to take me to his +mother, and I was so ill that he brought me here. That was all." + +Mrs. Talcott smoothed back her hair. "Take it easy, honey," she said. +"There's nothing to worry over one mite. And now I've asked my questions +and had my answers, and I've got something to tell. Karen, child, it's +all been a pack of lies that Mercedes has told so as to get hold of you, +and so as he shouldn't--so as your husband shouldn't, Karen. Listen, +honey: your husband loves you just for all he's worth. I've seen him. I +went up to him. And he told me how you were all the world to him, and +how, if only you didn't love this young man and didn't want to be free, +he'd do anything to get you back, and how if you'd done the wicked thing +he'd been told and then gotten sorry, he'd want you back just the same +because you were his dear wife, and the one woman he loved. But he +couldn't force himself on you if you loved someone else and hated him. +So I just told him that I didn't believe you loved Franz; and I got him +to hope it, too, and we came down together, Karen, and Mercedes is like +a lion at bay downstairs, and she's in front of that door that leads up +here and swears it'll kill you to see us; and I'd seen the ladder +leaning on the wall and I just nipped out while she was talking, and +brought it round to what I calculated would be your window and climbed +up, and that's what I've come to tell you, Karen, that he loves you, and +that he's downstairs, and that he's waiting to know whether you'll see +him." + +Mrs. Talcott rose and stood by the bed looking down into Karen's eyes. +"Honey, I can bring him up, can't I?" she asked. + +Karen's eyes looked up at her with an intensity that had passed beyond +joy or appeal. Her life was concentrated in her gaze. + +"You would not lie to me?" she said. "It is not pity? He loves me?" + +"No, I wouldn't lie to you, dearie," said Mrs. Talcott, with infinite +tenderness; "lies ain't my line. It's not pity. He loves you, Karen." + +"Bring him," Karen whispered. "I have always loved him. Don't let me die +before he comes." + + + + +CHAPTER XLVII + + +Mrs. Talcott, as she descended the staircase, heard in the little +sitting-room a voice, the voice of Mercedes, speaking on and on, in a +deep-toned, continuous roll of vehement demonstration, passionate +protest, subtle threat and pleading. Gregory's voice she did not hear. +No doubt he stood where she had left him, at the other side of the +table, confronting his antagonist. + +Mrs. Talcott turned the knob of the door and slightly pushed it. A heavy +weight at once was flung against it. + +"You shall not come in! You shall not! I forbid it! I will not be +disturbed!" cried the voice of Mercedes, who must, in the moment, have +guessed that she had been foiled. + +"Quit that foolishness," said Mrs. Talcott sternly. She leaned against +the door and forced it open, and Mercedes, dishevelled, with eyes that +seemed to pant on her like eyes from some dangerous jungle, flung +herself once more upon the door and stood with her back against it. + +"Mr. Jardine," said Mrs. Talcott, not looking at her recovered captive, +"Karen is upstairs and wants to see you. She doesn't love Franz Lippheim +and she isn't going to marry him. She didn't run away with him; she met +him when she'd run away from her guardian and he was going to take her +to his mother, only she got sick and he had to bring her here. She was +told that you wanted to divorce her and wanted to be free. She loves +you, Mr. Jardine, and she's waiting up there; only be mighty gentle with +her, because she's been brought to death's door by all that she's been +through." + +"I forbid it! I forbid it!" shrieked Madame von Marwitz from her place +before the door, spreading her arms across it. "She is mad! She is +delirious! The doctor has said so! I have promised Franz that you shall +not come to her unless across my dead body. I have sworn it! I keep my +promise to Franz!" + +Gregory advanced to the door, eyeing her. "Let me pass," he said. "Let +me go to my wife." + +"No! no! and no!" screamed the desperate woman. "You shall not! It will +kill her! You shall be arrested! You wish to kill a woman who has fled +from you! Help! Help!" He had her by the wrists and her teeth seized his +hands. She fought him with incredible fury. + +"Hold on tight, Mr. Jardine," Mrs. Talcott's voice came to him from +below. "There; I've got hold of her ankles. Put her down." + +With a loud, clashing wail through clenched and grinding teeth, Madame +von Marwitz, like a pine-tree uprooted, was laid upon the floor. Mrs. +Talcott knelt at her feet, pinioning them. She looked along the large +white form to Gregory at the other end, who was holding down Madame von +Marwitz's shoulders. "Go on, Mr. Jardine," she said. "Right up those +stairs. She'll calm down now. I've had her like this before." + +Gregory rose, yet paused, torn by his longing, yet fearful of leaving +the old woman with the demoniac creature. But Madame von Marwitz lay as +if in a trance. Her lids were closed. Her breast rose and fell with +heavy, regular breaths. + +"Go on, Mr. Jardine," said Mrs. Talcott. So he left them there. + +He went up the little stairs, dark and warm, and smelling--he was never +to forget the smell--of apples and dust, and entered a small, light room +where a window made a square of blue and green. Beyond it in a narrow +bed lay Karen. She did not move or speak; her eyes were fixed on his; +she did not smile. And as he looked at her Mrs. Talcott's words flashed +in his mind: "Karen's that kind: rocky: she don't change." + +But she had changed. She was his as she had never been, never could have +been, if the sinister presence lying there downstairs had not finally +revealed itself. He knelt beside her and she was in his arms and his +head was laid in the old sacred way beside his darling's head. They did +not seem to speak to each other for a long time nor did they look into +each other's eyes. He held her hand and looked at that, and sometimes +kissed it gently. But after words had come and their eyes had dared to +meet in joy, Karen said to him: "And I must tell you of Franz, Gregory, +dear Franz. He is suffering, I know. He, too, was lied to, and he was +sent away without seeing me again. We will write to Franz at once. And +you will care for my Franz, Gregory?" + +"Yes; I will care for your Franz; bless your Franz," said Gregory, with +tears, his lips on her hand. + +"He came to me like an angel that morning," Karen said in her breath of +voice; "and he has been like a beautiful mother to me; he has taken care +of me like a mother. It was on the headland over Falmouth--that he came. +Oh, Gregory," she turned her face to her husband's breast, "the birds +were beginning to sing and I thought that I should never see you again." + + + + +CHAPTER XLVIII + + +When the door had shut behind Gregory, Madame von Marwitz spoke, her +eyes still closed: + +"Am I now permitted to rise?" + +Mrs. Talcott released her ankles and stood up. + +"You've made a pretty spectacle of yourself, Mercedes," she remarked as +Madame von Marwitz raised herself with extraordinary stateliness. "I've +seen you behave like you were a devil before, but I never saw you behave +like you were quite such a fool. What made you fight him and bite him +like that? What did you expect to gain by it I'd like to know? As if you +could keep that strong young man from his wife." + +Madame von Marwitz had walked to the small mirror over the mantelpiece +and was adjusting her hair. Her face, reflected between a blue and gold +shepherd and shepherdess holding cornucopias of dried honesty, was still +ashen, but she possessed all her faculties. "This is to kill Karen," she +now said. "And yours will be the responsibility." + +"Taken," Mrs. Talcott replied, but with no facetiousness. + +Several of the large tortoiseshell pins that held Madame von Marwitz's +abundant locks were scattered on the floor. She turned and looked for +them, stooped and picked them up. Then returning to the mirror she +continued, awkwardly, to twist up and fasten her hair. She was +unaccustomed to doing her own hair and even the few days without a maid +had given her no facility. + +Mrs. Talcott watched her for a moment and then remarked: "You're getting +it all screwed round to one side, Mercedes. You'd better let me do it +for you." + +Madame von Marwitz for a moment made no reply. Her eyes fixed upon her +own mirrored eyes, she continued to insert the pins with an air of +stubborn impassivity; but when a large loop fell to her neck she allowed +her arms to drop. She sank upon a chair and, still with unflawed +stateliness, presented the back of her head to Mrs. Talcott's skilful +manipulations. Mrs. Talcott, in silence, wreathed and coiled and pinned +and the beautiful head resumed its usual outlines. + +When this was accomplished Madame von Marwitz rose. "Thank you," she +uttered. She moved towards the door of her room. + +"What are you going to do now, Mercedes?" Mrs. Talcott inquired. Her +eyes, which deepened and darkened, as if all her years of silent +watchfulness opened long vistas in them, were fixed upon Mercedes. + +"I am going to pack and return to my home," Madame von Marwitz replied. + +"Well," said Mrs. Talcott, "you'll want me to pack for you, I expect." + +Madame von Marwitz had opened her door and her hand was on the +door-knob. She paused so and again, for a long moment, she made no +reply. "Thank you," she then repeated. But she turned and looked at Mrs. +Talcott. "You have been a traitor to me," she said after she had +contemplated her for some moments, "you, in whom I completely trusted. +You have ruined me in the eyes of those I love." + +"Yes, I've gone back on you, Mercedes, that's a fact," said Mrs. +Talcott. + +"You have handed Karen over to bondage," Madame von Marwitz went on. +"She and this man are utterly unsuited. I would have freed her and given +her to a more worthy mate." Her voice had the dignity of a disinterested +and deep regret. + +Mrs. Talcott made no reply. The long vistas of her eyes dwelt on +Mercedes. After another moment of this mutual contemplation Madame von +Marwitz closed the door, though she still kept her hand on the +door-knob. + +"May I ask what you have been saying of me to Mrs. Forrester, to Mr. +Jardine?" + +"Well, as to Mr. Jardine, Mercedes," said Mrs. Talcott, "there was no +need of saying anything, was there, if I turned out right in what I told +him I suspected. He sees I'm right. He'd been fed up, along with the +rest of them, on lies, and Karen can help him out with the details if he +wants to ask for them. As for the old lady, I gave her the truth of the +story about Karen running away. I made her see, and see straight, that +your one idea was to keep Karen's husband from getting her back because +you knew that if he did the truth about you would come out. I let you +down as easy as I could and put it that you weren't responsible exactly +for the things you said when you went off your head in a rage and that +you were awful sorry when you found Karen had taken you at your word and +made off. But that old lady feels mighty sick, Mercedes, and I allow +she'll feel sicker when she's seen Mr. Jardine. As for Miss Scrotton, I +saw her, too, and she's come out strong; you've got a friend there, +Mercedes, sure; she won't believe anything against her beloved +Mercedes," a dry smile touched Mrs. Talcott's grave face as she echoed +Miss Scrotton's phraseology, "until she hears from her own lips what she +has to say in explanation of the story. You'll be able to fix her up all +right, Mercedes, and most of the others, too, I expect. I'd advise you +to lie low for a while and let it blow over. People are mighty glad to +be given the chance for forgetting things against anyone like you. It'll +simmer down and work out, I expect, to a bad quarrel you had with Karen +that's parted you. And as for the outside world, why it won't mind a +mite what you do. Why you can murder your grandmother and eat her, I +expect, and the world'll manage to overlook it, if you're a genius." + +"I thank you," said Madame von Marwitz, her hand clasping and unclasping +the door-knob. "I thank you indeed for your reassurance. I have murdered +and eaten my grandmother, but I am to escape hanging because I am a +genius. That is a most gratifying piece of information. You, personally, +I infer, consider that the penalty should be paid, however gifted the +criminal." + +"I don't know, Mercedes, I don't know," said Mrs. Talcott in a voice of +profound sadness. "I don't know who deserves penalties and who don't, if +you begin to argue it out to yourself." Mrs. Talcott, who had seated +herself at the other side of the table, laid an arm upon it, looking +before her and not at Mercedes, as she spoke. "You're a bad woman; that +ain't to be denied. You're a bad, dangerous woman, and perhaps what +you've been trying to do now is the worst thing you've ever done. But I +guess I'm way past feeling angry at anything you do. I guess I'm way +past wanting you to get come up with. I can't make out how to think +about a person like you. Maybe you figured it all out to yourself +different from the way it looks. Maybe you persuaded yourself to believe +that Karen would be better off apart from her husband. I guess that's +the way with most criminals, don't you? They figure things out different +from the way other people do. I expect you can't help it. I expect you +were born so. And I guess you can't change. Some bad folks seem to +manage to get religion and that brings 'em round; but I expect you ain't +that kind." + +Madame von Marwitz, while Mrs. Talcott thus shared her psychological +musings with her, was not looking at the old woman: her eyes were fixed +on the floor and she seemed to consider. + +"No," she said presently. "I am not that kind." + +She raised her eyes and they met Mrs. Talcott's. "What are you going to +do now?" she asked. + +"Well," said Mrs. Talcott, drawing a long sigh of fatigue, "I've been +thinking that over and I guess I'll stay over here. There ain't any +place for me in America now; all my folks are dead. You know that money +my Uncle Adam left me a long time ago that I bought the annuity with. +Well, I've saved most of that annuity; I'd always intended that Karen +should have what I'd saved when I died. But Karen don't need it now. +It'll buy me a nice little cottage somewhere and I can settle down and +have a garden and chickens and live on what I've got." + +"How much was it, the annuity?" Madame von Marwitz asked after a moment. + +"A hundred and ten pounds a year," said Mrs. Talcott. + +"But you cannot live on that," Madame von Marwitz, after another moment, +said. + +"Why, gracious sakes, of course I can, Mercedes," Mrs. Talcott replied, +smiling dimly. + +Again there was silence and then Madame von Marwitz said, in a voice a +little forced: "You have not got much out of life, have you, Tallie?" + +"Well, no; I don't expect you would say as I had," Mrs. Talcott +acquiesced, showing a slight surprise. + +"You haven't even got me--now--have you," Madame von Marwitz went on, +looking down at her door-knob and running her hand slowly round it while +she spoke. "Not even the criminal. But that is a gain, you feel, no +doubt, rather than a loss." + +"No, Mercedes," said Mrs. Talcott mildly; "I don't feel that way. I feel +it's a loss, I guess. You see you're all the family I've got left." + +"And you," said Madame von Marwitz, still looking down at her knob, "are +all the family I have left." + +Mrs. Talcott now looked at her. Mercedes did not raise her eyes. Her +face was sad and very pale and it had not lost its stateliness. Mrs. +Talcott looked at her for what seemed to be a long time and the vistas +of her eyes deepened with a new acceptance. + +It was without any elation and yet without any regret that she said in +her mild voice: "Do you want me to come back with you, Mercedes?" + +"Will you?" Madame von Marwitz asked in a low voice. + +"Why, yes, of course I'll come if you want me, Mercedes," said Mrs. +Talcott. + +Madame von Marwitz now opened her door. "Thank you, Tallie," she said. + +"You look pretty tired," Mrs. Talcott, following her into the bedroom, +remarked. "You'd better lie down and take a rest while I do the packing. +Let's clear out as soon as we can." + + + +***END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK TANTE*** + + +******* This file should be named 30115-8.txt or 30115-8.zip ******* + + +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: +http://www.gutenberg.org/dirs/3/0/1/1/30115 + + + +Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions +will be renamed. + +Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no +one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation +(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without +permission and without paying copyright royalties. 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You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at <a href = "http://www.gutenberg.org">www.gutenberg.org</a></pre> +<p>Title: Tante</p> +<p>Author: Anne Douglas Sedgwick</p> +<p>Release Date: September 27, 2009 [eBook #30115]<br /> +Most recently updated: July 13, 2012</p> +<p>Language: English</p> +<p>Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1</p> +<p>***START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK TANTE***</p> +<p> </p> +<h3>E-text prepared by David Garcia, Mary Meehan,<br /> + and the Project Gutenberg Online Distributed Proofreading Team<br /> + (http://www.pgdp.net)</h3> +<p> </p> +<hr class="full" /> +<p> </p> + +<div class="figleft"> +<a href="images/cover.jpg"><img src="images/cover.jpg" alt=""/></a> +</div> + +<div class="figright"> +<a href="images/spine.jpg"><img src="images/spine.jpg" alt=""/></a> +</div> +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> + + +<h1>Tante</h1> + +<h2>By Anne Douglas Sedgwick</h2> + +<h3>(MRS. BASIL DE SÉLINCOURT)</h3> + +<h4>AUTHOR OF "FRANKLIN WINSLOW KANE," "A FOUNTAIN SEALED," "AMABEL +CHANNICE," "THE SHADOW OF LIFE," ETC.</h4> +<p> </p> +<p> </p> +<p> </p> + + +<h4>NEW YORK<br /> +The Century Co.<br /> +1912</h4> + +<h4>Copyright, 1911, by<br /> +<span class="smcap">The Century Co.</span></h4> + +<h4><i>Published, December, 1911.</i></h4> + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> + +<h2>CONTENTS</h2> + +<!-- Autogenerated TOC. Modify or delete as required. --> +<p> +<a href="#PART_I">PART I</a><br /><br /> +<a href="#CHAPTER_I">CHAPTER I</a><br /> +<a href="#CHAPTER_II">CHAPTER II</a><br /> +<a href="#CHAPTER_III">CHAPTER III</a><br /> +<a href="#CHAPTER_IV">CHAPTER IV</a><br /> +<a href="#CHAPTER_V">CHAPTER V</a><br /> +<a href="#CHAPTER_VI">CHAPTER VI</a><br /> +<a href="#CHAPTER_VII">CHAPTER VII</a><br /> +<a href="#CHAPTER_VIII">CHAPTER VIII</a><br /> +<a href="#CHAPTER_IX">CHAPTER IX</a><br /> +<a href="#CHAPTER_X">CHAPTER X</a><br /> +<a href="#CHAPTER_XI">CHAPTER XI</a><br /> +<a href="#CHAPTER_XII">CHAPTER XII</a><br /> +<a href="#CHAPTER_XIII">CHAPTER XIII</a><br /> +<a href="#CHAPTER_XIV">CHAPTER XIV</a><br /> +<a href="#CHAPTER_XV">CHAPTER XV</a><br /> +<a href="#CHAPTER_XVI">CHAPTER XVI</a><br /> +<a href="#CHAPTER_XVII">CHAPTER XVII</a><br /> +<a href="#CHAPTER_XVIII">CHAPTER XVIII</a><br /> +<a href="#CHAPTER_XIX">CHAPTER XIX</a><br /> +<a href="#CHAPTER_XX">CHAPTER XX</a><br /> +<a href="#CHAPTER_XXI">CHAPTER XXI</a><br /> +<a href="#CHAPTER_XXII">CHAPTER XXII</a><br /> +<a href="#CHAPTER_XXIII">CHAPTER XXIII</a><br /> +<a href="#CHAPTER_XXIV">CHAPTER XXIV</a><br /> +<a href="#CHAPTER_XXV">CHAPTER XXV</a><br /> +<a href="#CHAPTER_XXVI">CHAPTER XXVI</a><br /> +<a href="#CHAPTER_XXVII">CHAPTER XXVII</a><br /> +<a href="#CHAPTER_XXVIII">CHAPTER XXVIII</a><br /><br /> +<a href="#PART_II">PART II</a><br /><br /> +<a href="#CHAPTER_XXIX">CHAPTER XXIX</a><br /> +<a href="#CHAPTER_XXX">CHAPTER XXX</a><br /> +<a href="#CHAPTER_XXXI">CHAPTER XXXI</a><br /> +<a href="#CHAPTER_XXXII">CHAPTER XXXII</a><br /> +<a href="#CHAPTER_XXXIII">CHAPTER XXXIII</a><br /> +<a href="#CHAPTER_XXXIV">CHAPTER XXXIV</a><br /> +<a href="#CHAPTER_XXXV">CHAPTER XXXV</a><br /> +<a href="#CHAPTER_XXXVI">CHAPTER XXXVI</a><br /> +<a href="#CHAPTER_XXXVII">CHAPTER XXXVII</a><br /> +<a href="#CHAPTER_XXXVIII">CHAPTER XXXVIII</a><br /> +<a href="#CHAPTER_XXXIX">CHAPTER XXXIX</a><br /> +<a href="#CHAPTER_XL">CHAPTER XL</a><br /> +<a href="#CHAPTER_XLI">CHAPTER XLI</a><br /> +<a href="#CHAPTER_XLII">CHAPTER XLII</a><br /> +<a href="#CHAPTER_XLIII">CHAPTER XLIII</a><br /> +<a href="#CHAPTER_XLIV">CHAPTER XLIV</a><br /> +<a href="#CHAPTER_XLV">CHAPTER XLV</a><br /> +<a href="#CHAPTER_XLVI">CHAPTER XLVI</a><br /> +<a href="#CHAPTER_XLVII">CHAPTER XLVII</a><br /> +<a href="#CHAPTER_XLVIII">CHAPTER XLVIII</a><br /> +</p> +<!-- End Autogenerated TOC. --> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2>TANTE</h2> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="PART_I" id="PART_I"></a>PART I</h2> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="CHAPTER_I" id="CHAPTER_I"></a>CHAPTER I</h2> + + +<p>It was the evening of Madame Okraska's concert at the old St. James's +Hall. London was still the place of the muffled roar and the endearing +ugliness. Horse-'buses plied soberly in an unwidened Piccadilly. The +private motor was a curiosity. Berlin had not been emulated in an +altered Mall nor New York in the façades of giant hotels. The Saturday +and Monday pops were still an institution; and the bell of the +muffin-man, in such a wintry season, passed frequently along the foggy +streets and squares. Already the epoch seems remote.</p> + +<p>Madame Okraska was pausing on her way from St. Petersburg to New York +and this was the only concert she was to give in London that winter. For +many hours the enthusiasts who had come to secure unreserved seats had +been sitting on the stone stairs that led to the balcony or gallery, or +on the still narrower, darker and colder flight that led to the +orchestra from Piccadilly Place. From the adjacent hall they could hear +the strains of the Moore & Burgess Minstrels, blatant and innocuously +vulgar; and the determined mirth, anatomized by distance, sounded a +little melancholy. To those of an imaginative turn of mind it might have +seemed that they waited in a tunnel at one far end of which could be +perceived the tiny memory of tea at an Aerated Bread shop and at the +other the vision of the delights to which they would emerge. For there +was no one in the world like Madame Okraska, and to see and hear her was +worth cold and weariness and hunger. Not only was she the most famous of +living pianists but one of the most beautiful of women; and upon this +restoring fact many of the most weary stayed themselves, returning again +and again to gaze at the pictured face that adorned the outer cover of +the programme.</p> + +<p>Illuminated by chill gas-jets, armed with books and sandwiches, the +serried and devoted ranks were composed of typical concert-goers, of +types, in some cases, becoming as extinct as the muffin-man; young +art-students from the suburbs, dressed in Liberty serges and velveteens, +and reading ninepenny editions of Browning and Rossetti—though a few, +already, were reading Yeats; middle-aged spinsters from Bayswater or +South Kensington, who took their weekly concert as they took their daily +bath; many earnest young men, soft-hatted and long-haired, studying +scores; the usual contingent of the fashionable and economical lady; and +the pale-faced business man, bringing an air of duty to the pursuit of +pleasure.</p> + +<p>Some time before the doors opened a growing urgency began to make itself +felt. People got up from their insecurely balanced camp-stools or rose +stiffly from the stone steps to turn and stand shoulder to shoulder, +subtly transformed from comrades in discomfort to combatants for a +hazardous reward. The field for personal endeavour was small; the stairs +were narrow and their occupants packed like sardines; yet everybody +hoped to get a better seat than their positions entitled them to hope +for. Hope and fear increased in intensity with the distance from the +doors, those mute, mystic doors behind which had not yet been heard a +chink or a shuffle and against which leaned, now balefully visible, the +earliest comers of all, jaded, pallid, but insufferably assured. The +summons came at length in the sound of drawn bolts and chains and a +peremptory official voice, blood-tingling as a trumpet-call; and the +crowd, shoulder to shoulder and foot to foot, with rigid lips and eyes +uplifted, began to mount like one man. Step by step they went, steady +and wary, each pressing upon those who went before and presenting a +resistant back to those who followed after. The close, emulous contacts +bred stealthy strifes and hatreds. A small lady, with short grey hair +and thin red face and the conscienceless, smiling eye of a hypnotized +creature, drove her way along the wall and mounted with the agility of a +lizard to a place several steps above. Others were infected by the +successful outlawry and there were some moments of swaying and striving +before the crowd adjusted itself to its self-protective solidity. +Emerged upon the broader stairs they ascended panting and scurrying, in +a wild stampede, to the sudden quiet and chill and emptiness of the +familiar hall, with its high-ranged plaster cupids, whose cheeks and +breasts and thighs were thrown comically into relief by a thick coating +of dust. Here a permanent fog seemed to hang under the roof; only a few +lights twinkled frugally; and the querulous voice of the +programme-seller punctuated the monotonous torrent of feet. Row upon +row, the seats were filled as if by tumultuous waters entering appointed +channels, programmes rustled, sandwiches were drawn from clammy packets, +and the thin-faced lady, iniquitously ensconced in the middle of the +front row in the gallery, had taken out a strip of knitting and was +blandly ready for the evening.</p> + +<p>"I always come up here," said one of the ladies from Kensington to a +friend. "One hears her pianissimo more perfectly than anywhere else. +What a magnificent programme! I shall be glad to hear her give the +Schumann Fantaisie in C Major again."</p> + +<p>"I think I look forward more to the Bach Fantaisie than to anything," +said her companion.</p> + +<p>She exposed herself to a pained protest: "Oh surely not; not Bach; I do +not come for my Bach to Okraska. She belongs too definitely to the +romantics to grasp Bach. Beethoven, if you will; she may give us the +Appassionata superbly; but not Bach; she lacks self-effacement."</p> + +<p>"Liszt said that no one played Bach as she did."</p> + +<p>Authority did not serve her. "Liszt may have said it; Brahms would not +have;" was the rejoinder.</p> + +<p>Down in the orchestra chairs the audience was roughly to be divided into +the technical and the personal devotees; those who chose seats from +which they could dwell upon Madame Okraska's full face over the shining +surfaces of the piano or upon her profile from the side; and those who, +from behind her back, were dedicated to the study of her magical hands.</p> + +<p>"I do hope," said a girl in the centre of the front row of chairs, a +place of dizzy joy, for one might almost touch the goddess as she sat at +the piano, "I do hope she's not getting fat. Someone said they heard she +was. I never want to see her again if she gets fat. It would be too +awful."</p> + +<p>The girl with her conjectured sadly that Madame Okraska must be well +over forty.</p> + +<p>"I beg your pardon," a massive lady dressed in an embroidered sack-like +garment, and wearing many strings of iridescent shells around her +throat, leaned forward from behind to say: "She is forty-six; I happen +to know; a friend of mine has met Madame Okraska's secretary. Forty-six; +but she keeps her beauty wonderfully; her figure is quite beautiful."</p> + +<p>An element of personal excitement was evident in the people who sat in +these nearest chairs; it constituted a bond, though by no means a +friendly one. Emulation, the irrepressible desire to impart knowledge, +broke down normal barriers. The massive lady was slightly flushed and +her manner almost menacing. Her information was received with a vague, +half resentful murmur.</p> + +<p>"She looks younger," she continued, while her listeners gave her an +unwilling yet alert attention. "It is extraordinary how she retains her +youth. But it tells, it tells, the tragic life; one sees it in her eyes +and lips."</p> + +<p>The first girl now put forward with resolution her pawn of knowledge.</p> + +<p>"It has been tragic, hasn't it. The dreadful man she was married to by +her relations when she was hardly more than a child, and the death of +her second husband. He was the Baron von Marwitz; her real name is von +Marwitz; Okraska is her maiden name. He was drowned in saving her life, +you know."</p> + +<p>"The Baron von Marwitz was drowned no one knows how; he was found +drowned; she found his body. She went into a convent after his death."</p> + +<p>"A convent? I was reading a life of her in a magazine the other day and +nothing was said about a convent."</p> + +<p>The massive lady smiled tolerantly: "Nothing would be. She has a horror +of publicity. Yes, she is a mystic as well as an artist; she only +resigned the religious life because of what she felt to be her duty to +her adopted daughter. One sees the mystical side in her face and hears +it in her music."</p> + +<p>Madame Okraska was one of those about whose footsteps legends rise, and +legend could add little to the romantic facts of her life;—the poverty +of her youth; her <i>début</i> as a child prodigy at Warsaw and the sudden +fame that had followed it; the coronets that had been laid at her feet; +her private tragedies, cosmopolitan friendships, her scholarship, +caprices and generosities. She had been the Egeria, smiling in mystery, +of half a dozen famous men. And it was as satisfactory to the devotee to +hear that she always wore white and drank coffee for her breakfast, as +that Rubinstein and Liszt had blessed her and Leschetitsky said that she +had nothing to learn. Her very origin belonged to the realm of romantic +fiction. Her father, a Polish music-master in New Orleans, had run away +with his pupil, a beautiful Spanish girl of a good Creole family. Their +child had been born in Cracow while the Austrians were bombarding it in +1848.</p> + +<p>The lights were now all up and the stalls filling. Ladies and gentlemen +from the suburbs, over early, were the first comers; eager schoolgirls +marshalled by governesses; scrupulous students with music under their +arms, and, finally, the rustling, shining, chattering crowd of +fashionable London.</p> + +<p>The massive lady had by now her little audience, cowed, if still +slightly sulky, well in hand. She pointed out each notability to them, +and indirectly, to all her neighbours. The Duchess of Bannister and Lady +Champney, the famous beauty; the Prime Minister, whom the girls could +have recognized for themselves, and Sir Alliston Compton, the poet. Had +they read his sonnet to Madame Okraska, last year, in the "Fortnightly"? +They had not. "I wonder who that odd looking girl is with him and the +old lady?" one of them ventured.</p> + +<p>"A little grand-daughter, a little niece," said the massive lady, who +did not know. "Poor Sir Alliston's wife is in a lunatic asylum; isn't it +a melancholy head?"</p> + +<p>But now one of her listeners, a lady also in the front row, leaned +forward to say hurriedly and deprecatingly, her face suffused with +shyness: "That nice young girl is Madame Okraska's adopted daughter. The +old lady is Mrs. Forrester, Madame Okraska's great friend; my +sister-in-law was for many years a governess in her family, and that is +how I come to know."</p> + +<p>All those who had heard her turned their eyes upon the young girl, who, +in an old-fashioned white cloak, with a collar of swansdown turned up +round her fair hair, was taking her place with her companions in the +front row of the orchestra-stalls. Even the massive lady was rapt away +to silence.</p> + +<p>"But I thought the adopted daughter was an Italian," one girl at last +commented, having gazed her fill at the being so exalted by fortune. +"Her skin is rather dark, but that yellow hair doesn't look Italian."</p> + +<p>"She is a Norwegian," said the massive lady, keeping however an eye on +the relative of Mrs. Forrester's governess; "the child of Norwegian +peasants. Don't you know the story? Madame Okraska found the poor little +creature lost in a Norwegian forest, leaped from her carriage and took +her into her arms; the parents were destitute and she bought the child +from them. She is the very soul of generosity."</p> + +<p>"She doesn't look like a peasant," said the girl, with a flavour of +discontent, as though a more apparent rusticity would have lent special +magnanimity to Madame Okraska's benevolence. But the massive lady +assured her: "Oh yes, it is the true Norse type; their peasantry has its +patrician quality. I have been to Norway. Sir Alliston looks very much +moved, doesn't he? He has been in love with Madame Okraska for years." +And she added with a deep sigh of satisfaction: "There has never been a +word whispered against her reputation; never a word—'Pure as the foam +on midmost ocean tossed.'"</p> + +<p>Among the crowds thronging densely to their places, a young man of +soldierly aspect, with a dark, narrow face, black hair and square blue +eyes, was making his way to a seat in the third row of stalls. His name +was Gregory Jardine; he was not a soldier—though he looked one—but a +barrister, and he was content to count himself, not altogether +incorrectly, a Philistine in all matters æsthetic. Good music he +listened to with, as he put it, unintelligent and barbarous enjoyment; +and since he had, shamefully, never yet heard the great pianist, he had +bought the best stall procurable some weeks before, and now, after a +taxing day in the law courts, had foregone his after-dinner coffee in +order not to miss one note of the opening Appassionata; it was a sonata +he was very fond of. He sometimes picked out the air of the slow +movement on the piano with heavy deliberation; his musical equipment did +not carry him as far as the variations.</p> + +<p>When he reached his seat he found it to be by chance next that of his +sister-in-law, his brother Oliver's wife, a pretty, jewelled and +jewel-like young woman, an American of a complicatedly cosmopolitan +type. Gregory liked Betty Jardine, and always wondered how she had come +to marry Oliver, whom he rather scorned; but he was not altogether +pleased to find her near him. He preferred to take his music in +solitude; and Betty was very talkative.</p> + +<p>"Well, this is nice, Gregory!" she said. "You and Captain Ashton know +each other, don't you. No, I couldn't persuade Oliver to come; he +wouldn't give up his whist. Isn't Oliver dreadful; he moves from the +saddle to the whist-table, and back again; and that is all. Captain +Ashton and I have been comparing notes; we find that we have missed +hardly any of Madame Okraska's concerts in London. I was only ten when I +heard the first she ever gave here; my governess took me; and actually +Captain Ashton was here on that day, too. Wasn't she a miracle of +loveliness? It was twenty years ago; she had already her European +reputation. It was just after she had divorced that horrible first +husband of hers and married the Baron von Marwitz. This isn't your +initiation, of course, Gregory?"</p> + +<p>"Actually my initiation," said Gregory, examining the portrait of Madame +Okraska on the cover of the programme.</p> + +<p>"But you've seen her at Mrs. Forrester's? She always stays with Mrs. +Forrester."</p> + +<p>"I know; but I've always missed her, or, at all events, never been asked +to meet her."</p> + +<p>"I certainly never have been," said Betty Jardine. "But Mrs. Forrester +thinks of me as frivolity personified, I know, and doesn't care to admit +anything lower than a cabinet minister or a poet laureate when she has +her lion domiciled. She is an old darling; but, between ourselves, she +does take her lions a little too seriously, doesn't she. Well, prepare +for a <i>coup de foudre</i>, Gregory. You'll be sure to fall in love with +her. Everybody falls in love with her. Captain Ashton has been in love +with her for twenty years. She is extraordinary."</p> + +<p>"I'm ready to be subjugated," said Gregory. "Do people really hang on +her hands and kiss them? Shall I want to hang on her hands and kiss +them?"</p> + +<p>"There is no telling what she will do with us," said Lady Jardine.</p> + +<p>Gregory Jardine's face, however, was not framed to express enthusiasm. +It was caustic, cold and delicate. His eyes were as clear and as hard as +a sky of frosty morning, and his small, firm lips were hard. His chin +and lower lip advanced slightly, so that when he smiled his teeth met +edge to edge, and the little black moustache, to which he often gave an +absent upward twist, lent an ironic quality to this chill, gay smile, at +times almost Mephistophelian. He sat twisting the moustache now, leaning +his head to listen, amidst the babel of voices, to Betty Jardine's +chatter, and the thrills of infectious expectancy that passed over the +audience like breezes over a corn-field left him unaffected. His +observant, indifferent glance had in it something of the schoolboy's +barbarian calm and something of the disabused impersonality of worldly +experience.</p> + +<p>"Who is the young lady with Mrs. Forrester?" he asked presently. "In +white, with yellow hair. Just in front of us. Do you know?"</p> + +<p>Betty had leaned forward to look. "Don't you even know her by sight?" +she said. "That is Miss Woodruff, the girl who follows Madame Okraska +everywhere. She attached herself to her years ago, I believe, in Rome or +Paris;—some sort of little art-student she was. What a bore that sort +of devotion must be. Isn't she queer?"</p> + +<p>"I had heard that she's an adopted daughter," said Captain Ashton; "the +child of Norwegian peasants, and that Madame Okraska found her in a +Norwegian forest—by moonlight;—a most romantic story."</p> + +<p>"A fable, I think. Someone was telling me about her the other day. She +is only a camp-follower and <i>protégée</i>; and a compatriot of mine. She is +an orphan and Madame Okraska supports her."</p> + +<p>"She doesn't look like a <i>protégée</i>," said Gregory Jardine, his eyes on +the young person thus described; "she looks like a protector."</p> + +<p>"I should think she must be most of all a problem," said Betty. "What a +price to pay for celebrity—these hangers-on who make one ridiculous by +their infatuation. Madame Okraska is incapable of defending herself +against them, I hear. The child's clothes might have come from Norway!"</p> + +<p>The <i>protégée</i>, protector or problem, who turned to them now and then +her oddly blunted, oddly resolute young profile, had tawny hair, and a +sun-browned skin. She wore a little white silk frock with flat bows of +dull blue upon it. Her evening cloak was bordered with swansdown. Two +black bows, one at the crown of her head and one at the nape of her +neck, secured the thick plaits of her hair, which was parted and brushed +up from her forehead in a bygone school-girlish fashion. She made +Gregory think of a picture by Alfred Stevens he had seen somewhere and +of an archaic Greek statue, and her appearance and demeanour interested +him. He continued to look at her while the unrest and expectancy of the +audience rolled into billows of excitement.</p> + +<p>A staid, melancholy man, forerunner of the great artist, had appeared +and performed his customary and cryptic function. "Why do they always +screw up the piano-stool at the last moment!" Betty Jardine murmured. +"Is it to pepper our tongues with anguish before the claret?—Oh, she +must be coming now! She always keeps one waiting like this!"</p> + +<p>The billows had surged to a storm. Signs of frenzy were visible in the +faces on the platform. They had caught a glimpse of the approaching +divinity.</p> + +<p>"Here she is!" cried Betty Jardine. Like everybody else she was clapping +frantically, like everybody, that is, except Gregory Jardine; for +Gregory, his elbow in his hand, his fingers still neatly twisting the +end of his moustache, continued to observe the young girl in the front +row, whose face, illuminated and irradiated, was upturned to the figure +now mounting to the platform.</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="CHAPTER_II" id="CHAPTER_II"></a>CHAPTER II</h2> + + +<p>The hush that had fallen was like the hush that falls on Alpine watchers +in the moment before sunrise, and, with the great musician's slow +emerging from below, it was as if the sun had risen.</p> + +<p>She came, with her indolent step, the thunder of hands and voices +greeting her; and those who gazed at her from the platform saw the +pearl-wreathed hair and opulent white shoulders, and those who gazed at +her from beneath saw the strange and musing face. Then she stood before +them and her dark eyes dwelt, impassive and melancholy, upon the sea of +faces, tumultuous and blurred with clapping hands. The sound was like +the roaring of the sea and she stood as a goddess might have stood at +the brink of the ocean, indifferent and unaware, absorbed in dreams of +ancient sorrow. The ovation was so prolonged and she stood there for so +long—hardly less the indifferent goddess because, from time to time, +she bowed her own famous bow, stately, old-fashioned, formally and +sublimely submissive,—that every eye in the great audience could feast +upon her in a rapturous assurance of leisure.</p> + +<p>She was a woman of forty-eight, of an ample though still beautiful +figure. Her flowing dress of white brocade made no attempt to compress, +to sustain or to attenuate. No one could say that a woman who stood as +she did, with the port of a goddess—the small head majestically poised +over such shoulders and such a breast—was getting fat; yet no one could +deny that there was redundancy. She was not redundant as other women +were; she was not elegant as other women were; she seemed in nothing +like others. Her dress was strange; it had folds and amplitudes and dim +disks of silver broideries at breast and knee that made it like the +dress of some Venetian lady, drawn at random from an ancestral marriage +coffer and put on dreamily with no thought of aptness. Her hair was +strange; no other woman's hair was massed and folded as was hers, hair +dark as night and intertwined and looped with twisted strands of pearl +and diamond. Her face was strange, that crowning face, known to all the +world. Disparate racial elements mingled in the long Southern oval and +the Slavonic modelling of brow and cheek-bone. The lips, serene and +passionate, deeply sunken at the corners and shadowed with a pencilling +of down, were the lips of Spain; all the mystery of the South was in the +grave and tragic eyes. Yet the eyes were cold; and touches of wild +ancestral suffering, like the sudden clash of spurs in the languors of a +Polonaise, marked the wide nostrils and the heavy eyelids and the broad, +black crooked eyebrows that seemed to stammer a little in the perfect +sentence of her face.</p> + +<p>She subjugated and she appealed. Her adorers were divided between the +longing to lie down under her feet and to fold her protectingly in their +arms. Calf-love is an undying element in human-nature, a shame-faced +derogatory name for the romantic, self-immolating emotion woven from +fancy, yearning and the infection of other's ardour. Love of this foam +and flame quality, too tender to be mere æsthetic absorption in a +beautiful object, too selfless to be sensual, too intense to be only +absurd, rose up towards Madame Okraska and encompassed her from hundreds +of hearts and eyes. The whole audience was for her one vast heart of +adoration, one fixed face of half-hypnotized tenderness. And there she +stood before them;—Madame Okraska whom crowned heads delighted to +honour; Madame Okraska who got a thousand pounds a night; Madame Okraska +who played as no one in the world could play; looking down over them, +looking up and around at them, as if, now, a little troubled by the +prolonged adulation, patient yet weary, like a mistress assaulted, after +long absence, by the violent joy of a great Newfoundland dog; smiling a +little, though buffeted, and unwilling to chill the ardent heart by a +reprimand. And more than all she was like a great white rose that, +fading in the soft, thick, scented air of a hot-house, droops languidly +with loosened petals.</p> + +<p>They let her go at last and she took her place at the piano. Her hands +fell softly on a group of dreamy ascending chords. Her face, then, in a +long pause, took on a rapt expectancy and power. She was the priestess +waiting before her altar for the descent of the god, glorious and +dreadful. And it was as if with the chill and shudder of a possession +that, breathing deeply, drawing her shoulders a little together, she +lifted her hands and played. She became the possessed and articulate +priestess, her soul, her mind, her passion lent to the message spoken +through her. The tumult and insatiable outcry of the Appassionata spread +like a river over her listeners. And as she played her face grew more +rapt in its brooding concentration, the eyes half-closed, the nostrils +wide, the jaw dropping and giving to the mouth an expression at once +relaxed and vigilant.</p> + +<p>To criticize with the spell of Madame Okraska's personality upon one was +hardly possible. Emerged from the glamour, there were those, pretending +to professional discriminations, who suggested that she lacked the +masculine and classic disciplines of interpretation; that her rendering, +though breathed through with noble dignities, was coloured by a +capricious and passionate personality; that it was the feeling rather +than the thought of the music that she excelled in expressing, its +suffering rather than its serenity. Only a rare listener, here and there +among her world-wide audiences, was aware of deeper deficiencies and of +the slow changes that time had wrought in her art. For it was +inspiration no longer; it was the memory of inspiration. The Nemesis of +the artist who expresses, not what he feels, but what he is expected to +feel, what he has undertaken to feel, had fallen upon the great woman. +Her art, too, showed the fragrant taint of an artificial atmosphere. She +had played ten times when she should have played once. She lived on her +capital of experience, no longer renewing her life, and her renderings +had lost that quality of the greatest, the living communication with the +experience embodied in the music. It was on the stereotyped memories of +such communication that she depended, on the half hypnotic possession by +the past; filling in vacancies with temperamental caprice or an emotion +no longer the music's but her own.</p> + +<p>But to the enchanted ear of the multitude, professional and +unprofessional, the essential vitality was there, the vitality embodied +to the enchanted eye by the white figure with its drooping, +pearl-wreathed head and face sunken in sombre ecstasy. She gave them all +they craved:—passion, stormy struggle, the tears of hopeless love, the +chill smile of lassitude in accepted defeat, the unappeasable longing +for the past. They listened, and their hearts lapsed back from the +hallucinated unity of enthusiasm each to its own identity, an identity +isolated, intensified, tortured exquisitely by the expression of dim +yearnings. All that had been beautiful in the pain and joy that through +long ages had gone to the building up of each human consciousness, +re-entered and possessed it; the fragrance of blossoming trees, the +farewell gaze of dying eyes, the speechless smile of lovers, ancestral +memories of Spring-times, loves, and partings, evoked by this poignant +lure from dim realms of sub-consciousness, like subterranean rivers +rising through creaks and crannies towards the lifted wand of the +diviner. It seemed the quintessence of human experience, the ecstasy of +perfect and enfranchising sorrow, distilled from the shackling, +smirching half-sorrows of actual life. Some of the listening faces +smiled; some were sodden, stupefied rather than enlightened; some showed +a sensual rudimentary gratification; some, lapped in the tide, yet +unaware of its significance, were merely silly. But no Orpheus, wildly +harping through the woods, ever led more enthralled and subjugated +listeners.</p> + +<p>Gregory Jardine's face was neither sodden nor silly nor sensual; but it +did not wear the enchanted look of the true votary. Instinctively this +young man, though it was emotion that he found in music, resisted any +too obvious assault upon his feelings, taking refuge in irony from their +force when roused. For the form of music, and its intellectual content, +he had little appreciation, and he was thus the more exposed to its +emotional appeal; but his intuition of the source and significance of +the appeal remained singularly just and accurate. He could not now have +analysed his sense of protest and dissatisfaction; yet, while the charm +grasped and encircled him, making him, as he said to himself, +idiotically grovel or inanely soar, he repelled the poignant sweetness +and the thrills that went through him were thrills of a half-unwilling +joy.</p> + +<p>He sat straightly, his arms folded, his head bent as he twisted the end +of his moustache, his eye fixed on the great musician; and he wondered +what was the matter with him, or with her. It was as if he couldn't get +at the music. Something interfered, something exquisite yet ambiguous, +alluring yet never satisfying.</p> + +<p>His glance fell presently from the pianist's drooping head to the face +of the <i>protégée</i>, and the contrast between what was expressed by this +young person's gaze and attitude and what he was himself feeling again +drew his attention to her. No grovelling and no soaring was here, but an +elation almost stern, a brooding concentration almost maternal, a +dedicated power. Madame Okraska, he reflected, must be an extraordinary +person if she really deserved that gaze. He didn't believe that she +quite did. His dissatisfaction with the music extended itself to the +musician and, looking from her face to the girl's, he remembered with +scepticism Betty's account of their relation.</p> + +<p>A group of Chopin Preludes and a Brahms Rhapsodie Hongroise brought the +first half of the concert to a close, and Gregory watched with +amusement, during the ensuing scene, the vagaries of the intoxicated +crowd. People rose to their feet, clapping, shouting, bellowing, +screaming. He saw on the platform the face of the massive lady, haggard, +fierce, devouring; the face of the shy lady, suffused, the eyes half +dazed with adoration like those of a saint in rapture. Old Mrs. +Forrester, with her juvenile auburn head, laughed irrepressibly while +she clapped, like a happy child. The old poet was nearly moved to tears. +Only the <i>protégée</i> remained, as it were, outside the infection. She +smiled slightly and steadily, as if in a proud contentment, and clapped +now and then quite softly, and she turned once and scanned the audience +with eyes accustomed to ovations and appraising the significance of this +one.</p> + +<p>Madame Okraska was recalled six times, but she could not be prevailed +upon to give an encore, though for a long time a voice bayed +intermittently:—"The Berceuse! Chopin's Berceuse!" The vast harmonies +of entreaty and delight died down to sporadic solos, taken up more and +more faint-heartedly by weary yet still hopeful hands.</p> + +<p>Still smiling slightly, with a preoccupied air, the young girl looked +about her, or leaned forward to listen to some kindly bantering +addressed to her by Sir Alliston. She hardly spoke, but Gregory +perceived that she was by no means shy. She so pleasantly engaged his +attention that when Sir Alliston got up from his seat next hers there +was another motive than the mere wish to speak to his old friend in his +intention of joining Mrs. Forrester for a few moments. The project was +not definite and he abandoned it when his relative, Miss Eleanor +Scrotton, tense, significant and wearing the sacramental expression +customary with her on such occasions, hurried to the empty seat and +dropped into it. Eleanor's enthusiasms oppressed him and Betty had told +him that Madame Okraska was become the most absorbing of them. His +mother and Eleanor's had been cousins. Her father, the late Sir Jonas +Scrotton, heavily distinguished in the world of literature and politics, +had died only the year before. Gregory remembered him as a vindictive +and portentous old man presiding at Miss Scrotton's tea-parties in a +black silk skull-cap, and one could but admire in Miss Scrotton the +reverence and devotion that had not only borne with but gloried in him. +If the amplitude of his mantle had not descended upon her one might +metaphorically say that the black skull-cap had. Gregory felt that he +might have liked Eleanor better if she hadn't been so unintermittently +and unilluminatingly intelligent. She wrote scholarly articles in the +graver reviews—articles that he invariably skipped—she was always +armed with an appreciation and she had the air of thinking the +intellectual reputation of London very much her responsibility. Above +all she was dowered with an overwhelming power of enthusiasm. Eleanor +dressed well and had a handsome, commanding profile with small, +compressed lips and large, prominent, melancholy eyes that wickedly +reminded Gregory of the eyes of a beetle. Beneath the black feather boa +that was thrown round her neck, her thin shoulder-blades, while she +talked to Mrs. Forrester and sketched with pouncing fingers the phrasing +of certain passages, jerked and vibrated oddly. Mrs. Forrester nodded, +smiled, acquiesced. She was rather fond of Eleanor. Their talk was for +each other. Miss Woodruff, unheeded, but with nothing of the air of one +consciously insignificant, sat looking before her. Beside Eleanor's +vehemence and Mrs. Forrester's vivacity she made Gregory think of a +tranquil landscape seen at dawn.</p> + +<p>He was thus thinking, and looking at her, when, as though +sub-consciously aware of his gaze, she suddenly turned her head and +looked round at him.</p> + +<p>Her eyes, in the long moment while their glances were interchanged, were +so clear and deliberate, so unmoved by anything but a certain surprise, +that he felt no impulse to pretend politely that he had not been caught +staring. They scrutinized each other, gravely, serenely, intently, until +a thunder of applause, like a tidal wave surging over the hall, seemed +to engulf their gaze. Madame Okraska was once more emerging. Miss +Scrotton, catching up her boa, her programme and her fan, scuttled back +to her seat with an air of desperate gravity; Sir Alliston returned to +his; Mrs. Forrester welcomed him with a smile and a finger at her lips; +and as the pianist seated herself and cast a long glance over the still +disarranged and cautiously rustling audience, Gregory saw that Miss +Woodruff had no further thought for him.</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="CHAPTER_III" id="CHAPTER_III"></a>CHAPTER III</h2> + + +<p>Mrs. Forrester was dispensing tea in her lofty drawing-room which, with +its illumined heights and dim recesses, gave to the ceremony an almost +ritualistic state. Mrs. Forrester's drawing-room and Mrs. Forrester +herself were long-established features of London, and not to have sat +beneath the Louis Quinze chandelier nor have drunk tea out of the blue +Worcester cups was to have missed something significant of the typical +London spectacle.</p> + +<p>The drawing-room seemed most characteristic when one came to it from a +fog outside, as people had done to-day, and when Mrs. Forrester was +found presiding over the blue cups. She was an old lady with auburn hair +elaborately dressed and singularly bound in snoods of velvet. She wore +flowing silken trains and loose ruffled sacques of a curious bygone cut, +and upon each wrist was clasped, mounted on a velvet band, a large +square emerald, set in heavily chased gold. The glance of her eyes was +as surprisingly youthful as the color of her hair, and her face, though +complicatedly wrinkled, had an almost girlish gaiety and vigour. Abrupt +and merry, Mrs. Forrester was arresting to the attention and rather +alarming. She swept aside bores; she selected the significant; socially +she could be rather merciless; but her kindness was without limits when +she attached herself, and in private life she suffered fools, if not +gladly at all events humorously, in the persons of her three heavy and +exemplary sons, who had married wives as unimpeachable and as +uninteresting as themselves and provided her with a multitude of +grandchildren. Mrs. Forrester fulfilled punctiliously all her duties +towards these young folk, and it never occurred to her sons and +daughters-in-law that they and their interests were not her chief +preoccupation. The energy and variety of her nature were, however, +given, to her social relations and to her personal friendships, which +were many and engrossing. These friendships were always highly +flavoured. Mrs. Forrester had a <i>flair</i> for genius and needed no popular +accrediting to make it manifest to her. And it wasn't enough to be +merely a genius; there were many of the species, eminent and emblazoned, +who were never asked to come under the Louis Quinze chandelier. She +asked of her talented friends personal distinction, the power of being +interesting in more than their art.</p> + +<p>Such a genius, pre-eminently such a one, was Madame von Marwitz. She was +more than under the chandelier; Mrs. Forrester's house, when she was in +London, was her home. "I am safe with you," she had said to Mrs. +Forrester, "with you I am never pursued and never bored." Where Mrs. +Forrester evaded and relegated bores, Madame von Marwitz sombrely and +helplessly hated them. "What can I do?" she said. "If no one will +protect me I am delivered to them. It is a plague of locusts. They +devour me. Oh their letters! Oh their flowers! Oh their love and their +stupidity! No, the earth is black with them."</p> + +<p>Madame von Marwitz was protected from the swarms while she visited her +old friend. The habits of the house were altered to suit hers. She +stayed in her rooms or came down as she chose. She had complete liberty +in everything.</p> + +<p>To-day she had not as yet appeared, and everyone had come with the hope +of seeing her. There was Lady Campion, the most tactful and discreet of +admirers; and Sir Alliston, who would be perhaps asked to go up to her +if she did not come down; and Eleanor Scrotton who would certainly go up +unasked; and old Miss Harding, a former governess of Mrs. Forrester's +sons and a person privileged, who had come leading an evident yet +pathetic locust, her brother's widow, little Mrs. Harding, the shy lady +of the platform. Miss Harding had told Mrs. Forrester about this +sister-in-law and of how, since her husband's death, she had lived for +philanthropy, and music in the person of Madame Okraska. She had never +met her. She did not ask to meet her now. She would only sit in a corner +and gaze. Mrs. Forrester had been moved by the account of such humble +faith and had told Miss Harding to bring her sister-in-law.</p> + +<p>"I have sent for Karen," Mrs. Forrester said, greeting Gregory Jardine, +who came in after Miss and Mrs. Harding; "she will tell us if our +chances are good. It was your first time, last night, wasn't it, +Gregory? I do hope that she may come down."</p> + +<p>Gregory Jardine was not a bore, but Mrs. Forrester suspected him to be +one of the infatuated. He belonged, she imagined, seeing him appear so +promptly after his initiation, to the category of dazzled circlers who +fell into her drawing-room in their myriads while Mercedes was with her, +like frizzled moths into a candle. Mrs. Forrester had sympathy with +moths, and was fond of Gregory, whom she greeted with significant +kindliness.</p> + +<p>"I never ask her to come down," she went on now to explain to him and to +the Hardings. "Never, never. She could not bear that. But she often does +come; and she has heard to-day from Karen Woodruff that special friends +are hoping to see her. So your chances are good, I think. Ah, here is +Karen."</p> + +<p>Gregory did not trouble to undeceive his old friend. It was his habit to +have tea with her once or twice a month, and his motive in coming to-day +had hardly been distinguishable from his usual impulse. If he had come +hoping to see anybody, it had been to see the <i>protégée</i>, and he watched +her now as she advanced down the great room with her cheerful, +unembarrassed look, the look of a person serenely accustomed to a +publicity in which she had no part.</p> + +<p>Seen thus at full length and in full face he found her more than ever +like an Alfred Stevens and an archaic Greek statue. Long-limbed, +thick-waisted, spare and strong, she wore a straight, grey dress—the +dress of a little convent girl coming into the <i>parloir</i> on a day of +visits—which emphasized the boyish aspect of her figure. Narrow frills +of white were at wrist and neck; her shoes were low heeled and square +toed; and around her neck a gold locket hung on a black velvet ribbon.</p> + +<p>Mrs. Forrester held out her hand to her with the undiscerning kindliness +that greets the mere emissary. "Well, my dear, what news of our Tante? +Is she coming, do you think?" she inquired. "This is Lady Campion; she +has never yet met Tante." The word was pronounced in German fashion.</p> + +<p>"I am not sure that she will come," said Miss Woodruff, looking around +the assembled circle, while Mrs. Forrester still held her hand. "She is +still very tired, so I cannot be sure; I hope so." She smiled calmly at +Sir Alliston and Miss Scrotton who were talking together and then lifted +her eyes to Gregory who stood near.</p> + +<p>"You know Mr. Jardine?" Mrs. Forrester asked, seeing the pleased +recognition on the girl's face. "It was his first time last night."</p> + +<p>"No, I do not know him," said Miss Woodruff, "but I saw him at the +concert. Was it his first time? Think of that."</p> + +<p>"Now sit here, child, and tell me about Tante," said Mrs. Forrester, +drawing the girl down to a chair beside her. "I saw that she was very +tired this morning. She had her massage?" Mrs. Forrester questioned in a +lower voice.</p> + +<p>"Yes; and fortunately she was able to sleep for two hours after that. +Then Mr. Schultz came and she had to see him, and that was tiring."</p> + +<p>Mr. Schultz was Madame Okraska's secretary.</p> + +<p>"Dear, dear, what a pity that he had to bother her. Did she drink the +egg-flip I had sent up to her? Mrs. Jenkins makes them excellently as a +rule."</p> + +<p>"I did my best to persuade her," said Miss Woodruff, "but she did not +seem to care for it."</p> + +<p>"Didn't care for it? Was it too sweet? I warned Mrs. Jenkins that her +tendency was to put in too much sugar."</p> + +<p>"That was it," Miss Woodruff smiled at the other's penetration. "She +tasted it and said: '<i>Trop sucré</i>,' and put it down. But it was really +very nice. I drank it!" said Miss Woodruff.</p> + +<p>"But I am so grieved. I shall speak severely to Mrs. Jenkins," Mrs. +Forrester murmured, preoccupied. "I am afraid our chances aren't good +to-day, Lady Campion," she turned from Miss Woodruff to say. "You must +come and dine one night while she is with me. I am always sure of her +for dinner."</p> + +<p>"She really isn't coming down?" Miss Scrotton leaned over the back of +Miss Woodruff's chair to ask with some asperity of manner. "Shall I wait +for a little before I go up to her?"</p> + +<p>"I can't tell," the young girl replied. "She said she did not know +whether she would come or not. She is lying down and reading."</p> + +<p>"She does not forget that she comes to me for tea to-morrow?"</p> + +<p>"I do not think so, Miss Scrotton."</p> + +<p>"Lady Campion wants to talk to you, Karen," Mrs. Forrester now said; +"come to this side of the table." And as Sir Alliston was engaged with +Miss and Mrs. Harding, Gregory was left to Eleanor Scrotton.</p> + +<p>Miss Scrotton felt irritation rather than affection for Gregory Jardine. +Yet he was not unimportant to her. Deeper than her pride in old Sir +Jonas was her pride in her connection with the Fanshawes, and Gregory's +mother had been a Fanshawe. Gregory's very indifference to her and to +the standards of the Scrottons had always given to intercourse with him +a savour at once acid yet interesting. Though she knew many men of more +significance, she remained far more aware of him and his opinions than +of theirs. She would have liked Gregory to show more consciousness of +her and his relationship, of the fact that she, too, had Fanshawe blood +in her veins. She would have liked to impress, or please or, at worst, +to displease him. She would very much have liked to secure him more +frequently for her dinners and her teas. He vexed and he allured her.</p> + +<p>"Do you really mean that last night was the first time you ever heard +Mercedes Okraska?" she said, moving to a sofa, to which, somewhat +unwillingly, Gregory followed her. "It makes me sorry for you. It's as +if a person were to tell you that they'd never before seen the mountains +or the sea. If I'd realised that you'd never met her I could have +arranged that you should. She often comes to me quite quietly and meets +a few friends. She was so devoted to dear father; she called him The +Hammer of the Gods. I have the most wonderful letter that she wrote me +when he died," Miss Scrotton said, lowering her voice to a reverent +pause. "Between ourselves," she went on, "I do sometimes think that our +dear Mrs. Forrester cherishes her a little too closely. I confess that I +love nothing more than to share my good things. I don't mean that dear +Mrs. Forrester doesn't; but I should ask more people, frequently and +definitely, to meet Mercedes, if I were in her place."</p> + +<p>"But if Madame Okraska won't come down and see them?" Gregory inquired.</p> + +<p>"Ah, but she will; she will," Miss Scrotton said earnestly; "if it is +thought out; arranged for carefully. She doesn't, naturally, care to +come down on chance, like to-day. She does want to know whom she's to +meet if she makes the effort. She knows of course that Sir Alliston and +I are here, and that may bring her; I do hope so for your sake; but of +course if she does not come I go up to her. With Mrs. Forrester I am, I +think, her nearest friend in England. She has stayed with me in the +country;—my tiny flat here would hardly accommodate her. I am going, +did you know it, to America with her next week."</p> + +<p>"No; really; for a tour?"</p> + +<p>"Yes; through the States. We shall be gone till next summer. I know +several very charming people in New York and Boston and can help to make +it pleasant for Mercedes. Of course for me it is the opportunity of a +life-time. Quite apart from her music, she is the most remarkable woman +I have ever known."</p> + +<p>"She's clever?"</p> + +<p>"Clever is too trivial a word. Her genius goes through everything. We +read a great deal together—Dante, Goethe, French essayists, our English +poets. To hear her read poetry is almost as wonderful an experience as +to hear her play. Isn't it an extraordinary face? One sees it all in her +face, I think."</p> + +<p>"She is very unusual looking."</p> + +<p>"Her face," Miss Scrotton pursued, ignoring her companion's trite +comments, "embodies the thoughts and dreams of many races. It makes me +always think of Pater's Mona Lisa—you remember: 'Hers is the head upon +which all the ends of the world are come and the eyelids are a little +weary.' She is, of course, a profoundly tragic person."</p> + +<p>"Has she been very unfortunate?"</p> + +<p>"Unfortunate indeed. Her youth was passed in bitter poverty; her first +marriage was disastrous, and when joy came at last in an ideal second +marriage it was shattered by her husband's mysterious death. Yes; he was +drowned; found drowned in the lake on their estate in Germany. Mercedes +has never been there since. She has never recovered. She is a +broken-hearted woman. She sees life as a dark riddle. She counts herself +as one of the entombed."</p> + +<p>"Dear me," Gregory murmured.</p> + +<p>Miss Scrotton glanced at him with some sharpness; but finding his blue +eyes fixed abstractedly on Karen Woodruff exonerated him from intending +to be disagreeable. "Her childlessness has been a final grief," she +added; "a child, as she has often told me, would be a resurrection from +the dead."</p> + +<p>"And the little girl?" Gregory inquired. "Is she any solace? What is the +exact relationship? I hear that she calls her Tante."</p> + +<p>"The right to call her Tante is one of Mercedes's gifts to her. She is +no relation at all. Mercedes picked her up, literally from the roadside. +She is twenty-four, you know; not a child."</p> + +<p>"So the story is true, about the Norwegian peasants and the forest?"</p> + +<p>"I have to contradict that story at least twice a day," said Miss +Scrotton with a smile half indulgent and half weary. "It is true that +Karen was found in a forest, but it was the forest of Fontainebleau, +<i>tout simplement</i>; and it is true that she has Norwegian blood; her +mother was a Norwegian; she was the wife of a Norwegian artist in Rome, +and there Karen's father, an American, a sculptor of some talent, I +believe, met her and ran away with her. They were never married. They +lived on chestnuts up among the mountains in Tuscany, I believe, and the +mother died when Karen was a little child and the father when she was +twelve. Some relatives of the father's put her in a convent school in +Paris and she ran away from it and Mercedes found her on the verge of +starvation in the forest of Fontainebleau. The Baron von Marwitz had +known Mr. Woodruff in Rome and Mercedes persuaded him to take the child +into their lives. She hadn't a friend or a penny in the world. The +father's relatives were delighted to be rid of her and Mercedes has had +her on her hands ever since. That is the true story."</p> + +<p>"Isn't she fond of her?" Gregory asked.</p> + +<p>"Yes, she is fond of her," Miss Scrotton with some impatience replied; +"but she is none the less a burden. For a woman like Mercedes, with a +life over-full and a strength continually overtaxed, the care and +responsibility is an additional weight and weariness."</p> + +<p>"Well, but if she misses children so much; this takes the place," +Gregory objected.</p> + +<p>"Takes the place," Miss Scrotton repeated, "of a child of her own? This +little nobody, and an uninteresting nobody, too? Oh, she is a good girl, +a very good girl; and she makes herself fairly useful in elementary +ways; but how can you imagine that such a tie can satisfy maternal +craving?"</p> + +<p>"How does she make herself useful?" Gregory asked, waiving the question +of maternal cravings. He had vexed Miss Scrotton a good deal, but the +theme was one upon which she could not resist enlarging; anything +connected with Madame von Marwitz was for her of absorbing interest.</p> + +<p>"Well, she is a great deal in Cornwall, at Mercedes's place there," she +informed him. "It's a wonderfully lovely place; Les Solitudes; Mercedes +built the house. Karen and old Mrs. Talcott look after the little farm +and keep things in order."</p> + +<p>"Old Mrs. Talcott? Where does she come in?"</p> + +<p>"Ah, that is another of Mercedes's romantic benevolences. Mrs. Talcott +is a sort of old pensioner; a distant family connection; the funniest +old American woman you can conceive of. She has been with Mercedes since +her childhood, and, like everybody else, she is so devotedly attached to +her that she regards it as a matter of course that she should be taken +care of by her for ever. The way Karen takes her advantages as a matter +of course has always vexed me just a little."</p> + +<p>"Is Mrs. Talcott interesting?" Gregory pursued his questions with a +placid persistence that seemed to indicate real curiosity.</p> + +<p>"Good heavens, no!" Miss Scrotton said. "The epitome of the commonplace. +She looks like some of the queer old American women one sees in the +National Gallery with Baedekers in their hands and bags at their belts; +fat, sallow, provincial, with defective grammar and horrible twangs; the +kind of American, you know," said Miss Scrotton, warming to her +description as she felt that she was amusing Gregory Jardine, "that the +other kind always tell you they never by any chance would meet at home."</p> + +<p>"And what kind of American is Miss Woodruff? The other kind or Mrs. +Talcott's kind?"</p> + +<p>"By the other kind I mean Lady Jardine's," said Miss Scrotton; "or—no; +she constitutes a further variety; the rarest of all; the kind who would +never think about Mrs. Talcott one way or the other. But surely Karen is +no kind at all. Could you call her an American? She has never been +there. She is a sort of racial waif. The only root, the only nationality +she seems to have is Mercedes; her very character is constituted by her +relation to Mercedes; her only charm is her devotion—for she is indeed +sincerely and wholeheartedly devoted. Mercedes is a sort of +fairy-godmother to her, a sun-goddess, who lifted her out of the dust +and whirled her away in her chariot. But she isn't interesting," Miss +Scrotton again assured him. "She is literal and unemotional, and, in +some ways, distinctly dull. I have seen the poor fairy-godmother sigh +and shrug sometimes over her inordinately long letters. She writes to +her with relentless regularity and I really believe that she imagines +that Mercedes quite depends on hearing from her. No; I don't mean that +she is conceited; it's not that exactly; she is only dull; very, very +dull; and I don't know how Mercedes endures having her so much with her. +She feels that the girl depends on her, of course, and she is helplessly +generous."</p> + +<p>Gregory Jardine listened to these elucidations, leaning back in the +sofa, a hand clasping his ankle, his eyes turning now on Miss Scrotton +and now on the subject of their conversation. Miss Scrotton had amused +him. She was entertainingly simple if at moments entertainingly +intelligent, and he had divined that she was jealous of the crumbs that +fell to Miss Woodruff's share from the table of Madame von Marwitz's +bounty. A slight malice that had gathered in him during his talk with +Eleanor Scrotton found expression in his next remark. "She is certainly +charming looking; anyone so charming looking has a right to be dull." +But Miss Scrotton did not heed him. She had risen to her feet. "Here she +is!" she exclaimed, looking towards the door in radiant satisfaction. +"You will meet her after all. I'll do my very best so that you shall +have a little talk with her."</p> + +<p>The door had been thrown open and Madame Okraska had appeared upon the +threshold.</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="CHAPTER_IV" id="CHAPTER_IV"></a>CHAPTER IV</h2> + + +<p>She stood for a moment, with her hand resting on the lintel, and she +surveyed an apparently unexpected audience with contemplative +melancholy. If she was not pleased to find them so many, she was, at all +events unresentful, and Gregory imagined, from Mrs. Forrester's bright +flutter in rising, that resentment from the sun-goddess was a peril to +be reckoned with. Smiling, though languidly smiling, she advanced up the +room, after her graceful and involuntary pause. White fringes rippled +softly round her; a white train trailed behind her; on her breast the +silken cloak that she wore over a transparent under-robe was clasped +with pearls and silver. She was very lovely, very stately, very simple; +but she struck her one hypercritical observer as somewhat prepared; +calculated and conscious, as well.</p> + +<p>"Thanks, dearest friend," she said to Mrs. Forrester, who, meeting her +halfway down the room and taking her hand, asked her solicitously how +she did; "I am now a little rested; but it has been a bad night and a +busy morning." She spoke with a slightly foreign accent in a voice at +once fatigued and sonorous. Her eyes, clear, penetrating and singularly +steady, passed over the assembled faces, turned, all of them, towards +herself.</p> + +<p>She greeted Sir Alliston with a welcoming smile and a lift of the +strange crooked eyebrows, and to Miss Scrotton, who, eager and +illuminated, was beside her: "<i>Ah, ma chérie</i>," she said, resting her +hand affectionately on her shoulder. Mrs. Forrester had her other hand, +and, so standing between her two friends, she bowed gravely and +graciously to Lady Campion, to Miss Harding, to Mrs. Harding—who, in +the stress of this fulfilment had become plum-coloured—and to Gregory +Jardine. Then she was seated. Mrs. Forrester poured out her tea, Miss +Harding passed her cake and bread-and-butter, Lady Campion bent to her +with frank and graceful compliments, Miss Scrotton sat at her feet on a +low settle, and Sir Alliston, leaning on the back of her chair, looked +down at her with eyes of antique devotion. Gregory was left on the +outskirts of the group and his attention was attracted by the face of +little Mrs. Harding, who, all unnoticed and unseated, gazed upon Madame +Okraska with the intent liquid eye of a pious dog; the wavering, +uncertain smile that played upon her lips was like the humble thudding +of the dog's tail. Gregory remembered her face now as one of those, rapt +and hypnotized, that he had seen on the platform the night before. In +the ovation that Madame Okraska had received at the end of the concert +he had noticed this same plum-coloured little lady seizing and kissing +the great woman's hand. Shy, by temperament, as he saw, to the point of +suffering, he felt sure that only the infection of the crowd had carried +her to the act of uncharacteristic daring. He watched her now, finding +her piteous and absurd.</p> + +<p>But someone beside himself was aware of Mrs. Harding. Miss Woodruff +approached her, smiling impersonally, with rather the air of a kindly +verger at a church. Yes, she seemed to say, she could find a seat for +her. She pointed to the one she had risen from. Mrs. Harding, almost +tearful in her gratitude, slid into it with the precaution of the +reverent sight-seer who fears to disturb a congregation at prayer, and +Miss Woodruff, moving away, went to a table and began to turn over the +illustrated papers that lay upon it. Her manner, retired and cheerful, +had no humility, none of the poor dependent's unobtrusiveness; rather, +Gregory felt, it showed a happy pride, as if, a fortunate priestess in +the temple, she had opportunities and felicities denied to mere +worshippers. She was interested in her papers. She examined the pictures +with something of a child's attentive pleasure.</p> + +<p>Gregory came up to her and raising her eyes she smiled at him as though, +on the basis of last night's encounter, she took him for granted as +potentially a friend.</p> + +<p>"What are you looking at?" he asked her, as he might have asked a +friendly child.</p> + +<p>She turned the paper to him. "The Great Wall of China. They are +wonderful pictures."</p> + +<p>Gregory stood beside her and looked. The photographs were indeed +impressive. The sombre landscape, the pallid sky, and, winding as if for +ever over hill and valley, the astonishing structure, like an infinite +lonely consciousness. "I should like to see that," said Miss Woodruff.</p> + +<p>"Well, you travel a great deal, don't you?" said Gregory. "No doubt +Madame Okraska will go to China some day."</p> + +<p>Miss Woodruff contemplated the desolate wall. "But this is thousands and +thousands of miles from the places where concerts could be given; and I +do not know that my guardian has ever thought of China; no, it is not +probable that she will ever go there. And then, unfortunately, I do not +always go with her. I travel a great deal; but I stop at home a great +deal, too. My guardian likes best to be called von Marwitz in private +life, by those who know her personally," Miss Woodruff added, smiling +again as she presented him with the authorized liturgy.</p> + +<p>Gregory was slightly taken aback. He couldn't have defined Miss +Woodruff's manner as assured, yet it was singularly competent; and no +one could have been in less need of benevolent attentions.</p> + +<p>"I see," he said. "She looks so much more Polish than German, doesn't +she? What do you call home?" he added. "Have you lived much in England?"</p> + +<p>"By home I mean Cornwall," said Miss Woodruff, who was evidently used to +being asked questions. "My guardian has a house there; but it has not +been for long. It used to be in Germany, and then for a little in Italy; +she has only had Les Solitudes for four years." She looked across at the +group under the chandelier. "There is still room for a chair." Her +glance indicated a gap in Madame von Marwitz's circle.</p> + +<p>This kindly solicitude amused Gregory very much. She had him on her mind +as a sight-seer, as she had had Mrs. Harding; and she was full of +sympathy for sight-seers. "Oh—thanks—no," he said, his eyes following +hers. "I won't go crowding in."</p> + +<p>"She won't mind. She will not even notice;" Miss Woodruff assured him.</p> + +<p>"Oh, well, I like to be noticed if I do crowd," Gregory returned +smiling.</p> + +<p>His slight irony was lost upon her; yet, he was sure of it, she was not +dull. Her smile showed him that she congratulated him on an ambitious +spirit. "Well, later, then, we will hope," she said. "You would of +course rather talk with her. And here is Mr. Drew, so that this chance +is gone."</p> + +<p>"Who is that singular young man?" Gregory inquired watching with Miss +Woodruff the newcomer, who found a place at once in the gap near Madame +von Marwitz and was greeted by her with a brighter interest than she had +yet shown.</p> + +<p>"Mr. Claude Drew?" Miss Woodruff replied with some surprise. "Do you not +know? I thought that everybody in London knew him. He is quite a famous +writer. He has written poetry and essays. 'Artemis Wedded' is by +him—that is poetry; and 'The Bow of Ulysses'—the essay on my guardian +comes in that. Oh, he is quite well known."</p> + +<p>Mr. Claude Drew was suave and elegant, and his high, stock-like collar +and folded satin neck-gear gave him a somewhat recondite appearance. +With his dark eyes, pale skin, full, smooth, golden hair, and the vivid +red of an advancing Hapsburgian lip, he had the look of a young French +dandy drawn by Ingres.</p> + +<p>"My guardian is very much interested in him," Miss Woodruff went on. +"She believes that he has a great future. She is always interested in +promising young men." This, no doubt, was why Miss Woodruff had so +kindly encouraged him to take his chances.</p> + +<p>"He looks a clever fellow," said Gregory.</p> + +<p>"Do you like his face?" Miss Woodruff inquired. Mr. Drew, as if aware of +their scrutiny, had turned his eyes upon them for a moment. They were +large, jaded eyes, lustrous, yet with the lustre of a surface rather +than of depth; dense, velvety and impenetrable.</p> + +<p>"Well, no, I don't," said Gregory, genially decisive. "He looks +unwholesome, I think."</p> + +<p>"Oh! Unwholesome?" Miss Woodruff repeated the word thoughtfully rather +than interrogatively. "Yes; perhaps it is that. It is a danger of +talented modern young men, isn't it. They are not strong enough to be so +intelligent; one must be very strong—in character, I mean—if one is to +be so intelligent. Perhaps he is not strong in character. Perhaps that +is what one feels. Because I do not like his face, either; and I go +greatly by faces."</p> + +<p>"So do I," said Gregory. After a moment, in which they both continued to +look at Mr. Drew, he went on. "I wondered last night what nationality +you belonged to. I had been wondering about you for a long while before +you looked round at me."</p> + +<p>"You had heard about me?" she asked.</p> + +<p>He was pleased to be able to say: "Oh, I wondered about you before I +heard."</p> + +<p>"People are so often interested in me because of my guardian," said Miss +Woodruff; "everything about her interests them. But I am an American—if +you were not told; that is to say my father was an American—and my +mother was a Norwegian; but though I have never been to America I count +myself as an American, and with right, I think," she added. "We always +spoke English when I was a child, and I remember so many of my father's +friends. Some day I hope I may go to America. Have you been there? Do +you know New England? My father came from New England."</p> + +<p>"No; I've never been there. I'm very insular and untravelled."</p> + +<p>"Are you? It is a pity not to travel, isn't it," Miss Woodruff remarked.</p> + +<p>"But you like it here in England?"</p> + +<p>"Yes, I like it here, with Mrs. Forrester; and in Cornwall. But here +with Mrs. Forrester always seems to me more like the life of Europe. +English life, as a rule, is, I think, rather like boxes one inside the +other." She was perfectly sweet and undogmatic, but her air of +cosmopolitan competence amused Gregory, serenely of opinion, for his +part, that English was the only life.</p> + +<p>"Well, the great thing is that the boxes should fit comfortably into one +another, isn't it," he observed; "and I think that on the whole we've +come to fit pretty well in England. And we all come out of our boxes, +don't we," he added, pleased with his application of her simile, "for a +Madame von Marwitz."</p> + +<p>"Yes, I know," said Miss Woodruff, also, evidently, pleased. "That is +quite true; you all come out of your boxes for her. But, as a nation, +they are not artists, the English, are they? They are kind to the +beautiful things; they like to see them; they will take great trouble to +see them; but they do not make them. Beauty does not grow here—that is +what I mean. It is in its box, too, and it is taken out and passed round +from time to time. You do not mind my saying this? You, perhaps, are +yourself an artist?"</p> + +<p>"Dear me, no; I'm only a lawyer. I'm shut up in the tightest of the +boxes," said Gregory.</p> + +<p>Miss Woodruff scrutinized him with a smile. "I should not think that of +you," she said. "You do not look like an artist, it is true; few of us +can be artists; but you do not look shut into a box, either. Beauty, to +you, is something real; not a pastime, a fashion; no, I cannot think it. +When I saw your face last night I thought: Here is one who cares. One +counts those faces on one's fingers—even at a great concert. So many +think they care who only want to care. To you art is a serious thing and +an artist the greatest thing a country can produce. Is not that so?"</p> + +<p>Gregory continued to be amused by what he felt to be Miss Woodruff's +<i>naiveté</i>. He was inclined to think that artists, however admirable in +their functions, were undesirable in their persons, and the reverent +enthusiasm that Miss Woodruff imagined in him was singularly +uncharacteristic. He didn't quite know how to tell her so without +seeming rude, so he contented himself with confessing that beauty, in +his life, was kept, he feared, very much in its box.</p> + +<p>They, went on talking, going to an adjacent sofa where Miss Woodruff, +while they talked, stroked the deep fur of an immense Persian cat, +Hieronimus by name, who established himself between them. Gregory found +her very easy to talk to, though they had so few themes in common, and +her face he discovered to be even more charming than he had thought it +the night before. She was not at all beautiful and he imagined that in +her world of artists she would not be particularly appreciated; nor +would she be appreciated in his own world of convention—a girl with +such a thick waist, such queer clothes, a face so broad, so brown, so +abruptly modelled. She was, he felt, a grave and responsible young +person, and something in her face suggested that she might have been +through a great deal; but she was very cheerful and she laughed with +facility at things he said and that she herself said; and when she +laughed her eyes nearly closed and the tip of her tongue was caught, +with an effect of child-like gaiety, between her teeth. The darkness of +her skin made her lips, by contrast, of a pale rose, and her hair, where +it grew thickly around her brows and neck, of an almost infantile +fairness. Her broad, brown eyebrows lay far apart and her grey eyes were +direct, deliberate and limpid.</p> + +<p>From where Gregory sat he had Madame von Marwitz in profile and he +observed that once or twice, when they laughed, she turned her head and +looked at them. Presently she leaned a little to question Mrs. Forrester +and then, rather vexed at a sequence, natural but unforeseen, he saw +that Mrs. Forrester got up to fetch him.</p> + +<p>"Tante has sent for you!" Miss Woodruff exclaimed. "I am so glad."</p> + +<p>It really vexed him a little that he should still be supposed to be +pining for an introduction; he would so much rather have stayed talking +to her. On the sofa she continued to stroke Hieronimus and to keep a +congratulatory gaze upon him while he was conducted to a seat beside the +great woman.</p> + +<p>Madame von Marwitz was very lovely. She was the type of woman with whom, +as a boy, he would have fallen desperately in love, seeing her as poetry +personified. And she was the type of woman, all indolent and indifferent +as she was, who took it for granted that people would fall desperately +in love with her. Her long gaze, now, told him that. It seemed to give +him time, as it were, to take her in and to arrange with himself how +best to adjust himself to a changed life. It was not the glance of a +flirt; it held no petty consciousness; it was the gaze of an enchantress +aware of her own inevitable power. Gregory met the cold, sweet, +melancholy eyes. But as she gazed, as she slowly smiled, he was aware, +with a perverse pleasure, that his present seasoned self was completely +immune from her magic. He opposed commonplace to enchantment, and in him +Madame von Marwitz would find no victim.</p> + +<p>"I have never seen you here before, I think," she said. She spoke with a +beautiful precision; that of the foreigner perfectly at ease in an alien +tongue, yet not loving it sufficiently to take liberties with it.</p> + +<p>Gregory said, no, she had never seen him there before.</p> + +<p>"Mrs. Forrester is, it seems, a mutual friend," said Madame von Marwitz. +"She has known you since boyhood. You have been very fortunate."</p> + +<p>Gregory assented.</p> + +<p>"She tells me that you are in the law," Madame von Marwitz pursued; "a +barrister. I should not have thought that. A diplomat; a soldier, it +should have been. Is it not so?"</p> + +<p>Gregory had not wanted to be a barrister. It did not please him that +Madame von Marwitz should guess so accurately at a disappointment that +had made his youth bitter. "I'm a younger son, you see," he said. "And I +had to make my living."</p> + +<p>When Madame von Marwitz's gaze grew more intent she did not narrow her +eyes, but opened them more widely. She opened them more widely now, +putting back her head a little. "Ah," she said. "That was hard. That +meant suffering. You are caged in a calling you do not care for."</p> + +<p>"Oh, no," said Gregory, smiling; "I'm very well off; I'm quite +contented."</p> + +<p>"Contented?" she raised her crooked eyebrow. "Are you indeed so +fortunate?—or so unfortunate?"</p> + +<p>To this large question Gregory made no reply, continuing to offer her +the non-committal coolness of his smile. He was not liking Madame von +Marwitz, and he was becoming aware that if one didn't like her one did +not appear to advantage in talking with her. He cast about in his mind +for an excuse to get away.</p> + +<p>"The law," Madame von Marwitz mused, her eyes dwelling on him. "It is +stony; yet with stone one builds. You would not be content, I think, +with the journeyman's work of the average lawyer. You shape; you create; +you have before you the vision of the strong fortress to be built where +the weak may find refuge. You are an architect, not a mason. Only so +could you find contentment in your calling."</p> + +<p>"I'm afraid that I don't think about it like that," said Gregory. "I +should say that the fortress is built already."</p> + +<p>There was now a change in her cold sweetness; her smile became a little +ambiguous. "You remind me," she said, "that I was speaking in somewhat +pretentious similes. I was not asking you what had been done, but what +you hoped to do. I was asking—it was that that interested me in you, as +it does in all the young men I meet—what was the ideal you brought to +your calling."</p> + +<p>It was as though, with all her sweetness, she had seen through his +critical complacency and were correcting the manners of a conceited boy. +Gregory was a good deal taken aback. And it was with a touch of boyish +sulkiness that he replied: "I don't think, really, that I can claim +ideals."</p> + +<p>Definitely, now, the light of mockery shone in her eye. In evading her, +in refusing to be drawn within her magic circle, he had aroused an irony +that matched his own. She was not the mere phrase-making woman; by no +means the mere siren. "How afraid you English are of your ideals," she +said. "You live by them, but you will not look at them. I could say to +you—as Statius to Virgil in the Purgatorio—that you carry your light +behind you so that you light those who follow, but walk yourselves in +darkness. You will not claim them; no, and above all, you will not talk +about them. Do not be afraid, my young friend; I shall not tamper with +your soul." So she spoke, sweetly, deliberately, yet tersely, too, as +though to make him feel that she had done all she could for him and that +he had proved himself not worth her trouble. Mr. Claude Drew was still +on her other hand, carrying on an obviously desultory conversation with +Miss Scrotton, and to him Madame von Marwitz turned, saying: "And what +is it you wished to tell me of your Carducci? You will send me the +proofs? Good. Oh, I shall not be too tired to read what you have +written."</p> + +<p>Here was a young man, evidently, who was worth her trouble. Gregory sat +disposed of and a good deal discomposed, the more so since he had to own +that he had opened himself to the rebuff. He rose and moved away, +looking about and seeing that Miss Woodruff had left the room; but Mrs. +Forrester came to him, her brilliant little face somewhat clouded.</p> + +<p>"What is it, my dear Gregory?" she questioned. "She asked to have you +brought. Haven't you pleased her?"</p> + +<p>Mrs. Forrester, who had known not only himself, but his father in +boyhood, was fond of him, but was not disposed to think of him as +important. And she expected the unimportant to know, in a sense, their +place and to show the important that they did know it. There was a hint, +now, of severity, in her countenance.</p> + +<p>It would sound, he knew, merely boyish and sulky to say: "She hasn't +pleased me." But he couldn't resist: "I wasn't <i>à la hauteur</i>."</p> + +<p>Mrs. Forrester, at this, looked at him hard for a moment. She then +diagnosed his case as one of bad temper rather than of malice, and +could forgive it in one who had failed to interest the great woman and +been discarded in consequence; Mercedes, she knew, could discard with +decision.</p> + +<p>"Well, when you talk to a woman like Madame von Marwitz, you must try to +be worthy of your opportunities," she commented, tempering her severity +with understanding. "You really had an opportunity. Your face interested +her, and your kindness to little Karen. She always likes people who are +kind to little Karen."</p> + +<p>It was pleasantly open to him now to say: "Little Karen has been kind to +me."</p> + +<p>"A dear, good child," said Mrs. Forrester. "I am glad that you talked to +her. You pleased Mercedes in that."</p> + +<p>"She is a delightful girl," said Gregory.</p> + +<p>He now took his departure. But he was again to encounter Miss Woodruff. +She was in the hall, talking French to a sallow little woman in black, +evidently a ladies' maid, who had the oppressed, anxious countenance and +bright, melancholy eyes of a monkey.</p> + +<p>"<i>Allons</i>," Miss Woodruff was saying in encouraging tones, while she +paused on the first step of the stairs, her hand on the banister; "<i>ce +n'est pas une cause perdue, Louise; nous arrangerons la chose</i>."</p> + +<p>"<i>Ah, Mademoiselle, c'est que Madame ne sera pas contente, pas contente +du tout quand elle verra la robe</i>," was Louise's mournful reply as +Gregory came up.</p> + +<p>"I hoped we might go on with our talk," he said. He still addressed her +somewhat as one addresses a friendly child; "I wanted to hear the end of +that story about the Hungarian student."</p> + +<p>"He died, in Davos, poor boy," said Miss Woodruff, looking down at him +from her slightly higher place, while Louise stood by dejectedly. "He +wrote to my guardian and we went to him there and she played to him. It +made him so happy. We were with him till he died."</p> + +<p>"Shall I see you again?" Gregory asked. "Will you be here for any time? +Are you staying in London?"</p> + +<p>"My guardian goes to America next week—did you not know?—with Miss +Scrotton."</p> + +<p>"Oh yes, Eleanor told me. And you're not going too? You're not to see +America yet?"</p> + +<p>"No; not this time. I go to Cornwall."</p> + +<p>"You are to be alone with Mrs. Talcott all the winter?"</p> + +<p>"You know Mrs. Talcott?" Miss Woodruff exclaimed in pleased +astonishment.</p> + +<p>"No; I don't know her; Eleanor told me about her, too."</p> + +<p>"It is not being alone," said Miss Woodruff. "She and I have a most +happy time together. I thought it strange that you should know Mrs. +Talcott. I never met anyone who knew her unless they knew my guardian +very well."</p> + +<p>"And when are you coming back?"</p> + +<p>"From Cornwall? I do not know. I am afraid we shall not see each +other—oh, for a very long time," said Miss Woodruff. She smiled. She +gave him her hand, leaning down to him from behind the banister. Gregory +said that he had friends in Cornwall and that he might run down and see +them one day—and then he might see her and Les Solitudes, too. And Miss +Woodruff said that that would be very nice.</p> + +<p>He heard the last words of the colloquy with Louise as his coat was put +on in the hall. "<i>Alors il ne faut pas renvoyer la robe, Mademoiselle?</i>"</p> + +<p>"<i>Mais non, mais non; nous nous tirerons d'affaire</i>," Miss Woodruff +replied, springing gaily up the stairs, her arm, with a sort of +dignified familiarity, in which was encouragement and protection, cast +round Louise's shoulders.</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="CHAPTER_V" id="CHAPTER_V"></a>CHAPTER V</h2> + + +<p>Gregory walked at a brisk pace from Mrs. Forrester's house in Wilton +Crescent to Hyde Park Corner, and from there, through St. James's Park, +to Queen Anne's Mansions where he had a flat. He had moved into it from +dismal rooms when prosperity had first come to him, five or six years +ago, and was much attached to it. It was high up in the large block of +buildings and its windows looked over the greys and greens and silvers +of the park, the water shining in the midst, and the dim silhouettes of +Whitehall rising in stately significance on the evening sky. Gregory +went to the balcony and overhung his view contemplatively for a while. +The fog had lifted, and all London was alight.</p> + +<p>The drawing-room behind him expressed an accepted convention rather than +a personal predilection. It was not the room of a young man of conscious +tastes. It was solid, cheerful and somewhat <i>naif</i>. There was a great +deal of very clean white paint and a great deal of bright wall-paper. +There were deep chairs covered with brighter chintz. There were blue and +white tiles around the fireplace and heavy, polished brass before. On +the tables lay buff and blue reviews and folded evening papers, massive +paper-cutters and large silver boxes. Photographs in silver frames also +stood there, of female relatives in court dress and of male relatives in +uniform. Behind the photographs were pots of growing flowers; and on the +walls etchings and engravings after well-known landscapes. It was the +room of a young man uninfluenced by Whistler, unaware of Chinese screens +and indifferent to the rival claims of Jacobean and Chippendale +furniture. It was civilised, not cultivated; and it was thoroughly +commonplace.</p> + +<p>Gregory thought of himself as the most commonplace of types;—the +younger son whose father hadn't been able to do anything for him beyond +educating him; the younger son who, after years of uncongenial drudgery +had emerged, tough, stringy, professional, his boyish dreams dead and +his boyish tastes atrophied; a useful hard-working, clear-sighted member +of society. And there was truth in this conception of himself. There was +truth, too, in Madame von Marwitz's probe. He had more than the normal +English sensitiveness where ideals were concerned and more than the +normal English instinct for a protective literalness. He didn't intend +that anybody should lay their hand on his heart and tell him of lofty +aims that it would have made him feel awkward to look at by himself; his +fastidiousness was far from commonplace, and so were his disdains; they +made cheap successes and cheap ambitions impossible to him. He would +never make a fortune out of the law; yet already he was distinguished +among the younger men at the bar. With nothing of the air of a paladin +he brought into the courts a flavour of classic calm and courtesy. He +was punctiliously fair. He never frightened or bullied or confused. His +impartiality could become alarming at times to his own clients, and +shady cases passed him by. Everybody respected Gregory Jardine and a +good many people disliked him. A few old friends, comrades at Eton and +Oxford, were devoted to him and looked upon him, in spite of his +reputation for almost merciless common-sense, as still potentially +Quixotic. As a boy he had been exceptionally tender-hearted; but now he +was hard, or thought himself so. He had no vanity and looked upon his +own resolution and dignity as the heritage of all men worth their salt; +in consequence he was inclined to theoretic severity towards the +worsted. The sensitiveness of youth had steeled itself in irony; he was +impatient of delusions and exaltations, and scornful of the shambling, +shame-faced motives that moved so many of the people who came under his +observation.</p> + +<p>Yet, leaning on the iron railing, his gaze softening to a grave, +peaceful smile as he looked over the vast, vaporous scene, laced with +its moving and motionless lines of light, it was this, and its +mysteries, its delicacies, its reticent radiance, that expressed him +more truly than the commonplaces of the room behind him, accurately as +these symbolized the activities of his life. The boy and youth, +emotional and poetic, dreamy if also shrewdly humorous, still survived +in a sub-conscious region of his nature, an Atlantis sunken beneath the +traffic of the surface; and, when he leaned and gazed, as now, at the +lovely evocations of the evening, it was like hearing dimly, from far +depths, the bells of the buried city ringing.</p> + +<p>He was thinking of nothing as he leaned there, though memories, linked +in their associated loveliness, floated across his mind—larch-boughs +brushed exquisitely against a frosty sky on a winter morning in +Northumberland, when, a boy, with gun and dogs, he had paused on the +wooded slopes near his home to look round him; or the little well of +chill, clear water that he had found one summer day gushing from a mossy +source under a canopy of leaves; or the silver sky, and hills folded in +greys and purples, that had surrounded him on a day in late autumn when +he had walked for miles in loneliness and, again, had paused to look, +receiving the scene ineffaceably, so that certain moods always made it +rise before him. And linked by some thread of affinity with these +pictures, the face of the young girl he had met that afternoon rose +before him. Not as he had just seen her, but as he had seen her, for the +first time, the night before at the concert. Her face came back to him +with the larch-boughs and the spring of water and the lonely hills, +while he looked at London beneath him. She touched and interested him, +and appealed to something sub-conscious, as music did. But when he +passed from picturing her to thinking about her, about her origin and +environment and future, it was with much the same lucid and unmoved +insight with which he would have examined some unfortunate creature in +the witness-box.</p> + +<p>Miss Woodruff seemed to him very unfortunate. For her irregular birth he +had contempt and for her haphazard upbringing only pity. He saw no place +in a well-ordered society for sculptors who ran away with other men's +wives and lived on chestnuts and left their illegitimate children to be +picked up at the roadside. He was the type of young man who, +theoretically, admitted of and indeed admired all independences in +women; practically he preferred them to be sheltered by their male +relatives and to read no French novels until they married—if then. Miss +Woodruff struck him as at once sheltered and exposed. Her niche under +the extended wing of the great woman seemed to him precarious. He saw no +real foothold for her in her present <i>milieu</i>. She only entered Mrs. +Forrester's orbit, that was evident, as a tiny satellite in attendance +on the streaming comet. In the wake of the comet she touched, it was +true, larger orbits than the artistic; but it was in this accidental and +transitory fashion, and his accurate knowledge of the world saw in the +nameless and penniless girl the probable bride of some second-rate +artist, some wandering, dishevelled musician, or ill-educated, +ill-regulated poet. Girls like that, who had the aristocrat's assurance +and simplicity and unconsciousness of worldly lore, without the +aristocrat's secure standing in the world, were peculiarly in danger of +sinking below the level of their own type.</p> + +<p>He went in to dress. He was dining with the Armytages and after thinking +of Miss Woodruff it was indeed like passing from memories of larch-woods +into the chintzes and metals and potted flowers of the drawing-room to +think of Constance Armytage. Yet Gregory thought of her very contentedly +while he dressed. She was well-dowered, well-educated, well-bred; an +extremely nice and extremely pretty young woman with whom he had danced, +dined and boated frequently during her first two seasons. The Armytages +had a house at Pangbourne and he spent several week-ends with them every +summer. Constance liked him and he liked her. He was not in love with +her; but he wondered if he might not be. To get married to somebody like +Constance seemed the next step in his sensible career. He could see her +established most appropriately in the flat. He could see her beautifully +burnished chestnut hair, her pretty profile and bright blue eyes above +the tea-table; he could see her at the end of the dinner-table presiding +charmingly at a dinner. She would be a charming mother, too; the +children, when babies, would wear blue sashes and would grow up doing +all the proper things at the proper times, from the French <i>bonne</i> and +the German <i>Fräulein</i> to Eton and Oxford and dances and happy marriages. +She would continue all the traditions of his outer life, would fulfil it +and carry it on peacefully and honourably into the future.</p> + +<p>The Armytages lived in a large house in Queen's Gate Gardens. They were +not interesting people, but Gregory liked them none the less for that. +He approved of the Armytage type—the kind, courageous, intolerant old +General who managed to find Gladstone responsible for every misfortune +that befell the Empire—blithe, easy-going Lady Armytage, the two sons +in the army and the son in the navy and the two unmarried girls, of whom +Constance was one and the other still in the school-room. It was a small +dinner-party that night; most of the family were there and they had +music after it, Constance singing very prettily—she was taking +lessons—the last two songs she had learned, one by Widor and one by +Tosti.</p> + +<p>Yet as he drove home late Gregory was aware that Constance still +remained a pleasant possibility to contemplate and that he had come no +nearer to being in love with her. It might be easier, he mused, if only +she could offer some trivial trick or imperfection, if she had been +freckled, say, or had had a stammer, or prominent teeth. He could +imagine being married to her so much more easily than being in love with +her, and he was a little vexed with himself for his own +insusceptibility.</p> + +<p>Constance was the last thing that he thought of before going to sleep; +yet it was not of her he dreamed. He dreamed, very strangely, of the +little cosmopolitan waif whom he had met that afternoon. He was walking +down a road in a forest. The sky above was blue, with white clouds +heaving above the dark tree-tops, and it was a still, clear day. His +mood was the boyish mood of romance and expectancy, touched with a +little fear. At a turning of the road he came suddenly upon Karen +Woodruff. She was standing at the edge of the forest as if waiting for +him, and she held a basket of berries, not wild-strawberry and not +bramble, but a fairy-tale fruit that a Hans Andersen heroine might have +gathered, and she looked like such a heroine herself, young, and +strange, and kind, and wearing the funny little dress of the concert, +the white dress with the flat blue bows. She held out the basket to him +as he approached, and, smiling at each other in silence, they ate the +fruit with its wild, sweet savour. Then, as if he had spoken and she +were answering him, she said: "And I love you."</p> + +<p>Gregory woke with this. He lay for some moments still half dreaming, +with no surprise, conscious only of a peaceful wonder. He had forgotten +the dream in the morning; but it returned to him later in the day, and +often afterwards. It persisted in his memory like a cluster of +unforgettable sensations. The taste of the berries, the scent of the +pine-trees, the sweetness of the girl's smile, these things, rather than +any significance that they embodied, remained with him like one of the +deep impressions of his boyhood.</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="CHAPTER_VI" id="CHAPTER_VI"></a>CHAPTER VI</h2> + + +<p>On the morning that Gregory Jardine had waked from his dream, Madame von +Marwitz sat at her writing-table tearing open, with an air of impatient +melancholy, note after note and letter after letter, and dropping the +envelopes into a waste-paper basket beside her. A cigarette was between +her lips; her hair, not dressed, was coiled loosely upon her head; she +wore a white silk <i>peignoir</i> bordered with white fur and girdled with a +sash of silver tissue. She had just come from her bath and her face, +though weary, had the freshness of a prolonged toilet.</p> + +<p>The room where she sat, with its grand piano and its deep chairs, its +sofa and its capacious writing-table, was accurately adjusted to her +needs. It, too, was all in white, carpet, curtains and dimity coverings. +Madame von Marwitz laughed at her own vagary; but it had had only once +to be clearly expressed, and the greens and pinks that had adorned her +sitting-room at Mrs. Forrester's were banished as well as the +rose-sprigged toilet set and hangings of the bedroom. "I cannot breathe +among colours," she had said. "They seem to press upon me. White is like +the air; to live among colours, with all their beauty, is like swimming +under the water; I can only do it with comfort for a little while."</p> + +<p>Madame von Marwitz looked up presently at a wonderful little clock of +gold and enamel that stood before her and then struck, not impatiently, +but with an intensification of the air of melancholy, an antique silver +bell that stood beside the clock. Louise entered.</p> + +<p>"Where is Mademoiselle?" Madame von Marwitz asked, speaking in French. +Louise answered that Mademoiselle had gone out to take Victor for his +walk, Victor being Madame von Marwitz's St. Bernard who remained in +England during his mistress's absences.</p> + +<p>"You should have taken Victor yourself, Louise," said Madame von +Marwitz, not at all unkindly, but with decisive condemnation. "You know +that I like Mademoiselle to help me with my letters in the morning."</p> + +<p>Louise, her permanent plaintiveness enhanced, murmured that she had a +bad headache and that Mademoiselle had kindly offered to take Victor, +had said that she would enjoy taking him.</p> + +<p>"Moreover," Madame von Marwitz pursued, as though these excuses were not +worthy of reply, "I do not care for Mademoiselle to be out alone in such +a fog. You should have known that, too. As for the dress, don't fail to +send it back this morning—as you should have done last night."</p> + +<p>"Mademoiselle thought we might arrange it to please Madame."</p> + +<p>"You should have known better, if Mademoiselle did not. Mademoiselle has +very little taste in such matters, as you are well aware. Do my feet +now; I think that the nails need a little polishing; but very little; I +do not wish you to make them look as though they had been varnished; it +is a trick of yours."</p> + +<p>Madame von Marwitz then resumed her cigarette and her letters while +Louise, fetching files and scissors, powders and polishers, mournfully +knelt before her mistress, and, drawing the <i>mule</i> from a beautifully +undeformed white foot, began to bring each nail to a state of perfected +art. In the midst of this ceremony Karen Woodruff appeared. She led the +great dog by a leash and was still wearing her cap and coat.</p> + +<p>"I hope I am not late, Tante," she said, speaking in English and going +to kiss her guardian's cheek, while Victor stood by, majestically +benignant.</p> + +<p>"You are late, my Karen, and you had no business to take out Victor at +this hour. If you want to walk with him let it be in the afternoon. +<i>Aïe! aïe!</i> Louise! what are you doing? Have mercy I beg of you!" Louise +had used the file awkwardly. "What is that you have, Karen?" Madame von +Marwitz went on. Miss Woodruff held in her hand a large bouquet +enveloped in white paper.</p> + +<p>"An offering, Tante; they just arrived as I came in. Roses, I think."</p> + +<p>"I have already sent half a dozen boxes downstairs for Mrs. Forrester to +dispose of in the drawing-room. You will take off your things now, +child, and help me, please, with all these weary people. <i>Bon Dieu!</i> do +they really imagine that I am going to answer their inept effusions?"</p> + +<p>Miss Woodruff had unwrapped a magnificent bunch of pink roses and laid +them beside her guardian. "From that good little dark-faced lady of +yesterday, Tante."</p> + +<p>Madame von Marwitz, pausing meditatively over a note, glanced at them. +"The dark-faced lady?"</p> + +<p>"Don't you remember? Mrs. Harding. Here is her card. She sat and gazed +at you, so devoutly, while you talked to Mr. Drew and Lady Campion. And +she looked very poor. It must mean a great deal for her to buy roses in +January—<i>un suprême effort</i>," Miss Woodruff quoted, she and her +guardian having a host of such playful allusions.</p> + +<p>"I see her now," said Madame von Marwitz. "I see her face; +<i>congestionnée d'émotion, n'est-ce-pas</i>." She read the card that Karen +presented.</p> + +<p>"Silly woman. Take them away, child."</p> + +<p>"But no, Tante, it is not silly; it is very touching, I think; and you +have liked pink roses sometimes. It makes me sorry for that good little +lady that you shouldn't even look at her roses."</p> + +<p>"No. I see her. Dark red and very foolish. I do not like her or her +flowers. They look stupid flowers—thick and pink, like fat, smiling +cheeks. Take them away."</p> + +<p>"You have read what she says, Tante, here on the back? I call that very +pretty."</p> + +<p>"I see it. I see it too often. No. Go now, and take your hat off. Good +heavens, child, why did you wear that ancient sealskin cap?"</p> + +<p>Karen paused at the door, the rejected roses in her arms. "Why, Tante, +it was snowing a little; I didn't want to wear my best hat for a morning +walk."</p> + +<p>"Have you no other hat beside the best?"</p> + +<p>"No, Tante. And I like my little cap. You gave it to me—years +ago—don't you remember; the first time that we went to Russia +together."</p> + +<p>"Years ago, indeed, I should imagine from its appearance. Well; it makes +no difference; you will soon be leaving town and it will do for Cornwall +and Tallie."</p> + +<p>When Karen returned, Madame von Marwitz, whose feet were now finished, +took her place in an easy chair and said: "Now to work. Leave the +accounts for Schultz. I've glanced at some of them this morning and, as +usual, I seem to be spending twice as much as I make. How the money runs +away I cannot imagine. And Tallie sends me a great batch of bills from +Cornwall, <i>bon Dieu</i>!" <i>Bon Dieu</i> was a frequent ejaculation with Madame +von Marwitz, often half sighed, and with the stress laid on the first +word.</p> + +<p>"Never mind, you will soon be making a great deal more money," said +Karen.</p> + +<p>"It would be more to the point if I could manage to keep a little of +what I make. Schultz tells me that my investments in the Chinese +railroads are going badly, too. Put aside the bills. We will go through +the rest of the letters."</p> + +<p>For some time they worked at the pile of correspondence. Karen would +open each letter and read the signature; letters from those known to +Madame von Marwitz, or from her friends, were handed to her; the letters +signed by unknown names Karen read aloud:—begging letters; letters +requesting an autograph; letters recommending to the great woman's +kindly notice some budding genius, and letters of sheer adulation, +listened to, these last, sometimes with a dreamy indifference to the +end, interrupted sometimes with a sudden "<i>Assez</i>."</p> + +<p>There were a dozen such letters this morning and when Karen read the +signature of the last: "Your two little adorers Gladys and Ethel +Bocock," Madame von Marwitz remarked: "We need not have that. Put it +into the basket."</p> + +<p>"But, Tante," Karen protested, looking round at her with a smile, "you +must hear it; it is so funny and so nice."</p> + +<p>"So stupid I call it, my dear. They should not be encouraged."</p> + +<p>"But you must be kind, you will be kind, even to the stupid. See, here +are two of your photographs, they ask you to sign them. There is a +stamped and addressed envelope to return them in. Such love, Tante! such +torrents of love! You must listen."</p> + +<p>Madame von Marwitz resigned herself, her eyes fixed absently on the +smoke curling from her cigarette as if, in its fluctuating evanescence, +she saw a symbol of human folly. Gladys and Ethel lived in Clapham and +told her that they came in to all her concerts and sat for hours waiting +on the stairs. Their letter ended: "Everyone adores you, but no one can +adore you like we do. Oh, would you tell us the colour of your eyes? +Gladys thinks deep, dark grey, but I think velvety brown; we talk and +talk about it and can't decide. We mustn't take up any more of your +precious time.—Your two little adorers, Gladys and Ethel Bocock."</p> + +<p>"Bocock," Madame von Marwitz commented. "No one can adore me like they +do. Let us hope not. <i>Petites sottes.</i>"</p> + +<p>"You will sign the photographs, Tante—and you will say, yes, you +must—'To my kind little admirers.' Now be merciful."</p> + +<p>"Bocock," Madame von Marwitz mused, holding out an indulgent hand for +the pen that Karen gave her and allowing the blotter with the +photographs upon it to be placed upon her knee. "And they care for +music, <i>parbleu</i>! How many of such appreciators are there, do you think, +among my adorers? I do this to please you, Karen. It is against my +principles to encourage the <i>schwärmerei</i> of schoolgirls. There," she +signed quickly across each picture in a large, graceful and illegible +hand, adding, with a smile up at Karen,—"To my kind little admirers."</p> + +<p>Karen, satisfied, examined the signatures, held them to the fire for a +moment to preserve their vivid black in bold relief, and then put them +into their envelope, dropping in a small slip of paper upon which she +had written: "Her eyes are grey, flecked with black, and are not +velvety."</p> + +<p>They had now reached the end of the letters.</p> + +<p>"A very good, helpful child it is," said Madame von Marwitz. "You are +methodical, Karen. You will make a good housewife. That has never been +my talent."</p> + +<p>"And it is my only one," said Karen.</p> + +<p>"Ah, well, no; it is a good, solid little head in other directions, too. +And it is no mean musician that the child has become. Yes; there are +many well-known artists to whom I would listen less willingly than to my +Karen. It is only in the direction of <i>la toilette</i>," Madame von Marwitz +smiled with a touch of roguishness, "only in the direction of <i>la +toilette</i> that the taste is rather rudimentary as yet. I was very cross +last night, <i>hein</i>?"</p> + +<p>"It was disappointing not to have pleased you," said Karen, smiling.</p> + +<p>"And I was cross. Louise has her <i>souffre-douleur</i> expression this +morning to an exasperating degree."</p> + +<p>"We thought we were going to make the dress quite right," said Karen. +"It seemed very simple to arrange the lace around the shoulders; I stood +and Louise draped me; and Louise is clever, you know."</p> + +<p>"Not clever enough for that. It was all because with your solicitude +about Louise you wanted her to escape a scolding. She took the lace to +Mrs. Rolley too late and did not explain as I told her to do. And you +did not save her, you see. Put those two letters of Mr. Drew's in the +portfolio; so. And now come and sit, there. I want to have a serious +talk with you, Karen."</p> + +<p>Karen obeyed. Madame von Marwitz sat in her deep chair, the window +behind her. The fog had lifted and the pale morning sunlight struck +softly on the coils of her hair and fell on the face of the young girl +sitting before her. With her grey dress and folded hands and serene gaze +Karen looked very like the little convent <i>pensionnaire</i>. Madame von +Marwitz scrutinized her thoughtfully for some moments.</p> + +<p>"You are—how old is it, Karen?" she said at last.</p> + +<p>"I shall be twenty-four in March," said Karen.</p> + +<p>"<i>Bon Dieu!</i> I had not realised that it was so much; you are singularly +young for your years."</p> + +<p>"Am I, Tante? I don't know," Karen reflected, genially. "I often feel, +oh far older than the people I talk with."</p> + +<p>"Do you, <i>mon enfant</i>. Some children, it is true, are far wiser than +their elders. You are a wise child; but you are young, Karen, very young +for your years, in appearance, in demeanour, in candour of outlook. Tell +me; have you ever contemplated your future? asked yourself about it?"</p> + +<p>Karen, looking gravely at her, shook her head. "Hardly at all, Tante. Is +that very stupid?"</p> + +<p>"Not stupid, perhaps; but, again, very child-like. You live in the +present."</p> + +<p>"The past was so sad, Tante, and since I have been with you I have been +so happy. There has seemed no reason for thinking of anything but the +present."</p> + +<p>"Well, that is right. It is my wish to have you happy. As far as +material things go, too, your future shall be assured; I see to that. +But, you are twenty-three years old, Karen; you are a woman, and a child +no longer. Do you never dream dreams of <i>un prince charmant</i>; of a home +of your own, and children, and a life to build with one who loves you? +If I were to die—and one can count on nothing in life—you would be +very desolate."</p> + +<p>Karen, for some silent moments, looked at her guardian, intently and +with a touch of alarm. "No; I don't dream," she said then. "And perhaps +that is because you fill my life so, Tante. If someone came who loved me +very much and whom I loved, I should of course be glad to marry;—only +not if it would take me from you; I mean that I should want to be often +with you. And when I look forward at all I always take it for granted +that that will come in time—a husband and children, and a home of my +own. But there seems no reason to think of it now. I am quite contented +as I am."</p> + +<p>The kindly melancholy of Madame von Marwitz's gaze continued to fix her. +"But I am not contented for you," she observed. "I wish to see you +established. Youth passes, all too quickly, and its opportunities pass, +too. I should blame myself if our tie were to cut you off from a wider +life. Good husbands are by no means picked up on every bush. One cannot +take these things for granted. It is of a possible marriage I wish to +speak to you this morning, my Karen. We will talk of it quietly." Madame +von Marwitz raised herself in her chair to stretch her hand and take +from the mantelpiece a letter lying there. "This came this morning, my +Karen," she said. "From our good Lise Lippheim."</p> + + +<p>Frau Lippheim was a warm-hearted, talented, exuberant Jewess who had +been a fellow student of Madame von Marwitz's in girlhood. The +eagle-flights of genius had always been beyond her, yet her pinions were +wide and, unburdened by domestic solicitudes, she might have gone far. +As it was, married to a German musician much her inferior, and immersed +in the care and support of a huge family, she ranked only as second or +third rate. She gave music-lessons in Leipsig and from time to time, +playing in a quintet made up of herself, her eldest son and three eldest +girls, gave recitals in Germany, France and England. The Lippheim +quintet, in its sober way, held a small but dignified position.</p> + +<p>Karen had been deposited by her guardian more than once under the +Lippheim's overflowing roof in Leipsig, and it was a vision of Frau +Lippheim that came to her as her guardian unfolded the letter—of the +near-sighted, pale blue eyes, heavy, benignant features, and crinkled, +red-brown hair. So very ugly, almost repulsively so; yet so kind, so +valiant, so untiring. The thought of her was touching, and affectionate +solicitude almost effaced Karen's personal anxiety; for she could not +connect Frau Lippheim with any matrimonial project.</p> + +<p>Madame von Marwitz, glancing through her letter, looked up from the last +sheet. "I have talked with the good Lise more than once, Karen," she +said, "about a hope of hers. She first spoke of it some two years ago; +but I told her then that I would say nothing to you till you were older. +Now, hearing that I am going away, to leave you for so long, she writes +of it again. Did you know that Franz was very much attached to you, +Karen?" Franz was Frau Lippheim's eldest son.</p> + +<p>The vision that now flashed, luridly, for Karen, was that of an immense +Germanic face with bright, blinking eyes behind glasses; huge lips; a +flattened nose, modelled thickly at the corners, and an enormous laugh +that rolled back the lips and revealed suddenly the Semitic element and +a boundless energy and kindliness. She had always felt fond of Franz +until this moment. Now, amazed, appalled, a violent repulsion went +through her. She became pale. "No. I had not guessed that," she said.</p> + +<p>Her eyes were averted. Madame von Marwitz glanced at her and vexation +clouded her countenance. She knew that flinty, unresponsive look. In +moments of deep emotion Karen could almost disconcert her. Her face +expressed no hostility; but a sternness, blind and resisting, like that +of a rock. At such moments she did not look young.</p> + +<p>Madame von Marwitz, after her glance, also averted her eyes, sighing +impatiently. "I see that you do not care for the poor boy. He had hoped, +with his mother to back him, that he might have some chance of winning +you;—though it is not Franz who writes."</p> + +<p>She paused; but Karen said nothing. "You know that Franz has talent and +is beginning, now, to make money steadily. Lise tells me that. And I +would give you a little <i>dot</i>; enough to assure your future, and his. I +only speak of the material things because it is part of your +childishness never to consider them. Of him I would not have spoken at +all, had I not believed that you felt friendship and affection for him. +He is so good, so strong, so loyal that I did not think it impossible."</p> + +<p>After another silence Karen found something to say. "I have friendship +for him. That is quite different."</p> + +<p>"Why so, Karen?" Madame von Marwitz inquired. "Since you are not a +romantic school-girl, let us speak soberly. Friendship, true friendship, +for a man whose tastes are yours, whose pursuits you understand, is the +soundest basis upon which to build a marriage."</p> + +<p>"No. Only as a friend, a friend not too near, do I feel affection for +Franz. It is repulsive to me—the thought of anything else. It makes me +hate him," said Karen.</p> + +<p>"<i>Tiens!</i>" Madame von Marwitz opened her eyes in genuine surprise. "I +could not have imagined such, decisive feeling. I could not have +imagined that you despised the good Franz. I need not tell you that I do +not agree with you there."</p> + +<p>"I do not despise him."</p> + +<p>"Ah, there is more than mere negation in your look, your voice, my +child. It is pride, wounded pride, that speaks; and it is as if you told +me that I had less care for your pride than you had, and thought less of +your claims."</p> + +<p>"I do not think of my claims."</p> + +<p>"You feel them. You feel Franz your inferior."</p> + +<p>"I did not think of such things. I thought of his face, near me, and it +made me hate him."</p> + +<p>Karen continued to look aside with a sombre gaze. And, after examining +her for another moment, Madame von Marwitz held out her hand. "Come," +she said, "come here, child. I have blundered. I see that I have +blundered. Franz shall be sent about his business. Have I hurt you? Do +not think of it again."</p> + +<p>The girl got up slowly, as if her stress of feeling made her awkward. +Stumbling, she knelt down beside her guardian and, taking the hand and +holding it against her eyes, she said in a voice heavy with unshed +tears: "Am I a burden? Am I an anxiety? Let me go away, then. I can +teach. I can teach music and languages. I can do translations, so many +things. You have educated me so well. You will always be my dear friend +and I shall see you from time to time. But it is as you say, I am a +woman now. I would rather go away than have you troubled by me."</p> + +<p>Madame von Marwitz's face, as she listened to the heavy voice, that +trembled a little over its careful words, darkened. "It is not well what +you say, Karen," she replied. "No. You speak to me as you have no right +to speak, as though you had a grievance against me. What have I ever +done that you should ask me whether you are a burden to me?"</p> + +<p>"Only—" said Karen, her voice more noticeably trembling—"only that it +seemed to me that I must be in the way if you could think of Franz as a +husband for me. I do not know why I feel that. But it hurt me so much +that it seemed to me to be true."</p> + +<p>"It has always been my joy to care for you," said Madame von Marwitz. "I +have always loved you like my own child. I do not admit that to think of +Franz as a husband for you was to do you a wrong. I would not listen to +an unfitting suitor for my child. It is you who have hurt me—deeply +hurt me—by so misunderstanding me." Sorrow and reproach grew in her +voice.</p> + +<p>"Forgive me," said Karen, who still held the hand before her eyes.</p> + +<p>Madame von Marwitz drew her hand gently away and raising Karen's head so +that she could look at her, "I forgive you, indeed, Karen," she said. +"How could I not forgive you? But, child, do not hurt me so again. Never +speak of leaving me again. You must never leave me except to go where a +fuller happiness beckons. You do not know how they stabbed—those words +of yours. That you could think them, believe them! No, Karen, it was not +well. Not only are you dear to me for yourself; there is another bond. +You were dear to him. You were beside me in the hour of my supreme +agony. You desecrate our sacred memories when you allow small suspicions +and fears to enter your thoughts of me. So much has failed me in my +life. May I not trust that my child will never fail me?"</p> + +<p>Tragic grief gazed from her eyes and Karen's eyes echoed it.</p> + +<p>"Forgive me, Tante, I have hurt you. I have been stupid," she spoke +almost dully; but Madame von Marwitz was looking into the eyes, deep +wells of pain and self-reproach.</p> + +<p>"Yes, you have hurt me, <i>ma chérie</i>," she replied, leaning now her cheek +against Karen's head. "And it is not loving to forget that when a cup of +suffering brims, a drop the more makes it overflow. You are harsh +sometimes, Karen, strangely harsh."</p> + +<p>"Forgive me," Karen repeated.</p> + +<p>Madame von Marwitz put her arms around her, still leaning her head +against hers. "With all my heart, my child, with all my heart," she +said. "But do not hurt me so again. Do not forget that I live at the +edge of a precipice; an inadvertent footstep, and I crash down to the +bottom, to lie mangled. Ah, my child, may life never tear you, burn you, +freeze you, as it has torn and burned and frozen me. Ah, the memories, +the cruel memories!" Great sighs lifted her breast. She murmured, while +Karen knelt enfolding her, "His dead face rises before me. The face that +we saw, Karen. And I know to the full again my unutterable woe." It was +rare with Madame von Marwitz to allude thus explicitly to the tragedy of +her life, the ambiguous, the dreadful death of her husband. Karen knelt +holding her, pale with the shared memory. They were so for a long time. +Then, sighing softly, "<i>Bon Dieu! bon Dieu!</i>" Madame von Marwitz rose +and, gently putting the girl aside, she went into her bedroom and closed +the door.</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="CHAPTER_VII" id="CHAPTER_VII"></a>CHAPTER VII</h2> + + +<p>It was a hard, chill morning and Gregory, sauntering up and down the +platform at Euston beside the open doors of the long steamer-train, felt +that the taste and smell of London was, as nowhere else, concentrated, +compressed, and presented to one in tabloid form, as it were, at a +London station on a winter morning. It was a taste and smell that he, +personally, rather liked, singularly compounded as it was, to his fancy, +of cold metals and warm sooty surfaces; of the savour of kippers cooking +over innumerable London grates and the aroma of mugs of beer served out +over innumerable London bars; something at once acrid yet genial, +suggesting sordidness and unlimited possibility. The vibration of +adventure was in it and the sentiment, oddly intermingled, of human +solidarity and personal detachment.</p> + +<p>Gregory, as he strolled and waited for his old friend and whilom Oxford +tutor, Professor Blackburn, whom he had promised to see off, had often +to pause or to deviate in his course; for, though it was still early, +and the season not a favourite one for crossing, the platform was quite +sufficiently crowded, and crowded, evidently, with homeward-bound +Americans, mostly women. Gregory tended to think of America and its +people with the kindly lightness common to his type. Their samenesses +didn't interest him, and their differences were sometimes vexatious. He +had a vague feeling that they'd really better have been Colonials and be +done with it. Professor Blackburn last night had reproved this insular +levity. He was going over with an array of discriminations that Gregory +had likened to an explorer's charts and instruments. He intended to +investigate the most minute and measure the most immense, to lecture +continually, to dine out every evening and to write a book of some real +appropriateness when he came home. Gregory said that all that he asked +of America was that it should keep its institutions to itself and share +its pretty girls, and the professor told him that he knew more about the +latter than the former. There were not many pretty girls on the platform +this morning, though he remarked one rather pleasing young person who +sat idly on a pile of luggage and fixed large, speculative, innocently +assured eyes upon him when he went by, while near her her mother and a +tawny sister disputed bitterly with a porter. Most of the ladies who +hastened to and fro seemed, while very energetic, also very jaded. They +were packed as tightly with experiences as their boxes with contraband +clothing, and they had both, perhaps, rather heavily on their minds, +wondering, it was probable, how they were to get them through. Some of +them, strenuous, eye-glassed and scholastic, looked, however, as they +marshalled their pathetically lean luggage, quite innocent of material +trophies.</p> + +<p>Among these alien and unfamiliar visages, Gregory caught sight suddenly +of one that was alien yet recognizable. He had seen the melancholy, +simian features before, and after a moment he placed the neat, black +person, walking beside a truck piled high with enormous boxes, as +Louise, Madame von Marwitz's maid. To recognise Louise was to think of +Miss Woodruff. Gregory looked around the platform with a new interest.</p> + +<p>Miss Woodruff was nowhere to be seen, but a new element pervaded the +dingy place, and it hardly needed the presence of four or five richly +dressed ladies bearing sheaves of flowers, or that of two silk-hatted +impresario-looking gentlemen with Jewish noses, to lead Gregory to infer +that the element was Madame von Marwitz's, and that he had, +inadvertently, fallen upon the very morning of her departure. Already an +awareness and an expectancy was abroad that reminded him of that in the +concert hall. The contagion of celebrity had made itself felt even +before the celebrity herself was visible; but, in another moment, Madame +von Marwitz had appeared upon the platform, surrounded by cohorts of +friends. Dressed in a long white cloak and flowing in sables, a white +lace veil drooping about her shoulders, a sumptuous white feather +curving from her brow to her back, she moved amidst the scene like a +splendid, dreamy ship entering some grimy Northern harbour.</p> + +<p>Mrs. Forrester, on heels as high as a fairy-godmother's and wearing a +strange velvet cloak and a stranger velvet bonnet, trotted beside her; +Sir Alliston was on the other hand, his delicate Vandyke features nipped +with the cold; Mr. Claude Drew walked behind and before went Eleanor +Scrotton, smiling a tight, stricken smile of triumph and responsibility. +As the group passed Gregory, Miss Scrotton caught sight of him.</p> + +<p>"We are in plenty of time, I see," she said. "Dear me! it has been a +morning! Mercedes is always late. Could you, I wonder, induce these +people to move away. She so detests being stared at."</p> + +<p>Eleanor, as usual, roused a mischievous spirit in Gregory. "I'm afraid +I'm helpless," he replied. "We're in a public place, and a cat may look +at a king. Besides, who could help looking at those marvellous clothes."</p> + +<p>"It isn't a question of cats but of impertinent human beings," Miss +Scrotton returned with displeasure. "Allow me, Madam," she forged a +majestic way through a gazing group.</p> + +<p>"Where is Miss Woodruff?" Gregory inquired. He was wondering.</p> + +<p>"Tiresome girl," Miss Scrotton said, watching the ladies with the +flowers who gathered around her idol. "She will be late, I'm afraid. She +had forgotten Victor."</p> + +<p>"Victor? Is Victor the courier? Why does Miss Woodruff have to remember +him?"</p> + +<p>"No, no. Victor is Mercedes's dog, her dearly loved dog," said Miss +Scrotton, her impatience with an ignorance that she suspected of +wilfulness tempered, as usual, by the satisfaction of giving any and +every information about Madame von Marwitz. "It is a sort of +superstition with her that he should always be on the platform to see +her off. It will be serious, really serious, if Karen doesn't get him +here in time. It may depress Mercedes for the whole of the voyage."</p> + +<p>"And where has she gone to get him?"</p> + +<p>"Oh, she turned back nearly at once. She was with us in the carriage and +we passed Louise in the omnibus with the boxes and fortunately Karen +noticed that Victor wasn't with her. It turned out, when we stopped and +asked Louise about him, that she had given him to the footman to take +for a walk and she thought he had been brought back to Karen. Karen took +a hansom at once and went back. She really ought to have seen to it +before starting. I do hope she will get him here in time. Madam, if you +please; we really can't get by."</p> + +<p>A little woman, stout but sprightly, in whom Gregory recognized the +agitated mother of the pretty girl, evaded Miss Scrotton's extended hand +and darted past her to place herself in front of Madame von Marwitz. She +wore a large, box-like hat from which a blue veil hung. Her small +features, indeterminate in form and incoherent in assemblage, expressed +to an extraordinary degree determination and strategy. She faced the +great woman.</p> + +<p>"Baroness," she said, in swift yet deliberate tones; "allow me to +present myself; Mrs. Hamilton K. Slifer. We have mutual friends; Mrs. +Tollman, Mrs. General Tollman of St. Louis, Missouri. She had the +pleasure of meeting you in Paris some years ago. An old family friend of +ours. My girls, Baroness; Maude and Beatrice. They won't forget this +day. We're simply wild about you, Baroness. We were at your concert the +other night." Maude, the lean and tawny, and Beatrice, the dark and +pretty, had followed deftly in their mother's wake and were smiling, +Maude with steely brightness, Beatrice with nonchalant assurance, at +Madame von Marwitz.</p> + +<p>"<i>Bon Dieu!</i>" the great woman muttered. She gazed away from the Slifers +and about her with helpless consternation. Then, slightly bowing her +head and murmuring: "I thank you, Madam," she moved on, her friends +closing round her. Miss Scrotton, pale with wrath, put the Slifers aside +as she passed them.</p> + +<p>"Well, girls, I knew I could do it!" Mrs. Slifer ejaculated, drawing a +deep breath. They stood near Gregory, and Beatrice, who had adjusted her +camera, was taking a series of snaps of the retreating celebrity. "We've +met her, anyway, and perhaps if she ever comes on deck we'll get another +chance. That's a real impertinent woman she's got with her. Did you see +her try and shove me back?"</p> + +<p>"Never mind, mother," said Beatrice, who was evidently easy-going; "I +snapped her as she did it and she looked ugly enough to turn milk sour. +My! do look at that girl with the queer cap and the big dog. She's a +freak and no mistake! Stand back, Maude, and let me have a shot at her."</p> + +<p>"Why, I believe it's the adopted daughter!" Maude exclaimed. "Don't you +remember. She was in the front row and we heard those people talking +about her. I think she's <i>distinguée</i> myself. She looks like a Russian +countess."</p> + +<p>It was indeed Miss Woodruff who had arrived and Gregory, whose eyes +followed the Slifers', was aware of a sudden emotion on seeing her. It +was the emotion of his dream, touched and startled and sweet, and even +more than in his dream she made him think of a Hans Andersen heroine +with the little sealskin cap on her fair hair, and a long furred coat +reaching to her ankles. She stood holding Victor by a leash, looking +about her with a certain anxiety.</p> + +<p>Gregory made his way to her and when she saw him she started to meet +him, gladly, but without surprise. "Where is Tante?" she said, "Is she +already in the train? Did she send you for me?"</p> + +<p>"You are in very good time," he reassured her. "She is over there—you +see her feather now, don't you. I'll take you to her."</p> + +<p>"Thank you so much. It has been a great rush. You have heard of the +misfortunes? By good chance I found the quickest cab."</p> + +<p>She was walking beside him, her eyes fixed before them on the group +where she saw her guardian's plume and veil. "I don't know what Tante +would have done if Victor had not been here in time to say good-bye to +her."</p> + +<p>Madame von Marwitz was holding a parting reception before the open door +of her saloon carriage. Flowers and fruits lay on the tables. Louise and +Miss Scrotton's maid piled rugs and cushions on the chairs and divans. +One of the Jewish gentlemen stood with his hat pushed off his forehead +talking in low, important tones to a pallid young newspaper man who made +rapid notes.</p> + +<p>Madame von Marwitz at once caught sight of Karen and Victor. Past the +intervening heads she beckoned Karen to come to her and she and Gregory +exchanged salutes. In her swift smile on seeing him he read a mild +amusement; she could only think that, like everybody else, he had come +to see her off.</p> + +<p>The cohorts opened to receive Miss Woodruff and Madame von Marwitz +enfolded her and stooped to kiss Victor's head.</p> + +<p>Gregory watched the little scene, which was evidently touching to all +who witnessed it, and then turned to find Professor Blackburn at his +elbow. He, too, it appeared, had been watching Madame von Marwitz. "Yes; +I heard her two years ago in Oxford," he said; "and even my antique +blood was stirred, as much by her personality as by her music. A most +romantic, most pathetic woman. What eyes and what a smile!"</p> + +<p>"I see that you are one of the stricken," said Gregory. "Shall I +introduce you to my old friend, Mrs. Forrester? She'll no doubt be able +to get you a word with Madame Okraska, if you want to hear her speak."</p> + +<p>No, the professor said, he preferred to keep his idols remote and +vaguely blurred with incense. "Who is the young Norse maiden?" he +inquired; "the one you were with. Those singular ladies are accosting +her now."</p> + +<p>Karen Woodruff, on the outskirts of the group, had been gazing at her +guardian with a constrained smile in which Gregory detected +self-mastery, and turned her eyes upon the Slifers as the professor +asked his question. Mrs. Slifer, marshalling her girls, and stooping to +pat Victor, was introducing herself, and while Gregory told the +professor that that was Miss Woodruff, Madame Okraska's ward, she bent +to expound to the Slifers the inscription on Victor's collar, speaking, +it was evident, with kindness. Gregory was touched by the tolerance with +which, in the midst of her own sad thoughts, she satisfied the Slifers' +curiosity.</p> + +<p>"Then she really is Norse," said the professor.</p> + +<p>"Really half Norse."</p> + +<p>"I like her geniality and her reticence," said the professor, watching +the humours of the little scene. "Those enterprising ladies won't get +much out of her. Ah, they must relinquish her now; her guardian is +asking for her. I suppose it's time that I got into my compartment."</p> + +<p>The groups were breaking up and the travellers, detaching themselves +from their friends, were taking their places. Madame von Marwitz, poised +above a sea of upturned faces on the steps of her carriage, bent to +enfold Karen Woodruff once more. Doors then slammed, whistles blew, +green flags fluttered, and the long train moved slowly out of the +station.</p> + +<p>Standing at a little distance from the crowd, and holding Victor by his +leash, Miss Woodruff looked after the train with a fixed and stiffened +smile. She was near tears. The moment was not a propitious one for +speaking to her; yet Gregory felt that he could not go without saying +good-bye. He approached her and she turned grave eyes upon him.</p> + +<p>"And you are going to Cornwall, now?" said Gregory, patting Victor's +head.</p> + +<p>"Yes; I go to-morrow," said Miss Woodruff in a gentle voice.</p> + +<p>"Have you friends there?" Gregory asked, "and books? Things to amuse +you?"</p> + +<p>"We see the rector and his wife and one or two old ladies now and then. +But it is very remote, you know. That is why my guardian loves it so +much. She needs the solitude after her rushing life. But books; oh yes; +my guardian has an excellent library there; she is a great reader; I +could read all day, in every language, if I wanted to. As for amusement, +Mrs. Talcott and I are very busy; we see after the garden and the little +farm; I practice and take Victor out for walks."</p> + +<p>She had quite mastered her emotion and Gregory could look up at her +frankly. "Isn't there something I could send you," he said, "to help to +pass the time? Magazines? Do you have them? And sweets? Do you like +sweets?" His manner was half playful and he smiled at her as he might +have smiled at a young school-girl. If only those wide braids under the +little cap had been hanging over her shoulders the manner would have +been justified. As it was, Gregory felt with some bewilderment that his +behaviour was hardly normal. He was not in the habit of offering +magazines and sweets to young women. But his solicitude expressed itself +in these unconventional forms and luckily she found nothing amiss with +them. She was accustomed, no doubt, to a world where such offerings +passed freely.</p> + +<p>"It is very kind of you," said Miss Woodruff. "I should indeed like to +see a review now and then. Mr. Drew is writing another little article on +my guardian, in one of this month's reviews, I did not hear which one; +and I would like to see that very much. But sweets? No; when I like them +I like them too much and eat too many and then I am sorry. Please don't +send me sweets." She was smiling.</p> + +<p>"What do you like to eat, then, that doesn't make you sorry—even when +you eat a great deal?"</p> + +<p>"Roast-beef!" she said, laughing, and the tip of her tongue was caught +between her teeth. He was charmed to feel that, for the moment, at +least, he had won her from her sadness.</p> + +<p>"But you get roast-beef in Cornwall."</p> + +<p>"Oh, excellent. I will not have roast-beef, please."</p> + +<p>"Fruit, then? You like fruit?"</p> + +<p>"Yes; indeed."</p> + +<p>"And you don't get much fruit in Cornwall in winter."</p> + +<p>"Only apples," she confessed, "and dried apricots."</p> + +<p>He elicited from her that nectarines and grapes were her favourite +fruits. But in the midst of their talk she became suddenly grave again.</p> + +<p>"I do not believe that you had a single word with her after I came!"</p> + +<p>His face betrayed his bewilderment.</p> + +<p>"Tante," she enlightened him. "But before then? You did speak with her? +She had sent you to look for me?" The depths of her misconception as to +his presence were apparent.</p> + +<p>"No; it was by chance I saw you," he said. "And I didn't have any talk +with Madame von Marwitz." He had no time to undeceive her further if it +had been worth while to undeceive her, for Mrs. Forrester, detaching +herself from the larger group of bereaved ones, joined them.</p> + +<p>"I can't give you a lift, Gregory?" she asked. "You are going citywards? +We are all feeling very bleak and despoiled, aren't we? What an awful +place a station is when someone has gone away from it."</p> + +<p>"Mrs. Forrester," said Karen Woodruff, with wide eyes, "he did not have +one single word with her; Mr. Jardine did not get any talk at all with +Tante. Oh, that should have been managed."</p> + +<p>But Mrs. Forrester, though granting to his supposed plight a glance of +sympathetic concern, was in a hurry to get home and he was, again, +spared the necessity of a graceless confession. He piloted them through +the crowd, saw them—Miss Woodruff, Mrs. Forrester and Victor,—fitted +into Mrs. Forrester's brougham, and then himself got into a hansom. It +was still the atmosphere of the dream that hovered about him as he +decided at what big fruit-shop he should stop to order a box of +nectarines. He wanted her to find them waiting for her in Cornwall. And +the very box of nectarines, the globes of sombre red fruit nested in +cotton-wool, seemed part of the dream. He knew that he was behaving +curiously; but she was, after all, the little Hans Andersen heroine and +one needn't think of ordinary customs where she was concerned.</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="CHAPTER_VIII" id="CHAPTER_VIII"></a>CHAPTER VIII</h2> + + +<div class="blockquot"><p>"Les Solitudes,<br /> +"February 2nd.</p> + +<p>"Dear Mr. Jardine,—How very, very kind of you. I could hardly +believe it when Mrs. Talcott told me that a box was here for me. I +could think of nothing to explain it. Then when we opened it and +saw, row upon row, those beautiful things like pearls in a +casket—it made me feel quite dazed. Nectarines are not things that +you expect to have, in rows, all to yourself. Mrs. Talcott and I +ate two at once, standing there in the hall where we opened them; +we couldn't wait for chairs and plates and silver knives; things +taste best of all when eaten greedily, I think, and I think that +these will all be eaten greedily. It is so kind of you. I thank you +very much.—Yours sincerely,</p> + +<p>"Karen Woodruff."</p></div> + +<hr style='width: 45%;' /> + +<div class="blockquot"><p>"Les Solitudes,<br /> +"February 9th.</p> + +<p>"Dear Mr. Jardine,—It is most kind of you to write me this nice +note and to send me these reviews. I often have to miss the things +that come out in the reviews about my guardian, for the +press-cuttings go to her. Mr. Drew says many clever things, does he +not; he understands music and he understands—at least almost—what +my guardian is to music; but he does not, of course, understand +her. He only sees the greatness and sees it made out of great +things. When one knows a great person intimately one sees all the +little things that make them great; often such very little things; +things that Mr. Drew could not know. That is why his article is, to +me, rather pretentious; nor will you like it, I think. He fills up +with subtleties the gaps in his knowledge, and that makes it all so +artificial. But I am most glad to have, it.—Sincerely yours,</p> + +<p>"Karen Woodruff."</p></div> + +<hr style='width: 45%;' /> + +<div class="blockquot"><p>"Les Solitudes,<br /> +"February 18th.</p> + +<p>"Dear Mr. Jardine,—The beautiful great box of fruit arrived +to-day. It is too good and kind of you. I am wondering now whether +muscatel grapes are not even more my favourites than nectarines! +This is a day of rain and wind, soft rain blowing in gusts and the +wind almost warm. Victor and I have come in very wet and now we are +both before the large wood fire. London seems so far away that New +York hardly seems further. You heard of the great ovation that my +guardian had. I had a note from her yesterday and two of the New +York papers. If you care to read them I will gladly send them; they +tell in full about the first great concert she has given and the +criticism is good. I will ask you to let me have them back when you +have read them.—With many, many thanks.—Sincerely yours,</p> + +<p>"Karen Woodruff."</p></div> + +<hr style='width: 45%;' /> + +<div class="blockquot"><p>"Les Solitudes,<br /> +"February 28th.</p> + +<p>"Dear Mr. Jardine,—I am glad that you liked the box of snowdrops +and that they reached you safely, packed in their moss. I got them +in a little copse a few miles from here. The primroses will soon be +coming now and, if you like, I will send you some of them. I know +one gets them early in London; but don't you like best to open +yourself a box from the country and see them lying in bunches with +their leaves. I like even the slight flatness they have; but mine +are very little flattened; I am good at packing flowers! My +guardian always tells me so! You are probably right in not caring +to see the papers; they are always much alike in what they say. It +was only the glimpse of the great enthusiasm they gave that I +thought might have interested you. Next week she goes to Chicago. I +am afraid she will be very tired. But Miss Scrotton will take care +of her.—Sincerely yours,</p> + +<p>"Karen Woodruff."</p></div> + +<hr style='width: 45%;' /> + +<div class="blockquot"><p>"Les Solitudes,<br /> +"March 17th.</p> + +<p>"Dear Mr. Jardine,—I have taken up my pen for only two purposes +since I left London—to write my weekly letter to my guardian—and +to thank you over and over again. Only now you have quite spoiled +Mrs. Talcott and me for our stewed dried fruit that we used to +think so nice before we lived on grapes and nectarines. Indeed I +have not forgotten the primroses and I shall be so delighted to +pick them for you when the time comes, though I suspect it is sheer +kindness in you that gives me the pleasure of sending you +something. Your nice letter interested me very much. Yes, we have +'Dominique' in the library here, and I will perhaps soon read it; I +say perhaps, because I am reading 'Wilhelm Meister'—my guardian +was quite horrified with me when she found I had never read it—and +must finish that first, and it is very long. Is 'Dominique' indeed +your favourite French novel? My guardian places Stendahl and +Flaubert first. For myself I do not care much for French novels. I +like the Russians best.—Sincerely yours,</p> + +<p>"Karen Woodruff."</p></div> + +<hr style='width: 45%;' /> + +<div class="blockquot"><p>"Les Solitudes,<br /> +"April 2nd.</p> + +<p>"Dear Mr. Jardine,—You make a charming picture of the primroses in +the blue and white bowls for me. And of your view over the park. +London can be so beautiful; I, too, care for it very much. It is +beautiful here now; the hedges all white with blackthorn and the +woods full of primroses. My guardian must now be in San Francisco! +She is back in New York in May, and is to give three more great +concerts there. I am impatiently waiting for my next letter from +her. I am so glad you like the primroses. Many, many thanks for the +fruit.—Yours sincerely,</p> + +<p>"Karen Woodruff."</p></div> + +<hr style='width: 45%;' /> + +<div class="blockquot"><p>"Les Solitudes,<br /> +"April 5th.</p> + +<p>"Dear Mr. Jardine,—What you say makes me feel quite troubled. I +know you write playfully, yet sometimes one can <i>dire la vérité en +riant</i>, and it is as if you had found my letters very empty and +unresponsive. I did not mean them to be that of course; but I am +not at all in the habit of writing letters except to people I am +very intimate with. Indeed, I am in the habit only of writing to my +guardian, and it is difficult for me to think that other people +will be interested in the things I am doing. And in one way I do so +little here. Nothing that I could believe interesting to you; +nothing really but have walks and practise my music and read; and +talk sometimes with Mrs. Talcott. About once in two months the +vicar's wife has tea with us, and about once in two months we have +tea with her; that is all. And I am sure you cannot like +descriptions of landscapes. I love to look at landscapes and +dislike reading what other people have to say about them; and is +not that the same with you? It is quite different that you should +write to me of things and people; for you see so many and you do so +much and you know that to someone in the depths of the country all +this must be very interesting. So do not punish me for my dullness +by ceasing to write to me.—Sincerely yours,</p> + +<p>"Karen Woodruff."</p></div> + +<hr style='width: 45%;' /> + +<div class="blockquot"><p>"Les Solitudes,<br /> +"April 10th.</p> + +<p>"Dear Mr. Jardine,—Of course I will write you descriptions of +landscapes!—and of all my daily routine, if you really care to +hear. No; I am not lonely, though of course I miss my guardian very +much. I have the long, long walks with Victor, in wet weather over +the inland moors along the roads, and in fine weather along the +high cliff paths; sometimes we walk ten miles in an afternoon and +come back very tired for tea. In the evenings I sit with Mrs. +Talcott over the fire. You ask me to describe Mrs. Talcott to you, +and to tell you all about her. She is with me now, and we are in +the morning room, where we always sit; for the great music-room +that opens on the verandah and fronts the sea is shut when my +guardian is not here. This room looks over the sea, too, but from +the side of the house and through an arabesque of trees. The walls +are filled with books and flowering bulbs stand in the windows. We +have had our tea and the sunlight slants in over the white freesia +and white hyacinths. There are primroses everywhere, too, and they +make the room seem more full of sunlight. You could hardly see a +more beautiful room. Mrs. Talcott sits before the fire with her +skirt turned up and her feet in square-toed shoes on the fender and +looks into the fire. She is short and thick and very old, but she +does not seem old; she is hard; not soft and withered. She has a +large, calm face with very yellow skin, and very light blue eyes +set deeply under white eyebrows. Her hair is white and drawn up +tightly to a knot at the top of her head. She wears no cap and +dresses always in black; very plain, with, in the daytime, a collar +of white lawn turning over a black silk stock and bow, such as +young girls wear, and, in the evening, a little fichu of white net, +very often washed, and thin and starchy. And since her skirts are +always very short, and her figure so square, she makes one think of +a funny little girl as well as of an old woman. She comes from the +State of Maine, and she remembers a striving, rough existence in a +little town on the edge of wildernesses. She is a very distant +relation of my guardian's. My guardian's maternal grandparents were +Spanish and lived in New Orleans, and a sister of Señor Bastida's +(Bastida was the name of my guardian's grandfather)—married a New +Englander, from Vermont—and that New Englander was an uncle of +Mrs. Talcott's—do you follow!—her uncle married my guardian's +aunt, you see. Mrs. Talcott, in her youth, stayed sometimes in New +Orleans, and dearly loved the beautiful Dolores Bastida who left +her home to follow Pavelek Okraska. Poor Dolores Okraska had many +sorrows. Her husband was not a good husband and her parents died. +She was very unhappy and before her baby came—she was in Poland +then,—she sent for Mrs. Talcott. Mrs. Talcott had been married, +too, and had lost her husband and was very poor. But she left +everything and crossed to Europe in the steerage—and what it must +have been in those days!—imagine!—to join her unfortunate +relative. My guardian has told me of it; she calls Mrs. Talcott: +'<i>Un coeur d'or dans un corps de bois.</i>' She stayed with Dolores +Okraska until she died a little time after. She brought up her +child. They were in great want; my guardian remembers that she had +sometimes not enough to eat. When she was older and had already +become famous, some relatives of the Bastidas heard of her and +helped; but those were years of great struggle for Mrs. Talcott; +and it is so strange to think of that provincial, simple American +woman with her rustic ways and accent, living in Cracow and Warsaw, +and Vienna, and steadily doing what she had set herself to do. She +speaks French with a most funny accent even yet, though she spent +so many years abroad, so many in Paris. I do not know what would +have become of my guardian if it had not been for her. Her father +loved her, but was very erratic and undisciplined. Mrs. Talcott has +been with my guardian for almost all the time ever since. It is a +great and silent devotion. She is very reticent. She never speaks +of herself. She talks to me sometimes in the evenings about her +youth in Maine, and the long white winters and the sleigh-rides; +and the tapping of the maple-trees in Spring; and the nutting +parties in the fall of the year. I think that she likes to remember +all this; and I love to hear her, for it reminds me of what my +father used to tell me of his youth; and I love especially to hear +of the trailing arbutus, that lovely little flower that grows +beneath the snow; how one brushes back the snow in early Spring and +finds the waxen, sweet, pink flowers and dark, shining leaves under +it. And I always imagine that it is a doubled nostalgia that I feel +and that my mother's Norway in Spring was like it, with snow and +wet woods. There is a line that brings it all over me: 'In May, +when sea-winds pierced our solitudes.' It is by Emerson. The Spring +here is very lovely, too, but it has not the sweetness that arises +from snow and a long winter. Through the whole winter the fuchsias +keep their green against the white walls of the little village, +huddled in between the headlands at the edge of the sea beneath us. +You know this country, don't you? The cliffs are so beautiful. I +love best the great headlands towards the Lizard, black rock or +grey, all spotted with rosettes of orange lichen with sweeps of +grey-green sward sloping to them. Victor becomes quite intoxicated +with the wind on these heights and goes in circles round and round, +like a puppy. Later on, all the slopes are veiled in the delicate +little pink thrift, and the stone walls are festooned with white +campion.</p> + +<p>"Then Mrs. Talcott and I have a great deal to do about the little +farm. Mrs. Talcott is so clever at this. She makes it pay besides +giving my guardian all the milk and eggs and bacon, too, she needs. +There is a farmer and his wife, and a gardener and a boy; but with +the beautiful garden we have here it takes most of the day to see +to everything. The farmer's wife is a stern looking woman, but +really very gentle, and she sings hymns all the day long while she +works. She has a very good voice, so that it is sweet to hear her. +Yes; I do play. I have a piano here in the morning-room, and I am +very fond of my music. And, as I have told you, I read a good deal, +too. So there you have all the descriptions and the details. I +liked so much what you told me of the home of your boyhood. When I +saw you, I knew that you were a person who cared for all these +things, even if you were not an artist. What you tell me, too, of +the law-courts and the strange people you see there, and the ugly, +funny side of human life amused me, though it seems to me more +sorrowful than you perhaps feel it. People amuse me very much +sometimes, too; but I have not your eye for their foibles. You draw +them rather as Forain does; I should do it, I suspect, with more +sentimentality. The fruit comes regularly once a week, and punctual +thanks seem inappropriate for what has become an institution. But +you know how grateful I am. And for the weekly <i>Punch</i>;—so +<i>gemütlich</i> and <i>bien pensant</i> and, often, very, very funny, with a +funniness that the Continental papers never give one; their jests +are never the jests of the <i>bien pensant</i>. It is the acrid +atmosphere of the café they bring, not that of the dinner party, +or, better still, for <i>Punch</i>, the picnic. The reviews, too, are +very interesting. Mrs. Talcott reads them a good deal, she who +seldom reads. She says sometimes very acute and amusing things +about politics. My guardian has a horror of politics; but they +rather interest Mrs. Talcott. I know nothing of them; but I do not +think that my guardian would agree with what you say; I think that +she would belong more to your party of freedom and progress. What a +long letter I have written to you! I have never written such a long +one in my life before, except to my guardian.—Sincerely yours,</p> + +<p>"Karen Woodruff."</p></div> + +<hr style='width: 45%;' /> + +<div class="blockquot"><p>"Les Solitudes,<br /> +"April 15th.</p> + +<p>"Dear Mr. Jardine,—How very nice to hear that you are coming to +Cornwall for Easter and will be near us—at least Falmouth is quite +near with a motor. It is beautiful country there, too; I have +driven there with my guardian, and it is a beautiful town to see, +lying in a wide curve around its blue bay. It is softer and milder +than here. A bend of the coast makes so much difference. But why am +I telling you all this, when of course you know it! I forget that +anyone knows Cornwall but Mrs. Talcott and my guardian and me. But +you have not seen this bit of the coast, and it excites me to think +that I shall introduce you to our cliffs and to Les Solitudes. If +only my guardian were here! It is not itself, this place, without +her. It is not to see Les Solitudes if you do not see the great +music-room opening its four long windows on the sea and sky; and my +guardian sitting in the shade of the verandah looking over the sea. +But Mrs. Talcott and I will do the honours as best we may and tell +you everything about my guardian that you will wish to know. Let us +hear beforehand the day you are coming; for the cook makes +excellent cakes, and we will have some baked specially for you. How +very nice to see you again.—Sincerely yours,</p> + +<p>"Karen Woodruff."</p></div> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="CHAPTER_IX" id="CHAPTER_IX"></a>CHAPTER IX</h2> + + +<p>On a chill, sunny morning in April, Gregory Jardine went out on to his +balcony before breakfast and stood leaning there as was his wont, +looking down over his view. The purpling tree-tops in the park emerged +from a light morning mist. The sky, of the palest blue, seemed very high +and was streaked with white. Spring was in the air and he could see +daffodils shining here and there on the slopes of green.</p> + +<p>He had just read Karen Woodruff's last letter, and he was in the mood, +charmed, amused and touched, that her letters always brought. Never, he +thought, had there been such sweet and such funny letters; so frank and +so impersonal; so simple and so mature. During these months of their +correspondence the thought of her had been constantly in his mind, +mingling now not only with his own deep and distant memories, but, it +seemed, with hers, so that while she still walked with him over the +hills of his boyhood and stooped to look with him at the spring gushing +from under the bracken, they also brushed together the dry, soft snow +from the trailing arbutus, or stood above the sea on the Cornish +headlands. Never in his life had he so possessed the past and been so +aware of it. His youth was with him, even though he still thought of his +relation to Karen Woodruff as a paternal and unequal one; imagining a +crisis in which his wisdom and knowledge of the world might serve her; a +foolish love-affair, perhaps, that he would disentangle; or a disaster +connected with the great woman under whose protection she lived; he +could so easily imagine disasters befalling Madame von Marwitz and +involving everyone around her. And now in a week's time he would be in +Cornwall and seeing again the little Hans Andersen heroine. This was the +thought that emerged from the sweet vagrancy of his mood; and, as it +came, he was pierced suddenly with a strange rapture and fear that had +in it the very essence of the spring-time.</p> + +<p>Gregory had continued to think of the girl he was to marry in the guise +of a Constance Armytage, and although Constance Armytage's engagement to +another man found him unmoved, except with relief for the solution of +what had really ceased to be a perplexity—since, apparently, he could +not manage to fall in love with her—this fact had not been revealing, +since he still continued to think of Constance as the type, if she had +ceased to be the person. Karen Woodruff was almost the last type he +could have fixed upon. She fitted nowhere into his actual life. She only +fitted into the life of dreams and memories.</p> + +<p>So now, still looking down at the trees and daffodils, he drew a long +breath and tried to smile over what had been a trick of the imagination +and to relegate Karen to the place of half-humorous dreams. He tried to +think calmly of her. He visualized her in her oddity and child-likeness; +seeing the flat blue bows of the concert; the old-fashioned gold locket +of the tea; the sealskin cap of the station. But still, it was apparent, +the infection of the season was working in him; for these trivial bits +of her personality had become overwhelmingly sweet and wonderful. The +essential Karen infused them. Her limpid grey eyes looked into his. She +said, so ridiculously, so adorably: "My guardian likes best to be called +von Marwitz by those who know her personally." She laughed, the tip of +her tongue caught between her teeth. From the place of dream and memory, +the living longing for her actual self emerged indomitably.</p> + +<p>Gregory turned from the balcony and went inside. He was dazed. Her +primroses stood about the room in the white and blue bowls. He wanted to +kiss them. Controlling the impulse, which seemed to him almost insane, +he looked at them instead and argued with himself. In love? But one +didn't fall in love like that between shaving and breakfast. What +possessed him was a transient form of <i>idée fixe</i>, and he had behaved +very foolishly in playing fairy-godfather to a dear little girl. But at +this relegating phrase his sense of humour rose to mock him. He could +not relegate Karen Woodruff as a dear little girl. It was he who had +behaved like a boy, while she had maintained the calm simplicities of +the mature. He hadn't the faintest right to hope that she saw anything +in his correspondence but what she had herself brought to it. Fear fell +more strongly upon him. He sat down to his breakfast, his thoughts in +inextricable confusion. And while he drank his coffee and glanced +nervously down the columns of his newspaper, a hundred little filaments +of memory ran back and linked the beginning to the present. It had not +been so sudden. It had been there beside him, in him; and he had not +seen it. The meeting of their eyes in the long, grave interchange at the +concert had been full of presage. And why had he gone to tea at Mrs. +Forrester's? And why, above all why, had he dreamed that dream? It was +his real self who had felt no surprise when, at the edge of the forest, +she had said: "And I love you." The words had been spoken in answer to +his love.</p> + +<p>Gregory laid down his paper and stared before him. He was in love. +Should he get over it? Did he want to get over it? Was it possible to +get over it if he did want to? And, this was the culmination, would she +have him? These questions drove him forth.</p> + +<p>When Barker, his man, came to clear away the breakfast things he found +that the bacon and eggs had not been eaten. Barker was a stone-grey +personage who looked like a mid-Victorian Liberal statesman. His gravity +often passed into an air of despondent responsibility. "Mr. Jardine +hasn't eaten his breakfast," he said to his wife, who was Gregory's +cook. "It's this engagement of Miss Armytage's. He was more taken with +her than we'd thought."</p> + +<p>Gregory had intended to motor down to Cornwall, still a rare opportunity +in those days; a friend who was going abroad had placed his car at his +disposal. But he sent the car ahead of him and, on the first day of his +freedom, started by train. Next day he motored over to the little +village near the Lizard.</p> + +<p>It was a pale, crystalline Spring day. From heights, where the car +seemed to poise like a bird in mid-air, one saw the tranquil blue of the +sea. The woods were veiled in young green and the hedges thickly starred +with blackthorn. Over the great Goonhilly Downs a silvery sheen trembled +with impalpable colour and the gorse everywhere was breaking into gold. +It was a day of azure, illimitable distances; of exultation and delight. +Even if one were not in love one would feel oneself a lover on such a +day.</p> + +<p>Gregory had told himself that he would be wise; that he would go +discreetly and make sure not only that he was really in love, but that +there was in his love a basis for life. Marriage must assure and secure +his life, not disturb and disintegrate it; and a love resisted and put +aside unspoken may soon be relegated to the place of fond and transient +dream. Perhaps the little Hans Andersen heroine would settle happily +into such a dream. How little he had seen of her. But while he thus +schooled himself, while the white roads curved and beckoned and unrolled +their long ribbons, the certainties he needed of himself merged more and +more into the certainties he needed of her. And he felt his heart, in +the singing speed, lift and fly towards the beloved.</p> + +<p>He had written to her and told her the hour of his arrival, and at a +turning he suddenly saw her standing above the road on one of the stone +stiles of the country. Dressed in white and poised against the blue, +while she kept watch for his coming, she was like a calm, far-gazing +figure-head on a ship, and the ship that bore her seemed to have soared +into sight.</p> + +<p>She was new, yet unchanged. Her attitude, her smile, as she held up an +arresting hand to the chauffeur, filled him with delight and anxiety. It +disconcerted him to find how new she was. He felt that he spoke +confusedly to her when she came to shake his hand.</p> + +<p>"People often lose their way in coming to see Tante," she said, and it +struck him, even in the midst of his preoccupation with her, as too +sweetly absurd that the first sentence she spoke to him should sound the +familiar chime. "They have gone mistakenly down the lane that leads to +the cliff path, that one there, or the road that leads out to the moors. +And one poor man was quite lost and never found his way to us at all. It +meant, for he had only a day or two to spend in England, that he did not +see her for another year. Tante has had signs put up since then; but +even now people can go wrong."</p> + +<p>She mounted beside the chauffeur so that she could guide him down the +last bit of road, sitting sideways, her arm laid along the back of the +seat. From time to time she smiled at Gregory.</p> + +<p>She was a person who accepted the unusual easily and with no personal +conjecture. She was so accustomed, no doubt, to the sudden appearance of +all sorts of people, that she had no discriminations to apply to his +case. There was no shyness and no surmise in her manner. She smiled at +him as composedly as she had smiled over the Great Wall of China in Mrs. +Forrester's drawing-room, and her pleasure in seeing him was neither +less frank nor more intimate.</p> + +<p>She wore a broad hat of sun-burnt straw and a white serge coat and skirt +that looked as if they had shrunk in frequent washings. Her white blouse +had the little frills at neck and wrists and around her throat was the +gold locket on its black ribbon. Her eyes, when she turned them on him +and smiled, seemed to open distances like the limitlessness of the +moorland. Her tawny skin and shining golden hair were like the gorse and +primroses and she in her serenity and gladness like the day personified.</p> + +<p>They did not attempt to talk through the loudly purring monotones of the +car, which picked its way swiftly and delicately down the turning road +and then skimmed lightly on the level ground between hedges of fuchsia +and veronica. As the prospect opened Karen pointed to the golden +shoulder of a headland bathed in sunlight and the horizon line of the +sea beyond. They turned among wind-bitten Cornish elms, leaning inland, +and Gregory saw among them the glimmer of Les Solitudes.</p> + +<p>It was a white-walled house with a high-pitched roof of grey shingles, +delicately rippling; a house almost rustic, yet more nearly noble, very +beautiful; simple, yet unobtrusively adapted to luxury. Simplicity +reigned within, though one felt luxury there in a chrysalis condition, +folded exquisitely and elaborately away and waiting the return of the +enchantress.</p> + +<p>Karen led him across the shining spaces of the hall and into the +morning-room. Books, flowers and sunlight seemed to furnish it, and, +with something austere and primitive, to make it the most fitting +background for herself. But while her presence perfected it for him, it +was her guardian's absence that preoccupied Karen. Again, and comically, +she reminded Gregory of the sacristan explaining to the sight-seer that +the famous altar-piece had been temporarily removed and that he could +not really judge the chapel without its culminating and consecrating +object. "If only Tante were here!" she said. "It seems so strange that +anyone should see Les Solitudes who has not seen her in it. I do not +remember that it has ever happened before. This is the dining-room—yes, +I like to show it all to you—she planned it all herself, you know—is +it not a beautiful room? You see, though we are Les Solitudes, we can +seat a large dinner-party and Tante has sometimes many guests; not often +though; this is her place of peace and rest. She collected all this +Jacobean furniture; connoisseurs say that it is very beautiful. The +music-room, alas, is closed; but I will show you the garden—and Mrs. +Talcott in it. I am eager for you and Mrs. Talcott to meet."</p> + +<p>He would rather have stayed and talked to her in the morning-room; but +she compelled him, rather as a sacristan compels the slightly bewildered +sight-seer, to pass on to the next point of interest. She led him out to +the upper terrace of the garden, which dropped, ledge by ledge, with low +walls and winding hedges, down the cliff-side. She pointed out to him +the sea-front of the house, with its wide verandah and clustered trees +and the beautiful dip of the roof over the upper windows, far gazing +little dormer windows above these. Tante, she told him, had designed the +house. "That is her room, the corner one," she said. "She can see the +sunrise from her bed."</p> + +<p>Gregory was interested neither in Madame von Marwitz's advantages nor in +her achievements. He asked Karen where her own room was. It was at the +back of the house, she said; a dear little room, far up. She, too, had a +glimpse of the Eastern headland and of the sunrise.</p> + +<p>They were walking along the paths, their borders starred as yet frugally +with hints of later glories; but already the aubrietia and arabis made +bosses of white or purple on the walls, and in a little copse daffodils +grew thickly.</p> + +<p>"There is Mrs. Talcott," said Karen, quickening her pace. Evidently she +considered Mrs. Talcott, in her relation to Tante, as an important +feature of Les Solitudes.</p> + +<p>It was her relation to Karen that caused Gregory to look with interest +at the stout old lady, dressed in black alpaca, who was stooping over a +flower-border at a little distance from them. He had often wondered what +this sole companion of Karen's cloistered life was like. Mrs. Talcott's +skirts were short; her shoes thick-soled and square-toed, fastening with +a strap and button over white stockings at the ankle. She wore a round +straw hat, like a child's, and had a basket of gardening implements +beside her.</p> + +<p>"Mrs. Talcott, here is Mr. Jardine," Karen announced, as they approached +her.</p> + +<p>Mrs. Talcott raised herself slowly and turned to them, drawing off her +gardening gloves. She was a funny looking old woman, funnier than Karen +had prepared him for finding her, and uglier. Her large face, +wallet-shaped and sallow, was scattered over with white moles, or +rather, warts, one of which, on her eyelid, caused it to droop over her +eye and to blink sometimes, suddenly. She had a short, indefinite nose +and long, large lips firmly folded. With its updrawn hair and +impassivity her face recalled that of a Chinese image; but more than of +anything else she gave Gregory the impression, vaguely and incongruously +tragic, of an old shipwrecked piece of oaken timber, washed up, finally, +out of reach of the waves, on some high, lonely beach; battered, though +still so solid; salted through and through; crusted with brine, and with +odd, bleached excrescences, like barnacles, adhering to it. Her look of +almost inhuman cleanliness added force to the simile.</p> + +<p>"Mr. Jardine heard Tante last winter, you know," said Karen, "and met +her at Mrs. Forrester's."</p> + +<p>"I'm very happy to make your acquaintance, Sir," said Mrs. Talcott, +giving Gregory her hand.</p> + +<p>"Mrs. Talcott is a great gardener," Karen went on. "Tante has the ideas +and Mrs. Talcott carries them out. And sometimes they aren't easy to +carry out, are they, Mrs. Talcott!"</p> + +<p>Mrs. Talcott, her hands folded at her waist, contemplated her work.</p> + +<p>"Mitchell made a mistake about the campanulas, Karen," she remarked. +"He's put the clump of blue over yonder, instead of the white."</p> + +<p>"Oh, Mrs. Talcott!" Karen turned to look. "And Tante specially wanted +the white there so that they should be against the sea. How very stupid +of Mitchell."</p> + +<p>"They'll have to come out, I presume," said Mrs. Talcott, but without +emotion.</p> + +<p>"And where is the <i>pyramidalis alba</i>?"</p> + +<p>"Well, he's got that up in the flagged garden where she wanted the +blue," said Mrs. Talcott.</p> + +<p>"And it will be so bad for them to move them again! What a pity! They +have been sent for specially," Karen explained to Gregory. "My guardian +heard of a particularly beautiful kind, and the white were to be for +this corner of the wall, you see that they would look very lovely +against the sea, and the blue were to be among the white veronica and +white lupins in the flagged garden. And now they are all planted wrong, +and so accurately and solidly wrong," she walked ahead of Mrs. Talcott +examining the offending plants. "Are you quite sure they're wrong, Mrs. +Talcott?"</p> + +<p>"Dead sure," Mrs. Talcott made reply. "He did it this morning when I was +in the dairy. He didn't understand, or got muddled, or something. I'll +commence changing them round as soon as I've done this weeding. It'll be +a good two hours' work."</p> + +<p>"No, you must not do it till I can help you," said Karen. "To-morrow +morning." She had a manner at once deferential and masterful of +addressing the old lady. They were friendly without being intimate. "Now +promise me that you will wait till I can help you."</p> + +<p>"Well, I guess I won't promise. I like to get things off my mind right +away," said Mrs. Talcott. If Karen was masterful, she was not yielding. +"I'll see how the time goes after tea. Don't you bother about it."</p> + +<p>They left her bending again over her beds. "She is very strong, but I +think sometimes she works too hard," said Karen.</p> + +<p>By a winding way she led him to the high flagged garden with its +encompassing trees and far blue prospect, and here they sat for a little +while in the sunlight and talked. "How different all this must be from +your home in Northumberland," said Karen. "I have never been to +Northumberland. Is your brother much there? Is he like you? Have you +brothers and sisters?"</p> + +<p>She questioned him with the frank interest with which he wished to +question her. He told her about Oliver and said that he wasn't like +himself. A faint flavour of irony came into his voice in speaking of his +elder brother and finding Karen's calm eyes dwelling on him he wondered +if she thought him unfair. "We always get on well enough," he said, "but +we haven't much in common. He is a good, dull fellow, half alive."</p> + +<p>"And you are very much alive."</p> + +<p>"Yes, on the whole, I think so," he answered, smiling, but sensitively +aware of a possible hint of irony in her. But she had intended none. She +continued to look at him calmly. "You are making use of all of yourself; +that is to be alive, Tante always says; and I feel that it is true of +you. And his wife? the wife of the dull hunting brother? Does she hunt +too and think of foxes most?"</p> + +<p>He could assure her that Betty quite made up in the variety of her +activities for Oliver's deficiencies. Karen was interested in the +American Betty and especially in hearing that she had been at the +concert from which their own acquaintance dated. She asked him, walking +back to the house, if he had seen Mrs. Forrester. "She is an old friend +of yours, isn't she?" she said.</p> + +<p>"That must be nice. She was so kind to me that last day in London. Tante +is very fond of her; very, very fond. I hardly think there is anyone of +all her friends she has more feeling for. Here is Victor, come to greet +you. You remember Victor, and how he nearly missed the train."</p> + +<p>The great, benignant dog came down the path to them and as they walked +Karen laid her hand upon his head, telling Gregory that Sir Alliston had +given him to Tante when he was quite a tiny puppy. "You saw Sir +Alliston, that sad, gentle poet? There is another person that Tante +loves." It was with a slight stir of discomfort that Gregory realised +more fully from these assessments how final for Karen was the question +of Tante's likes and dislikes.</p> + +<p>They were on the verandah when she paused. "But I think, though the +music-room is closed, that you must see the portrait."</p> + +<p>"The portrait? Of you?" Actually, and sincerely, he was off the track.</p> + +<p>"Of me? Oh no," said Karen, laughing a little. "Why should it be of me? +Of my guardian, of course. Perhaps you know it. It is by Sargent and was +in the Royal Academy some years ago."</p> + +<p>"I must have missed it. Am I to see it now?"</p> + +<p>"Yes. I will ask Mrs. Talcott for the key and we will draw all the +blinds and you shall see it." They walked back to the garden in search +of Mrs. Talcott.</p> + +<p>"Do you like it?" Gregory asked.</p> + +<p>Karen reflected for a moment and then said; "He understands her better +than Mr. Drew does, or, at all events, does not try to make up for what +he does not understand by elaborations. But there are blanks!—oh +blanks!—However, it is a very magnificent picture and you shall see. +Mrs. Talcott, may I have the key of the music-room? I want to show the +Sargent to Mr. Jardine."</p> + +<p>They had come to the old woman again, and again she slowly righted +herself from her stooping posture. "It's in my room, I'll come and get +it," said Mrs. Talcott, and on Karen's protesting against this, she +observed that it was about tea-time, anyway. She preceded them to the +house.</p> + +<p>"But I do beg," Karen stopped her in the hall. "Let me get it. You shall +tell me where it is."</p> + +<p>Mrs. Talcott yielded. "In my left top drawer on the right hand side +under the pile of handkerchiefs," she recited. "Thanks, Karen."</p> + +<p>While Karen was gone, Mrs. Talcott in the hall stood in front of Gregory +and looked past him in silence into the morning-room. She did not seem +to feel it in any sense incumbent upon her to entertain him, though +there was nothing forbidding in her manner. But happening presently, +while they waited, to glance at the droll old woman, he found her eyes +fixed on him in a singularly piercing, if singularly impassive, gaze. +She looked away again with no change of expression, shifting her weight +from one hip to the other, and something in the attitude suggested to +Gregory that she had spent a great part of her life in waiting. She had +a capacity, he inferred, for indefinite waiting. Karen came happily +running down the stairs, holding the key.</p> + +<p>They went into the dim, white room where swathed presences stood as if +austerely welcoming them. Karen drew up the blind and Mrs. Talcott, +going to the end of the room, mounted a chair and dexterously twitched +from its place the sheet that covered the great portrait. Then, standing +beside it, and still holding its covering, she looked, not at it, but, +meditatively, out at the sea that crossed with its horizon line the four +long windows. Karen, also in silence, came and stood beside Gregory.</p> + +<p>It was indeed a remarkable picture; white and black; silver and green. +To a painter's eye the arresting balance of these colours would have +first appealed and the defiant charm with which the angular surfaces +of the grand piano and the soft curves of the woman seated at it +were combined. The almost impalpable white of an azalea with its +flame-green foliage, and a silver statuette, poised high on a +slender column of white chalcedony, were the only accessories. But +after the first delighted draught of wonder it was the face of Madame +Okraska—pre-eminently Madame Okraska in this portrait—that compelled +one to concentration. She sat, turning from the piano, her knees +crossed, one arm cast over them, the other resting along the edge of the +key-board. The head drooped slightly and the eyes looked out just below +the spectator's eyes, so that in poise and glance it recalled somewhat +Michael Angelo's Lorenzo da Medici. And something that Gregory had felt +in her from the first, and that had roused in him dim hostilities and +ironies, was now more fully revealed. The artist seemed to have looked +through the soft mask of the woman's flesh, through the disturbing and +compelling forces of her own consciousness, to the very structure and +anatomy of her character. Atavistic, sub-conscious revelations were in +the face. It was to see, in terms of art, a scientific demonstration of +race, temperament, and the results of their interplay with environment. +The languors, the feverish indolences, the caprice of generations of +Spanish exiles were there, and the ambiguity, the fierceness of Slav +ancestry. And, subtly interwoven, were the marks of her public life upon +her. The face, so moulded to indifference, was yet so aware of +observation, so adjusted to it, so insatiable of it, that, sitting +there, absorbed and brooding, lovely with her looped pearls and +diamonds, her silver broideries and silken fringes, she was a product of +the public, a creature reared on adulation, breathing it in softly, +peacefully, as the white flowers beside her breathed in light and air. +Her craftsmanship, her genius, though indicated, were submerged in this +pervasive quality of an indifference based securely on the ever present +consciousness that none could be indifferent to her. And more than the +passive acceptance and security was indicated. Strange, sleeping +potentialities lurked in the face; as at the turn of a kaleidoscope, +Gregory could fancy it suddenly transformed, by some hostile touch, some +menace, to a savage violence and rapacity. He was aware, standing +between the girl who worshipped her and the devoted old woman, of the +pang of a curious anxiety.</p> + +<p>"Well," said Karen at last, and she looked from the picture to him. +"What do you think of it?"</p> + +<p>"It's splendid," said Gregory. "It's very fine. And beautiful."</p> + +<p>"But does it altogether satisfy you?" Her eyes were again on the +portrait. "What is lacking, I cannot say; but it seems to me that it is +painted with intelligence only, not with love. It is Madame Okraska, the +great genius; but it is not Tante; it is not even Madame von Marwitz."</p> + +<p>The portrait seemed to Gregory to go so much further and so much deeper +than what he had himself seen that it was difficult to believe that hers +might be the deepest vision, but he was glad to take refuge in the +possibility. "It does seem to me wonderfully like," he said. "But then I +don't know 'Tante.'"</p> + +<p>Karen now glanced at Mrs. Talcott. "It is a great bone of contention +between us," she said, smiling at the old lady, yet smiling, Gregory +observed, with a touch of challenge. "She feels it quite complete. That, +in someone who does know Tante, I cannot understand."</p> + +<p>Mrs. Talcott, making no reply, glanced up at the portrait and then, +again, out at the sea.</p> + +<p>Gregory looked at her with awakened curiosity. This agreement was an +unexpected prop for him. "You, too, think it a perfect likeness?" he +asked her. Her old blue eyes, old in the antique tranquillity of their +regard, yet still of such a vivid, unfaded turquoise, turned on him and +again he had that impression of an impassive piercing.</p> + +<p>"It seems to me about as good a picture as anyone's likely to get," said +Mrs. Talcott.</p> + +<p>"Yes, but, oh Mrs. Talcott"—with controlled impatience Karen took her +up—"surely you see,—it isn't Tante. It is a genius, a great woman, a +beautiful woman, a beautiful and poetic creature, of course;—he has +seen all that—who wouldn't? but it is almost a woman without a heart. +There is something heartless there. I always feel it. And when one +thinks of Tante!" And Mrs. Talcott remaining silent, she insisted: "Can +you really say you don't see what I mean?"</p> + +<p>"Well, I never cared much about pictures anyway," Mrs. Talcott now +remarked.</p> + +<p>"Well, but you care for this one more than I do!" Karen returned, with a +laugh of vexation. "It isn't a question of pictures; it's a question of +a likeness. You really think that this does Tante justice? It's that I +can't understand."</p> + +<p>Mrs. Talcott, thus pursued, again looked up at the portrait, and +continued, now, to look at it for several moments. And as she stood +there, looking up, she suddenly and comically reminded Gregory of the +Frog gardener before the door in "Alice," with his stubborn and +deliberate misunderstanding. He could almost have expected to see Mrs. +Talcott advance her thumb and rub the portrait, as if to probe the cause +of her questioner's persistence. When she finally spoke it was only to +vary her former judgment: "It seems to me about as good a picture as +Mercedes is likely to get taken," she said. She pronounced the Spanish +name: "Mursadees."</p> + +<p>Karen, after this, abandoned her attempt to convince Mrs. Talcott. Tea +was ready, and they went into the morning-room. Here Mrs. Talcott +presided at the tea-table, and for all his dominating preoccupation she +continued to engage a large part of Gregory's attention. She sat, +leaning back in her chair, slowly eating, her eyes, like tiny, blue +stones, immeasurably remote, immeasurably sad, fixed on the sea.</p> + +<p>"Is it long since you were in America?" he asked her. He felt drawn to +Mrs. Talcott.</p> + +<p>"Why, I guess it's getting on for twenty-five years now," she replied, +after considering for a moment; "since I've lived there. I've been over +three or four times with Mercedes; on tours."</p> + +<p>"Twenty-five years since you came over here? That is a long time."</p> + +<p>"Oh, it's more than that since I came," said Mrs. Talcott. "Twenty-five +years since I lived at home. I came over first nearly fifty years ago. +Yes; it's a long time."</p> + +<p>"Dear me; you have lived most of your life here, then."</p> + +<p>"Yes; you may say I have."</p> + +<p>"And don't you ever want to go back to America to stay?"</p> + +<p>"I don't know as I do," said Mrs. Talcott.</p> + +<p>"You're fonder of it over here, like so many of your compatriots?"</p> + +<p>"Well, I don't know as I am," Mrs. Talcott, who had a genius it seemed +for non-committal statements, varied; and then, as though aware that her +answers might seem ungracious, she added: "All my folks are dead. +There's no reason for my wanting to go home that I can think of."</p> + +<p>"Besides, Mrs. Talcott," Karen now helped her on, "home to you is where +Tante is, isn't it. Mrs. Talcott has lived with Tante ever since Tante +was born. No one in the world knows her as well as she does. It is +rather wonderful to think about." She had the air, finding Mrs. Talcott +appreciated, of putting forward for her her great claim to distinction.</p> + +<p>"Yes; I know Mercedes pretty well," Mrs. Talcott conceded.</p> + +<p>"How I love to hear about it," said Karen; "about her first concert, you +know, Mrs. Talcott, when you curled her hair—such long, bright brown +hair, she had, and so thick, falling below her waist, didn't it?" Mrs. +Talcott nodded with a certain complacency. "And she wore a little white +muslin frock and white shoes and a blue sash; she was only nine years +old; it was a great concert in Warsaw. And she didn't want her hair +curled, and combed it all out with her fingers just before going on to +the platform—didn't she?"</p> + +<p>Mrs. Talcott was slightly smiling over these reminiscences. "Smart +little thing," she commented. "She did it the last minute so as it was +too late for me to fix it again. It made me feel dreadful her going on +to the platform with her head all mussed up like that. She looked mighty +pretty all the same."</p> + +<p>"And she was right, too, wasn't she?" said Karen, elated, evidently, at +having so successfully drawn Mrs. Talcott out. "Her hair was never +curly, was it. It looked better straight, I'm sure."</p> + +<p>"Well, I don't know about that," said Mrs. Talcott. "I always like it +curled best, when she was little. But I had to own to myself she looked +mighty pretty, though I was so mad at her."</p> + +<p>"Tante has always had her own way, I imagine," said Karen, "about +anything she set her mind on. She had her way about being an infant +prodigy; though you were so right about that—she has often said so, +hasn't she, and how thankful she is that you were able to stop it before +it did her harm. I must show you our photographs of Tante, Mr. Jardine. +We have volumes and volumes, and boxes and boxes of them. They are far +more like her, I think, many of them, than the portrait. Some of them +too dear and quaint—when she was quite tiny."</p> + +<p>Tea was over and Karen, rising, looked towards the shelves where, +evidently, the volumes and boxes were kept.</p> + +<p>"I really think I'd rather see some more of this lovely place, first," +said Gregory. "Do take me further along the cliff. I could see the +photographs, you know, the next time I come."</p> + +<p>He, too, had risen and was smiling at her with a little constraint.</p> + +<p>Karen, arrested on her way to the photographs, looked at him in +surprise. "Will you come again? You are to be in Cornwall so long?"</p> + +<p>"I'm to be here about a fortnight and I should like to come often, if I +may." She was unaware, disconcertingly unaware; yet her surprise showed +the frankest pleasure.</p> + +<p>"How very nice," she said. "I did not think that you could come all that +way more than once."</p> + +<p>While they spoke, Mrs. Talcott's ancient, turquoise eyes were upon them, +and in her presence Gregory found it easier to say things than it would +have been to say them to Karen alone. Already, he felt sure, Mrs. +Talcott understood, and if it was easy to say things in her presence +might that not be because he guessed that she sympathised? "But I came +down to Cornwall to see you," he said, leaning on his chair back and +tilting it a little while he smiled at Karen.</p> + +<p>Her pleasure rose in a flush to her cheek. "To see me?"</p> + +<p>"Yes; I felt from our letters that we ought to become great friends."</p> + +<p>She looked at him, pondering the unlooked-for possibility he put before +her. "Great friends?" she repeated. "I have never had a great friend of +my own. Friends, of course; the Lippheims and the Belots; and Strepoff; +and you, of course, Mrs. Talcott; but never, really, a great friend +quite of my own, for they are Tante's friends first and come through +Tante. Of course you have come through Tante, too," said Karen, with +evident satisfaction; "only not quite in the same way."</p> + +<p>"Not at all in the same way," said Gregory. "Don't forget. We met at the +concert, and without any introduction! It has nothing to do with Madame +von Marwitz this time. It's quite on our own."</p> + +<p>"Oh, but I would so much rather have it come through her, if we are to +be great friends," Karen returned, smiling, though reflectively. "I +think we are to be, for I felt you to be my friend from that first +moment. But it was at the concert that we met and it was Tante's +concert. So that it was not quite on our own. I want it to be through +Tante," she went on, "because it pleases me very much to think that we +may be great friends, and my happy things have come to me through Tante, +always."</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="CHAPTER_X" id="CHAPTER_X"></a>CHAPTER X</h2> + + +<p>He came next day and every day. They were favoured with the rarely given +gift of a perfect spring. They walked along the cliffs and headlands. +They sat and talked in the garden. He took her with Mrs. Talcott for +long drives to distant parts of the coast which he and Karen would +explore, while Mrs. Talcott in the car sat, with apparently interminable +patience, waiting for them.</p> + +<p>Karen played to him in the morning-room; and this was a new revelation +of her. She was not a finished performer and her music was limited by +her incapacity; but she had the gift for imparting, with transparent +sincerity and unfailing sensitiveness, the very heart of what she +played. There were Arias from Schubert Sonatas, and Bach Preludes, and +loving little pieces of Schumann, that Gregory thought he had never +heard so beautifully played before. Everything they had to say was said, +though, it might be, said very softly. He told her that he cared more +for her music than for any he had listened to, and Karen laughed, not at +all taking him seriously. "But you do care for music, though you are no +musician," she said. "I like to play to you; and to someone who does not +care it is impossible."</p> + +<p>Her acceptances of their bond might give ground for all hope or for +none. As for himself there had been, from the moment of seeing her +again, of knowing in her presence that fear and that delight, no further +doubt as to his own state and its finality. Yet his first perplexities +lingered and could at moments become painful.</p> + +<p>He felt the beloved creature to be at once inappropriate and inevitable. +With all that was deepest and most instinctive in him her nature chimed; +the surfaces, the prejudices, the principles of his life she +contradicted and confused. She talked to him a great deal, in answer to +his questions, about her past life, and what she told him was often +disconcerting. The protective tenderness he had felt for her from the +first was troubled by his realisation of the books she had placidly +read—under Tante's guidance—the people whose queer relationships she +placidly took for granted as in no need of condonation. When he +intimated to her that he disapproved of such contacts and customs, she +looked at him, puzzled, and then said, with an air of kindly maturity at +once touching and vexatious: "But that is the morality of the +Philistines."</p> + +<p>It was, of course, and Gregory considered it the very best of +moralities; but remembering her mother he could not emphasize to her how +decisively he held by it.</p> + +<p>It was in no vulgar or vicious world that her life, as the child of the +unconventional sculptor, as the <i>protégée</i> of the great pianist, had +been passed. But it was a world without religion, without institutions, +without order. Gregory, though his was not the religious temperament, +had his reasoned beliefs in the spiritual realities expressed in +institutions and he had his inherited instincts of reverence for the +rituals that embodied the spiritual life of his race. He was impatient +with dissent and with facile scepticisms. He did not expect a woman to +have reasoned beliefs, nor did he ask a credulous, uncritical orthodoxy; +but he did want the Christian colouring of mind, the Christian outlook; +he did want his wife to be a woman who would teach her children to say +their prayers at her knees. It was with something like dismay that he +gathered from Karen that her conception of life was as untouched by any +consciousness of creed as that of a noble young pagan. He was angry at +himself for feeling it and when he found himself applying his rules and +measures to her; for what had it been from the first but her spiritual +strength and loveliness that had drawn him to her? Yet he longed to make +her accept the implications of the formulated faiths that she lived by. +"Oh, no, you're not," he said to her when, turning unperturbed eyes upon +him, she assured him: "Oh yes, I am quite, quite a pagan." "I don't +think you know what you mean when you say you're a pagan," Gregory +continued.</p> + +<p>"But, yes," she returned. "I have no creed. I was brought up to think of +beauty as the only religion. That is my guardian's religion. It is the +religion, she says, of all free souls. And my father thought so, too." +It was again the assurance of a wisdom, not her own, yet possessed by +her, a wisdom that she did not dream of anybody challenging. Was it not +Tante's?</p> + +<p>"Well," he remarked, "beauty is a large term. Perhaps it includes more +than you think."</p> + +<p>Karen looked at him with approbation. "That is what Tante says; that it +includes everything." And she went on, pleased to reveal to him still +more of Tante's treasure, since he had proved himself thus +understanding; "Tante, you know, belongs to the Catholic Church; it is +the only church of beauty, she says. But she is not <i>pratiquante</i>; not +<i>croyante</i> in any sense. Art is her refuge."</p> + +<p>"I see," said Gregory. "And what is your refuge?"</p> + +<p>Karen, at this, kept silence for a moment, and then said: "It is not +that; not art. I do not feel, perhaps, that I need refuges. And I am +happier than my dear guardian. I believe in immortality; oh yes, +indeed." She looked round gravely at him—they were sitting on the turf +of a headland above the sea. "I believe, that is, in everything that is +beautiful and loving going on for ever."</p> + +<p>He felt abashed before her. The most dependent and child-like of +creatures where her trust and love were engaged, she was, as well, the +most serenely independent. Even Tante, he felt, could not touch her +faiths.</p> + +<p>"You mustn't say that you are a pagan, you see," he said.</p> + +<p>"But Plato believed in immortality," Karen returned, smiling. "And you +will not tell me that Plato was <i>pratiquant</i> or <i>croyant</i>."</p> + +<p>He could not claim Plato as a member of the Church of England, though he +felt quite ready to demonstrate, before a competent body of listeners, +that, as a nineteenth century Englishman, Plato would have been. Karen +was not likely to follow such an argument. She would smile at his +seeming sophistries.</p> + +<p>No; he must accept it, and as a very part of her lovableness, that she +could not be made to fit into the plan of his life as he had imagined +it. She would not carry on its traditions, for she would not understand +them. To win her would be, in a sense, to relinquish something of that +orderly progression as a professional and social creature that he had +mapped out for himself, though he knew himself to be, through his +experience of her, already a creature more human, a creature enriched. +Karen, if she came to love him, would be, through love, infinitely +malleable, but in the many adjustments that would lie before them it +would be his part to foresee complications and to do the adjusting. +Change in her would be a gradual growth, and never towards mere +conformity.</p> + +<p>He felt it to be the first step towards adjustments when he motored +Karen and Mrs. Talcott to Guillian House to lunch with his friends the +Lavingtons. The occasion must mark for him the subtle altering of an old +tie. Karen and the Lavingtons could never be to each other what he and +the Lavingtons had been. It was part of her breadth that congeniality +could never for her be based on the half automatic affinities of caste +and occupation; and it was part of her narrowness, or, rather, of her +inexperience, that she could see people only as individuals and would +not recognize the real charm of the Lavingtons, which consisted in their +being, like their house and park, part of the landscape and of an +established order of things. Yet, once he had her there, he watched the +metamorphosis that her presence worked in his old associations with +pleasure rather than pain. It pleased him, intimately, that the +Lavingtons should see in him a lover as yet uncertain of his chances. It +pleased him that they should not find in Karen the type that they must +have expected the future Mrs. Jardine to be, the type of Constance +Armytage and the type of Evelyn Lavington, Colonel and Mrs. Lavington's +unmarried daughter, who, but for Karen, might well have become Mrs. +Jardine one day. He observed, with a lover's fond pride, that Karen, in +her shrunken white serge and white straw hat, Karen, with her pleasant +imperturbability, her mingled simplicity and sophistication, did, most +decisively, make the Lavingtons seem flavourless. Among them, while Mrs. +Lavington walked her round the garden and Evelyn elicited with kindly +concern that she played neither golf, hockey nor tennis, and had never +ridden to hounds, her demeanour was that of a little rustic princess +benignly doing her social duty. The only reason why she did not appear +like this to the Lavingtons was that, immutably unimaginative as they +were, they knew that she wasn't a princess, was, indeed, only the odd +appendage of an odd celebrity with whom their friend had chosen, oddly, +to fall in love. They weren't perplexed, because, since he had fallen in +love with her, she was placed. But they, in the complete contrast they +offered, had little recognition of individual values and judged a dish +by the platter it was served on. A princess was a princess, and an +appendage an appendage, and a future Mrs. Jardine a very recognizable +person; just as, had a subtle <i>charlotte russe</i> been brought up to lunch +in company with the stewed rhubarb they would have eaten it without +comment and hardly been aware that it wasn't an everyday milk-pudding.</p> + +<p>"Did you and Mrs. Lavington and Evelyn and Mrs. Haverfield find much to +talk of after lunch?" Gregory asked, as he motored Mrs. Talcott and +Karen back to Les Solitudes.</p> + +<p>"Yes; we talked of a good many things," said Karen. "But I know about so +few of their things and they about so few of mine. Miss Lavington was +very much surprised to think that I had never been to a fox-hunt; and +I," Karen smiled, "was very much surprised to think that they had never +heard Tante play."</p> + +<p>"They hardly ever get up to town, you see," said Gregory. "But surely +they knew about her?"</p> + +<p>"Not much," said Karen. "Mrs. Lavington asked me about her—for +something pleasant to say—and they were such strange questions; as +though one should be asked whether Mr. Arthur Balfour were a Russian +nihilist or Metchnikoff an Italian poet." Karen spoke quite without +grievance or irony.</p> + +<p>"And after your Sargent," said Gregory, "you must have been pained by +that portrait of Mrs. Haverfield in the drawing-room."</p> + +<p>"Mrs. Lavington pointed it out to me specially," said Karen, laughing, +"and told me that it had been in the Academy. What a sad thing; with all +those eyelashes! And yet opposite to it hung the beautiful Gainsborough +of a great-grandmother. Mrs. Lavington saw no difference, I think."</p> + +<p>"They haven't been trained to see differences," said Gregory, and he +summed up the Lavingtons in the aphorism to himself as well as to Karen; +"only to accept samenesses." He hoped indeed, by sacrificing the +æsthetic quality of the Lavingtons, to win some approbation of their +virtues; but Karen, though not inclined to proffer unasked criticism, +found, evidently, no occasion for commendation. Later on, when they were +back at Les Solitudes and walking in the garden, she returned to the +subject of his friends and said: "I was a little disturbed about Mrs. +Talcott; did you notice? no one talked to her at all, hardly. It was as +if they thought her my <i>dame de compagnie</i>. She isn't my <i>dame de +compagnie</i>; and if she were, I think that she should have been talked +to."</p> + +<p>Gregory had observed this fact and had hoped that it might have escaped +Karen's notice. To the Lavingtons Mrs. Talcott's platter had been +unrecognizable and they had tended to let its contents alone.</p> + +<p>"It's as I said, you know," he put forward a mitigation; "they've not +been trained to see differences; she is very different, isn't she?"</p> + +<p>"Well, but so am I," said Karen, "and they talked to me. I don't mean to +complain of your friends; that would be very rude when they were so nice +and kind; and, besides, are your friends. But people's thoughtlessness +displeases me, not that I am not often very thoughtless myself."</p> + +<p>Gregory was anxious to exonerate himself. "I hope she didn't feel left +out;" he said. "I did notice that she wasn't talking. I found her in the +garden, alone—she seemed to be enjoying that, too—and she and I went +about for quite a long time together."</p> + +<p>"I know you did," said Karen. "You are not thoughtless. As for her, one +never knows what she feels. I don't think that she does feel things of +that sort at all; she has been used to it all her life, one may say; but +there's very little she doesn't notice and understand. She +understands—oh, perfectly well—that she is a queer old piece of +furniture standing in the background, and one has to remember not to +treat her like a piece of furniture. It's a part of grace and tact, +isn't it, not to take such obvious things for granted. You didn't take +them for granted with her, or with me," said Karen, smiling her +recognition at him. "For, of course, to most people I am furniture, too; +and if Tante is about, there is, of course, nothing to blame in that; +everybody becomes furniture when Tante is there."</p> + +<p>"Oh no; I can't agree to that," said Gregory. "Not everybody."</p> + +<p>"You know what I mean," Karen rejoined. "If you will not agree to it for +me, it is because from the first you felt me to be your friend; that is +different." They were walking in the flagged garden where the blue +campanulas were now safely established in their places and the low +afternoon sun slanted in among the trees. Karen still wore her hat and +motoring veil and the smoky grey substance flowed softly back about her +shoulders. Her face seemed to emerge from a cloud. It had always to +Gregory's eyes the air of steadfast advance; the way in which her hair +swept back and up from her brows gave it a wind-blown, lifted look. He +glanced at her now from time to time, while, in a meditative and +communicative mood, she continued to share her reflections with him. +Gregory was very happy.</p> + +<p>"Even Tante doesn't always remember enough about Mrs. Talcott," she went +on. "That is of course because Mrs. Talcott is so much a part of her +life that she sometimes hardly sees her. She <i>is</i>, for her, the dear old +restful chair that she sinks back into and forgets about. Besides, some +people have a right not to see things. One doesn't ask from giants the +same sort of perception that one does from pygmies."</p> + +<p>This was indeed hard on the Lavingtons; but Gregory was not thinking of +the Lavingtons, who could take care of themselves. He was wondering, as +he more and more wondered, about Madame von Marwitz, and what she saw +and what she permitted herself not to see.</p> + +<p>"You aren't invisible to her sometimes?" he inquired.</p> + +<p>Her innocence before his ironies made him ashamed always of having +spoken them. "It is just that that makes me feel sometimes so badly +about Mrs. Talcott," she answered now; "just because she is, in a sense, +sometimes invisible, and I'm not. Mrs. Talcott, of course, counts for a +great deal more in the way of comfort and confidence than I do; I don't +believe that Tante really is as intimate with anybody in the world as +with Mrs. Talcott; but she doesn't count as much as I do, I am nearly +sure, in the way of tenderness. I really think that in the way of +tenderness I am nearer than anybody."</p> + +<p>They left the flagged garden now, and came down to a lower terrace. Here +the sun shone fully; they walked to and fro in the radiance. "Of +course," Karen continued to define and confide, "as far as interest goes +any one of her real friends counts for more than I do, and you mustn't +think that I mean to say that I believe myself the most loved; not at +all. But I am the tender, home thing in her life; the thing to pet and +care for and find waiting. It is that that is so beautiful for me and so +tragic for her."</p> + +<p>"Why tragic?"</p> + +<p>"Oh, but you do not feel it? A woman like that, such a heart, and such a +spirit—and no one nearer than I am? That she should have no husband and +no child? I am a makeshift for all that she has lost, or never had."</p> + +<p>"And Mrs. Talcott?" said Gregory after a moment. "Is it Mrs. Talcott's +tragedy to have missed even a makeshift?"</p> + +<p>Karen now turned her eyes on him, and her face, as she scrutinized him, +showed a slight severity. "Hardly that. She has Tante."</p> + +<p>"Has her as the chair has her, you mean?" He couldn't for the life of +him control the question. It seemed indeed due to their friendship that +he should not conceal from her the fact that he found disproportionate +elements in her devotion. Yet it was not the right way in which to be +frank, and Karen showed him so in her reply. "I mean that Tante is +everything to her and that, in the nature of things, she cannot be so +much to Tante. You mustn't take quite literally what I said of the +chair, you know. It can hardly be a makeshift to have somebody like +Tante to love and care for. I don't quite know what you mean by speaking +like that," Karen said. Her gaze, in meeting his, had become almost +stern. She seemed to scan him from a distance.</p> + +<p>Gregory, though he felt a pang of disquietude, felt no disposition to +retreat. He intended that she should be made to understand what he +meant. "I think that what it comes to is that it is you I am thinking +of, rather than of Mrs. Talcott," he said. "I don't know your guardian, +and I do know you, and it is what she gets rather than what she gives +that is most apparent to me."</p> + +<p>"Gets? From me? What may that be?" Karen continued to return his gaze +almost with haughtiness.</p> + +<p>"The most precious thing I can imagine," said Gregory. "Your love. I +hope that she is properly grateful for it."</p> + +<p>She looked at him and the slow colour mounted to her cheeks; but it was +as if in unconscious response to his feeling; it hardly, even yet, +signified self-consciousness. She had stood still in asking her last +question and she still did not move as she said: "I do not like to hear +you speak so. It shows me that you understand nothing."</p> + +<p>"Does it? I want to understand everything."</p> + +<p>"You care for me," said Karen, standing still, her eyes on his, "and I +care for you; but what I most wish in such a friend is that he should +see and understand. May I tell you something? Will you wait while I +tell you about my life?"</p> + +<p>"Please tell me."</p> + +<p>"I want you to see and understand Tante," said Karen. "And how much I +love her; and why."</p> + +<p>They walked on, from the terrace to the cliff-path. Karen stopped when +they had gone a little way and leaned her elbows on the stone wall +looking out at the sea. "She has been everything to me," she said. +"Everything."</p> + +<p>He was aware, as he leaned beside her in the mellow evening light, of a +great uneasiness mingling with the beautiful gravity of the moment. She +was near him as she had never yet been near. She had almost recognized +his love. It was there between them, and it was as if, not turning from +it, she yet pointed to something beyond and above it, something that it +was his deep instinct to evade and hers to show him. He must not take a +step towards her, she seemed to tell him, until he had proved to her +that he had seen what she did. And nothing she could say would, he felt +sure of it, alter his fundamental distrust of Madame von Marwitz.</p> + +<p>"I want to tell you about my life," said Karen, looking out at the sea +from between her hands. "You have heard my story, of course; people are +always told it; but you have never heard it from my side. You have heard +no doubt about my father and mother, and how she left the man she did +not love for him. My mother died when I was quite little; so, though I +remember her well she does not come into the part of my story that I +want to tell you. But I was thirteen years old when my father died, and +that begins the part that leads to Tante. It was in Rome, in winter when +he died; and I was alone with him; and there was no money, and I had +more to bear than a child's mind and heart should have. He died. And +then there were dreadful days. Cold, coarse people came and took me and +put me in a convent in Paris. That convent was like hell to me. I was so +miserable. And I had never known restraint or unkindness, and the French +girls, so sly and so small in their thoughts, were hateful to me. And I +did not like the nuns. I was punished and punished—rightly no doubt. I +was fierce and sullen, I remember, and would not obey. Then I heard, by +chance, from a girl whose family had been to her concert in Paris, that +Madame Okraska was with her husband at Fontainebleau. Of her I knew +nothing but the lovely face in the shop-windows. But her husband's name +brought back distant days to me. He had known my father; I remembered +him—the fair, large, kindly smiling, very sad man—in my father's +studio among the clay and marble. He bought once a little head my father +had done of me when I was a child. So I ran away from the convent—oh, +it was very bad; I knocked down a nun and escaped the portress, and hid +for a long time in the streets. And I made my way through Paris and +walked for a day and night to Fontainebleau; and there in the forest, in +the evening, I was lost, and almost dead with hunger and fatigue. And as +I stood by the road I saw the carriage approaching from very far away +and saw sitting in it, as it came nearer, the beautiful woman. Shall I +ever forget it? The dark forest and the evening sky above and her face +looking at me—looking, looking, full of pity and wonder. She has told +me that I was the most unhappy thing that she had ever seen. My father's +friend was with her; but though I saw him and knew that I was safe, I +had eyes only for her. Her face was like heaven opening. When the +carriage stopped and she leaned to me, I sprang to her and she put her +arms around me. They have been round me ever since," said Karen, joining +her fingers over her eyes and leaning her forehead upon them so that her +face was hidden; and for a moment she did not speak. "Ever since," she +went on presently, "she has been joy and splendour and beauty. What she +has given me is nothing. It is what she is herself that lifts the lives +of other people. Those who do not know her seem to me to have lives so +sad and colourless compared to mine. You cannot imagine it, anyone so +great, yet at the same time so little and so sweet. She is merry like no +one else, and witty, and full of cajoleries, like a child. One cannot be +dull with her, not for one moment. And there is through it all her +genius, the great flood of wonderful music; can you think what it is +like to live with that? And under-lying everything is the great +irremediable sorrow. I was with her when it came; the terrible thing. I +did not live with them while he was alive, you know, my Onkel Ernst; he +was so good and kind—always the kindest of friends to me; but he loved +her too deeply to be able to share their life, and how well one +understands that in her husband. He had me put at a school in Dresden. I +did not like that much, either. But, even if I were lonely, I knew that +my wonderful friends—my Tante and my Onkel—were there, like the sun +behind the grey day, and I tried to study and be dutiful to please them. +And in my holidays I was always with them, twice it was, at their +beautiful estate in Germany. And it was there that the horror came that +wrecked her life; her husband's death, his death that cannot be +explained or understood. He drowned himself. We never say it, but we +know it. That is the fear, the mystery. All his joy with her, his love +and happiness—to leave them;—it was madness; he had always been a sad +man; one saw that in his face; the doctors said it was madness. He +disappeared without a word one day. For three weeks—nothing. Tante was +like a creature crying out on the rack. And it was I who found him by +the lake-edge one morning. She was walking in the park, I knew; she used +to walk and walk fast, fast, quite silent; and with horrible fear I +thought: If I can keep her from seeing. I turned—and she was beside me. +I could not save her. Ah—poor woman!" Karen closed her hands over her +face.</p> + +<p>They stood for a long time in silence, Gregory leaning beside her and +looking down at the sea. His thought was not with the stricken figure +she put before him; it dwelt on the girl facing horror, on the child +bearing more than a child should bear. Yet he was glad to feel, as a +background to his thoughts, that Madame von Marwitz was indeed very +pitiful.</p> + +<p>"You understand," said Karen, straightening herself at last and laying +her hands on the wall. "You see how it is."</p> + +<p>"Yes," said Gregory.</p> + +<p>"It is kind of you, and beautiful, to feel me, as your friend, a person +of value," said Karen. "But it does not please me to have the great fact +of my life belittled."</p> + +<p>"I haven't meant to do that, really. I see why it means so much, to you. +But I see you before I see the facts of your life; they interest me +because of you," said Gregory. "You come first to me. It's that I want +you to understand."</p> + +<p>Karen had at last turned her eyes upon his and they met them in a long +encounter that recalled to Gregory their first. It was not the moment +for explicit recognitions or avowals; the shadow of the past lay too +darkly upon her. But that their relation had changed her deepened gaze +accepted. She took his hand, she had a fashion almost boyish of taking +his rather than giving her hand, and said: "We shall both understand +more and more; that is so, is it not? And some day you will know her. +Until you know her you cannot really understand."</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XI" id="CHAPTER_XI"></a>CHAPTER XI</h2> + + +<p>Karen and he had walked back to the house in silence, and at the door, +where she stood to see him off, it had been arranged that he was to +lunch at Les Solitudes next day and that she was to show him a favourite +headland, one not far away, but that he had never yet been shown. From +the sweetness, yet gravity, of her look and voice he could infer nothing +but that she recognized change and a new significance. Her manner had +neither the confusion nor the pretended unconsciousness of ordinary +girlhood. She was calm, but with a new thoughtfulness. He arrived a +little early next day and found Mrs. Talcott alone in the morning-room +writing letters. He noticed, as she rose from the bureau, her large, +immature, considered writing. "Karen'll be down in a minute or two, I +guess," she said. "Take a chair."</p> + +<p>"Don't let me interrupt you," said Gregory, as Mrs. Talcott seated +herself before him, her hands folded at her waist. But Mrs. Talcott, +remarking briefly, "Don't mention it," did not move back to her former +place. She examined him and he examined her and he felt that she probed +through his composure to his unrest. "I wanted a little talk," she +observed presently. "You've gotten pretty fond of Karen, haven't you, +Mr. Jardine?"</p> + +<p>This was to come at once to the point. "Very fond," said Gregory, +wondering if she had been diagnosing his fondness in a letter to Madame +von Marwitz.</p> + +<p>"She hasn't got many friends," Mrs. Talcott, after another moment of +contemplation, went on. "She's always been a lonesome sort of child."</p> + +<p>"That's what has struck me, too," said Gregory.</p> + +<p>"Sometimes Mercedes takes her along; but sometimes she don't," Mrs. +Talcott pursued. "It ain't a particularly lively sort of life for a +young girl, going on in an out-of-the-way place like this with an old +woman like me. She's spent most of her time with me, when you come to +reckon it up." There was no air of criticism or confidence in Mrs. +Talcott. She put forward these remarks with unbiassed placidity.</p> + +<p>"I suppose Madame von Marwitz couldn't arrange always to take her?" +Gregory asked after a pause.</p> + +<p>"It ain't always convenient toting a young girl round with you," said +Mrs. Talcott. "Sometimes Mercedes feels like it and sometimes she don't. +Karen and I stay at home, now that I'm too old to go about with her, and +we see her when she's home. That's the idea. But she ain't much at home. +She's mostly travelling and staying around with folks."</p> + +<p>"It isn't a particularly lively time, it seems to me, for either of +you," said Gregory. It was his instinct to blame Madame von Marwitz for +the featureless lives led by her dependents, though he could but own +that it might, perhaps, be difficult to fit them into the vagabondage of +a great pianist's existence.</p> + +<p>"Well, it's good enough for me," said Mrs. Talcott. "I'm very contented +if it comes to that; and so is Karen. She's known so much that's worse, +the same as I have. But she's known what's better, too; she was a pretty +big girl when her Poppa died and she was a companion to him and I reckon +that without figuring it up much to herself she's lonesome a good deal."</p> + +<p>Gregory for a moment was silent. Then he found it quite natural to say +to Mrs. Talcott: "What I hope is that she will marry me."</p> + +<p>"I hope so, too," said Mrs. Talcott with no alteration of tone. "I hoped +so the moment I set eyes on you. I saw that you were a good young man +and that you'd make her a good kind husband."</p> + +<p>"Thanks, very much," said Gregory, smiling yet deeply touched. "I hope I +may be. I intend to be if she will have me."</p> + +<p>"The child is mighty fond of you," said Mrs. Talcott. "And it's not as +if she took easy to people. She don't. She's never seemed to need folks. +But I can see that she's mighty fond of you, and what I want to say is, +even if it don't seem to work out like you want it to right away, you +hang on, Mr. Jardine; that's my advice; an old woman like me understands +young girls better than they understand themselves. Karen is so wrapped +up in Mercedes and thinks such a sight of her that perhaps she'll feel +she don't want to leave her and that sort of thing; but just you hang +on."</p> + +<p>"I intend to," said Gregory. "I can't say how much I thank you for being +on my side."</p> + +<p>"Yes; I'm on your side, and I'm on Karen's side; and I want to see this +thing put through," said Mrs. Talcott.</p> + +<p>Something seemed to hover between them now, a fourth figure that must be +added to the trio they made. He wondered, if he did hang on successfully +and if it did work out as he intended that it should, how that fourth +figure would work in. He couldn't see a shared life with Karen from +which it could be eliminated, nor did he, of course, wish to see it +eliminated; but he did not see himself, either, as forming one of a band +of satellites, and the main fact about the fourth figure seemed to be +that any relation to it involved one, apparently, in discipleship. There +seemed even some disloyalty to Mrs. Talcott in accepting her sympathy +while anxieties and repudiations such as these were passing through his +mind; for she, no doubt, saw in Karen's relation to Madame von Marwitz +the chief asset with which she could present a husband; and he expected +Mrs. Talcott, now, to make some reference to this asset; but none came; +and if she expected from him some recognition of it, no expectancy was +visible in the old blue eyes fixed on his face. A silence fell between +them, and as it grew longer it grew the more consoling. Into their +compact of understanding she let him see, he could almost fancy, that +the question of Madame von Marwitz was not to enter.</p> + +<p>Karen, when she appeared, was looking preoccupied, and after shaking his +hand and giving him, for a moment, the sweet, grave smile with which +they had parted, she glanced at the writing-table. "You are writing to +Tante, Mrs. Talcott?" she said. "You heard from her this morning?"</p> + +<p>"Yes; I heard from her," said Mrs. Talcott. Gregory at once inferred +that Madame von Marwitz had been writing for information concerning +himself.</p> + +<p>She must by now have become aware of his correspondence with Karen and +its significant continuity.</p> + +<p>"Are there any messages?—any news?" asked Karen, and she could not keep +dejection from her voice. She had had no letter.</p> + +<p>"It's only a business note," said Mrs. Talcott. "Hasn't Miss Scrotton +written?"</p> + +<p>"Does my cousin keep you posted as a rule?" Gregory asked, as Karen +shook her head.</p> + +<p>"No; but Tante asks her to write sometimes, when she is too tired or +rushed; and I had a letter from her, giving me their plans, only a few +days ago; so that I know that all is well. It is only that I am always +greedy for Tante's letters, and this is the day on which they often +come."</p> + +<p>They went in to lunch. Karen spoke little during the meal. Gregory and +Mrs. Talcott carried on a desultory conversation about hotels and the +different merits of different countries in this respect. Mrs. Talcott +had a vast experience of hotels. From Germany to Australia, from New +York to St. Petersburg, they were known to her.</p> + +<p>After lunch he and Karen started on their walk. It had been a morning of +white fog and the mist still lay thickly over the sea, so that from the +high cliff-path, a clear, pale sky above them, they looked down into +milky gulfs of space. Then, as the sun shone softly and a gentle breeze +arose, a rift of dark, still blue appeared below, as the sky appears +behind dissolving clouds, and fold upon fold, slumbrously, the mist +rolled back upon itself. The sea lay like a floor of polished sapphire +beneath the thick, soft webs. Far below, in a cavern, the sound of +lapping water clucked, and a sea-gull, indolently intent, drifted by +slowly on dazzling wings.</p> + +<p>Karen and Gregory reached their headland and, seating themselves on the +short, warm turf, looked out over the sea. During the walk they had +hardly spoken, and he had wondered whether her thoughts were with him +and with their last words yesterday, or dwelling still on her +disappointment. But presently, as if her preoccupation had drifted from +her as the fog had drifted from the sea, Karen turned tranquil eyes upon +him and said: "I suddenly thought, and the stillness made me think it, +and Mrs. Talcott's hotels, too, perhaps, of all that is going on in the +world while we sit here so lonely and so peaceful. Frenchmen with fat +cheeks and flat-brimmed silk hats sitting at little tin tables in +boulevards; isn't it difficult to realize that they exist? and Arabs on +camels crossing deserts; they are quite imaginable; and nuns praying in +convent cells; and stokers, all stripped and sweating, under the engines +of great steamers; and a little Japanese artist carving so carefully the +soles of the feet of some tiny image; there they are, all going on; as +real to themselves as we are, at the very moment that we sit here and +feel that only we, in all the world, are real." She might almost have +been confiding her fancies to a husband whose sympathy had been tested +by years of fond companionship.</p> + +<p>Gregory, wondering at her, loving her, pulled at the short turf as he +lay, propped on an elbow, beside her, and said: "What nice thoughts you +have."</p> + +<p>"You have them, too, I think," said Karen, smiling down at him. "And +nicer ones. Mine are usually only amusing, like those; but yours are +often beautiful. I see that in your face, you know. It is a face that +makes me think always of a cold, clear, steely pool;—that is what it +looks like if one does not look down into it but only across it, as it +were; but if one bends over and looks down, deep down, one sees the sky +and passing white clouds and boughs of trees. I saw deep down at once. +That is why," her eyes rested upon him, "we were friends from the +first."</p> + +<p>"It's what you bring that you see," said Gregory; "you make me think of +all those things."</p> + +<p>"Ah, but you think them for yourself, too; when you are alone you think +them."</p> + +<p>"But when I am alone and think them, without you in the thought of them, +it's always with sadness, for something I've lost. You bring them back, +with happiness. The thought of you is always happy. I have never known +anyone who seemed to me so peacefully happy as you do. You are very +happy, aren't you?" Gregory looked down at his little tufts of turf as +he asked this question.</p> + +<p>"I am glad I seem to you like that," said Karen. "I think I am usually +quiet and gay and full of confidence; I sometimes wonder at my +confidence. But it is not always so. No, I am not always happy. +Sometimes, when I think and remember, it is like feeling a great hole +being dug in my heart—as if the iron went down and turned up dark +forgotten things. I have that feeling sometimes; and then I wonder that +I can ever be happy."</p> + +<p>"What things, dear Karen?"</p> + +<p>"You know, I think." Karen looked out at the sea. "Tante's face when I +found her husband's body. And my father's face when he was dying; he did +not know what was to become of me; he was quite weak, like a little +child, and he cried on my breast. And my mother's face when she died. I +have not told you anything of my mother."</p> + +<p>"Will you? I want to hear everything about you; everything," said +Gregory.</p> + +<p>"This is her locket," Karen said, putting her hand over it. "Her face is +in it; would you like to see it?"</p> + +<p>He held out his hand, and slipping the ribbon over her head she pressed +the little spring and laid the open locket in it.</p> + +<p>He saw the tinted photograph of a young girl's head, a girl younger than +Karen and with her fair hair and straight brows and square chin; but it +was a gentler face and a clumsier, and strange with its alien +nationality.</p> + +<p>"I always feel as if she were my child and I her mother when I look at +that," said Karen. "It was taken before I was born. She had a happy +life, and yet my memory of her breaks my heart. She was so very young +and it frightened her so much to die; she could not bear to leave us."</p> + +<p>Gregory, holding the little locket, looked at it silently. Then he put +it to his lips. "You care for me, don't you, Karen?" he said.</p> + +<p>"You know, I think," said Karen, repeating her former words.</p> + +<p>He laid the locket in her hand, and the moment had for him a sacramental +holiness so that the locket was like a wedding-ring; holding it and her +hand together he said, lifting his eyes to hers, "I love you. Do you +love me?"</p> + +<p>Her eyes had filled with tears when he had kissed her mother's face, and +there was young awe in her gaze; but no shadow, no surprise.</p> + +<p>"Yes," she said, unhesitatingly. "Yes, I love you, dear Gregory."</p> + +<p>The simplicity, the inevitableness of his bliss overwhelmed him. He held +her hand and looked down at it. All about them was the blue. All her +past, its beauty, its dark, forgotten things, she had given to him. She +was his for ever. "Oh, my darling Karen," he murmured.</p> + +<p>She bent down to look at him now, smiling and unclosing her hand from +his gently, so that she could look at her mother's face. "How glad she +would be if she could know," she said. "Perhaps she does know. Do you +not think so?"</p> + +<p>"Dear—I don't know what I think about those hopes. I hope."</p> + +<p>"Oh, it is more than hope, my belief that she is there; that she is not +lost. Only one cannot tell how or when or where it all may be. For that, +yes, it can be only hope. She, too, would love you, I am sure," Karen +continued.</p> + +<p>"Would she? I'm glad you think so, darling."</p> + +<p>"We are so much alike, you see, that it is natural to feel sure that we +should think alike. Do you not think that her face is much like mine? +What happiness! I am glad it is not a day of rain for our happiness." +And she then added, "I hope we may be married."</p> + +<p>"Why, we are to be married, dear child," Gregory said, smiling at her. +"There is no 'may' about it, since you love me."</p> + +<p>"Only one," said Karen, who still looked at her mother's face. "And +perhaps it will be well not to speak much of our love till we can know. +But I feel sure that she will say this happiness is for me."</p> + +<p>"She?" Gregory repeated. For a moment he imagined that she meant some +superstition connected with her mother.</p> + +<p>Karen, slipping the ribbon over her head, had returned the locket to its +place. "Yes; Tante," she said, still with the locket in her hand.</p> + +<p>"Tante?" Gregory repeated.</p> + +<p>At his tone, its change, she lifted startled eyes to his.</p> + +<p>"What has she to do with it?" Gregory asked after a moment in which she +continued to gaze at him.</p> + +<p>"What has Tante to do with it?" said Karen in a wondering voice. "Do you +think I could marry without Tante's consent?"</p> + +<p>"But you love me?"</p> + +<p>"I do not understand you. Was it wrong of me to have said so before I +had her consent? Was that not right? Not fair to you?"</p> + +<p>"Since you love me you ought to be willing to marry me whether you have +your guardian's consent or not." His voice strove to control its +bitterness; but the day had darkened; all his happiness was blurred. He +felt as if a great injury had been done him.</p> + +<p>Karen continued to gaze at him in astonishment. "Would you have expected +me to marry you without my mother's consent? She is in my mother's +place."</p> + +<p>"If you loved me I should certainly expect you to say that you would +marry me whether your mother consented or not. You are of age. There is +nothing against me. Those aren't English ideas at all, Karen."</p> + +<p>"But I am not English," said Karen, "my guardian is not English. They +are our ideas."</p> + +<p>"You mean, you seriously mean, that, loving me, you would give me up if +she told you to?"</p> + +<p>"Yes," said Karen, now with the heaviness of their recognized division. +"She would not refuse her consent unless it were right that I should +give you up."</p> + +<p>For some moments after this Gregory, in silence, looked down at the +grass between them, clasping his knees; for he now sat upright. Then, +controlling his anger to argumentative rationality, he said, while again +wrenching away at the strongly rooted tufts: "If she did refuse, what +reason could she give for refusing? As I say, there's absolutely nothing +against me."</p> + +<p>Karen had kept her troubled eyes on his downcast face. "There might be +things she did not like; things she would not believe for my happiness +in married life," she replied.</p> + +<p>"And you would take her word against mine?"</p> + +<p>"You forget, I think," he had lifted his eyes to hers and she looked +back at him, steadily, with no entreaty, but with all the perplexity of +her deep pain. "She has known me for eleven years. I have only known you +for three months."</p> + +<p>He could not now control the bitterness or the dismay; for, coldly, +cuttingly he knew it, it was quite possible that Madame von Marwitz +would not "like things" in him. Their one encounter had not been of a +nature to endear him to her. "It simply means," he said, looking into +her eyes, "that you haven't any conception of what love is. It means +that you don't love me."</p> + +<p>They looked at each other for a moment and then Karen said, "That is +hard." And after another moment she rose to her feet. Gregory got up and +they went down the cliff-path towards Les Solitudes.</p> + +<p>He had not spoken recklessly. His words expressed his sense of her +remoteness. He could not imagine what sort of love it was that could so +composedly be put aside. And making no feminine appeal or protest, she +walked steadily, in silence, before him. Only at a turning of the way +did he see that her lips were compressed and tears upon her cheeks.</p> + +<p>"Karen," he said, looking into her face as he now walked beside her; +"won't you talk it over? You astonish me so unspeakably. Can she destroy +our friendship, too? Would you give me up as a friend if she didn't like +things in me?"</p> + +<p>The tears expressed no yielding, for she answered "Yes."</p> + +<p>"And how far do you push submission? If she told you to marry someone +she chose for you, would you consent, whether you loved him or not?"</p> + +<p>"It is not submission," said Karen. "It is our love, hers and mine. She +would not wish me to marry a man I did not love. The contrary is true. +My guardian before she went away spoke to me of a young man she had +chosen for me, someone for whom she had the highest regard and +affection; and I, too, am very fond of him. She felt that it would be +for my happiness to marry him, and she hoped that I would consent. But I +did not love him. I told her that I could never love him; and so it +ended immediately. You do her injustice in your thoughts of her; and you +do me injustice, too, if you think of me as a person who would marry +where I did not love."</p> + +<p>He walked beside her, bitterly revolving the sorry comfort of this last +speech. "Who was the young man?" he asked. Not that he really cared to +know.</p> + +<p>"His name is Herr Franz Lippheim," said Karen, gravely. "He is a young +musician."</p> + +<p>"Herr Franz Lippheim," Gregory repeated, with an irritation glad to +wreak itself on this sudden object presented opportunely. "How could you +have been imagined as marrying someone called Lippheim?"</p> + +<p>"Why not, pray?"</p> + +<p>"Is he a German Jew?" Gregory inquired after a moment.</p> + +<p>"He is, indeed, of Joachim's nationality," Karen answered, in a voice +from which the tears were gone.</p> + +<p>They walked on, side by side, the estrangement cutting deep between +their new-won nearness. Yet in the estrangement was an intimacy deeper +than that of the merely blissful state. They seemed in the last +miserable half hour to have advanced by years their knowledge of each +other. Mrs. Talcott and tea were waiting for them in the morning-room. +The old woman fixed her eyes upon each face in turn and then gave her +attention to her tea-pot.</p> + +<p>"I am sorry, Mrs. Talcott, that we are so late," Karen said. Her +composure was kept only by an effort that gave to her tones a stately +conventionality.</p> + +<p>"Don't mention it," said Mrs. Talcott. "I'm only just in myself."</p> + +<p>"Has it not been a beautiful afternoon?" Karen continued. "What have you +been doing in the garden, Mrs. Talcott?"</p> + +<p>"I sowed a big bed of mignonette down by the arbour, and Mitchell and I +set out a good lot of plants."</p> + +<p>Mrs. Talcott made her replies to the questions that Karen continued to +ask, in an even voice in which Gregory, who kept his dismal eyes upon +her, detected a melancholy patience. Mrs. Talcott must perceive his +state to be already one of "hanging on." Of her sympathy he was, at all +events, assured. She showed it by rising as soon as he and Karen had +drunk their tea. "I've got some more things to do," she said. "Good-bye, +Mr. Jardine. Are you coming over to-morrow?"</p> + +<p>"No," said Gregory taking Mrs. Talcott's hand. "My holiday is over. I +shall be going back to town to-morrow."</p> + +<p>Mrs. Talcott looked into his eyes. "Well, that's too bad," she observed.</p> + +<p>"Isn't it? I'd far rather stay here, I can assure you," said Gregory.</p> + +<p>"We'll miss you, I guess," said Mrs. Talcott. "I'm very glad to have had +the pleasure of making your acquaintance."</p> + +<p>"And I of making yours."</p> + +<p>Mrs. Talcott departed and Gregory turned to Karen. She was standing near +the window, looking at him.</p> + +<p>"We must say good-bye, too, I suppose," said Gregory, mastering his +grief. "You will give me your guardian's address so that I can write to +her at once?"</p> + +<p>Her face had worn the aspect of a grey, passive sheet of water; a +radiant pallor now seemed struck from its dulled surface.</p> + +<p>"You are going to write to Tante?" she said.</p> + +<p>"Isn't that the next step?" Gregory asked. "You will write, too, won't +you? Or is it part of my ordeal that I'm to plead my cause alone?"</p> + +<p>Karen had clasped her hands together on her breast and, in the eyes +fixed on his, tears gathered. "Do not speak harshly," she said. "I am so +sorry there must be the ordeal. But so happy, too—so suddenly. Because +I believed that you were going to leave me since you thought me so wrong +and so unloving."</p> + +<p>"Going to leave you, Karen?" Gregory repeated in amazement. Desperate +amusement struggled in his face with self-reproach. "My darling child, +what must you think of me? And, actually, you'd have let me go?" He had +come to her and taken her hands in his.</p> + +<p>"What else could I do?"</p> + +<p>"Such an idiot would have deserved it? Could you believe me such an +idiot? Darling, you so astonish me. What a strange, indomitable creature +you are."</p> + +<p>"What else could I do, Gregory?" she repeated, looking into his face and +not smiling in answer to his smiling, frowning gaze.</p> + +<p>"Love me more; that's what you could have done—a great deal more," said +Gregory. "That's what you must do, Karen. I can't bear to think that you +wouldn't marry me without her consent. I can't bear to think that you +don't love me enough. But leave you because you don't love me as much as +I want you to love me! My darling, how little you understand."</p> + +<p>"You seemed very angry," said Karen. "I was so unhappy. I don't know how +I should have borne it if you had gone away and left me like this. But +love should not make one weak, Gregory. There you are wrong, to think it +is because I do not love you."</p> + +<p>"Ah, you'll find out if I'm wrong!" Gregory exclaimed with tender +conviction. "You'll find out how much more you are to love me. Oh, yes, +I will kiss you good-bye, Karen. I don't care if all the Tantes in the +world forbid it!"</p> + +<p>In thinking afterwards of these last moments that they had had together, +the discomfitures and dismays of the afternoon tended to resolve +themselves for Gregory into the memory of the final yielding. She had +let him take her into his arms, and with the joy was the added sweetness +of knowing that in permitting and reciprocating his unauthorized kiss +she sacrificed some principles, at all events, for his sake.</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XII" id="CHAPTER_XII"></a>CHAPTER XII</h2> + + +<p>Madame von Marwitz was sitting on the great terrace of a country-house +in Massachusetts, opening and reading her post, as we have already seen +her do. Impatient and weary as the occupation often made her, she yet +depended upon the morning waves of adulation that lapped in upon her +from every quarter of the earth. To miss the fullness of the tide gave +her, when by chance there was deficiency, the feeling that badly made +<i>café au lait</i> gave her at the beginning of the day; something was +wrong; the expected stimulant lacked in force or in flavour, and coffee +that was not strong and sweet and aromatic was a mishap so unusual that, +when it occurred, it became an offence almost gross and unnatural, as +did a post that brought few letters of homage and appreciation. To-day +the mental coffee was as strong and as perfumed as that of which she had +shortly before partaken in her lovely little <i>Louis Quinze</i> boudoir, +after she had come in from her bath. The bath-room was like that of a +Roman Empress, all white marble, with a square of emerald water into +which one descended down shallow marble steps. Madame von Marwitz was +amused by the complexities of luxury among which she found herself, some +of which, even to her, were novel. "<i>Eh, eh, ma chère</i>," she had said to +Miss Scrotton, "beautiful if you will, and very beautiful; but its nails +are too much polished, its hair too much <i>ondulé</i>. I prefer a porcelain +to a marble bath-tub." But the ingenuities of hospitality which the +Aspreys—earnest and accomplished millionaires—lavished upon their +guests made one, she owned, balmily comfortable. And as she sat now in +her soft white draperies under a great silken sunshade, raised on a +stand above her and looking in the sunlight like a silver bell, the +beauty of her surroundings—the splendid Italian gardens, a miracle of +achievement even if lacking, as the miraculous may, an obvious relation +with its surroundings; the landscape with its inlaid lake and wood and +hill and great arch of bluest sky; the tall, transparent, Turneresque +trees in the middle distance;—all this stately serenity seemed to have +wrought in her an answering suavity and gladness. There was almost a +latent gaiety in her glance, as, with her large, white, securely moving +hands, which seemed to express their potential genius in every deft and +delicate gesture, she took up and cut open and unfolded her letters, +pausing between them now and then to tweak off and eat a grape as large +as a plum from the bunch lying on its leaves in a Veronese-like silver +platter beside her.</p> + +<p>This suavity, this gladness and even gaiety of demeanour were apparent +to Miss Eleanor Scrotton when she presently emerged from the house and +advanced slowly along the terrace, pausing at intervals beside its +balustrade to gaze with a somewhat melancholy eye over the prospect.</p> + +<p>Miss Scrotton was struggling with a half formulated sense of grievance. +It was she who had brought Madame von Marwitz and the Aspreys together. +Madame von Marwitz already knew, of course, most of the people in +America who were worth knowing; if she hadn't met them there she had met +them in Europe; but the Aspreys she had, till then, never met, and they +had been, indisputably, Miss Scrotton's possession. Miss Scrotton had +known them slightly for several years; her father and Mr. Asprey had +corresponded on some sociological theme and the Aspreys had called on +him in London in a mood of proper deference and awe. She had written to +the Aspreys before sailing with Mercedes, had found that they were +wintering in Egypt, but would be back in America in Spring, ready to +receive Madame von Marwitz and herself with open arms; and within those +arms she had, a week ago, placed her treasure. No doubt someone else +would have done it if she hadn't; and perhaps she had been too eager in +her determination that no one else should do it. Perhaps she was +altogether a little too eager. Madame von Marwitz liked people to care +for her and showed a pretty gratitude for pains endured on her behalf; +at least she usually did so; but it may well have been that the great +woman, at once vaguely aloof and ironically observant, had become a +little irked, or bored, or merely amused at hearing so continually, as +it were, her good Scrotton panting beside her, tense, determined and +watchful of opportunity. However that may have been, Miss Scrotton, as +Madame von Marwitz's glance now lifted and rested upon herself, detected +the sharper gaiety defined by the French as "<i>malice</i>," lighting, though +ever so mildly, her friend's eyes and lips. Like most devotees Miss +Scrotton had something of the valet in her composition, and with the +valet's capacity for obsequiousness went a valet-like shrewdness of +perception. She hadn't spent four months travelling about America with +Madame von Marwitz without seeing her in undress. She had long since +become uncomfortably aware that when Madame von Marwitz found one a +little ridiculous she could be unkind, and that when one added +plaintiveness to folly she often amused herself by giving one, to speak +metaphorically, soft yet sharp little pinches that left one nervously +uncertain of whether a caress or an aggression had been intended.</p> + +<p>Miss Scrotton was plaintive, and she could not conceal it. Glory as she +might in the <i>rôle</i> of second fiddle, she was very tenaciously aware of +what was due to that subservient but by no means insignificant +performer; and the Aspreys had not shown themselves enough aware, +Mercedes had not shown herself aware at all, of what they all owed to +her sustaining, discreet and harmonious accompaniment. In the carefully +selected party assembled at Belle Vue for Madame von Marwitz's +delectation, she had been made a little to feel that she was but one of +the indistinguishable orchestra that plucked out from accommodating +strings a mellow bass to the one thrilling solo. Not for one moment did +she grudge any of the recognitions that were her great friend's due; but +she did expect to bask beside her; she did expect to find transmitted to +her an important satellite's share of beams; and, it wasn't to be +denied, Mercedes had been too much occupied with other people—and with +one other in particular—to shine upon her in any distinguishing degree. +Mercedes had the faculty, chafe against it as one might—and her very +fondness, her very familiarity were a part of the effect—of making one +show as an unimportant satellite, as something that would revolve when +wanted and be contentedly invisible when that was fitting. "I might +almost as well be a paid <i>dame de compagnie</i>," Miss Scrotton had more +than once murmured to herself with a lip that trembled; and, obscurely, +she realised that close association with the great might reveal one as +insignificant rather than as glorified. It was therefore with her air of +melancholy that she paused in her advance along the terrace to gaze out +at the prospect, and with an air of emphasized calm and dignity that she +finally came towards her friend; and, as she came, thus armed, the +blitheness deepened in the great woman's eyes.</p> + +<p>"Well, <i>ma chèrie</i>," she remarked, "How goes it?" She spoke in French.</p> + +<p>"Very well, <i>ma bien aimée</i>," Miss Scrotton replied in the same +language. Her French was correct, but Mercedes often made playful +sallies at the expense of her accent. She preferred not to talk in +French. And when Madame von Marwitz went on to ask her where her fellow +<i>convives</i> were, it was in English that she answered, "I don't know +where they all are—I have been busy writing letters; Mrs. Asprey and +Lady Rose are driving, I know, and Mr. Asprey and Mr. Drew I saw in the +smoking-room as I passed. The Marquis I don't think is down yet, nor +Mrs. Furnivall; the young people are playing tennis, I suppose."</p> + +<p>Miss Scrotton looked about the terrace with its rhythmic tubs of +flowering trees, its groups of chairs, its white silk parasols, and then +wandered to the parapet to turn and glance up at the splendid copy of an +Italian villa that rose above it. "It is really very beautiful, +Mercedes," she observed. "It becomes the more significant from being so +isolated, so divorced from what we are accustomed to find in Europe as a +setting for such a place, doesn't it? Just as, I always think, the +people of the Asprey type, the best this country has to offer, are more +significant, too, for being picked out from so much that is +indistinguishable. I do flatter myself, darling, that in this visit, at +least, I've been able to offer you something really worth your while, +something that adds to your experience of people and places. You <i>are</i> +enjoying yourself," said Miss Scrotton with a manner of sad +satisfaction.</p> + +<p>"Yes; truly," Madame von Marwitz made genial reply. "The more so for +finding myself surrounded by so many old acquaintances. It is a +particular pleasure to see again Lady Rose and the vivacious and +intelligent Mrs. Furnivall; it was in Venice that we last met; her +Palazzo there you must one day see. Monsieur de Hautefeuille and Mr. +Drew I counted already as friends in Europe."</p> + +<p>"And Mrs. Asprey you will soon count as one, I hope. She is really a +somewhat remarkable woman. She comes, you know, of one of their best and +oldest families."</p> + +<p>"Oh, for that, no; not remarkable. Good, if you will—<i>bon comme du +pain</i>; it strikes me much, that goodness, among these American rich whom +we are accustomed to hear so crudely caricatured in Europe;—and it is +quite a respectable little aristocracy. They ally themselves, as we see +here in our excellent host and hostess, with what there is of old blood +in the country and win tradition to guide their power. They are not the +flaunting, vulgar rich, of whom we hear so much from those who do not +know them, but the anxious, thoughtful, virtuous rich, oppressed by +their responsibilities and all studying so hard, poor dears, at stiff, +deep books, in order to fulfil them worthily. They all go to +<i>conférences</i>, these ladies, it seems, and study sociology. They take +life with a seriousness that I have never seen equalled. Mrs. Asprey is +like them all; good, oh, but yes. And I am pleased to know her, too. +Mrs. Furnivall had promised her long since, she tells me, that it should +be. She and Mrs. Furnivall are old school-mates."</p> + +<p>Miss Scrotton, all her merit thus mildly withdrawn from her, stood +silent for some moments looking away at the lake and the Turneresque +trees.</p> + +<p>"It was so very kind of you, Mercedes, to have had Mr. Drew asked here," +she observed at last, very casually. "It is a real opportunity for a +young bohemian of that type; you are a true fairy-godmother to him; +first Mrs. Forrester and now the Aspreys. Curious, wasn't it, his +appearing over here so suddenly?"</p> + +<p>"Curious? It did not strike me so," said Madame von Marwitz, showing no +consciousness of the thrust her friend had ventured to essay. "People +come to America a great deal, do they not; and often suddenly. It is the +country of suddenness. His books are much read here, it seems, and he +had business with his publishers. He knew, too, that I was here; and +that to him was also an attraction. Why curious, my Scrotton?"</p> + +<p>Miss Scrotton disliked intensely being called "my Scrotton;" but she had +never yet found the necessary courage to protest against the +appellation. "Oh, only because I had had no hint of it until he +appeared," she returned. "And I wondered if you had had. Yes; I suppose +he would be a good deal read over here. It is a very derivative and +artificial talent, don't you think, darling?"</p> + +<p>"Rather derivative; rather artificial," Madame von Marwitz replied +serenely.</p> + +<p>"He doesn't look well, does he?" Miss Scrotton pursued, after a little +pause. "I don't like that puffiness about the eyelids and chin. It will +be fatal for him to become fat."</p> + +<p>"No," said Madame von Marwitz, as serenely as before, her eyes now on a +letter that she held. "Ah, no; he could rise above fat, that young man. +I can see him fat with impunity. Would it become, then, somewhat the +Talleyrand type? How many distinguished men have been fat. Napoleon, +Renan, Gibbon, Dr. Johnson—" she turned her sheet as she mildly brought +out the desultory list. "And all seem to end in n, do they not? I am +glad that I asked Mr. Drew. He flavours the dish like an aromatic herb; +and what a success he has been; <i>hein</i>? But he is the type of personal +success. He is independent, indifferent, individual."</p> + +<p>"Ah, my dear, you are too generous to that young man," Miss Scrotton +mused. "It's beautiful, it's wonderful to watch; but you are, indeed, +too kind to him." She mused, she was absent, yet she knew, and knew that +Mercedes knew, that never before in all their intercourse had she +ventured on such a speech. It implied watchfulness; it implied +criticism; it implied, even, anxiety; it implied all manner of things +that it was not permitted for a satellite to say.</p> + +<p>The Baroness's eyes were on her letter, and though she did not raise +them her dark brows lifted. "<i>Tiens</i>," she continued, "you find that I +am too kind to him?"</p> + +<p>Miss Scrotton, to keep up the appearance of ingenuousness, was forced to +further definition. "I don't think, darling, that in your sympathy, your +solicitude, where young talent is concerned, you quite realize how much +you give, how much you can be made use of. The man admires you, of +course, and has, of course, talent of a sort. Yet, when I see you +together, I confess that I receive sometimes the impression of a +scattering of pearls."</p> + +<p>Madame von Marwitz laid down her letter. "Ah! ah!—oh! oh!—<i>ma bonne</i>," +she said. She laughed out. Her eyes were lit with dancing sparks. "Do +you know you speak as if you were very, very jealous of this young man +who is found so charming?"</p> + +<p>"Jealous, my dear Mercedes?" Miss Scrotton's emotion showed itself in a +dark flush.</p> + +<p>"<i>Mais oui; mais oui</i>; you tell me that my friend is a swine. Does +that not mean that you, of late, have received too few pearls?"</p> + +<p>"My dear Mercedes! Who called him a swine?"</p> + +<p>"One doesn't speak of scattered pearls without rousing these +associations." Her tone was beaming.</p> + +<p>Was it possible to swallow such an affront? Was it possible not to? And +she had brought it upon herself. There was comfort and a certain +restoration of dignity in this thought. Miss Scrotton, struggling +inwardly, feigned lightness. "So few of us are worthy of your pearls, +dear. Unworthiness doesn't, I hope, consign us to the porcine category. +Perhaps it is that being, like him, a little person, I'm able to see Mr. +Drew's merits and demerits more impartially than you do. That is all. I +really ought to know a good deal about Mr. Drew," Miss Scrotton pursued, +regaining more self-control, now that she had steered her way out of the +dreadful shoals where her friend's words had threatened to sink her; +"I've known him since the days when he was at Oxford and I used to stay +there with my uncle the Dean. He was sitting, then, at the feet of +Pater. It's a derivative, a <i>parvenu</i> talent, and, I do feel it, I +confess I do, a derivative personality altogether, like that of so many +of these clever young men nowadays. He is, you know, of anything but +distinguished antecedents, and his reaction from his own <i>milieu</i> has +been, perhaps, from the first, a little marked. Unfortunately his +marriage is there to remind people of it, and I never see Mr. Drew <i>dans +le monde</i> without, irrepressibly, thinking of the dismal little wife in +Surbiton whom I once called upon, and his swarms—but swarms, my +dear—of large-mouthed children."</p> + +<p>Miss Scrotton wondered, as she proceeded, whether she had again too far +abandoned discretion.</p> + +<p>The Baroness examined her next letter for a moment before opening it and +if she, too, had received her sting, she abandoned nothing.</p> + +<p>She answered with complete, though perhaps ominous, mildness: "He is +rather like Shelley, I always think, a sophisticated Shelley who had sat +at the feet of Pater. Shelley, too, had swarms of children, and it is +possible that they were large-mouthed. The plebeian origin that you tell +me of rather attracts me. I care, especially, for the fine flame that +mounts from darkness; and I, too, on one side, as you will remember, <i>ma +bonne</i>, am <i>du peuple</i>."</p> + +<p>"My dear Mercedes! Your father was an artist, a man of genius; and if +your parents had risen from the gutter, you, by your own genius, +transcend the question of rank as completely as a Shakespeare."</p> + +<p>The continued mildness was alarming Miss Scrotton; an eagerness to make +amends was in her eye.</p> + +<p>"Ah—but did he, poor man!" Madame von Marwitz mused, rather +irrelevantly, her eyes on her letter. "One hears now, not. But thank +you, my Scrotton, you mean to be consoling. I have, however, no dread of +the gutter. <i>Tiens</i>," she turned a page, "here is news indeed."</p> + +<p>Miss Scrotton had now taken a chair beside her and her fingers tapped a +little impatiently as the Baroness's eye—far from the thought of pearls +and swine—went over the letter.</p> + +<p>"<i>Tiens, tiens</i>," Madame von Marwitz repeated; "the little Karen is +sought in marriage."</p> + +<p>"Really," said Miss Scrotton, "how very fortunate for the poor little +thing. Who is the young man, and how, in heaven's name, has she secured +a young man in the wilds of Cornwall?"</p> + +<p>Madame von Marwitz made no reply. She was absorbed in another letter. +And Miss Scrotton now perceived, with amazement and indignation, that +the one laid down was written in the hand of Gregory Jardine.</p> + +<p>"You don't mean to tell me," Miss Scrotton said, after some moments of +hardly held patience, "that it's Gregory?"</p> + +<p>Madame von Marwitz, having finished her second letter, was gazing before +her with a somewhat ambiguous expression.</p> + +<p>"Tallie speaks well of him," she remarked at last. "He has made a very +good impression on Tallie."</p> + +<p>"Are you speaking of Gregory Jardine, Mercedes?" Miss Scrotton repeated.</p> + +<p>Madame von Marwitz now looked at her and as she looked the tricksy light +of malice again grew in her eye. "<i>Mais oui; mais oui.</i> You have guessed +correctly, my Scrotton," she said. "And you may read his letter. It is +pleasant to me to see that stiff, self-satisfied young man brought to +his knees. Read it, <i>ma chère</i>, read it. It is an excellent letter."</p> + +<p>Miss Scrotton read, and, while she read, Madame von Marwitz's cold, deep +eyes rested on her, still vaguely smiling.</p> + +<p>"How very extraordinary," said Miss Scrotton. She handed back the +letter.</p> + +<p>"Extraordinary? Now, why, <i>ma bonne</i>?" her friend inquired, all limpid +frankness. "He looked indeed, a stockish, chill young man, of the +cold-nosed type—<i>ah, que je n'aime pas ça!</i>—but he is a good young +man; a most unimpeachable young man; and our little Karen has melted +him; how much his letter shows."</p> + +<p>"Gregory Jardine is a very able and a very distinguished person," said +Miss Scrotton, "and of an excellent county family. His mother and mine +were cousins, as you know, and I have always taken the greatest interest +in him. One can't but wonder how the child managed it." Mercedes, she +knew, was drawing a peculiar satisfaction from her displeasure; but she +couldn't control it.</p> + +<p>"Ah, the child is not a manager. She is so far from managing it, you +see, that she leaves it to me to manage. It touches and surprises me, I +confess, to find that her devotion to me rules her even at a moment like +this. Yes; Karen has pleased me very much."</p> + +<p>"Of course that old-fashioned formality would in itself charm Gregory. +He is very conventional. But I do hope, my dear Mercedes, that you will +think it over a little before giving your consent. It is really a most +unsuitable match. Karen's feelings are, evidently, not at all deeply +engaged and with Gregory it must be a momentary infatuation. He will get +over it in time and thank you for saving him; and Karen will marry Herr +Lippheim, as you hoped she would."</p> + +<p>"Now upon my word, my Scrotton," said Madame von Marwitz in a manner as +near insolence as its grace permitted, "I do not follow you. A +barrister, a dingy little London barrister, to marry my ward? You call +that an unsuitable marriage? I protest that I do not follow you and I +assert, to the contrary, that he has played his cards well. Who is he? A +nobody. You speak of your county families; what do they signify outside +their county? Karen in herself is, I grant you, also a nobody; but she +stands to me in a relation almost filial—if I chose to call it so; and +I signify more than the families of many counties put together. Let us +be frank. He opens no doors to Karen. She opens doors to him."</p> + +<p>Miss Scrotton, addressed in these measured and determined tones, changed +colour. "My dear Mercedes, of course you are right there. Of course in +one sense, if you take Gregory in as you have taken Karen in, you open +doors to him. I only meant that a young man in his position, with his +way to make in the world, ought to marry some well-born woman with a +little money. He must have money if he is to get on. He ought to be in +parliament one day; and Karen is without a penny, you have often told me +so, as well as illegitimate. Of course if you intend to make her a large +allowance, that is a different matter; but can you really afford to do +that, darling?"</p> + +<p>"I consider your young man very fortunate to get Karen without one +penny," Madame von Marwitz pursued, in the same measured tones, "and I +shall certainly make him no present of my hard-earned money. Let him +earn the money for Karen, now, as I have done for so many years. Had she +married my good Franz, it would have been a very different thing. This +young man is well able to support her in comfort. No; it all comes most +opportunely. I wanted Karen to settle and to settle soon. I shall cable +my consent and my blessings to them at once. Will you kindly find me a +servant, <i>ma chère</i>."</p> + +<p>Miss Scrotton, as she rose automatically to carry out this request, was +feeling that it is possible almost to hate one's idols. She had +transgressed, and she knew it, and Mercedes had been aware of what she +had done and had punished her for it. She even wondered if the quick +determination to accept Gregory as Karen's suitor hadn't been part of +the punishment. Mercedes knew that she had a pride in her cousin and had +determined to humble it. She had perhaps herself to thank for having +riveted this most disastrous match upon him. It was with a bitter heart +that she walked on into the house.</p> + +<p>As she went in Mr. Claude Drew came out and Miss Scrotton gave him a +chill greeting. She certainly hated Mr. Claude Drew.</p> + +<p>Claude Drew blinked a little in the bright sunlight and had somewhat the +air of a graceful, nocturnal bird emerging into the day. He was dressed +with an appropriateness to the circumstances of stately <i>villégiature</i> +so exquisite as to have a touch of the fantastic.</p> + +<p>Madame von Marwitz sat with her back to him in the limpid shadow of the +great white parasol and was again looking, not at Karen's, but at +Gregory Jardine's, letter. One hand hung over the arm of her chair.</p> + +<p>Mr. Drew approached with quiet paces and, taking this hand, before +Madame von Marwitz could see him, he bowed over it and kissed it. The +manner of the salutation made of it at once a formality and a caress.</p> + +<p>Madame von Marwitz looked up quickly and withdrew her hand. "You +startled me, my young friend," she said. In her gaze was a mingled +severity and softness and she smiled as if irrepressibly.</p> + +<p>Mr. Drew smiled back. "I've been wearying to escape from our host and +come to you," he said. "He will talk to me about the reform of American +politics. Why reform them? They are much more amusing unreformed, aren't +they? And why talk to me about them. I think he wants me to write about +them. If I were to write a book for the Americans, I would tell them +that it is their mission to be amusing. Democracies must be either +absurd or uninteresting. America began by being uninteresting; and now +it has quite taken its place as absurd. I love to hear about their fat, +bribed, clean-shaven senators; just as I love to read the advertisements +of tooth-brushes and breakfast foods and underwear in their magazines, +written in the language of persuasive, familiar fraternity. It was +difficult not to confess this to Mr. Asprey; but I do not think he would +have understood me." Mr. Drew spoke in a soft, slightly sibilant voice, +with little smiling pauses between sentences that all seemed vaguely +shuffled together. He paused now, smiling, and looking down at Madame +von Marwitz.</p> + +<p>"You speak foolishly," said Madame von Marwitz. "But he would have +thought you wicked."</p> + +<p>"Because I like beauty and don't like democracy. I suppose so." Still +smiling at her he added, "One forgets democracies when one looks at you. +You are very beautiful this morning."</p> + +<p>"I am not, this morning, in a mood for unconventionalities," Madame von +Marwitz returned, meeting his gaze with her mingled severity and +softness.</p> + +<p>And again, with composure, he ignored her severity and returned her +smile. It would have been unfair to say that there was effrontery in Mr. +Drew's gaze; it merely had its way with you and, if you didn't like its +way, passed from you unperturbed. With all his rather sickly grace and +ambiguous placidity, Mr. Drew was not lacking in character. He had risen +superior to a good many things, the dismal wife at Surbiton and the +large-mouthed children perhaps among them, and he had won his +detachment. The homage he offered was not unalloyed by humour. To a +person of Madame von Marwitz's calibre, he seemed to say, he would not +pretend to raptures or reverences they had both long since seen through. +It would bore him to be rapturous or reverent, and if you didn't like +him, so his whole demeanour mildly demonstrated, you could leave him, +or, rather, he could leave you. So that when Madame von Marwitz sought +to quell him she found herself met with a gentle unawareness, even a +gentle indifference. Cogitation and a certain disquiet were often in her +eye when it rested on this devotee.</p> + +<p>"Does one make conventional speeches to the moon?" he now remarked, +taking a chair beside her and turning the brim of his white hat over his +eyes so that of his face only the sensual, delicate mouth and chin were +in sunlight. "I shouldn't want to make speeches to you if you were +conventional. You are done with your letters? I may talk to you?"</p> + +<p>"Yes, I have done. You may talk, as foolishly as you please, but not +unconventionally; whether I am or am not conventional is not a matter +that concerns you. I have had good news to-day. My little Karen is to +marry."</p> + +<p>"Your little Karen? Which of all the myriads is this adorer?"</p> + +<p>"The child you saw with me in London. The one who stays in Cornwall."</p> + +<p>"You mean the fair, square girl who calls you Tante? I only remember of +her that she was fair and square and called you Tante."</p> + +<p>"That is she. She is to marry an excellent young man, a young man," said +Madame von Marwitz, slightly smiling at him, "who would never wish to +make speeches to the moon, who is, indeed, not aware of the moon. But he +is very much aware of Karen; so much so," and she continued to smile, as +if over an amusing if still slightly perplexing memory, "that when she +is there he is not aware of me. What do you say to that?"</p> + +<p>"I say," Mr. Drew replied, "that the barbarians will always be many and +the civilized few. Who is this barbarian?"</p> + +<p>"A Mr. Gregory Jardine."</p> + +<p>"Jardine? <i>Connais-pas</i>," said Mr. Drew.</p> + +<p>"He is a cousin of our Scrotton's," said Madame von Marwitz, "and a man +of law. Very stiff and clean like a roll of expensive paper. He has +asked me very nicely if he may inscribe the name of Mrs. Jardine upon a +page of it. He is the sort of young man of law, I think I distinguish," +Madame von Marwitz mused, her eyes on the landscape, "who does not smoke +a briar wood pipe and ride on an omnibus, but who keeps good cigars in a +silver box and always takes a hansom. He will make Karen comfortable +and, I gather from her letter, happy. It will be a strange change of +<i>milieu</i> for the child, but I have, I think, made her independent of +<i>milieus</i>. She will write more than Mrs. Jardine on his scroll. It is a +child of character."</p> + +<p>"And she will no longer be in Cornwall," Mr. Drew observed. "I am glad +of that."</p> + +<p>"Why, pray? I am not glad of it. I shall miss my Karen at Les +Solitudes."</p> + +<p>"But I, you see, don't want to have other worshippers there when I go to +stay with you," said Mr. Drew; "for, you know, you are going to let me +stay a great deal with you in Cornwall. You will play to me, and I will +write something that you will, perhaps, care to read. And the moon will +be very kind and listen to many speeches. You know," he added, with a +change of tone, "that I am in love with you. I must be alone with you at +Les Solitudes."</p> + +<p>"Let us have none of that, if you please," said Madame von Marwitz. She +looked away from him along the sunny stretches of the terrace and she +frowned slightly, though smiling on, as if with tolerant affection. And +in her look was something half dazed and half resentful like the look of +a fierce wild bird, subdued by the warmth and firmness of an enclosing +hand.</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XIII" id="CHAPTER_XIII"></a>CHAPTER XIII</h2> + + +<p>Gregory went down to Cornwall again only nine days after he had left it. +He and Karen met as if under an arch of infinite blessings. He had his +cable to show her and she hers to show him, and, although Gregory did +not see them as the exquisite documents that Karen felt them to be, they +did for him all that he asked Madame von Marwitz to do.</p> + +<p>"I give her to you. Be worthy of my trust. Mercedes von Marwitz"—his +read. And Karen's: "I could only yield you to a greater joy than you can +find with me—but it could not be to a greater love. Do not forget me in +your happiness. You are mine, my beloved child, not less but more than +ever.—Tante."</p> + +<p>Karen's joy was unshadowed. It made him think of primroses and crystal +springs. She was not shy; he was shyer than she, made a little dumb, a +little helpless, by his man's reverence, his man's awed sense of the +beloved's dawn-like wonder. She was not changed; any change in Karen +would come as quiet growth, not as transformation. Gregory's gladness +had not this simplicity. It revealed to him a new world, a world newly +beautiful but newly perilous, and a changed self,—the self of boyhood, +renewed yet transformed, through whose joy ran the reactionary +melancholy that, in a happiness attained, glances at fear, and at a +climax of life, is aware of gulfs of sorrow as yet unsounded. More than +his lover's passion was a tenderness for her and for her unquestioning +acceptances that seemed near tears. Karen was in character so wrought +and in nature so simple. Her subtleties were all objective, subtleties +of sympathy, of recognition, of adaptation to the requirements of +devoted action; her simplicity was that of a whole-heartedness unaware +at high moments of all but the essential.</p> + +<p>She had to tell him fully, holding his hand and looking into his eyes, +all about her side of it; what she had thought when she saw him at the +concert—certain assumptions there gave Gregory his stir of +uneasiness—"You were caring just as much as I was—in the same way—for +her music"; what she had thought at Mrs. Forrester's, and at the railway +station, and when the letters went on and on. She had of course seen +what was coming that evening after they had been to the Lavington's; +"When you didn't understand about me and Tante, you know; and I made you +understand." And then he had made her understand how much he cared for +her and she for him; only it had all come so quietly; "I did not think a +great deal about it, or wonder; it sank into me—like stars one sees in +a still lake, so that next day it was no surprise at all, when you told +me; it was like looking up and seeing all the real stars in the sky. +Afterwards it was dreadful for a little while, wasn't it?" Karen held +his hand for a moment to her cheek.</p> + +<p>When all the past had been looked at together, Gregory asked her if she +would not marry him quite soon; he hoped, indeed, that it might be +within the month. "You see, why not?" he said. "I miss you so dreadfully +and I can't be here; and why should you be? Let me come down and marry +you in that nice little church on the other side of the village as soon +as our banns can be called."</p> + +<p>But, for the first time, a slight anxiety showed in her eyes. "I miss +you dreadfully, too," she said. "But you forget, Tante will not be back +till July. We must wait for Tante, Gregory. We are in May now, it is not +so far to July. You will not mind too much?"</p> + +<p>He felt, sitting under the arch of blessings as he was, that it would be +most ungrateful and inappropriate to mind. But then, he said, if they +must put it off like that, Karen would have to come to London. She must +come and stay with Betty. "And get your trousseau"; this was a brilliant +idea. "You'll have to get your trousseau, you know, and Betty is an +authority on clothes."</p> + +<p>"Oh, but clothes. I never have clothes in that sense," said Karen. "A +little seamstress down here makes most of them and Louise helps her +sometimes if she has time. Tante gave me twenty pounds before she went +away; would twenty pounds do for a trousseau?"</p> + +<p>"Betty would think twenty pounds just about enough for your gloves and +stockings, I imagine," said Gregory.</p> + +<p>"And will you expect me to be so luxurious? You are not rich? We shall +not live richly?"</p> + +<p>"I'm not at all rich; but I want you to have pretty things—layers and +layers of the nice, white, soft things brides always have, and a great +many new hats and dresses. Couldn't I give you a little tip—to begin +the trousseau?"</p> + +<p>"Ah, it can wait, can't it?" said Karen easily. "No; you can't give me a +tip. Tante, I am sure, will see that I have a nice trousseau. She may +even give me a little <i>dot</i> when I marry. I have no money at all; not +one penny, you know. Do you mind?"</p> + +<p>"I'd far rather have you without a penny because I want to give you +everything. If Tante doesn't give you the little <i>dot</i>, I shall."</p> + +<p>Karen was pondering a little seriously. "I don't know what Tante will +feel since you have enough for us both. It was when she wished me to +marry Franz that she spoke of a <i>dot</i>. And Franz is of course very poor +and has a great family of brothers and sisters to help support. You will +know Franz one day. You did not speak very nicely of Franz that time, +you know; that was another reason why I thought you were so angry. And +it made me angry, too," said Karen, smiling at him.</p> + +<p>"Wasn't I nice? I am sure Franz is."</p> + +<p>"Oh, so good and kind and true. And very talented. And his mother would +be a wonderful musician if she had not so many children to take care of; +that has harmed her music. And she, too, is a golden-hearted person; she +used often to help me with my dresses. Do you remember that little white +silk dress of mine? perhaps so; I wore it at the concert, such a pretty +dress, I think. Frau Lippheim helped me with that—she and a little +German seamstress in Leipsig. I see us now, all bending over the +rustling silk, round the table with the lamp on it. We had to make it so +quickly. Tante had sent for me to come to her in Vienna and I had +nothing to wear at the great concert she was to give. We sat up till +twelve to finish it. Franz and Lotta cooked our supper for us and we +only stopped long enough to eat. Dear Frau Lippheim. Some day you will +know all the Lippheims."</p> + +<p>He listened to her with dreamy, amused delight, seeing her bending in +the ugly German room over the little white silk dress and only vaguely +aware of the queer figures she put before him. He had no inclination to +know Franz and his mother, and no curiosity about them. But Karen +continued. "That is the one, the only thing I can give you," she said, +reflecting. "You know so few artists, don't you; so few people of +talent. As to people, your life is narrow, isn't it so? I have met so +many great people in my life, first through my father and then through +Tante. Painters, poets, musicians. You will probably know them now, too; +some of them certainly, for some are also friends of mine. Strepoff, for +example; oh—how I shall like you to meet him. You have read him, of +course, and about his escape from Siberia and his long exile."</p> + +<p>"Strepoff? Yes, I think so. A dismal sort of fellow, isn't he?"</p> + +<p>Gregory's delight was merging now in a more definite amusement, tinged, +it may be confessed, with alarm. He remembered to have seen a photograph +of this celebrity, very turbulently haired and very fixed and fiery of +eye. He remembered a large bare throat and a defiant neck-tie. He had no +wish to make Strepoff's acquaintance. It was quite enough to read about +him in the magazines and admire his exploits from a distance.</p> + +<p>"Dismal?" Karen had repeated, with a touch of severity. "Who would not +be after such a life? Yes, he is a sad man, and the thought of Russia +never leaves him. But he is full of gaiety, too. He spent some months +with us two years ago at the Italian lakes and I grew so fond of him. We +had great jokes together, he and I. And he sometimes writes to me now, +such teasing, funny letters. The last was from San Francisco. He is +giving lectures out there, raising money; for he never ceases the +struggle. He calls me Liebchen. He is very fond of me."</p> + +<p>"What do you call him?" Gregory inquired.</p> + +<p>"Just Strepoff; everybody calls him that. Dear Belot, too," Karen +pursued. "He could not fail to interest you. Perhaps you have already +met him. He has been in London."</p> + +<p>"Belot? Does he write poetry?"</p> + +<p>"Poetry? No. Belot is a painter; a great painter. Surely you have heard +of Belot?"</p> + +<p>"Well, I'm afraid that if I have I've forgotten. You see, as you say, I +live so out of the world of art."</p> + +<p>"Did you not see his portrait of Susanne Mauret—the great French +actress? It has been exhibited through all the world."</p> + +<p>"Of course I have. Belot of course. The impressionist painter. It looked +to me, I confess, awfully queer; but I could see that it was very +clever."</p> + +<p>"Impressionist? No; Belot would not rank himself among the +impressionists. And he would not like to hear his work called clever; I +warn you of that. He has a horror of cleverness. It was not a clever +picture, but sober, strange, beautiful. Well, I know Belot and his wife +quite intimately. They are great friends of the Lippheims, too, and call +themselves the Franco-Prussian alliance. Madame Belot is a dear little +woman. You must have often seen his pictures of her and the children. He +has numbers of children and adores them. <i>La petite</i> Margot is my +special pet and she always sends me a little present on my birthday. +Madame Belot was once his model," Karen added, "and is quite <i>du +peuple</i>, and I believe that some of his friends were sorry that he +married her; but she makes him very happy. That beautiful nude in the +Luxembourg by Chantefoy is of her—long before she married, of course. +She does not sit for the <i>ensemble</i> now, and indeed I fear it has lost +all its beauty, for she is very fat. It would be nice to go to Paris on +our wedding-tour and see the Belots," said Karen.</p> + +<p>Gregory made an evasive answer. He reflected that once he had married +her it would probably be easy to detach Karen from these most +undesirable associates. He hoped that she would take to Betty. Betty +would be an excellent antidote. "And you think your sister-in-law will +want me?" said Karen, when he brought her from the Belots back to Betty. +"She doesn't know me."</p> + +<p>"She must begin to know you as soon as possible. You will have Mrs. +Forrester at hand, you see, if my family should oppress you too much. +Barring Betty, who hardly counts as one of them, they aren't +interesting, I warn you."</p> + +<p>"I may oppress them," said Karen, with the shrewdness that often +surprised him. "Who will they take refuge with?"</p> + +<p>"Oh, they have all London to fall back upon. They do nothing when +they're up but go out. That's my plan; that they should leave you a good +deal when they go out, and leave you to me."</p> + +<p>"That will be nice," said Karen. "But Mrs. Forrester, you know," she +went on, "is not exactly an intimate of mine that I could fall back +upon. I am, in her eyes, only a little appendage of Tante's."</p> + +<p>"Ah, but you have ceased, now, to be an appendage of Tante's. And Mrs. +Forrester is an intimate, an old one, of mine."</p> + +<p>"She'll take me in as your appendage," Karen smiled.</p> + +<p>"Not at all. It's you, now, who are the person to whom the appendage +belongs. I'm your appendage. That quite alters the situation. You will +have to stand in the foreground and do all the conventional things."</p> + +<p>"Shall I?" smiled Karen, unperturbed. She was, as he knew, not to be +disconcerted by any novel social situation. She had witnessed so many +situations and such complicated ones that the merely conventional were, +in her eyes, relatively insignificant and irrevelant. There would be for +her none of the débutante's sense of awkwardness or insufficiency. Again +she reminded him of the rustic little princess, unaware of alien +customs, and ready to learn and to laugh at her own blunders.</p> + +<p>It was arranged, Mrs. Talcott's appearance helping to decisions, that as +soon as Karen heard from her guardian, who might have plans to suggest, +she should come up to London and stay with Lady Jardine.</p> + +<p>Mrs. Talcott, on entering, had grasped Gregory's hand and shaken it +vigorously, remarking: "I'm very pleased to see you back again."</p> + +<p>"I didn't tell Mrs. Talcott anything, Gregory," said Karen. "But I am +sure she guessed."</p> + +<p>"Mrs. Talcott and I had our understandings," said Gregory, "but I'm sure +she guessed from the moment she saw me down here. She was much quicker +than you, Karen."</p> + +<p>"I've seen a good many young folks in my time," Mrs. Talcott conceded.</p> + +<p>Gregory's sense of the deepened significance in all things lent a +special pathos to his conjectures to-day about Mrs. Talcott. He did not +know how far her affection for Karen went and whether it were more than +the mere kindly solicitude of the aged for the young; but the girl's +presence in her life must give at least interest and colour, and after +Mrs. Talcott had spoken her congratulations and declared that she +believed they'd be real happy together, he said, the idea striking him +as an apt one, "And Mrs. Talcott, you must come up and stay with us in +London sometimes, won't you?"</p> + +<p>"Oh, Mrs. Talcott—yes, yes;" said Karen, delighted. He had never seen +her kiss Mrs. Talcott, but she now clasped her arm, standing beside her. +Mrs. Talcott did not smile; but, after a moment, the aspect of her face +changed; it always took some moments for Mrs. Talcott's expression to +change. Now it was like seeing the briny old piece of shipwrecked oak +mildly illuminated with sunlight on its lonely beach.</p> + +<p>"That's real kind of you; real kind," said Mrs. Talcott reflectively. "I +don't expect I'll get up there. I'm not much of a traveller these days. +But it's real kind of you to have thought of it."</p> + +<p>"But it must be," Karen declared. "Only think; I should pour out your +coffee for you in the morning, after all these years when you've poured +out mine; and we would walk in the park—Gregory's flat overlooks the +park you know—and we would drive in hansoms—don't you like +hansoms—and go to the play in the evening. But yes, indeed, you shall +come."</p> + +<p>Mrs. Talcott listened to these projects, still with her mild +illumination, remarking when Karen had done, "I guess not, Karen; I +guess I'll stay here. I've been moving round considerable all my life +long and now I expect I'll just stay put. There's no one to look after +things here but me and they'd get pretty muddled if I was away, I +expect. Mitchell isn't a very bright man."</p> + +<p>"The real difficulty is," said Karen, holding Mrs. Talcott's arm and +looking at her with affectionate exasperation, "that she doesn't like to +leave Les Solitudes lest she should miss a moment of Tante. Tante +sometimes turns up almost at a moment's notice. We shall have to get +Tante safely away to Russia, or America again, before we can ask you; +isn't that the truth, Mrs. Talcott?"</p> + +<p>"Well, I don't know. Perhaps there's something in it," Mrs. Talcott +admitted. "Mercedes likes to know I'm here seeing to things. She +mightn't feel easy in her mind if I was away."</p> + +<p>"We'll lay it before her, then," said Karen. "I know she will say that +you must come."</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XIV" id="CHAPTER_XIV"></a>CHAPTER XIV</h2> + + +<p>It was not until some three weeks after that Karen paid her visit to +London. Tante had not written at once and Gregory had to control his +discontent and impatience as best he might. He and Karen wrote to each +other every day and he was aware of a fretful anxiety in his letters +which contrasted strangely with the serenity of hers. Once more she made +him feel that she was the more mature. In his brooding imaginativeness +he was like the most youthful of lovers, seeing his treasure menaced on +every hand by the hazards of life. He warned Karen against cliff-edges; +he warned her, now that motors were every day becoming more common, +against their sudden eruption in "cornery" lanes; he begged her +repeatedly to keep safe and sound until he could himself take care of +her. Karen replied with sober reassurances and promises and showed no +corresponding alarms on his behalf. She had, evidently, more confidence +in the law of probability.</p> + +<p>She wired at last to say that she had heard from Tante and would come up +next day if Lady Jardine could have her at such short notice. Gregory +had made his arrangements with Betty, who showed a most charming +sympathy for his situation, and when, at the station, he saw Karen's +face smiling at him from a window, when he seized her arm and drew her +forth, it was with a sense of relief and triumph as great as though she +were restored to him after actual perils.</p> + +<p>"Darling, it has seemed such ages," he said.</p> + +<p>He was conscious, delightedly, absorbedly, of everything about her. She +wore her little straw hat with the black bow and a long hooded cape of +thin grey cloth. In her hand she held a small basket containing her +knitting—she was knitting him a pair of golf stockings—and a book.</p> + +<p>He piloted her to the cab he had in waiting. Her one small shabby box +was put on the top and a very large dressing-case, curiously contrasting +in its battered and discoloured magnificence with the box, placed +inside; it was a discarded one of Madame von Marwitz's, as its tarnished +initials told him. It was only as the cab rolled out of the station, +after he had kissed Karen and was holding her hand, that he realized +that she was far less aware of him than he of her. Not that she was not +glad; she sighed deeply with content, smiling at him, holding his hand +closely; but there was a shadow of preoccupation on her.</p> + +<p>"Tell me, darling, is everything all right?" he asked. "You have had +good news from your guardian?"</p> + +<p>She said nothing for a moment, looking out of the window, and then back +at him. Then she said: "She is beautiful to me. But I have made her +sad."</p> + +<p>"Made her sad? Why have you made her sad?" Gregory suppressed—only just +suppressed—an indignant note.</p> + +<p>"I did not think of it myself," said Karen. "I didn't think of her side +at all, I'm afraid, because I did not realise how much I was to her. But +you remember what I told you I was, the little home thing; I am that +even more deeply than I had thought; and she feels—dear, dear one—that +that is gone from her, that it can never be the same again." She turned +her eyes from him and the tears gathered thickly in them.</p> + +<p>"But, dearest," said Gregory, "she can't want to make you sad, can she? +She must really be glad to have you happy. She herself wanted you to get +married, and had found Franz Lippheim for you, you know." Instinct +warned him to go carefully.</p> + +<p>Karen shook her head with a little impatience. "One may be glad to have +someone happy, yet sad for oneself. She is sad. Very, very sad."</p> + +<p>"May I see her letter?" Gregory asked after a moment, and Karen, +hesitating, then drew it from the pocket of her cloak, saying, as she +handed it to him, and as if to atone for the impatience, "It doesn't +make me love you any less—you understand that, dear Gregory—because +she is sad. It only makes me feel, in my own happiness, how much I love +her."</p> + +<p>Gregory read. The address was "Belle Vue."</p> + +<div class="blockquot"><p>"My Darling Child,—A week has passed since I had your letter and +now the second has come and I must write to you. My Karen knows +that when in pain it is my instinct to shut myself away, to be +quite still, quite silent, and so to let the waves go over me. That +is why, she will understand, I have not written yet. I have waited +for the strength and courage to come back to me so that I might +look my sorrow in the face. For though it is joy for you, and I +rejoice in it, it is sorrow, could it be otherwise, for me. So the +years go on and so our cherished flowers drop from us; so we feel +our roots of life chilling and growing old; and the marriage-veil +that we wrap round a beloved child becomes the symbol of the shroud +that is to fold us from her. I knew that I should one day have to +give up my Karen; I wished it; she knows that; but now that it has +come and that the torch is in her hand, I can only feel the +darkness in which her going leaves me. Not to find my little Karen +there, in my life, part of my life;—that is the thought that +pierces me. In how many places have I found her, for years and +years; do you remember them all, Karen? I know that in heart we are +not to be severed; I know that, as I cabled to you, you are not +less but more mine than ever; but the body cries out for the dear +presence; for the warm little hand in my tired hand, the loving +eyes in my sad eyes, the loving heart to lean my stricken heart +upon. How shall I bear the loneliness and the silence of my life +without you?</p> + +<p>"Do not forget me, my Karen. Ah, I know you will not, yet the cry +arises. Do not let this new love that has come to you in your youth +and gladness shut me out more than it must. Do not forget the old, +the lonely Tante. Ah, these poor tears, they fall and fall. I am +sad, sad to death, my Karen. Great darknesses are behind me, and +before me I see the darkness to which I go.</p> + +<p>"Farewell, my darling.—<i>Lebewohl.</i>—Tell Mr. Jardine that he must +make my child happy indeed if I am to forgive him for my loss.</p> + +<p>"Yes; it shall be in July, when I return. I send you a little gift +that my Karen may make herself the fine lady, ready for all the +gaieties of the new life. He will wish it to be a joyful one, I +know; he will wish her to drink deep of all that the world has to +offer of splendid, and rare, and noble. My child is worthy of a +great life, I have equipped her for it. Go forward, my Karen, with +your husband, into the light. My heart is with you always.</p> + +<p>"Tante."</p></div> + +<p>Gregory read, and instinctively, while he read, he glanced at Karen, +steadying his face lest she should guess from its tremor of contempt how +latent antagonisms hardened to a more ironic dislike. But Karen gazed +from the window—grave, preoccupied. Such suspicions were far indeed +from her. Gregory could give himself to the letter and its intimations +undiscovered. Suffering? Perhaps Madame von Marwitz was suffering; but +she had no business to say it. Forgive him indeed; well, if those were +the terms of forgiveness, he promised himself that he should deserve it. +Meanwhile he must conceal his resentment.</p> + +<p>"I'm so sorry, darling," he said, giving the letter back to Karen. "We +shall have to cheer her up, shan't we? When she sees how very happy you +are with me I am sure she'll feel happier." He wasn't at all sure.</p> + +<p>"I don't know, Gregory. I am afraid that my happiness cannot make her +less lonely."</p> + +<p>Karen's griefs were not to be lightly dispersed. But she was not a +person to enlarge upon them. After another moment she pointed out +something from the window and laughed; but the unshadowed gladness that +he had imagined for their meeting was overcast.</p> + +<p>Betty awaited them with tea in her Pont Street drawing-room, a room of +polished, glittering, softly lustrous surfaces. Precious objects stood +grouped on little Empire tables or ranged in Empire cabinets. Flat, firm +cushions of rose-coloured satin stood against the backs of Empire chairs +and sofas. On the walls were French engravings and a delicate portrait +of Betty done at the time of her marriage by Boutet de Monvel. The room, +like Betty herself, combined elegance and cordiality.</p> + +<p>"I was there, you know, at the very beginning," she said, taking Karen's +hands and scanning her with her jewel-like eyes. "It was love at first +sight. He asked who you were at once and I'm pleased to think that it +was I who gave him his first information. Now that I look back upon it," +said Betty, taking her place at the tea-table and holding Karen still +with her bright and friendly gaze, "I remember that he was far more +interested in you than in anything else that evening. I don't believe +that Madame Okraska existed for him." Betty was drawing on her +imagination in a manner that she took for granted to be pleasing.</p> + +<p>"I should be sorry to think that," Karen observed and Gregory was +relieved to see that she did not take Betty's supposition seriously. She +watched her pretty hands move among the teacups with an air of pleased +interest.</p> + +<p>"Would you really? You would want him to retain all his æsthetic +faculties even while he was falling in love? Do you think one could?" +Betty asked her questions smiling. "Or perhaps you think that one would +fall in love the more securely from listening to Madame Okraska at the +same time. I think perhaps I should. I do admire her so much. I hope now +that some day I shall know her. She must be, I am sure, as lovely as she +looks."</p> + +<p>"Yes, indeed," said Karen. "And you will meet her very soon, you see, +for she comes back in July."</p> + +<p>Gregory sat and listened to their talk, satisfied that they were to get +on, yet with a slight discomfort. Betty questioned and Karen replied, +unaware that she revealed aspects of her past that Betty might not +interpret as she would feel it natural that they should be interpreted, +supremely unaware that any criticism could attach itself to her guardian +as a result of these revelations. Yes; she had met so-and-so and this +and that, in Rome, in Paris, in London or St. Petersburg; but no, +evidently, she could hardly say that she knew any of these people, +friends of Tante's though they were. The ambiguity of her status as +little camp-follower became defined for Betty's penetrating and +appraising eyes and the inappropriateness of the letter, with its +broken-hearted maternal tone, returned to Gregory with renewed irony. He +didn't want to share with Betty his hidden animosities and once or +twice, when her eye glanced past Karen and rested reflectively upon +himself, he knew that Betty was wondering how much he saw and how he +liked it. The Lippheims again made their socially unillustrious +appearance; Karen had so often stayed with them before Les Solitudes had +been built and while Tante travelled with Mrs. Talcott; she had never +stayed—Gregory was thankful for small mercies—with the Belots; Tante, +after all, had her own definite discriminations; she would not have +placed Karen in the charge of Chantefoy's lady of the Luxembourg, +however reputable her present position; but Gregory was uneasy lest +Karen should disclose how simply she took Madame Belot's past. The fact +that Karen's opportunities in regard to dress were so obviously +haphazard, coming up with the question of the trousseau, was somewhat +atoned for by the sum that Madame von Marwitz now sent—Gregory had +forgotten to ask the amount. "A hundred pounds," said Betty cheerfully; +"Oh, yes; we can get you very nicely started on that."</p> + +<p>"Tante seems to think," said Karen, "that I shall have to be very gay +and have a great many dresses; but I hope it will not have to be so very +much. I am fond of quiet things."</p> + +<p>"Well, especially at first, I suppose you will have a good many dinners +and dances; Gregory is fond of dancing, you know. But I don't think you +lead such a taxing social life, do you, Gregory? You are a rather sober +person, aren't you?"</p> + +<p>"That is what I thought," said Karen. "For I am sober, too, and I want +to read so many things, in the evening, you know, Gregory. I want to +read Political Economy and understand about politics; Tante does not +care for politics, but she always finds me too ignorant of the large +social questions. You will teach me all that, won't you? And we must +hear so much music; and travel, too, in your holidays; I do not see how +we can have much time for many dinners. As for dances, I do not know how +to dance; would that make any difference, when you went? I could sit and +look on, couldn't I?"</p> + +<p>"No, indeed; you can't sit and look on; you'll have to dance with me," +said Gregory. "I will teach you dancing as well as Political Economy. +She must have lessons, mustn't she, Betty? Of course you must learn to +dance."</p> + +<p>"I do not think I shall learn easily," Karen said, smiling from him to +Betty. "I do not think I should do you credit in a ballroom. But I will +try, of course."</p> + +<p>Gregory was quite prepared for Betty's probes when Karen went upstairs +to her room. "What a dear she is, Gregory," she said; "and how clever it +was of you to find her, hidden away as she has been. I suppose the life +of a great musician doesn't admit of formalities. She never had time to +introduce, as it were, her adopted daughter."</p> + +<p>"Well, no; a great musician could hardly take an adopted or a real +daughter around to dances; and Karen isn't exactly adopted."</p> + +<p>"No, I see." Betty's eyes sounded him. "She is really very nice I +suppose, Madame von Marwitz? You like her very much? Mrs. Forrester +dotes upon her, of course; but Mrs. Forrester is an enthusiast."</p> + +<p>"And I'm not, as you know," Gregory returned, he flattered himself, with +skill. "I don't think that I shall ever dote on Madame von Marwitz. When +I know her I hope to like her very much. At present I hardly know her +better than you do."</p> + +<p>"Ah—but you must know a great deal about her from Karen," said Betty, +who could combine tact with pertinacity; "but she, too, in that respect, +is an enthusiast, I suppose."</p> + +<p>"Well, naturally. It's been a wonderful relationship. You remember you +felt that so much in telling me about Karen at the very first."</p> + +<p>"Of course; and it's all true, isn't it; the forest and all the rest of +it. Only, not having met Karen, one didn't realize how much Madame von +Marwitz was in luck." Betty, it was evident, had already begun to wonder +whether Tante was as lovely as she looked.</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XV" id="CHAPTER_XV"></a>CHAPTER XV</h2> + + +<p>"Dear Mrs. Forrester, you know that I worship the ground she treads on," +said Miss Scrotton; "but it can't be denied—can you deny it?—that +Mercedes is capricious."</p> + +<p>It was one day only after Miss Scrotton's return from America and she +had returned alone, and it was to this fact that she alluded rather than +to the more general results of Madame von Marwitz's sudden postponement. +Owing to the postponement, Karen to-day was being married in Cornwall +without her guardian's presence. Miss Scrotton had touched on that. She +had said that she didn't think Mercedes would like it, she had added +that she couldn't herself, however inconvenient delay might have been, +understand how Karen and Gregory could have done it. But she had not at +first much conjecture to give to the bridal pair. It was upon the fact +that Mercedes, at the last moment, had thrown all plans overboard, that +she dwelt, with a nipped and tightened utterance and a gaze, fixed on +the wall above the tea-table, almost tragic. Mrs. Forrester was the one +person in whom she could confide. It was through Mrs. Forrester that she +had met Mercedes; her devotion to Mercedes constituted to Mrs. +Forrester, as she was aware, her chief merit. Not that Mrs. Forrester +wasn't fond of her; she had been fond of her ever since, as a relative +of the Jardines' and a precociously intelligent little girl who had +published a book on Port-Royal at the age of eighteen, she had first +attracted her attention at a literary tea-party. But Mrs. Forrester +would not have sat so long or listened so patiently to any other theme +than the one that so absorbed them both and that so united them in their +absorption. Miss Scrotton even suspected that a tinge of bland and +kindly pity coloured Mrs. Forrester's readiness to sympathize. She must +know Mercedes well enough to know that she could give her devotees bad +half hours, though the galling thing was to suspect that Mrs. Forrester +was one of the few people to whom she wouldn't give them. Mrs. Forrester +might worship as devoutly as anybody, yet her devotion never let her in +for so much forbearance and sacrifice. Perhaps, poor Miss Scrotton +worked it out, the reason was that to Mrs. Forrester Mercedes was but +one among many, whereas to herself Mercedes was the central prize and +treasure. Mrs. Forrester was incapable of a pang of jealousy or +emulation; she was always delighted yet never eager. When, in the first +flow of intimacy with Mercedes, Miss Scrotton had actually imagined, for +an ecstatic and solemn fortnight, that she stood first with her, Mrs. +Forrester had met her air of irrepressible triumph with a geniality in +which was no trace of grievance or humiliation. The downfall had been +swift; Mercedes had snubbed her one day, delicately and accurately, in +Mrs. Forrester's presence, and Miss Scrotton's cheek still burned when +she remembered it. There were thus all sorts of unspoken things between +her and Mrs. Forrester, and not the least of them was that her folly +should have endeared her. Miss Scrotton at once chafed against and +relied upon her old friend's magnanimity. Her intercourse with her was +largely made up of a gloomy demand for sympathy and a stately evasion of +it.</p> + +<p>Mrs. Forrester now poured her out a second cup of tea, answering, +soothingly, "Yes, she is capricious. But what do you expect, my dear +Eleanor? She is a force of nature, above our little solidarities and +laws. What do you expect? When one worships a force of nature, <i>il faut +subir son sort</i>." It was kind of Mrs. Forrester to include herself in +these submissions.</p> + +<p>"I had really built all my summer about the plans that we had made," +Miss Scrotton said. "Mercedes was to have come back with me, I was to +have stopped in Cornwall for Karen's marriage and after my month here in +London I was to have joined her at Les Solitudes for August. Now August +is empty and I had refused more than one very pleasant invitation in +order to go to Mercedes. She isn't coming back for another three +months."</p> + +<p>"You didn't care to go with the Aspreys to the Adirondacks?"</p> + +<p>"How could I go, dear Mrs. Forrester, when I was full of engagements +here in London for July? And, moreover, they didn't ask me. It is rather +curious when one comes to think of it. I brought the Aspreys and +Mercedes together, I gave her to them, one may say, but, I am afraid I +must own it, they seized her and looked upon me as a useful rung in the +ladder that reached her. It has been a disillusionizing experience, I +can't deny it; but <i>passons</i> for the Aspreys and their kind. The fact +is," said Miss Scrotton, dropping her voice a little, "the real fact is, +dear Mrs. Forrester, that the Aspreys aren't responsible. It wasn't for +them she'd have stayed, and I think they must realize it. No, it is all +Claude Drew. He is at the bottom of everything that I feel as strange +and altered in Mercedes. He has an unholy influence over her, oh, yes, I +mean it, Mrs. Forrester. I have never seen Mercedes so swayed before."</p> + +<p>"Swayed?" Mrs. Forrester questioned.</p> + +<p>"Oh, but yes, indeed. He managed the whole thing—and when I think that +he would in all probability never have seen the Aspreys if it had not +been for me!—Mercedes had him asked there, you know; they are very, but +very, very fashionable people, they know everybody worth knowing all +over the world. I needn't tell you that, of course. But it was all +arranged, he and Mercedes, and Lady Rose and the Marquis de +Hautefeuille, and a young American couple—with the Aspreys in the +background as universal providers—it made a little group where I was +plainly <i>de trop</i>. Mr. Drew planned everything with her. She is to have +her piano and he is to write a book under her aegis. And they are to +live in the pinewoods with the most elaborate simplicity. However, I am +sure the Adirondacks will soon bore her."</p> + +<p>"And how soon will Mr. Drew bore her?" asked Mrs. Forrester, who had +listened to these rather pitiful revelations with, now and then, a +slight elevation of her intelligent eyebrows.</p> + +<p>The question gave Miss Scrotton an opportunity for almost ominous +emphasis; she paused over it, holding Mrs. Forrester with a brooding +eye.</p> + +<p>"He won't bore her," she then brought out.</p> + +<p>"What, never? never?" Mrs. Forrester questioned gaily.</p> + +<p>"Never, never," Miss Scrotton repeated. "He is too clever. He will keep +her interested—and uncertain."</p> + +<p>"Well," Mrs. Forrester returned, as if this were all to the good, "it is +a comfort to think that the poor darling has found a distraction."</p> + +<p>"You feel it that? I wish I could. I wish I could feel it anything but +an infatuation. If only he weren't so much the type of a great woman's +folly; if only he weren't so of the region of whispers. It isn't like +our wonderful Sir Alliston; one sees her there standing high on a +mountain peak with the winds of heaven about her. To see her with Mr. +Drew is like seeing her through some ambiguous, sticky fog. Oh, I can't +deny that it has all made me very, very unhappy." Tears blinked in Miss +Scrotton's eyes.</p> + +<p>Mrs. Forrester was kind, she leaned forward and patted Miss Scrotton's +hand, she smiled reassuringly, and she refused, for a moment, to share +her anxiety. "No, no, no," she said, "you are troubling yourself quite +needlessly, my dear Eleanor. Mercedes is amusing herself and the young +man is an interesting young man; she has talked to me and written to me +about him. And I think she needed distraction just now, I think this +marriage of little Karen's has affected her a good deal. The child is of +course connected in her mind with so much that is dear and tragic in the +past."</p> + +<p>"Oh, Karen!" said Miss Scrotton, who, drying her eyes, had accepted Mrs. +Forrester's consolations with a slight sulkiness, "she hasn't given a +thought to Karen, I can assure you."</p> + +<p>"No; you can't assure me, Eleanor," Mrs. Forrester returned, now with a +touch of severity. "I don't think you quite understand how deep a bond +of that sort can be for Mercedes—even if she seldom speaks of it. She +has written to me very affectingly about it. I only hope she will not +take it to heart that they could not wait for her. I could not blame +them. Everything was arranged; a house in the Highlands lent to them for +the honeymoon."</p> + +<p>"Take it to heart? Dear me no; she won't like it, probably; but that is +a different matter."</p> + +<p>"Gregory is radiant, you know."</p> + +<p>"Is he?" said Miss Scrotton gloomily. "I wish I could feel radiant about +that match; but I can't. I did hope that Gregory would marry well."</p> + +<p>"It isn't perhaps quite what one would have expected for him," Mrs. +Forrester conceded; "but she is a dear girl. She behaved very prettily +while she was here with Lady Jardine."</p> + +<p>"Did she? It is a very different marriage, isn't it, from the one that +Mercedes had thought suitable. She told you, I suppose, about Franz +Lippheim."</p> + +<p>"Yes; I heard about that. Mercedes was a good deal disappointed. She is +very much attached to the young man and thought that Karen was, too. I +have never seen him."</p> + +<p>"From what I've heard he seemed to me as eminently suitable a husband +for Karen as my poor Gregory is unsuitable. What he can have discovered +in the girl, I can't imagine. But I remember now how much interested in +her he was on that day that he met her here at tea. She is such a dull +girl," said Miss Scrotton sadly. "Such a heavy, clumsy person. And +Gregory has so much wit and irony. It is very curious."</p> + +<p>"These things always are. Well, they are married now, and I wish them +joy."</p> + +<p>"No one is at the wedding, I suppose, but old Mrs. Talcott. The next +thing we shall hear will be that Sir Alliston has fallen in love with +Mrs. Talcott," said Miss Scrotton, indulging her gloomy humour.</p> + +<p>"Oh, yes; the Jardines went down, and Mrs. Morton;"—Mrs. Morton was a +married sister of Gregory's. "Lady Jardine has very much taken to the +child you know. They have given her a lovely little tiara."</p> + +<p>"Dear me," said Miss Scrotton; "it is a case of Cinderella. No; I can't +rejoice over it, though, of course I wish them joy; I wired to them this +morning and I'm sending them a very handsome paper-cutter of dear +father's. Gregory will appreciate that, I think. But no; I shall always +be sorry that she didn't marry Franz Lippheim."</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XVI" id="CHAPTER_XVI"></a>CHAPTER XVI</h2> + + +<p>The Jardines did not come back to London till October. They had spent a +month in Scotland and a month in Italy and two weeks in France, +returning by way of Paris, where Gregory passed through the ordeal of +the Belots. He saw Madame Belot clasp Karen to her breast and the long +line of little Belots swarm up to be kissed successively, Monsieur +Belot, a short, stout, ruddy man, with outstanding grey hair and a +square grey beard, watching the scene benignantly, his palette on his +thumb. Madame Belot didn't any longer suggest Chantefoy's picture; she +suggested nothing artistic and everything domestic. From a wistful +Burne-Jones type with large eyes and a drooping mouth she had relapsed +to her plebeian origins and now, fat, kind, cheerful, she was nothing +but wife and mother, with a figure like a sack and cheap tortoiseshell +combs stuck, apparently at random, in the untidy <i>bandeaux</i> of her hair.</p> + +<p>Following Karen and Monsieur Belot about the big studio, among canvases +on easels and canvases leaned against the walls, Gregory felt himself +rather bewildered, and not quite as he had expected to be bewildered. +They might be impossible, Madame Belot of course was impossible; but +they were not vulgar and they were extremely intelligent, and their +intelligence displayed itself in realms to which he was almost +disconcertingly a stranger. Even Madame Belot, holding a stalwart, +brown-fisted baby on her arm, could comment on her husband's work with a +discerning aptness of phrase which made his own appreciation seem very +trite and tentative. He might be putting up with the Belots, but it was +quite as likely, he perceived, that they might be putting up with him. +He realized, in this world of the Belots, the significance, the +laboriousness, the high level of vitality, and he realized that to the +Belots his own world was probably seen as a dull, half useful, half +obstructive fact, significant mainly for its purchasing power. For its +power of appreciation they had no respect at all. "<i>Il radote, ma +chèrie</i>," Monsieur Belot said to Karen of a famous person, now, after +years of neglect, loudly acclaimed in London at the moment when, by +fellow-artists, he was seen as defunct. "He no longer lives; he repeats +himself. Ah, it is the peril," Monsieur Belot turned kindly including +eyes on Gregory; "if one is not born anew, continually, the artist dies; +it becomes machinery."</p> + +<p>Karen was at home among the Belot's standards. She talked with Belot, of +processes, methods, technique, the talk of artists, not artistic talk. +"<i>Et la grande Tante?</i>" he asked her, when they were all seated at a +nondescript meal about a long table of uncovered oak, the children +unpleasantly clamorous and Madame Belot dispensing, from one end, +strange, tepid tea, but excellent chocolate, while Belot, from the +other, sent round plates of fruit and buttered rolls. Karen was laughing +with <i>la petite Margot</i>, whom she held in her lap.</p> + +<p>"She is coming," said Karen. "At last. In three weeks I shall see her +now. She has been spending the summer in America, you know; among the +mountains."</p> + +<p>One of the boys inquired whether there were not danger to Madame von +Marwitz from <i>les Peaux-Rouges</i>, and when he was reassured and the +question of buffaloes disposed of Madame Belot was able to make herself +heard, informing Karen that the Lippheims, Franz, Frau Lippheim, Lotta, +Minna and Elizabeth, were to give three concerts in Paris that winter. +"You have not seen them yet, Karen?" she asked. "They have not yet met +Monsieur Jardine?" And when Karen said no, not yet; but that she had +heard from Frau Lippheim that they were to come to London after Paris, +Madame Belot suggested that the young couple might have time now to +travel up to Leipsig and take the Lippheims by surprise. "<i>Voilà de +braves gens et de bons artistes</i>," said Monsieur Belot.</p> + +<p>"You did like my dear Belots," Karen said, as she and Gregory drove +away. She had, since her marriage, grown in perception; Gregory would +have found it difficult, now, to hide ironies and antipathies from her. +Even retrospectively she saw things which at the time she had not seen, +saw, for instance, that the idea of the Belots had not been alluring to +him. He knew, too, that she would have considered dislike of the Belots +as showing defect in him not in them, but cheerfully, if with a touch of +her severity. She had an infinite tolerance for the defects and foibles +of those she loved. He was glad to be able to reply with full sincerity: +"<i>Ils sont de braves gens et de bons artistes.</i>"</p> + +<p>"But," Karen said, looking closely at him, and with a smile, "you would +not care to pass your life with them. And you were quite disturbed lest +I should say that I wanted to go and take the Lippheims by surprise at +Leipsig. You like <i>les gens du monde</i> better than artists, Gregory."</p> + +<p>"What are you?" Gregory smiled back at her. "I like you better."</p> + +<p>"I? I am <i>gens du monde manqué</i> and <i>artiste manqué</i>. I am neither fish, +flesh nor fowl," said Karen. "I'm only—positively—my husband's wife +and Tante's ward. And that quite satisfies me."</p> + +<p>He knew that it did. Their happiness was flawless; flawless as far as +her husband's wife was concerned. It was in regard to Tante's ward that +Gregory was more and more conscious of keeping something from Karen, +while more and more it grew difficult to keep anything from her. +Already, if sub-consciously, she must have become aware that her +guardian's unabated mournfulness did not affect her husband as it did +herself. She had showed him no more of Tante's letters, and they had +been quite frequent. She had told him while they were in Scotland that +it had hurt Tante very much that they should not have waited till her +return; but she did not enlarge on the theme; and Gregory knew why; to +enlarge would have been to reproach him. Karen had yielded, against her +own wishes, to his entreaties. She had agreed that their marriage should +not be so postponed at the last minute. In his vehemence Gregory had +been skilful; he had said not one word of reproach against Madame von +Marwitz for her disconcerting change of plan. It was not surprising to +him; it was what he had expected of Madame von Marwitz, that she would +put Karen aside for a whim. Karen would not see her guardian's action in +this light; yet she must know that her beloved was vulnerable to the +charge, at all events, of inconsiderateness, and she had been grateful +to him, no doubt, for showing no consciousness of it. She had consented, +perhaps, partly through gratitude, though she had felt her pledged word, +too, as binding. Once she had consented, whatever the results, Gregory +knew that she would not visit them on him. It was of her own +responsibility that she was thinking when, with a grave face, she had +told him of Tante's hurt. "After all, dearest," Gregory had ventured, +"we did want her, didn't we? It was really she who chose not to come, +wasn't it?"</p> + +<p>"I am sure that Tante wanted to see me married," said Karen, touching on +her own hidden wound.</p> + +<p>He helped her there, knowing, in his guile, that to exonerate Tante was +to help not only Karen but himself. "Of course; but she doesn't think +things out, does she? She is accustomed to having things arranged for +her. I suppose she didn't a bit realise all that had been settled over +here, nor what an impatient lover it was who held you to your word."</p> + +<p>Her face cleared as he showed her that he recognised Tante's case as so +explicable. "I'm so glad that you see it all," she said. "For you do. +She is oh! so unpractical, poor darling; she would forget everything, +you know, unless I or Mrs. Talcott were there to keep reminding +her—except her music, of course; but that is like breathing to her. And +I am so sorry, so dreadfully sorry; because, of course, to know that she +hurt me by not coming must hurt her more. But we will make it up to her. +And oh! Gregory, only think, she says she may come and stay with us."</p> + +<p>One of her first exclamations on going over his flat with him was that +they could put up Tante, if she would come. The drawing-room could be +devoted to her music; for there was ample room for the grand +piano—which accompanied Madame von Marwitz as invariably as her +tooth-brush; and the spare-bedroom had a dressing-room attached that +would do nicely for Louise. Now there seemed hope of this dream being +realised.</p> + +<p>Karen had not yet received a wedding-present from her guardian, but in +Paris, on the homeward way, she heard that it had been dispatched from +New York and would be awaiting her in London, and it was of this gift +that she had been talking as she and Gregory drove from the station to +St. James's on a warm October evening. Tante had not told her what the +present was, but had written that Karen would care for it very much. "To +find her present waiting for us is like having Tante to welcome us," +Karen said. After her surmise about the present she relapsed into happy +musings and Gregory, too, was silent, able only to give a side-glance of +gratitude, as it were, at the thought that Tante was to welcome them by +proxy.</p> + +<p>His mood was one of almost tremulous elation. He was bringing her home +after bridal wanderings that had never lost their element of dream-like +unreality. There had always been the feeling that he might wake any day +to find Italy and Karen both equally illusory. But to see Karen in his +home, taking her place in his accustomed life, would be to feel his joy +linking itself securely with reality.</p> + +<p>The look of London at this sunny hour of late afternoon and at this +autumnal season matched his consciousness of a tranquil metamorphosis. +Idle still and empty of its more vivid significance, one yet felt in it +the soft stirrings of a re-entering tide of life. Cabs passed, piled +with brightly badged luggage; the drowsily reminiscent shop-windows +showed here and there an adventurous forecast, and a house or two, among +the rows of dumb, sleeping faces, opened wide eyes at the leisurely +streets. The pale, high pinks of the sky drooped and melted into the +greys and whites and buffs below, and blurred the heavy greens of the +park with falling veils of rose. The scene seemed drawn in flat delicate +tones of pastel.</p> + +<p>Karen sat beside him in the cab and, while she gazed before her, she had +slipped her hand into his. She had preserved much of the look of the +unmarried Karen in her dress. The difference was in the achievement of +an ideal rather than in a change. The line of her little grey travelling +hat above her brows was still unusual; with her grey gloves and long +grey silken coat she had an air, cool, competent, prepared for any +emergency of travel. She would have looked equally appropriate dozing +under the hooded light in a railway carriage, taking her place at a +<i>table d'hôte</i> in a provincial French town, or walking in the wind and +sun along a foreign <i>plage</i>. After looking at the London to which he +brought her, Gregory looked at her. Marriage had worked none of its even +superficial disenchantments in him. After three months of intimacy, +Karen still constantly arrested him with a sense of the undiscovered, +the unforeseen. What it consisted in he could not have defined; she was +simple, even guileless, still; she had no reticences; yet she seemed to +express so much of which she was unaware that he felt himself to be +continually making her acquaintance. That quiet slipping now of her hand +into his, while her gaze maintained its calm detachment, the charm of +her mingled tenderness and independence, had its vague sting for +Gregory. She accepted him and whatever he might mean with something of +the happy matter-of-fact with which she accepted all that was hers. She +loved him with a completeness and selflessness that had made the world +suddenly close round him with gentle arms; but Gregory often wondered if +she were in love with him. Rapture, restlessness and fear all seemed +alien to her, and to turn from thoughts of her and of their love to +Karen herself was like passing from dreams of poignant, starry ecstasy +to a clear, white dawn, with dew on the grass and a lark rising and the +waking sweetness of a world at once poetical and practical about one. +She strengthened and stilled his passion for her. And she seemed unaware +of passion.</p> + +<p>They arrived at the great, hive-like mansion and in the lift, which took +them almost to the top, Karen, standing near him, again put her hand in +his and smiled at him. She was not feeling his tremor, but she was +limpidly happy and as conscious as he of an epoch-making moment.</p> + +<p>Barker opened the door to them, murmuring a decorous welcome and they +went down the passage towards the drawing-room. They must at once +inaugurate their home-coming, Gregory said, by going out on the balcony +and looking at the view together.</p> + +<p>"I beg your pardon, sir," said Barker, who followed after them, "but I +hope you and Mrs. Jardine will think it best what I've done with the +large case, sir, that has come. I didn't know where you'd like it put, +and it was a job getting it in anywhere. There wasn't room to leave it +standing here."</p> + +<p>"Tante's present!" Karen exclaimed. "Oh, where is it?"</p> + +<p>"I had it put in the drawing-room, Ma'am," said Barker. "It made a hole +in the wall and knocked down two prints, sir; I'm very sorry, but there +was no handling it conveniently."</p> + +<p>They turned down the next passage; the drawing-room was at the end. +Gregory threw open the door and he and Karen paused upon the threshold. +Standing in the middle of the room, high and dark against the +half-obliterated windows, was a huge packing-case, an incredibly huge +packing-case. At a first glance it had blotted out the room. The +furniture, huddled in the corners, seemed to have drawn back from the +apparition, scared and startled, and Gregory, in confronting it, felt an +actual twinge of fear. The vast, unexpected form loomed to his +imagination, for a moment, like a tidal-wave rising terrifically in +familiar surroundings and poised in menace above him and his wife. He +controlled an exclamation of dismay, and the ominous simile receded +before a familiar indignation; that, too, he controlled; he could not +say: "How stupid!"</p> + +<p>"Is it a piano?" Karen, after their long pause, asked in a hushed, +tentative voice.</p> + +<p>"It's too high for a piano, darling," said Gregory, who had her arm in +his—"and I have my little upright, you see. I can't imagine."</p> + +<p>"Shall I get the porter, sir, to help open it while you and Mrs. Jardine +have tea?" Barker asked. "I laid tea in the dining-room, Ma'am."</p> + +<p>"Yes; let us have it opened at once," said Karen. "But I must be here +when it is opened." She drew her arm from Gregory's and made the tour of +the case. "It is probably something very fragile and that is why it is +packed in such a great box; it cannot itself be so big."</p> + +<p>"Barker will begin peeling off the outer husks while we get ready for +tea; we shall have plenty of time," said Gregory. "Get the porter up at +once, Barker. I'm afraid your guardian has an exaggerated idea of the +size of our domain, darling. The present looks as if only baronial halls +could accommodate it."</p> + +<p>She glanced up at him while he led her to their room and he knew that +something in his voice struck her; he hadn't been able to control it and +it sounded like ill-temper. Perhaps it was ill-temper. It was with a +feeling of relief, and almost of escape, that he shut the door of the +room upon tidal-waves and put his arms around his wife. "Darling," he +said, "this is really it—at last—our home-coming."</p> + +<p>She returned his clasp and kiss with her frank, sweet fervour, though he +saw in her eyes a slight bewilderment. He insisted—he had often during +their travels been her maid—on taking off her hat and shoes for her +before going into his adjoining dressing-room. Karen always protested. +"It is so dear and foolish; I am so used to waiting on myself; I am so +unused to being the fine idle lady." And she protested now, adding, as +he knelt before her, and putting her hand on his head: "And besides, I +believe that in some ways I am stronger than you. It should not be you +to take care of me."</p> + +<p>"Stronger? In what ways? Upon my word, Madam!" Gregory exclaimed smiling +up at her, "Do you know that I was one of the best men of my time at +Oxford?"</p> + +<p>"I don't mean in body, I mean in feelings, in nerves," said Karen. "It +is more like Tante."</p> + +<p>He wondered, while in his little dressing-room he splashed restoringly +in hot water, what she quite did mean. Did she guess at the queer, +morbid moment that had struck at his blissful mood? It was indeed +disconcerting to have her find him like Tante.</p> + +<p>"Do you mind," said Karen, when he joined her again, smiling at him and +clasping her hands in playful entreaty, "seeing at once what the present +is before we have tea? I do not know how I could eat tea while I had not +seen it."</p> + +<p>"Mind? I'm eager to see it, too," said Gregory, with a pang of +self-reproach. "Of course we must wait tea."</p> + +<p>The porter, in the passage, was carrying away the outer boards of the +packing-case and in the drawing-room they found Barker, knee deep in +straw, ripping the heavy sacking covering that enveloped a much +diminished but still enormous parcel.</p> + +<p>Gregory came to his aid. They drew forth fine shavings and unwrapped +layers of paper, neatly secured; slowly the core of the mystery +disclosed itself in a temple-like form with a roof of dull black lacquer +and dimly gilded inner walls, a thickly swathed figure wedged between +them. The gift was, they now perceived, a Chinese Bouddha in his shrine, +and, as Gregory and Barker disengaged the figure and laid it upon the +ground, amusement, though still of an acrid sort, overcame Gregory's +vexation. "A Bouddha, upon my word!" he said. "This is a gorgeous gift."</p> + +<p>Karen stooped to help unroll as if from a mummy, the multitudinous +bandages of fine paper; the passive bronze visage of the idol was +revealed, and by degrees, the seated figure, ludicrously prone. They +moved the temple to the end of the room, where two pictures were taken +down and a sofa pushed away to make room for it; the Bouddha was +hoisted, with difficulty, on to its lotus, and there, dark on its +glimmering background of gold, it sat and ambiguously blessed them.</p> + +<p>Karen had worked with them neatly and expeditionary, and in silence, and +Gregory, glancing at her face from time to time, felt sure that she was +adjusting herself to a mingled bewilderment and disappointment; to the +wish also, that she might be worthy of her new possession. She stood now +before the Bouddha and gazed at it.</p> + +<p>They had turned up the electric lights, but the curtains were not drawn +and the scent, and light, and vague, diffused roar of London at this +evening hour came in at the open windows. Barker, the porter and the +housemaid were carrying away the litter of paper and straw. The bright +cheerful room with its lovable banality and familiar comfort smiled its +welcome; and there, in the midst, the majestic and alien presence sat, +overpowering, and grotesque in its inappropriateness.</p> + +<p>Karen now turned her eyes on her husband and slightly smiled. "It is +very wonderful," she said, "but I feel as if Tante expected a great deal +of me in giving it to me—a great deal more than is in me. It ought to +be a very deep and mystic person to have that Bouddha."</p> + +<p>"Yes, it's a wonderful thing; quite awesome. Perhaps she expects you to +become deep and mystic," said Gregory. "Please don't."</p> + +<p>"There is no danger of that," said Karen. "Of course it is the beauty of +it and the strangeness, that made Tante care for it. It is the sort of +thing she would love to have herself."</p> + +<p>"Where on earth is he to go?" Gregory surmised. "Yes, he might look well +in that big music-room at Les Solitudes, or in some vast hall where he +would be more of an episode and less of a white elephant. I hardly think +he'll fit anywhere into the passage," he ventured.</p> + +<p>Karen had been looking from him to the Bouddha. "But Gregory, of course +he must stay here," she said, "in the room we live in. Tante, I am sure, +meant that." Her voice had a tremor. "I am sure it would hurt her +dreadfully if we put him out of the way."</p> + +<p>Barker was now gone and Gregory put his arm around her. "But it makes +all the room wrong, doesn't it? It will make us all wrong—that's what I +rather feel. We aren't <i>à la hauteur</i>." He remembered, after speaking +them, that these were the words he had used of his one colloquy with +Madame von Marwitz.</p> + +<p>"I don't think," said Karen after a moment, "that you are quite kind."</p> + +<p>"Darling—I'm only teasing you," said Gregory. "I'll like the thing if +you want me to, and make offerings to him every morning—he looks in +need of sacrifices and offerings, doesn't he? And what a queer Oriental +scent is in the air. Rather nice, that."</p> + +<p>"Please don't call it the 'thing,'" said Karen. He saw into her divided +loyalty. And his comfort was to know that she didn't like the Bouddha +either.</p> + +<p>"I won't," he promised. "It isn't a thing, but a duty, a privilege, a +responsibility. He shall stay here, where he is. He really won't crowd +us too impossibly, and that sofa can go."</p> + +<p>"You see," said Karen, and tears now came to her eyes, "it would hurt +her so dreadfully if she could dream that we did not love it very, very +much."</p> + +<p>"I know," said Gregory, kissing her. "I perfectly understand. We will +love it very, very much. Come now, you must be hungry; let us have our +tea."</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XVII" id="CHAPTER_XVII"></a>CHAPTER XVII</h2> + + +<p>Madame von Marwitz sat in the deep chintz sofa with Karen beside her, +and while she talked to the young couple, Karen's hand in hers, her eyes +continually went about the room with an expression that did not seem to +match her alert, if rather mechanical, conversation. Karen had already +seen her, the day before, when she had gone to the station to meet her +and had driven with her to Mrs. Forrester's. But Miss Scrotton had been +there, too, almost tearful in her welcoming back of her great friend, +and there had been little opportunity for talk in the carriage. Tante +had smiled upon her, deeply, had held her hand, closely, and had asked, +with the playful air which forestalls gratitude, how she liked her +present. "You will see it, my Scrotton; a Bouddha in his shrine—of the +best period; a thing really rare and beautiful. Mr. Asprey told me of +it, at a sale in New York; and I was able to secure it. <i>Hein, ma +petite</i>; you were pleased?"</p> + +<p>"Oh, Tante, my letter told you that," said Karen.</p> + +<p>"And your husband? He was pleased?"</p> + +<p>"He thought that it was gorgeous," said Karen, but after a momentary +hesitation not lost upon her guardian.</p> + +<p>"I was sorely tempted to keep it myself," said Madame von Marwitz. "I +could see it in the music-room at Les Solitudes. But at once I felt—it +is Karen's. My only anxiety was for its background. I have never seen +Mr. Jardine's flat. But I knew that I could trust the man my child had +chosen to have beauty about him."</p> + +<p>"It isn't exactly a beautiful room," Karen confessed, smiling. "It isn't +like the music-room; you won't expect that from a London flat—or from +us. But it is very bright and comfortable and, yes, pretty. I hope that +you will like my home."</p> + +<p>Miss Scrotton, Karen felt, while she made these preparatory statements, +had eyed her in a somewhat gaunt manner; but she was accustomed to a +gaunt manner from Miss Scrotton, and Miss Scrotton's drawing-room, +certainly, was not as nice as Gregory's. Karen had not cared at all for +its quality of earnest effort. Miss Scrotton, not many years ago, had +been surrounded with art-tinted hangings and photographs from Rossetti, +and the austerity of her eighteenth-century reaction was now almost +defiant. Her drawing-room, in its arid chastity, challenged you, as it +were, to dare remember the æsthetics of South Kensington.</p> + +<p>Karen did not feel that Gregory's drawing-room required apologies and +Tante had been so mild and sweet, if also a little absent, that she +trusted her to show leniency.</p> + +<p>She had, as yet, to-day, said nothing about the Bouddha or the +background on which she found him. She talked to Gregory, while they +waited for tea, asking him a great many questions, not seeming, always, +to listen to his answers. "Ah, yes. Well done. Bravo," she said at +intervals, as he told her about their wedding-trip and how he and Karen +had enjoyed this or that. When Barker brought in the tea-tray and set it +on a little table before Karen, she took up one of the cups—they were +of an old English ware with a wreath of roses inside and lines of half +obliterated gilt—and said—it was her first comment on the +background—"<i>Tiens, c'est joli.</i> Is this one of your presents, Karen?"</p> + +<p>Karen told her that the tea-set was not a present; it had belonged to a +great-grandmother of Gregory's.</p> + +<p>Madame von Marwitz continued to examine the cup and, as she set it down +among the others, with the deliberate nicety of gesture that gave at +once power and grace to her slightest movement, she said: "You were +fortunate in your great-grandmother, Mr. Jardine."</p> + +<p>Her voice, her glance, her gestures, were already affecting Gregory +unpleasantly. There was in them a quality of considered control, as +though she recognised difficulty and were gently and warily evading it. +Seated on his chintz sofa in the bright, burnished room, all in white, +with a white lace head-dress, half veil, half turban, binding her hair +and falling on her shoulders, she made him think, in her +inappropriateness and splendour, of her own Bouddha, who, in his +glimmering shrine, lifted his hand as if in a gesture of bland exorcism +before which the mirage of a vulgar and trivial age must presently fade +away. The Bouddha looked permanent and the room looked transient; the +only thing in it that could stand up against him, as it were, was Karen. +To her husband's eye, newly aware of æsthetic discriminations, Karen +seemed to interpret and justify her surroundings, to show their +commonplace as part of their charm and to make the Bouddha and Madame +von Marwitz herself, in all their portentous distinction, look like +incidental ornaments.</p> + +<p>Madame von Marwitz's silence in regard to the Bouddha had already become +a blight, but it was, perhaps, the growing crisp decision in Gregory's +manner that made Karen first aware of constraint. Her eyes then turned +from Tante to the shrine at the end of the room, and she said: "You +don't care for the way it looks here, Tante, do you—your present?"</p> + +<p>Madame von Marwitz had finished her tea and she turned in the sofa so +that she could consider the Bouddha no longer incidentally but +decisively. "I am glad that it is yours, <i>ma chérie</i>," she said, after +the pause of her contemplation. "Some day you must place it more +happily. You don't intend, do you, Mr. Jardine, to live for any length +of time in these rooms?"</p> + +<p>"Oh, but I like it here so much, Tante," Karen took upon herself the +reply. "I want to go on living where Gregory has lived for so long. We +have such a view, you see; and such air."</p> + +<p>Madame von Marwitz mused upon her for a moment and then giving her chin +a little pinch, half meditative, half caressing, she inquired, with +Continental frankness: "A very pretty sentiment, <i>ma petite</i>, but what +will you do when the babies come?"</p> + +<p>Karen was not disconcerted. "I rather hope we may not have babies for a +year or two, Tante; and when they do come there will be room, quite +happily, for several. You don't know how big the flat is; you will see. +Gregory has always been able to put up his married sister and her +husband; that gives us one quite big room over and a small one."</p> + +<p>"But then you can have no friends if your rooms are full of babies," +Madame von Marwitz objected, still with mild playfulness.</p> + +<p>"No," Karen had to admit it; "but while they were very small I do not +think I should have much time for friends in the house, should I. And we +think, Gregory and I, of soon taking a tiny cottage in the country, +too."</p> + +<p>"Then, while you remain here, and unless my Bouddha is to look very +foolish," said Madame von Marwitz, "you must, I think, change your +drawing-room. It can be changed," she gazed about her with a touch of +wildness. "Something could be done. It could be darkened; quieted; it +talks too much and too loudly now, does it not? But you could move these +so large chairs and couches away and have sober furniture, of a good +period; one can still pick up good things if one is clever; a Chinese +screen here and there; a fine old mirror; a touch of splendour; a +flavour of dignity. The shape of the room is not impossible; the +outlook, as you say, gives space and breathing; something could be +done."</p> + +<p>Karen's gaze followed hers, cogitating but not acquiescent. "But you +see, Tante," she remarked, "these are things that Gregory has lived +with. And I like them so, too. I should not like them changed."</p> + +<p>"But they are not things that you have lived with, <i>parbleu</i>!" said +Madame von Marwitz laughing gently. "It is a pretty sentiment, <i>ma +petite</i>, it does you honour; you are—but oh! so deeply—the wife, +already, are you not, my Karen? but I am sure that your husband will not +wish you to sacrifice your taste to your devotion. Young men, many of +them do not care for these domestic matters; do not see them. My Karen +must not pretend to me that she does not care and see. I am right, am I +not, Mr. Jardine? you would not wish to deprive Karen of the bride's +distinctive pleasure—the furnishing of her own nest."</p> + +<p>Gregory's eyes met hers;—it seemed to be their second long +encounter;—eyes like jewels, these of Madame von Marwitz; full of +intense life, intense colour, still, bright and cold, tragically cold. +He seemed to see suddenly that all the face—the long eyebrows, with the +plaintive ripple of irregularity bending their line, the languid lips, +the mournful eyelids, the soft contours of cheek and throat,—were a +veil for the coldness of her eyes. To look into them was like coming +suddenly through dusky woods to a lonely mountain tarn, lying fathomless +and icy beneath a moonlit sky. Gregory was aware, as if newly and more +strongly than before, of how ambiguous was her beauty, how sinister her +coldness.</p> + +<p>Above the depths where these impressions were received was his +consciousness that he must be careful if Karen were not to guess how +much he was disliking her guardian. It was not difficult for him to +smile at a person he disliked, but it was difficult not to smile +sardonically. This was an apparently trivial occasion on which to feel +that it was a contest that she had inaugurated between them; but he did +feel it. "Karen knows that she can burn everything in the room as far as +I'm concerned," he said. "Even your Bouddha," he added, smiling a little +more nonchalantly, "I'd gladly sacrifice if it gave her pleasure."</p> + +<p>Nothing was lost upon Madame von Marwitz, of that he was convinced. She +saw, perhaps, further than he did; for he did not see, nor wish to, +beyond the moment of guarded hostility. And it was with the utmost +gentleness and precaution, with, indeed, the air of one who draws softly +aside from a sleeping viper found upon the path, that she answered: "I +trust, indeed, that it may never be my Karen's pleasure, or yours, Mr. +Jardine, to destroy what is precious; that would hurt me very much. And +now, child, may I not see the rest of this beloved domain?" She turned +from him to Karen.</p> + +<p>Gregory rose; he had told Karen that he would leave them alone after +tea; he had letters to write and he would see Madame von Marwitz before +she went. He had the sense, as he closed the door, of flying before +temptation. What might he not say to Madame von Marwitz if he saw too +much of her?</p> + +<p>When she and Karen were left alone, Madame von Marwitz's expression +changed. The veils of lightness fell away; her face became profoundly +melancholy; she gazed in silence at Karen and then held out her arms to +her; Karen came closer and was enfolded in their embrace.</p> + +<p>"My child, my child," said Madame von Marwitz, leaning, as was her wont +at these moments, her forehead against Karen's cheek.</p> + +<p>"Dear Tante," said Karen. "You are not sad?" she murmured.</p> + +<p>"Sad?" her guardian repeated after a moment. "Am I ever anything but +sad? But it is not of my sadness that I wish to speak. It is of you. Are +you happy, my dear one?"</p> + +<p>"Oh, Tante—so happy, so very happy; more than I can say."</p> + +<p>"Is it so?" Madame von Marwitz lifted her head and stroked back the +girl's hair. "Is it so indeed? He loves you very much, Karen?"</p> + +<p>"Oh, yes, Tante."</p> + +<p>"It is a great love? selfless? passionate? It is a love worthy of my +child?"</p> + +<p>"Yes, indeed." A slight austerity was now apparent in Karen's tone. +Silence fell between them for a moment, and then, stroking again the +golden head, Madame von Marwitz continued, with great tenderness; "It is +well. It is what I have prayed for—for my child. And let me not cast +one shadow, even of memory, upon your happiness. Yet ah—ah Karen—if +you could have let me share in the sunshine a little. If you could have +remembered how dark was my way, how lonely. That my child should have +married without me. It hurts. It hurts—"</p> + +<p>She did not wish to cast a shadow, yet she was weeping, the silent, +undisfigured weeping that Karen knew so well, showing only in the slow +welling of tears from darkened eyes.</p> + +<p>"Oh, Tante," Karen now leaned her head to her guardian's shoulder, "I +did not dream you would mind so much. It was so difficult to know what +to do."</p> + +<p>"Have I shown myself so indifferent to you in the past, my Karen, that +you should have thought I would not mind?"</p> + +<p>"I do not mean that, Tante. I thought that you would feel that it was +what it was best for me to do. I had given my word. All the plans were +made."</p> + +<p>"You had given your word? Would he not have let you put me before your +word? For once? For that one time in all our lives?"</p> + +<p>"It was not that, Tante. Gregory would have done what I wished. You must +not think that I was forced in any way." Karen now had raised her head. +"But we had waited for you. We thought that you were coming. It was only +at the last moment that you let us know, Tante, and you did not even say +when you were coming back."</p> + +<p>Madame von Marwitz kept silence for some moments after this, savouring +perhaps in the words—though Karen's eyes, in speaking them, had also +filled with tears—some hint of resistance. She looked away from the +girl, keeping her hand in hers, as she said: "I could not come. I could +not tell you when I was to come. There were reasons that bound me; ties; +claims; a tangle of troubled human lives—the threads passing through my +fingers. No; I was not free; and there I would have had you trust me. +No, no, my Karen, we will speak of it no farther. I understand young +hearts—they are forgetful; they cannot dwell on the shadowed places. +Let us put it aside, the great grief. What surprises me is to find that +the littlest, littlest ones cling so closely. I am foolish, Karen. I +have had much to bear lately, and I cannot shake off the little griefs. +That others than myself should have chosen my child's trousseau; oh, it +is small—so very small a thing; yet it hurts; it hurts. That the joy of +seeking all the pretty clothes together—that, that, too, should have +been taken from me. Do not weep, child."</p> + +<p>"Tante, you could not come, and the things had to be made ready. They +all—Mrs. Forrester—Betty—seemed to feel there was no time to lose. +And I have always chosen my own clothes; I did not know that you would +feel this so."</p> + +<p>"Betty? Who is Betty?" Madame von Marwitz mournfully yet alertly +inquired.</p> + +<p>"Lady Jardine, Gregory's sister-in-law. You remember, Tante, I have +written of her. She has been so kind."</p> + +<p>"Betty," Madame von Marwitz repeated, sadly. "Yes, I remember; she was +at your wedding, I think. There, dry your eyes, child. I understand. It +is a loving heart, but it forgot. The sad old Tante was crowded out by +new friends—new joys."</p> + +<p>"No, you must not say that, Tante. It is not true."</p> + +<p>The hardness that Madame von Marwitz knew how to interpret was showing +itself on Karen's face, despite the tears. Her guardian rose, passing +her arm around her shoulders. "It is not true, then, <i>chérie</i>. When one +is very sad one is foolish. Ah, I know it; one imagines too quickly +things that are not true. They float and then they cling, like the tiny +barbed down of the thistle, and then, behold, one's brain is choked with +thorny weeds. That is how it comes, my Karen. Forgive me. There; kiss +me."</p> + +<p>"Darling Tante," Karen murmured, clasping her closely. "Nothing, nothing +crowded you out. Nothing could ever crowd you out. Say that you believe +me. Say that all the thistles are rooted up and thrown away."</p> + +<p>"Rooted up and burned—burned root and branch, my child. I promise it. I +trust my child; she is mine; my loving one. <i>Ainsi soit-il.</i> And now," +Madame von Marwitz spoke with sudden gaiety, "and now show me your home, +my Karen, show me all over this home of yours to which already you are +so attached. Ah—it is a child in love!"</p> + +<p>They went from room to room, their arms around each other's waists. +Madame von Marwitz cast her spell over Mrs. Barker in the kitchen, and +smiled a long smile upon Rose, the housemaid. "Yes, yes, very nice, very +pretty," she said, in the spare-room, the little dressing-room, the +dining-room and kitchen. In Karen's room, with its rose-budded chintz +and many photographs of herself, of Gregory, she paused and looked +about. "Very, very pretty," she repeated. "You like bedsteads of brass, +my Karen?"</p> + +<p>"Yes, Tante. They look so clean and bright."</p> + +<p>"So clean and bright. I do not think that I could sleep in brass," +Madame von Marwitz mused. "But it is a simple child."</p> + +<p>"Yes, that is just it, Tante," said Karen, smiling. "And I wanted to +explain to you about the drawing-room. You see it is that; I am simple; +not a sea-anemone of taste, like you. I quite well see things. I see +that Les Solitudes is beautiful, and that this is not like Les +Solitudes. Yet I like it here just as it is."</p> + +<p>"Because it is his, is it not so, my child-in-love? Ah, she must not be +teased. You can be happy, then, among so much brass?—so many things +that glitter and are highly coloured?"</p> + +<p>"Yes, indeed. And it is a pretty bedroom, Tante. You must say that it is +a pretty bedroom?"</p> + +<p>"Is it? Must I? Pretty? Yes, no doubt it is pretty. Yet I could have +wished that my Karen's nest had more distinction, expressed a finer +sense of personality. I imagine that every young woman in this vast +beehive of homes has just such a bedroom."</p> + +<p>"You think so, Tante? I am afraid that if you think this like +everybody's room you will find Gregory's library even worse. You must +see that now; it is all that you have not seen." Karen took her last +bull by the horns, leading her out.</p> + +<p>"Has it red wall-paper, sealing-wax red; with racing prints on the walls +and a very large photograph over the mantelpiece of a rowing-crew at +Oxford?" Madame von Marwitz questioned with a mixture of roguishness and +resignation.</p> + +<p>"Yes, yes, you wicked Tante. How did you know?"</p> + +<p>"I know; I see it," said Madame von Marwitz. "But a man's room expresses +a man's past. One cannot complain of that."</p> + +<p>They went to the library. Madame von Marwitz had described it with +singular accuracy. Gregory rose from his letters and his eyes went from +her face to Karen's, both showing their traces of tears.</p> + +<p>"It is <i>au revoir</i>, then," said Madame von Marwitz, standing before him, +her arm round Karen's shoulders. "I am happy in my child's happiness, +Mr. Jardine. You have made her happy, and I thank you. You will lend her +to me, sometimes? You will be generous with me and let me see her?"</p> + +<p>"Of course; whenever you want to; whenever she wants to," said Gregory, +leaning his hands on the back of his chair and tilting it a little while +he smiled the fullest acquiescence.</p> + +<p>Madame von Marwitz's eyes brooded on him. "That is kind," she said +gently.</p> + +<p>"Oh no, it isn't," Gregory returned.</p> + +<p>"I think," said Madame von Marwitz, becoming even more gentle, "that you +misunderstand my meaning. When people love, it is hard sometimes not to +be selfish in the joy of love, and the lesser claims tend to be +forgotten. I only ask that you should make it easy for Karen to come to +me."</p> + +<p>To this Gregory did not reply. He continued to tilt his chair and to +smile at Madame von Marwitz.</p> + +<p>"This husband of yours, Karen," said Madame von Marwitz, "does not +understand me yet. You must interpret me to him. Adieu, Mr. Jardine. +Will you come with me alone to the door, Karen. It is our first farewell +in a home I do not give you."</p> + +<p>She gave Gregory her hand. They left him and went down the passage +together. Madame von Marwitz kept her arm round the girl's shoulders, +but its grasp had tightened.</p> + +<p>"My child! my own child!" she murmured, as, at the door, she turned and +clasped her. Her voice strove with deep emotion.</p> + +<p>"Dear, dear Tante," said Karen, also with a faltering voice.</p> + +<p>Madame von Marwitz achieved an uncertain smile. "Farewell, my dear one. +I bless you. My blessing be upon you." Then, on the threshold she +paused. "Try to make your husband like me a little, my Karen," she said.</p> + +<p>Karen did not come back to him in the smoking-room and Gregory presently +got up and went to look for her. He found her in the drawing-room, +sitting in the twilight, her elbow on her knee, her chin in her hand. He +did not know what she could be feeling; the fact that dominated in his +own mind was that her guardian had made her weep.</p> + +<p>"Well, darling," he said. He stooped over her and put his hand on her +shoulder.</p> + +<p>The face she lifted to him was ambiguous. She had not wept again; on the +contrary, he felt sure that she had been intently thinking. The result +of her thought, now, was a look of resolute serenity. But he was sure +that she did not feel serene. For the first time, Karen was hiding her +feeling from him. "Well, darling," she replied.</p> + +<p>She got up and put her arms around his neck; she looked at him, smiling +calmly; then, as if struck by a sudden memory, she said: "It is the +night of the dance, Gregory."</p> + +<p>They were to dine at Edith Morton's and go on to Karen's first dance. +Under Betty's supervision she had already made progress through +half-a-dozen lessons, though she had not, she confessed to Gregory, +greatly distinguished herself at them. "<i>I'll</i> get you round all right," +he had promised her. They looked forward to the dance.</p> + +<p>"So it is," said Gregory. "It's not time to dress yet, is it?"</p> + +<p>"It's only half-past six. Shall I wear my white silk, Gregory, with the +little white rose wreath?"</p> + +<p>"Yes, and the nice little square-toed white silk shoes—like a Reynolds +lady's—and like nobody else's. I do so like your square toes."</p> + +<p>"I cannot bear pinched toes," said Karen. "My father gave me a horror of +that; and Tante. Her feet are as perfect as her hands. She has all her +shoes made for her by a wonderful old man in Vienna who is an artist in +shoes. She was looking well, wasn't she, Tante?" Karen added, in even +tones. Gregory and she were sitting now on the sofa together, their arms +linked and hand-in-hand.</p> + +<p>"Beautiful," said Gregory with sincerity. "How well that odd head-dress +became her."</p> + +<p>"Didn't it? It was nice that she liked those pretty teacups, wasn't it. +And appreciated our view; even though," Karen smiled, taking now another +bull by the horns, "she was so hard on our flat. I'm afraid she feels +her Bouddha <i>en travestie</i> here."</p> + +<p>"Well, he is, of course. I do hope," said Gregory, also seizing his +bull, "that she didn't think me rude in my joke about being willing to +burn him. And you will change everything—burn anything—barring the +Bouddha and the teacups—that you want to, won't you, dear?"</p> + +<p>"No; I wouldn't, even if I wanted to; and I don't want to. Perhaps Tante +did not quite understand. I think it may take a little time for her to +understand your jokes or you her outspokenness. She is like a child in +her candour about the things she likes or dislikes." A fuller ease had +come to her voice. By her brave pretence that all was well she was +persuading herself that all could be made well.</p> + +<p>Perhaps it might be, thought Gregory, if only he could go on keeping his +temper with Madame von Marwitz and if Karen, wise and courageous +darling, could accept the unspoken between them, and spare him +definitions and declarations. A situation undefined is so often a +situation saved. Life grows over and around it. It becomes a mere +mummied fly, preserved in amber; unsightly perhaps; but unpernicious. +After all, he told himself—and he went on thinking over the incidents +of the afternoon while he dressed—after all, Madame von Marwitz might +not be much in London; she was a comet and her course would lead her +streaming all over the world for the greater part of her time. And above +all and mercifully, Madame von Marwitz was not a person upon whose +affections one would have to count. He seemed to have found out all +sorts of things about her this afternoon: he could have given Sargent +points. The main strength of her feeling for anyone, deep instinct told +him, was an insatiable demand that they should feel sufficiently for +her. And the chief difficulty—he refused to dignify it by the name of +danger—was that Madame von Marwitz had her deep instincts, too, and +had, no doubt, found out all sorts of things about him. He did not like +her; he had not liked her from the first; and she could hardly fail to +feel that he liked her less and less. He was able to do Madame von +Marwitz justice. Even a selflessly devoted mother could hardly rejoice +wholeheartedly in the marriage of a daughter to a man who disliked +herself; and how much less could Madame von Marwitz, who was not a +mother and not selflessly devoted to anybody, rejoice in Karen's +marriage. She was right in feeling that it menaced her own position. He +did her justice; he made every allowance for her; he intended to be +straight with her; but the fact that stood out for Gregory was that, +already, she was not straight with him. Already she was picking +surreptitiously, craftily, at his life; and this was to pick at Karen's.</p> + +<p>He would give her a long string and make every allowance for the +vexations of her situation; but if she began seriously to tarnish +Karen's happiness he would have to pull the string smartly. The +difficulty—he refused to see this as danger either—was that he could +not pull the string upon Madame von Marwitz without, by the same +gesture, upsetting himself as well.</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XVIII" id="CHAPTER_XVIII"></a>CHAPTER XVIII</h2> + + +<p>The unspoken, for the first month or so of Madame von Marwitz's return, +remained accepted. There were no declarations and no definitions, and +Gregory's immunity was founded on something more reassuring than the +mere fact that Madame von Marwitz frequently went away. When she was in +London, it became apparent, he was to see very little of her, and as +long as they did not meet too often he felt that he was, in so far, +safe. Madame von Marwitz was tremendously busy. She paid many week-end +visits; she sat to Belot—who had come to London to paint it—for a +great portrait; she was to give three concerts in London during the +winter and two in Paris, and it was natural enough that she had not +found time to come to the flat again.</p> + +<p>But although Gregory saw so little of her, although she was not in his +life as a presence, he felt her in it as an influence. She might have +been the invisible but portentous comet moving majestically on the far +confines of his solar system; and one accounted for oddities of +behaviour in the visible planets by inferring that the comet was the +cause of them. If he saw very little of Madame von Marwitz, he saw, too, +much less of his twin planet, Karen. It was not so much that Karen's +course was odd as that it was altered. If Madame von Marwitz sent for +her very intermittently, she had, all the same, in all her life, as she +told Gregory, never seen so much of her guardian. She frankly displayed +to him the radiance of her state, wishing him, as he guessed, to share +to the full every detail of her privileges, and to realise to the full +her gratitude to him for proving so conclusively to Tante that there was +none of the selfishness of love in him. Tante must see that he made it +very easy for her to go to her, and Gregory derived his own secret +satisfaction from the thought that Karen's radiance was the best of +retorts to Madame von Marwitz's veiled intimations. As long as she made +Karen happy and let him alone, he seemed to himself to tell her, he +would get on very well; and he suspected that her clutch of Karen would +soon loosen when she found it unchallenged. In the meantime there was +not much satisfaction for him elsewhere. Karen's altered course left him +often lonely. Not only had the readings of Political Economy, begun with +so much ardour in their spare evenings, almost lapsed for lack of +consecutiveness; but he frequently found on coming home tired for his +tea, and eager for the sight of his wife, a little note from her telling +him that she had been summoned to Mrs. Forrester's as Tante was "with +Fafner in his cave" and wanted her.</p> + +<p>Fafner was the name that Madame von Marwitz gave to her moods of +sometimes tragic and sometimes petulant melancholy. Karen had told him +all about Fafner and how, in the cave, Tante would lie sometimes for +long hours, silent, her eyes closed, holding her hand; sometimes asking +her to read to her, English, French, German or Italian poetry; their +range of reading always astonished Gregory.</p> + +<p>He gathered, too, from Karen's confidences, how little, until now, he +had gauged the variety of the great woman's resources, how little done +justice to her capacity for being merely delightful. She could be +whimsically gay in the midst of melancholy, and her jests and merriment +were the more touching, the more exquisite, from the fact that they +flowered upon the dark background of the cave. It was, he saw, with a +richer flavour that Karen tasted again the charm of old days, when, +after some great musical or social event, in which the girl had played +her part of contented observer, they had laughed together over follies +and appreciated qualities, in the familiar language of allusion evolved +from long community in experience.</p> + +<p>Karen repeated to him Tante's sallies at the expense of this or that +person and the phrase with which she introduced these transformations of +human foolishness to the service of comedy. "Come, let us make +<i>méringues</i> of them."</p> + +<p>The dull or ludicrous creatures, so to be whipped up and baked crisp, +revealed, in the light of the analogy, the tempting vacuity of a bowl of +white of egg. When Tante introduced her wit into the colourless +substance she frothed it to a sparkling work of art.</p> + +<p>Gregory was aware sometimes of a pang as he listened. He and Karen had, +indeed, their many little jokes, and their stock of common association +was growing; but there was nothing like the range of reference, nothing +like the variety of experience, that her life with Madame von Marwitz +had given her to draw upon. It was to her companionship, intermittent as +it had been, with the world-wandering genius that she owed the security +of judgment that often amused yet often disconcerted him, the +catholicity of taste beside which, though he would not acknowledge its +final validity, he felt his own taste to be sometimes narrow and +sometimes guileless. He saw that Karen had every ground for feeling her +own point of view a larger one than his. It was no personal complacency +that her assurance expressed, but the modest recognition of privilege. +Beyond their personal tie, so her whole demeanour showed him, he had +nothing to add to her highly dowered life.</p> + +<p>Gregory had known that his world would mean nothing to Karen; yet when, +under Betty's guidance, she fulfilled her social duties, dined out, gave +dinners, received and returned visits, the very compliance of her +indifference, while always amusing, vexed him a little, and a little +alarmed him, too. He had known that he would have to make all the +adjustments, but how adjust oneself to a permanent separation between +one's private and one's social life? Old ties, lacking new elements of +growth, tended to become formalities. When Karen was not there, he did +not care to go without her to see people, and when she was with him the +very charm of her personality was a barrier between him and them. His +life became narrower as well as lonelier. There was nothing much to be +done with people to whom one's wife was indifferent.</p> + +<p>It was very obvious to him that she found the sober, conventional people +who were his friends very flavourless, especially when she came to them +from Fafner's cave. He had always taken his friends for granted, as part +of the pleasant routine of life, like one's breakfast or one's bath; but +now, seeing them anew, through Karen's eyes, he was inclined more and +more to believe that they weren't as dull as she found them. She lacked +the fundamental experience of a rooted life. She was yet to learn—he +hoped, he determined, she should learn—that a social system of +harmonious people, significant perhaps more because of their places in +the system than as units, and bound together by a highly evolved code, +was, when all was said and done, a more satisfactory place in which to +spend one's life than an anarchic world of erratic, undisciplined, +independent individuals. Karen, however, did not understand the use of +the system and she saw its members with eyes as clear to their defects +as were Gregory's to the defects of Madame von Marwitz.</p> + +<p>Gregory's friends belonged to that orderly and efficient section of the +nation that moves contentedly between the simply professional and the +ultra fashionable. They had a great many duties, social, political and +domestic, which they took with a pleasant seriousness, and a great many +pleasures which they took seriously, too. They "came up" from the quiet +responsibilities of the country-side for a season and "did" the concerts +and exhibitions as they "did" their shopping and their balls. Art, to +most of them, was a thing accepted on authority, like the latest cut for +sleeves or the latest fashion for dressing the hair. A few of them, like +the Cornish Lavingtons, had never heard Madame Okraska; a great many of +them had never heard of Belot. The Madame Okraskas and the Belots of the +world were to them a queer, alien people, regarded with only a mild, +derivative interest. They recognized the artist as a decorative +appurtenance of civilized life, very much as they recognized the dentist +or the undertaker as its convenient appurtenances. It still struck them +as rather strange that one should meet artists socially and, perhaps, as +rather regrettable, their traditional standard of good faith requiring +that the people one met socially should, on the whole, be people whom +one wouldn't mind one's sons and daughters marrying; and they didn't +conceive of artists as entering that category.</p> + +<p>Gregory, with all his acuteness, did not gauge the astonishment with +which Karen came to realize these standards of his world. Her cheerful +evenness of demeanour was a cloak, sometimes for indignation and +sometimes for mirth. She could only face the fact that this world must, +in a sense, be hers, by relegating it and all that it meant to the +merest background in their lives. Her real life consisted in Gregory; in +Tante. All that she had to do with these people—oh, so nice and kind +they were, she saw that well, but oh so stupid, most of them, so +inconceivably blind to everything of value in life—all that she had to +do was, from time to time, to open their box, their well-padded, +well-provendered box, and look at them pleasantly. She felt sure that +for Gregory's sake, if not for theirs, she should always be able to look +pleasantly; unless—she had been afraid of this sometimes—they should +say or do things that in their blindness struck at Tante and at the +realities that Tante stood for. But all had gone so well, so Karen +believed, that she felt no misgivings when Tante expressed a wish to +look into the box with her and said, "You must give a little +dinner-party for me, my Karen, so that I may see your new <i>milieu</i>."</p> + +<p>Gregory controlled a dry little grimace when Karen reported this speech +to him. He couldn't but suspect Tante's motives in wanting them to give +a little dinner-party for her. But he feigned the most genial interest +in the plan and agreed with Karen that they must ask their very nicest +to meet Tante.</p> + +<p>Betty had helped Karen with all her dinners; she had seen as yet very +little of the great woman, and entered fully into Karen's eagerness that +everything should be very nice.</p> + +<p>"Gregory will take her in," said Betty; "and we'll put Bertram Fraser on +her other side. He's always delightful. And we'll have the +Canning-Thompsons and the Overtons and the Byngs; the Byngs are so +decorative!" Constance Armytage was now Mrs. Byng.</p> + +<p>"And my dear old General," said Karen, sitting at her desk with a paper +on her knee and an obedient pencil in her hand; "I forget his name, but +we met him at the dinner that you gave after we married; you know, +Betty, with the thin russet face and the little blue eyes. May he take +me in?"</p> + +<p>"General Montgomery. Yes; that is a good idea; glorious old man. Though +Lady Montgomery is rather a stodge," said Betty; "but Oliver can have +her."</p> + +<p>"I remember, a sleek, small head—like a turtle—with salmon-pink +feathers on it. Poor Oliver. Will he mind?"</p> + +<p>"Not a bit. He never minds anything but the dinner; and with Mrs. Barker +we can trust to that."</p> + +<p>"Tante often likes soldiers," said Karen, pleased with her good idea. +"Our flags, she says, they are, and that the world would be +drab-coloured without them."</p> + +<p>So it was arranged. Bertram Fraser was an old family friend of the +Jardines'. His father was still the rector of their Northumberland +parish, and he and Gregory and Oliver had hunted and fished and shot and +gone to Oxford together. Bertram had been a traveller in strange +countries since those days, had written one or two clever books and was +now in Parliament. The Overtons, also country neighbours, were fond of +music as well as of hunting, and Mr. Canning-Thompson was an eminent, if +rather ponderous, Q.C., for whose wife, the gentle and emaciated Lady +Mary, Gregory had a special affection. She was a great philanthropist +and a patient student of early Italian art, and he and she talked +gardens and pictures together.</p> + +<p>Betty and Oliver were the first to arrive on the festal night, Betty's +efficiency, expressed by all her diamonds and a dress of rose-coloured +velvet, making up for whatever there might be of inefficiency in Karen's +appearance and deportment. Karen was still, touchingly so to her +husband's eyes, the little Hans Andersen heroine in appearance. She wore +to-night the white silk dress and the wreath of little white roses.</p> + +<p>Oliver and Gregory chatted desultorily until the Byngs arrived. Oliver +was fair and ruddy and his air of dozing contentment was always +vexatious to his younger brother. He had every reason for contentment. +Betty's money had securely buttressed the family fortunes and he had +three delightful little boys to buttress Betty's money. Gregory grew a +little out of temper after talking for five minutes to Oliver and this +was not a fortunate mood in which to realise, as the Montgomerys, the +Overtons and the Canning-Thompsons followed the Byngs, at eight-fifteen, +that Madame von Marwitz was probably going to be late. At eight-thirty, +Karen, looking at him with some anxiety expressed in her raised brows, +silently conveyed to him her fear that the soup, at the very least, +would be spoiled. At eight-forty Betty murmured to Karen that they had +perhaps better begin without Madame von Marwitz—hadn't they? She must, +for some reason, be unable to come. Dinner was for eight. "Oh, but we +must wait longer," said Karen. "She would have telephoned—or Mrs. +Forrester would—if she had not been coming. Tante is always late; but +always, always," she added, without condemnation if with anxiety. "And +there is the bell now. Yes, I heard it."</p> + +<p>It was a quarter to nine when Madame von Marwitz, with Karen, who had +hastened out to meet her, following behind, appeared at last, benign and +unperturbed as a moon sliding from clouds. In the doorway she made her +accustomed pause, the pause of one not surveying her audience but +indulgently allowing her audience to survey her. It was the attitude in +which Belot was painting his great portrait of her. But it was not met +to-night by the eyes to which she was accustomed. The hungry guests +looked at Madame von Marwitz with austere relief and looked only long +enough to satisfy themselves that her appearance really meant dinner.</p> + +<p>Gregory led the way with her into the dining-room and suspected in her +air of absent musing a certain discomfiture.</p> + +<p>She was, as usual, strangely and beautifully attired, as though for the +operatic stage rather than for a dinner-party. Strings of pearls fell +from either side of her head to her shoulders and a wide tiara of pearls +banded her forehead in a manner recalling a Russian head-dress. She +looked, though so lovely, also so conspicuous that there was a certain +ludicrousness in her appearance. It apparently displeased or surprised +Lady Montgomery, who, on Gregory's other hand, her head adorned with the +salmon-pink, ostrich feathers, raised a long tortoiseshell lorgnette and +fixed Madame von Marwitz through it for a mute, resentful moment. Madame +von Marwitz, erect and sublime as a goddess in a shrine, looked back. It +was a look lifted far above the region of Lady Montgomery's formal, and +after all only tentative, disapprobations; divine impertinence, +sovereign disdain informed it. Lady Montgomery dropped her lorgnette +with a little clatter and, adjusting her heavy diamond bracelets, turned +her sleek mid-Victorian head to her neighbour. Gregory did not know +whether to be amused or vexed.</p> + +<p>It was now his part to carry on a conversation with the great woman: and +he found the task difficult. She was not silent, nor unresponsive. She +listened to his remarks with the almost disconcerting closeness of +attention that he had observed in her on their meeting of the other day, +seeming to seek in them some savour that still escaped her good-will. +She answered him alertly, swiftly, and often at random, as though by her +intelligence and competence to cover his ineptitude. Her smile was +brightly mechanical; her voice at once insistent and monotonous. She had +an air, which Gregory felt more and more to be almost insolent, of doing +her duty.</p> + +<p>Bertram Fraser's turn came and he rose to it with his usual buoyancy. He +was interested in meeting Madame von Marwitz; but he was a young man who +had made his way in the world and perhaps exaggerated his achievement. +He expected people to be interested also in meeting him. He expected +from the great genius a reciprocal buoyancy. Madame von Marwitz bent her +brows upon him. Irony grew in her smile, a staccato crispness in her +utterance. Cool and competent as he was, Bertram presently looked +disconcerted; he did not easily forgive those who disconcerted him, and, +making no further effort to carry on the conversation, he sat silent, +smiling a little, and waited for his partner to turn to him again. Had +Gregory not taken up his talk, lamely and coldly, with Madame von +Marwitz, she would have been left in an awkward isolation.</p> + +<p>She answered him now in a voice of lassitude and melancholy. Leaning +back in her chair, strange and almost stupefying object that she was, +her eyes moved slowly round the table with a wintry desolation of +glance, until, meeting Karen's eyes, they beamed forth a brave warmth of +cherishing, encouraging sweetness. "Yes, <i>ma chérie</i>," they seemed to +say; "Bear up, I am bearing up. I will make <i>méringues</i> of them for +you."</p> + +<p>She could make <i>méringues</i> of them; Gregory didn't doubt it. Yet, and +here was the glow of malicious satisfaction that atoned to him for the +discomforts he endured, they were, every one of them, making <i>méringues</i> +of her.</p> + +<p>In their narrowness, in their defects, ran an instinct, as shrewd as it +was unconscious, that was a match for Madame von Marwitz's intelligence. +They were so unperceiving that no one of them, except perhaps Betty and +Karen—who of course didn't count among them at all—was aware of the +wintry wind of Madame von Marwitz's boredom; yet if it had been +recognised it would have been felt as insignificant. They knew that she +was a genius, and that she was very odd looking and that, as Mrs. +Jardine's guardian, she had not come in a professional capacity and +might therefore not play to them after dinner. So defined, she was seen, +with all her splendour of association, as incidental.</p> + +<p>Only perhaps in this particular section of the British people could this +particular effect of cheerful imperviousness have been achieved. They +were not of the voracious, cultured hordes who make their way by their +well-trained appreciations, nor of the fashionable lion-collecting tribe +who do not need to make their way but who need to have their way made +amusing. Well-bred, securely stationed, untouched by boredom or anxiety, +they were at once too dull and too intelligent to be fluttered by the +presence of a celebrity. They wanted nothing of her, except, perhaps, +that after their coffee she should give them some music, and they did +not want this at all eagerly.</p> + +<p>If Madame von Marwitz had come to crush, to subjugate or to enchant, she +had failed in every respect and Gregory saw that her failure was not +lost upon her. Her manner, as the consciousness grew, became more +frankly that of the vain, ill-tempered child, ignored. She ceased to +speak; her eyes, fixed on the wall over Sir Oliver's head, enlarged in a +sullen despondency.</p> + +<p>Lady Montgomery was making her way through a bunch of grapes and Lady +Mary had only peeled her peach, when, suddenly, taking upon herself the +prerogative of a hostess, Madame von Marwitz caught up her fan and +gloves with a gesture of open impatience, and swept to the door almost +before Gregory had time to reach it or the startled guests to rise from +their places.</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XIX" id="CHAPTER_XIX"></a>CHAPTER XIX</h2> + + +<p>When the time came for going to the drawing-room, Gregory found Betty +entertaining the company there, while Karen, on a distant sofa, was +apparently engaged in showing her guardian a book of photographs. He +took in the situation at a glance, and, as he took it in, he was aware +that part of its significance lay in the fact that it obliged him to a +swift interchange with Betty, an interchange that irked him, defining as +it did a community of understanding from which Karen, in her simplicity, +was shut out.</p> + +<p>He went across to the couple on the sofa. Only sudden illness could have +excused Madame von Marwitz's departure from the dining-room, yet he +determined to ask no questions, and to leave any explanations to her.</p> + +<p>Karen's eyes, in looking at him, were grave and a little anxious; but +the anxiety, he saw, was not on his account. "Tante wanted to see our +kodaks," she said. "Do sit here with us, Gregory. Betty is talking to +everybody so beautifully."</p> + +<p>"But you must go and talk to everybody beautifully, too, now, darling," +said Gregory. He put his hand on her shoulder and looked down at her +smiling. The gesture, with its marital assurance, the smile that was +almost a caress, were involuntary; yet they expressed more than his +tender pride and solicitude, they defined his possession of her, and +they excluded Tante. "It's been a nice little dinner, hasn't it," he +went on, continuing to look at her and not at Madame von Marwitz. "I saw +that the General was enjoying you immensely. There he is, looking over +at you now; he wants to go on talking about Garibaldi with you. He said +he'd never met a young woman so well up in modern history."</p> + +<p>Madame von Marwitz's brooding eyes were on him while he thus spoke. He +ignored them.</p> + +<p>Karen looked a little perplexed. "Did you think it went so well, then, +Gregory?"</p> + +<p>"Why, didn't you?"</p> + +<p>"I am not sure. I don't think I shall ever much like dinners, when I +give them," she addressed herself to her guardian as well as to her +husband. "They make one feel so responsible."</p> + +<p>"Well, as far as you were responsible for this one you were responsible +for its being very nice. Everybody enjoyed themselves. Now go and talk +to the General."</p> + +<p>"I did enjoy him," said Karen, half closing her book. "But Tante has +rather a headache—I am afraid she is tired. You saw at dinner that she +was tired."</p> + +<p>"Yes, oh yes, indeed, I thought that you must be feeling a little ill, +perhaps," Gregory observed blandly, turning his eyes now on Madame von +Marwitz. "Well, you see, Karen, I will take your place here, and it will +give me a chance for a quiet talk with your guardian."</p> + +<p>"People must not bother her," Karen rose, pleased, he could see, with +this arrangement, and hoping, he knew, that the opportunity was a +propitious one, and that in it her dear ones might draw together. "You +will see that they don't bother her, Gregory, and go on showing her +these."</p> + +<p>"They won't bother a bit, I promise," said Gregory, taking her place as +she rose. "They are all very happily engaged, and Madame von Marwitz and +I will look at the photographs in perfect peace."</p> + +<p>Something in these words and in the manner with which her guardian +received them, with a deepening of her long, steady glance, arrested +Karen's departure. She stood above them, half confident, yet half +hesitating.</p> + +<p>"Go, <i>mon enfant</i>," said Madame von Marwitz, turning the steady glance +on her. "Go. Nobody here, as your husband truly says, is thinking of me. +I shall be quite untroubled."</p> + +<p>Still with her look of preoccupation Karen moved away.</p> + +<p>Cheerfully and deliberately Gregory now proceeded to turn the pages of +the kodak album, and to point out with painstaking geniality the charms +and associations of each view, "<i>Tu l'as voulu, Georges Dandin</i>," +expressed his thought, for he didn't believe that Madame von Marwitz, +more than any person not completely self-abnegating, could tolerate +looking at other people's kodaks. But since it was her chosen +occupation, the best she could find to do with their dinner-party, she +should be gratified; should be shown Karen standing on a peak in the +Tyrol; Karen feeding the pigeons before St. Mark's; Karen, again—wasn't +it rather nice of her?—in a gondola. Madame von Marwitz bent her head +with its swinging pearls above the pictures, proffering now and then a +low murmur of assent.</p> + +<p>But in the midst of the Paris pictures she lifted her head and looked at +him. It was again the steady, penetrating look, and now it seemed, with +the smile that veiled it, to claim some common understanding rather than +seek it. "Enough," she said. She dismissed the kodaks with a tap of her +fan. "I wish to talk with you. I wish to talk with you of our Karen."</p> + +<p>Gregory closed the volume. Madame von Marwitz's attitude as she leaned +back, her arms lightly folded, affected him in its deliberate grace and +power as newly significant. Keeping his frosty, observant eyes upon her, +Gregory waited for what she had to say. "I am glad, very glad, that you +have given me this opportunity for a quiet conversation," so she took up +the threads of her intention. "I have wanted, for long, to consult with +you about various matters concerning Karen, and, in especial, about her +future life. Tell me—this is what I wish in particular to ask you—you +are going, are you not, in time, when she has learned more skill in +social arts, to take my Karen into the world—<i>dans le monde</i>," Madame +von Marwitz repeated, as though to make her meaning genially clear. +"Skill she is as yet too young to have mastered—or cared to master. But +she had always been at ease on the largest stage, and she will do you +credit, I assure you."</p> + +<p>It was rather, to Gregory's imagination—always quick at similes—as +though she had struck a well-aimed blow right in the centre of a huge +gong hanging between them. There she was, the blow said. It was this she +meant. No open avowal of hostility could have been more reverberating or +purposeful, and no open avowal of hostility would have been so sinister. +But Gregory, though his ears seemed to ring with the clang of it, was +ready for her. He, too, with folded arms, sat leaning back and he, too, +smiled genially. "That's rather crushing, you know," he made reply, "or +didn't you? Karen is in my world. This is my world."</p> + +<p>Madame von Marwitz gazed at him for a moment as if to gauge his +seriousness. And then she turned her eyes on his world and gazed at +that. It was mildly chatting. It was placid, cheerful, unaware of +deficiency. It thought that it was enjoying itself. It was, indeed, +enjoying itself, if with the slightest of materials. Betty and Bertram +Fraser laughed together; Lady Mary and Oliver ever so slowly conversed. +Constance Byng and Mr. Overton discussed the latest opera, young Byng +had joined Karen and the General, and a comfortable drone of politics +came from Mrs. Overton and Mr. Canning-Thompson. Removed a little from +these groups Lady Montgomery, very much like a turtle, sat with her head +erect and her eyes half closed, evidently sleepy. It was upon Lady +Montgomery that Madame von Marwitz's gaze dwelt longest.</p> + +<p>"You are contented," she then said to Gregory, "with these good people; +for yourself and for your wife?"</p> + +<p>"Perfectly," said Gregory. "You see, Karen has married a commonplace +person."</p> + +<p>Madame von Marwitz paused again, and again her eyes dwelt on Lady +Montgomery, whose pink feathers had given a sudden nod and then serenely +righted themselves. "I see," she then remarked. "But she is not +contented."</p> + +<p>"Ah, come," said Gregory. "You can't shatter the conceit of a happy +husband so easily, Madame von Marwitz. You ask too much of me if you ask +me to believe that Karen makes confidences to you that she doesn't to +me. I can't take it on, you know," he continued to smile.</p> + +<p>He had already felt that the loveliness of Madame von Marwitz's face was +a veil for its coldness, and hints had come to him that it masked, also, +some more sinister quality. And now, for a moment, as if a primeval +creature peeped at him from among delicate woodlands, a racial savagery +crossed her face with a strange, distorting tremor. The blood mounted to +her brow; her skin darkened curiously, and her eyes became hot and heavy +as though the very irises felt the glow.</p> + +<p>"You do not accept my word, Mr. Jardine?" she said. Her voice was +controlled, but he had a disagreeable sensation of scorching, as though +a hot iron had been passed slowly before his face.</p> + +<p>Gregory shook his foot a little, clasping his ankle. "I don't say that, +of course. But I'm glad to think you're mistaken."</p> + +<p>"Let me tell you, Mr. Jardine," she returned, still with the curbed +elemental fury colouring her face and voice, "that even a happy +husband's conceit is no match for a mother's intuition. Karen is like my +child to me; and to its mother a child makes confidences that it is +unaware of making. Karen finds your world narrow; <i>borné</i>; it does not +afford her the wide life she has known."</p> + +<p>"You mean," said Gregory, "the life she led with Mrs. Talcott?"</p> + +<p>He had not meant to say it. If he had paused to think it over he would +have seen that it exposed him to her as consciously hostile and also as +almost feminine in his malice. And, as if this recognition of his false +move restored to her her full self-mastery, she met his irony with a +masculine sincerity, putting him, as on the occasion of their first +encounter, lamentably in the wrong. "Ah," she commented, her eyes +dwelling on him. "Ah, I see. You have wondered. You have criticized. You +have, I think, Mr. Jardine, misunderstood my life and its capacities. +Allow me to explain. Your wife is the creature dearest to me in the +world, and if you misread my devotion to her you endanger our relation. +You would not, I am sure, wish to do that; is it not so? Allow me +therefore to exculpate myself. I am a woman who, since childhood, +has had to labour for my livelihood and for that of those I love. +You can know nothing of what that labour of the artist's life +entails,—interminable journeys, suffocating ennui, the unwholesome +monotony and publicity of a life passed in hotels and trains. It was not +fit that a young and growing girl should share that life. As much as has +been possible I have guarded Karen from its dust and weariness. I have +had, of necessity, to leave her much alone, and she has needed +protection, stability, peace. I could have placed her in no lovelier +spot than my Cornish home, nor in safer hands than those of the guardian +and companion of my own youth. Do you not feel it a little unworthy, Mr. +Jardine, when you have all the present and all the future, to grudge me +even my past with my child?"</p> + +<p>She spoke slowly, with a noble dignity, all hint of sultry menace +passed; willing, for Karen's sake, to stoop to this self-justification +before Karen's husband. And, for Karen's sake, she had the air of +holding in steady hands their relation, hers and his, assailed so +gracelessly by his taunting words. Gregory, for the first time in his +knowledge of her, felt a little bewildered. It was she who had opened +hostilities, yet she almost made him forget it; she almost made him feel +that he alone had been graceless. "I do beg your pardon," he said. "Yes; +I had wondered a little about it; and I understand better now." But he +gathered his wits together sufficiently to add, on a fairer foothold: "I +am sure you gave Karen all you could. What I meant was, I think, that +you should be generous enough to believe that I am giving her all I +can."</p> + +<p>Madame von Marwitz rose as he said this and he also got up. It was not +so much, Gregory was aware, that they had fought to a truce as that they +had openly crossed swords. Her eyes still dwelt on him, and now as if in +a sad wonder. "But you are young. You are a man. You have ambition. You +wish to give more to the loved woman."</p> + +<p>"I don't really quite know what you mean by more, Madame von Marwitz," +said Gregory. "If it applies to my world, I don't expect, or wish, to +give Karen a better one."</p> + +<p>They stood and confronted each other for a moment of silence.</p> + +<p>"<i>Bien</i>," Madame von Marwitz then said, unemphatically, mildly. "<i>Bien.</i> +I must see what I can do." She turned her eyes on Karen, who, +immediately aware of her glance, hastened to her. Madame von Marwitz +laid an arm about her neck. "I must bid you good-night, <i>ma chérie</i>. I +am very tired."</p> + +<p>"Tante, dear, I saw that you were so tired, I am so sorry. It has all +been a weariness to you," Karen murmured.</p> + +<p>"No, my child; no," Madame von Marwitz smiled down into her eyes, +passing her hand lightly over the little white-rose wreath. "I have seen +you, and seen you happy; that is happiness enough for me. Good-night, +Mr. Jardine. Karen will come with me."</p> + +<p>Pausing for no further farewells, Madame von Marwitz passed from the +room with a majestic, generalized bending of the head.</p> + +<p>Betty joined her brother-in-law. "Dear me, Gregory," she said. "We've +had the tragic muse to supper, haven't we. What is the matter, what has +been the matter with Madame von Marwitz? Is she ill?"</p> + +<p>"She says she's tired," said Gregory.</p> + +<p>"It was disconcerting, wasn't it, her trailing suddenly out of the +dining-room in that singular fashion," said Betty. "Do you know, +Gregory, that I'm getting quite vexed with Madame von Marwitz."</p> + +<p>"Really? Why, Betty?"</p> + +<p>"Well, it has been accumulating. I'm a very easy-going person, you know; +but I've been noticing that whenever I want Karen, Madame von Marwitz +always nips in and cuts me out, so that I have hardly seen her at all +since her guardian came to London. And then it did rather rile me, I +confess, to find that the one hat in Karen's trousseau that I specially +chose for her is the one—the only one—that Madame von Marwitz objects +to. Karen never wears it now. She certainly behaved very absurdly +to-night, Gregory. I suppose she expected us to sit round in a circle +and stare."</p> + +<p>"Perhaps she did," Gregory acquiesced. "Perhaps we should have."</p> + +<p>He was anxious to maintain the appearance of bland lightness before +Betty. Karen had re-entered as they spoke and Betty called her to them. +"Tell me, Karen dear, is Madame von Marwitz ill? She didn't give me a +chance to say good-night to her." Betty had the air of wishing to +exonerate herself.</p> + +<p>"She isn't ill," said Karen, whose face was grave. "But very tired."</p> + +<p>"Now what made her tired, I wonder?" Betty mused. "She looks such a +robust person."</p> + +<p>It was bad of Betty, and as Karen stood before them, looking from one to +the other, Gregory saw that she suspected them. Her face hardened. "A +great artist needs to be robust," she said. "My guardian works every day +at her piano for five or six hours."</p> + +<p>"Dear me," Betty murmured. "How splendid. I'd no idea the big ones had +to keep it up like that."</p> + +<p>"There is great ignorance about an artist's life," Karen continued +coldly to inform her. "Do you not know what von Bulow said: If I miss my +practising for one day I notice it; if for two days my friends notice +it; if I miss it for three days the public notices it. The artist is +like an acrobat, juggling always, intent always on his three golden +balls kept flying in the air. That is what it is like. Every atom of +their strength is used. People, like my guardian, literally give their +lives for the world."</p> + +<p>"Oh, yes, it is wonderful, of course," Betty assented. "But of course +they must enjoy it; it can hardly be called a sacrifice."</p> + +<p>"Enjoy is a very small word to apply to such a great thing," said Karen. +"You may say also, if you like, that the saint enjoys his life of +suffering for others. It is his life to give himself to goodness; it is +the artist's life to give himself to beauty. But it is beauty and +goodness they seek, not enjoyment; we must not try to measure these +great people by our standards."</p> + +<p>Before this arraignment Betty showed a tact for which Gregory was +grateful to her. He, as so often, found Karen, in her innocent +sententiousness, at once absurd and adorable, but he could grant that to +Betty she might seem absurd only.</p> + +<p>"Don't be cross with me, Karen," she said. "I suppose I am feeling sore +at being snubbed by Madame von Marwitz."</p> + +<p>"But indeed she did not mean to snub you, Betty," said Karen earnestly. +"And I am not cross; please do not think that. Only I cannot bear to +hear some of the things that are said of artists."</p> + +<p>"Well, prove that you're not cross," said Betty, smiling, "by at last +giving me an afternoon when we can do something together. Will you come +and see the pictures at Burlington House with me to-morrow and have tea +with me afterwards? I've really seen nothing of you for so long."</p> + +<p>"To-morrow is promised to Tante, Betty. I'm so sorry. Her great concert +is to be on Friday, you know; and till then, and on the Saturday, I have +said that I will be with her. She gets so very tired. And I know how to +take care of her when she is tired like that."</p> + +<p>"Oh, dear!" Betty sighed. "There is no hope for us poor little people, +is there, while Madame von Marwitz is in London. Well, on Monday, then, +Karen. Will you promise me Monday afternoon?"</p> + +<p>"Monday is free, and I shall like so very much to come, Betty," Karen +replied.</p> + +<p>When Gregory and his wife were left alone together, they stood for some +moments without speaking on either side of the fire, and, as Karen's +eyes were on the flames, Gregory, looking at her carefully, read on her +face the signs of stress and self-command. The irony, the irritation and +the oppression that Madame von Marwitz had aroused in him this evening +merged suddenly, as he looked at Karen into intense anger. What had she +not done to them already, sinister woman? It was because of her that +constraint, reticence and uncertainty were rising again between him and +Karen.</p> + +<p>"Darling," he said, putting out his hand and drawing her to him; "you +look very tired."</p> + +<p>She came, he fancied, with at first a little reluctance, but, as he put +his arm around her, she leaned her head against his shoulder with a +sigh. "I am tired, Gregory."</p> + +<p>They stood thus for some moments and then, as if the confident +tenderness their attitude expressed forced her to face with him their +difficulty, she said carefully: "Gregory, dear, did you say anything to +depress Tante this evening?"</p> + +<p>"Why do you ask, darling?" Gregory, after a slight pause, also carefully +inquired.</p> + +<p>"Only that she seemed depressed, very much depressed. I thought, I hoped +that you and she were talking so nicely, so happily."</p> + +<p>There was another little pause and then Gregory said: "She rather +depressed me, I think."</p> + +<p>"Depressed you? But how, Gregory?"</p> + +<p>He must indeed be very careful. It was far too late, now, for simple +frankness; simple frankness had, perhaps, from the beginning been +impossible and in that fact lay the insecurity of his position, and the +immense advantage of Madame von Marwitz's. And as he paused and sought +his words it was as if, in the image of the Bouddha, looking down upon +him and Karen, Madame von Marwitz were with them now, a tranquil and +ironic witness of his discomfiture. "Well," he said, "she made me feel +that I had only a very dingy sort of life to offer you and that my +friends were all very tiresome—<i>borné</i> was the word she used. That did +rather—well—dash my spirits."</p> + +<p>Standing there within his arm, of her face, seen from above, only the +brow, the eyelashes, the cheek visible, she was very still for a long +moment. Then, gently, she said—and in the gentleness he felt that she +put aside the too natural suspicion that he was complaining of Tante +behind her back: "She doesn't realise that I don't care at all about +people. And they are rather <i>bornés</i>, aren't they, Gregory."</p> + +<p>"I don't find them so," said Gregory, reasonably. "They aren't geniuses, +of course, or acrobats, or saints, or anything of that sort; but they +seem to me, on the whole, a very nice lot of people."</p> + +<p>"Very nice indeed, Gregory. But I don't think it is saints and geniuses +that Tante misses here; she misses minds that are able to recognise +genius." Her quick ear had caught the involuntary irony of his +quotation.</p> + +<p>"Ah, but, dear, you mustn't expect to find the average nice person able +to pay homage at a dinner-party. There is a time and a place for +everything, isn't there."</p> + +<p>"It was not that I meant, Gregory, or that Tante meant. There is always +a place for intelligence. It wasn't an interesting dinner, you must have +felt that as well as I, not the sort of dinner Tante would naturally +expect. They were only interested in their own things, weren't they? And +quite apart from homage, there is such a thing as realisation. Mr. +Fraser talked to Tante—I saw it all quite well—as he might have talked +to the next dowager he met. Tante isn't used to being talked to as if +she were <i>toute comme une autre</i>; she isn't <i>toute comme une autre</i>."</p> + +<p>"But one must pretend to be, at a dinner-party," Gregory returned. To +have to defend his friends when it was Tante who stood so lamentably in +need of defence had begun to work upon his nerves. "And some dowagers +are as interesting as anybody. There are all sorts of ways of being +interesting. Dowagers are as intelligent as geniuses sometimes." His +lightness was not unprovocative.</p> + +<p>"It isn't funny, Gregory, to see Tante put into a false position."</p> + +<p>"But, my dear, we did the best we could for her."</p> + +<p>"I know that we did; and our best isn't good enough for her. That is all +that I ask you to realise," said Karen.</p> + +<p>She was angry, and from the depths of his anger against Madame von +Marwitz Gregory felt a little gush of anger against Karen rise. "You are +telling me what she told me," he said; "that my best isn't good enough +for her. You may say it and think it, of course; but it's a thing that +Madame von Marwitz has no right to say."</p> + +<p>Karen moved away from his arm. Something more than the old girlish +sternness was in the look with which she faced him, though that flashed +at him, a shield rather than a weapon. He recognised the hidden pain and +astonishment and his anger faded in tenderness. How could she but resent +and repell any hint that belittled Tante's claims and justifications? +how could she hear but with dismay the half threat of his last words, +the intimation that from her he would accept what he would not accept +from Tante? The sudden compunction of his comprehension almost brought +the tears to his eyes. Karen saw that his resistance melted and the +sternness fell from her look. "But Gregory," she said, her voice a +little trembling, "Tante did not say that. Please don't make mistakes. +It is so dreadful to misunderstand; nothing frightens me so much. I say +it; that our best isn't good enough, and I am thinking of Tante; only of +Tante; but she—too sweetly and mistakenly—was thinking of me. Tante +doesn't care, for herself, about our world; why should she? And she is +mistaken to care about it for me; because it makes no difference, none +at all, to me, if it is <i>borné</i>. All that I care about, you know that, +Gregory, is you and Tante."</p> + +<p>Gregory had his arms around her. "Do forgive me, darling," he said.</p> + +<p>"But was I horrid?" Karen asked.</p> + +<p>"No. It was I who was stupid," he said. "Do you know, I believe we were +almost quarrelling, Karen."</p> + +<p>"And we can quarrel safely—you and I, Gregory, can't we?" Karen said, +her voice still trembling.</p> + +<p>He leaned his head against her hair. "Of course we can. Only—don't let +us quarrel—ever. It is so dreadful."</p> + +<p>"Isn't it dreadful, Gregory. But we must not let it frighten us, ever, +because of course we must quarrel now and then. And we often have +already, haven't we," she went on, reassuring him, and herself. "Do you +remember, in the Tyrol, about the black bread!—And I was right that +time.—And the terrible conflict in Paris, about <i>La Gaine d'Or</i>; when I +said you were a Philistine."</p> + +<p>"Well, you owned afterwards, after you read about the beastly thing, +that you were glad we hadn't gone."</p> + +<p>"Yes; I was glad. You were right there. Sometimes it is you and +sometimes I," Karen declared, as if that were the happy solution.</p> + +<p>So, in their mutual love, they put aside the menacing difference. +Something had happened, they could but be aware of that; but their love +tided them over. They did not argue further as to who was right and who +wrong that evening.</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XX" id="CHAPTER_XX"></a>CHAPTER XX</h2> + + +<p>The first of Madame von Marwitz's great concerts was given on Friday, +and Karen spent the whole of that day and of Saturday with her, summoned +by an urgent telephone message early in the morning. On Sunday she was +still secluded in her rooms, and Miss Scrotton, breaking in determinedly +upon her, found her lying prone upon the sofa, Karen beside her.</p> + +<p>"I cannot see you, my Scrotton," said Madame von Marwitz, with kindly +yet listless decision. "Did they not tell you below that I was seeing +nobody? Karen is with me to watch over my ill-temper. She is a soothing +little milk-poultice and I can bear nothing else. I am worn out."</p> + +<p>Before poor Miss Scrotton's brow of gloom Karen suggested that she +should herself go down to Mrs. Forrester for tea and leave her place to +Miss Scrotton, but, with a weary shake of the head, Madame von Marwitz +rejected the proposal. "No; Scrotton is too intelligent for me to-day," +she said. "You will go down to Mrs. Forrester for your tea, my Scrotton, +and wait for another day to see me."</p> + +<p>Miss Scrotton went down nearly in tears.</p> + +<p>"She refused to see Sir Alliston," Mrs. Forrester said, soothingly. "She +really is fit for nothing. I have never seen her so exhausted."</p> + +<p>"Yet Karen Jardine always manages to force her way in," said Miss +Scrotton, controlling the tears with difficulty. "She has absolutely +taken possession of Mercedes. It really is almost absurd, such devotion, +and in a married woman. Gregory doesn't like it at all. Oh, I know it. +Betty Jardine gave me a hint only yesterday of how matters stand."</p> + +<p>"Lady Jardine has always seemed to me a rather trivial little person. I +should not accept her impression of a situation," said Mrs. Forrester. +"Mercedes sends for Karen constantly. And I am sure that Gregory is glad +to think that she can be of use to Mercedes."</p> + +<p>"Oh, Betty Jardine thinks, too, that it is Mercedes who takes Karen from +her husband. But I really can't agree with her, or with you, dear Mrs. +Forrester, there. Mercedes is simply too indolent and kind-hearted to +defend herself from the sort of habit the girl has imposed upon her. As +for Gregory being grateful I can only assure you that you are entirely +mistaken. My own impression is that he is beginning to dislike Mercedes. +Oh, he is a very jealous temperament; I have always felt it in him. He +is one of those cold, passionate men who become the most infatuated and +tyrannical of husbands."</p> + +<p>"My dear Eleanor," Mrs. Forrester raised her eyebrows. "I see no sign of +tyranny. He allows Karen to come here constantly."</p> + +<p>"Yes; because he knows that to refuse would be to endanger his relation +to her. Mercedes is angelic to him of course, and doesn't give him a +chance for making things difficult for Karen. But it is quite obvious to +me that he hates the whole situation."</p> + +<p>"I hope not," said Mrs. Forrester, gravely now. "I hope not. It would be +tragical indeed if this last close relation in Mercedes's life were to +be spoiled for her. I could not forgive Gregory if he made it difficult +in any way for Karen to be with her guardian."</p> + +<p>"Well, as long as he can conceal his jealousy, Mercedes will manage, I +suppose, to keep things smooth. But I can't see it as you do, Mrs. +Forrester. I can't believe for a moment that Mercedes needs Karen or +that the tie is such a close one. She only likes to see her now because +she is bored and impatient and unhappy, and Karen is—she said it just +now, before the girl—a poultice for her nerves. And the reason for her +nerves isn't far to seek. I must be frank with you, dear Mrs. Forrester; +you know I always have been, and I'm distressed, deeply distressed about +Mercedes. She expected Claude Drew to be back from America by now and I +heard yesterday from that horrid young friend of his, Algernon Bently, +that he has again postponed his return. It's that that agonizes and +infuriates Mercedes, it's that that makes her unwilling to be alone with +me. I've seen too much; I know too much; she fears me, Mrs. Forrester. +She knows that I know that Claude Drew is punishing her now for having +snubbed him in America."</p> + +<p>"My dear Eleanor," Mrs. Forrester murmured distressfully. "You +exaggerate that young man's significance."</p> + +<p>"Dear Mrs. Forrester," Miss Scrotton returned, almost now with a solemn +exasperation, "I wish it were possible to exaggerate it. I watched it +grow. His very effrontery fascinates her. We know, you and I, what +Mercedes expects in devotion from a man who cares for her. They must +adore her on their knees. Now Mr. Drew adored standing nonchalantly on +his feet and looking coolly into her eyes. She resented it; she had +constantly to put him in his place. But she would rather have him out of +his place than not have him there at all. That is what she is feeling +now. That is why she is so worn out. She is wishing that Claude Drew +would come back from America, and she is wanting to write one letter to +his ten and finding that she writes five. He writes to her constantly, I +suppose?"</p> + +<p>"I believe he does," Mrs. Forrester conceded. "Mercedes is quite open +about the frequency of his letters. I am sure that you exaggerate, +Eleanor. He interests her, and he charms her if you will. Like every +woman, she is aware of devotion and pleased by it. I don't believe it's +anything more."</p> + +<p>"I believe," said Miss Scrotton, after a moment, and with resolution, +"that it's a great passion; the last great passion of her life."</p> + +<p>"Oh, my dear!"</p> + +<p>"A great passion," Miss Scrotton persisted, "and for a man whom she +knows not to be in any way her equal. It is that that exasperates her."</p> + +<p>Mrs. Forrester meditated for a little while and then, owning to a +certain mutual recognition of facts, she said: "I don't believe that +it's a great passion; but I think that a woman like Mercedes, a genius +of that scope, needs always to feel in her life the elements of a +'situation'—and life always provides such women with a choice of +situations. They are stimulants. Mr. Drew and his like, with whatever +unrest and emotion they may cause her, nourish her art. Even a great +passion would be a tempest that filled her sails and drove her on; in +the midst of it she would never lose the power of steering. She has +essentially the strength and detachment of genius. She watches her own +emotions and makes use of them. Did you ever hear her play more +magnificently than on Friday? If Mr. Drew <i>y était pour quelque chose</i>, +it was in the sense that she made mincemeat of him and presented us in +consequence with a magnificent sausage."</p> + +<p>Miss Scrotton, who had somewhat forgotten her personal grievance in the +exhilaration of these analyses, granted the sausage and granted that +Mercedes made mincemeat of Mr. Drew—and of her friends into the +bargain. "But my contention and my fear is," she said, "that he will +make mincemeat of her before he is done with her."</p> + +<p>Miss Scrotton did not rank highly for wisdom in Mrs. Forrester's +estimation; but for her perspicacity and intelligence she had more +regard than she cared to admit. Echoes of Eleanor's distrusts and fears +remained with her, and, though it was but a minor one, such an echo +vibrated loudly on Monday afternoon when Betty Jardine appeared at +tea-time with Karen.</p> + +<p>It was the afternoon that Karen had promised to Betty, and when this +fact had been made known to Tante it was no grievance and no protest +that she showed, only a slight hesitation, a slight gravity, and then, +as if with cheerful courage in the face of an old sadness: "<i>Eh bien</i>," +she said. "Bring her back here to tea, <i>ma chérie</i>. So I shall come to +know this new friend of my Karen's better."</p> + +<p>Betty was not at all pleased at being brought back to tea. But Karen +asked her so gravely and prettily and said so urgently that Tante wanted +especially to know her better, and asked, moreover, if Betty would let +her come to lunch with her instead of tea, so that they should have +their full time together, that Betty once more pocketed her suspicions +of a design on Madame von Marwitz's part. The suspicion was there, +however, in her pocket, and she kept her hand on it rather as if it were +a small but efficacious pistol which she carried about in case of an +emergency. Betty was one who could aim steadily and shoot straight when +occasion demanded. It was a latent antagonist who entered Mrs. +Forrester's drawing-room on that Monday afternoon, Karen, all guileless, +following after. Mrs. Forrester and the Baroness were alone and, in a +deep Chesterfield near the tea-table, Madame von Marwitz leaned an arm, +bared to the elbow, in cushions and rested a meditative head on her +hand. She half rose to greet Betty. "This is kind of you, Lady Jardine," +she said. "I feared that I had lost my Karen for the afternoon. <i>Elle me +manque toujours</i>; she knows that." Smiling up at Karen she drew her down +beside her, studying her with eyes of fond, maternal solicitude. "My +child looks well, does she not, Mrs. Forrester? And the pretty hat! I am +glad not to see the foolish green one."</p> + +<p>"Oh, I like the green one very much, Tante," said Karen. "But you shall +not see it again."</p> + +<p>"I hope I'm to see it again," said Betty, turning over her pistol. "I +chose it, you know."</p> + +<p>Madame von Marwitz turned startled eyes upon her. "Ah—but I did not +know. Did you tell me this, Karen?" the eyes of distress now turned to +Karen. "Have I forgotten? Was the green hat, the little green hat with +the wing, indeed of Lady Jardine's choosing? Have I been so very rude?"</p> + +<p>"Betty will understand, Tante," said Karen—while Mrs. Forrester, softly +chinking among her blue Worcester teacups, kept a cogitating eye on +Betty Jardine—"that I have so many new hats now that you must easily +forget which is which."</p> + +<p>"All I ask," said Betty, laughing over her mishap, "is that I, +sometimes, may see Karen in the green hat, for I think it charming."</p> + +<p>"Indeed, Betty, so do I," said Karen, smiling.</p> + +<p>"And I must be forgiven for not liking the green hat," Madame von +Marwitz returned.</p> + +<p>Betty and Karen were supplied with tea, and after they had selected +their cakes, and a few inconsequent remarks had been exchanged, Madame +von Marwitz said:</p> + +<p>"And now, my Karen, I have a little plan to tell you of; a little treat +that I have arranged for you. We are to go together, on this next +Saturday, to stay at Thole Castle with my friends the Duke and Duchess +of Bannister. I have told them that I wish to bring my child."</p> + +<p>"But how delightful, Tante. It is to be in the country? We shall be +there, you and I and Gregory, till Monday?"</p> + +<p>"I thought that I should please you. Yes; till Monday. And in beautiful +country. But it is to be our own small treat; yours and mine. Your +husband will lend you to me for those two days." Holding the girl's hand +Madame von Marwitz smiled indulgently at her, with eyes only for her. +Betty, however, was listening.</p> + +<p>"But cannot Gregory come, too, Tante?" Karen questioned, her pleasure +dashed.</p> + +<p>"These friends of mine, my Karen," said Madame von Marwitz, "have heard +of you as mine only. It is as my child that you will come with me; just +as it is as your husband's wife that you see his friends. That is quite +clear, quite happy, quite understood."</p> + +<p>Karen's eyes now turned on Betty. They did not seek counsel, they asked +no question of Betty; but they gave her, in their slight bewilderment, +her opportunity.</p> + +<p>"But Karen, I think you are right," so she took up the gage that Madame +von Marwitz had flung. "I don't think that you must accept this +invitation without, at least, consulting Gregory."</p> + +<p>Madame von Marwitz did not look at her. She continued to gaze as +serenely at Karen as though Betty were a dog that had barked +irrelevantly from the hearth-rug. But Karen fixed widened eyes upon her.</p> + +<p>"I do not need to consult Gregory, Betty," she said. "We have, I know, +no engagements for this Saturday to Monday, and he will be delighted for +me that I am to go with Tante."</p> + +<p>"That may be, my dear," Betty returned with a manner as imperturbable as +Madame von Marwitz's; "but I think that you should give him an +opportunity of saying so. He may not care for his wife to go to +strangers without him."</p> + +<p>"They are not strangers. They are friends of Tante's."</p> + +<p>"Gregory may not care for you to make—as Madame von Marwitz suggests—a +different set of friends from his own."</p> + +<p>"If they become my friends they will become his," said Karen.</p> + +<p>During this little altercation, Madame von Marwitz, large and white, her +profile turned to Betty, sat holding Karen's hand and gazing at her with +an almost slumbrous melancholy.</p> + +<p>Mrs. Forrester, controlling her displeasure with some difficulty, +interposed. "I don't think Lady Jardine really quite understands the +position, Karen," she said. "It isn't the normal one, Lady Jardine. +Madame von Marwitz stands, really, to Karen in a mother's place."</p> + +<p>"Oh, but I can't agree with you, Mrs. Forrester," Betty replied. "Madame +von Marwitz doesn't strike me as being in the least like Karen's mother. +And she isn't Karen's mother. And Karen's husband, now, should certainly +stand first in her life."</p> + +<p>A silence followed the sharp report. Mrs. Forrester's and Karen's eyes +had turned on the Baroness who sat still, as though her breast had +received the shot. With tragic eyes she gazed out above Karen's head; +then: "It is true," she said in a low voice, as though communing with +herself; "I am indeed alone." She rose. With the slow step of a Niobe +she moved down the room and disappeared.</p> + +<p>"I do not forgive you for this, Betty," said Karen, following her +guardian. Betty, like a naughty school-girl, was left confronting Mrs. +Forrester across the tea-table.</p> + +<p>"Lady Jardine," said the old lady, fixing her bright eyes on her guest, +"I don't think you can have realised what you were saying. Madame von +Marwitz's isolation is one of the many tragedies of her life, and you +have made it clear to her."</p> + +<p>"I'm very sorry," said Betty. "But I feel what Madame von Marwitz is +doing to be so mistaken, so wrong."</p> + +<p>"These formalities don't obtain nowadays, especially if a wife is so +singularly related to a woman like Madame von Marwitz. And Mercedes is +quite above all such little consciousnesses, I assure you. She is not +aware of sets, in that petty way. It is merely a treat she is giving the +child, for she knows how much Karen loves to be with her. And it is only +in her train that Karen goes."</p> + +<p>"Precisely." Betty had risen and stood smoothing her muff and not +feigning to smile. "In her train. I don't think that Gregory's wife +should go in anybody's train."</p> + +<p>"It was markedly in Mercedes's train that he found her."</p> + +<p>"All the more reason for wishing now to withdraw her from it. Karen has +become something more than Madame von Marwitz's <i>panache</i>."</p> + +<p>Mrs. Forrester at this fixed Betty very hard and echoes of Miss Scrotton +rang loudly. "You must let me warn you, Lady Jardine," she said, "that +you are making a position, difficult already for Mercedes, more +difficult still. It would be a grievous thing if Karen were to recognize +her husband's jealousy. I'm afraid I can't avoid seeing what you have +made so plain to-day, that Gregory is trying to undermine Karen's +relation to her guardian."</p> + +<p>At this Betty had actually to laugh. "But don't you see that it is +simply the other way round?" she said. "It is Madame von Marwitz who is +trying to undermine Karen's relation to Gregory. It is she who is +jealous. It's that I can't avoid seeing."</p> + +<p>"I don't think we have anything to gain by continuing this +conversation," Mrs. Forrester replied. "May I give you some more tea +before you go?"</p> + +<p>"No, thanks. Is Karen coming with me, I wonder? We had arranged that I +was to take her home."</p> + +<p>Mrs. Forrester rang the bell and she and Betty stood in an uneasy +silence until the man returned to say that Mrs. Jardine was to spend the +evening with Madame von Marwitz who had suddenly been taken very ill.</p> + +<p>"Oh, dear! Oh, dear!" Mrs. Forrester almost moaned. "This means one of +her terrible headaches and we were to have dined out. I must telephone +excuses at once."</p> + +<p>"I wish I hadn't had to make you think me such a pig," said Betty.</p> + +<p>"I don't think you a pig," said Mrs. Forrester, "but I do think you a +very mistaken and a very unwise woman. And I do beg you, for Gregory and +for Karen's sake, to be careful what you do."</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XXI" id="CHAPTER_XXI"></a>CHAPTER XXI</h2> + +<p>"I'm afraid you think that I've made a dreadful mess of things, Gregory. +I simply couldn't help myself," said Betty, half an hour later. "If only +she hadn't gone on gazing at Karen in that aggressive way I might have +curbed my tongue, and if only, afterwards, Mrs. Forrester hadn't shown +herself such an infatuated partisan. But I'm afraid she was right in +saying that I was an unwise woman. Certainly I haven't made things +easier for you, unless you want a <i>situation nette</i>. It's there to your +hand if you do want it, and in your place I should. It was a challenge +she gave, you know, to you through me. After the other night there was +no mistaking it. I should forbid Karen to go on Saturday."</p> + +<p>Gregory stood before her still wearing his overcoat, for they had driven +up simultaneously to the door below, his hands in his pockets and eyes +of deep cogitation fixed on his sister-in-law. He was inclined to think +that she had made a dreadful mess of things; yet, at the same time, he +was feeling a certain elation in the chaos thus created.</p> + +<p>"You advise me to declare war on Madame von Marwitz?" he inquired. +"Come; the situation is hardly <i>nette</i> enough to warrant that; what?"</p> + +<p>"Ah; you do see it then!" Betty from the sofa where she sat erect, her +hands in her muff, almost joyfully declared. "You do see, then, what she +is after!"</p> + +<p>He didn't intend to let Betty see what he saw, if that were now +possible. "She's after Karen, of course; but why not? It's a jealous and +exacting affection, that is evident; but as long as Karen cares to +satisfy it I'm quite pleased that she should. I can't declare war on +Madame von Marwitz, Betty, even if I wanted to. Because, if she is fond +of Karen, Karen is ten times fonder of her."</p> + +<p>"Expose her to Karen!" Betty magnificently urged. "You can I'm sure. +You're been seeing things more and more clearly, just as I have; you've +been seeing that Madame von Marwitz, as far as her character goes, is a +fraud. Trip her up. Have things out. Gregory, I warn you, she's a +dangerous woman, and Karen is a very simple one."</p> + +<p>"But that's just it, my dear Betty. If Karen is too simple to see, now, +that she's dangerous, how shall I make her look so? It's I who'll look +the jealous idiot Mrs. Forrester thinks me," Gregory half mused to +himself. "And, besides, I really don't know that I should want to trip +her up. I don't know that I should like to have Karen disillusioned. +She's a fraud if you like, and Karen, as I say, is ten times fonder of +her than she is of Karen; but she is fond of Karen; I do believe that. +And she has been a fairy-godmother to her. And they have been through +all sorts of things together. No; their relationship is one that has its +rights. I see it, and I intend to make Madame von Marwitz feel that I +see it. So that my only plan is to go on being suave and acquiescent."</p> + +<p>"Well; you may have to sacrifice me, then. Karen is indignant with me, I +warn you."</p> + +<p>"I'm a resourceful person, Betty. I shan't sacrifice you. And you must +be patient with Karen."</p> + +<p>Betty, who had risen, stood for a moment looking at the Bouddha. +"Patient? I should think so. She is the one I'm sorriest for. Are you +going to keep that ridiculous thing in here permanently, Gregory?"</p> + +<p>"It's symbolic, isn't it?" said Gregory. "It will stay here, I suppose, +as long as Madame von Marwitz and Karen go on caring for each other. +With all my griefs and suspicions I hope that the Bouddha is a fixture."</p> + +<p>He felt, after Betty had gone, that he had burned a good many of his +boats in thus making her, to some extent, his confidant. He had +confessed that he had griefs and suspicions, and that, in itself, was to +involve still further his relation to his wife. But he had kept from +Betty how grave were his grounds for suspicion. The bearing away of +Karen to the ducal week-end wasn't really, in itself, so alarming an +incident; but, as a sequel to Madame von Marwitz's parting declaration +of the other evening, her supremely insolent, "I must see what I can +do," it became sinister and affected him like the sound of a second, +more prolonged, more reverberating clash upon the gong. To submit was to +show himself in Madame von Marwitz's eyes as contemptibly supine; to +protest was to appear in Karen's as meanly petty.</p> + +<p>His reflections were interrupted by the ringing of the telephone and +when he went to it Karen's voice told him that she was spending the +evening with Tante, who was ill, and that she would not be back till +ten. Something chill and authoritative in the tones affected him +unpleasantly. Karen considered that she had a grievance and perhaps +suspected him of being its cause. After all, he thought, hanging up the +receiver with some abruptness, there was such a thing as being too +simple. One had, indeed, to be very patient with her. And one thing he +promised himself whatever came of it; he wasn't going to sacrifice Betty +by one jot or tittle to his duel with Madame von Marwitz.</p> + +<p>It was past ten when Karen returned and his mood of latent hostility +melted when he saw how tired she looked and how unhappy. She, too, had +steeled herself in advance against something that she expected to find +in him and he was thankful to feel that she wouldn't find it. She was to +find him suave and acquiescent; he would consent without a murmur to +Madame von Marwitz's plan for the week-end.</p> + +<p>"Darling, I'm so sorry that she's ill, your guardian," he said, taking +her hat and coat from her as she sank wearily on the sofa. "How is she +now?"</p> + +<p>She looked up at him in the rosy light of the electric lamps and her +face showed no temporizing recognitions or gratitudes. "Gregory," she +said abruptly, "do you mind—does it displease you—if I go with Tante +next Saturday to stay with some friends of hers?"</p> + +<p>"Mind? Why should I?" said Gregory, standing before her with his hands +in his pockets. "I'd rather have you here, of course. I've been feeling +a little deserted lately. But I want you to do anything that gives you +pleasure."</p> + +<p>She studied him. "Betty thought it a wrong thing for me to do. She hurt +Tante's feelings deeply this afternoon. She spoke as if she had some +authority to come between you and me and between me and Tante. I am very +much displeased with her," said Karen, with her strangely mature +decision.</p> + +<p>The moment had come, decisively, not to sacrifice Betty. "Betty sees +things more conventionally and perhaps more wisely," he said, "than you +or I—or Madame von Marwitz, even, perhaps. She feels a sense of +responsibility towards you—and towards me. Anything she said she meant +kindly, I'm sure."</p> + +<p>Karen listened carefully as though mastering herself. "Responsibility +towards me? Why should she? I feel none towards her."</p> + +<p>"But, my dear child, that wouldn't be in your place," he could not +control the ironic note. "You are a younger woman and a much more +inexperienced one. It's merely as if you'd married into a family where +there was an elder sister to look after you."</p> + +<p>Karen's eyes dwelt on him and her face was cold, rocky. "Do you forget, +as she does, that I have still with me a person who, for years, has +looked after me, a person older still and more experienced still than +the little Betty? I don't need any guidance from your sister; for I have +my guardian to tell me, as she always has, what is best for me to do. It +is impertinent of Betty to imagine that she has any right to interfere. +And she was more than impertinent. I had not wished to tell you; but you +must understand that Betty has been insolent."</p> + +<p>"Come, Karen; don't use such unsuitable words. Hasty perhaps; not +insolent. Betty herself has told me all about it."</p> + +<p>A steely penetration came to Karen's eyes. "She has told you? She has +been here?"</p> + +<p>"Yes."</p> + +<p>"She complained of Tante to you?"</p> + +<p>"She thinks her wrong."</p> + +<p>"And you; you think her wrong?"</p> + +<p>Gregory paused and looked at the young girl on the sofa, his wife. There +was that in her attitude, exhausted yet unappealing, in her face, weary +yet implacable, which, while it made her seem pitiful to him, made her +also almost a stranger; this armed hostility towards himself, who loved +her, this quickness of resentment, this cold assurance of right. He +could understand and pity; but he, too, was tired and overwrought. What +had he done to deserve such a look and such a tone from her except +endure, with unexampled patience, the pressure upon his life, soft, +unremitting, sinister, of something hateful to him and menacing to their +happiness? What, above all, was his place in this deep but narrow young +heart? It seemed filled with but one absorbing preoccupation, one +passion of devotion.</p> + +<p>He turned from her and went to the mantelpiece, and shifting the vases +upon it as he spoke, remembering with a bitter upper layer of +consciousness how Madame von Marwitz's blighting gaze had rested upon +these ornaments in her first visit;—"I'm not going to discuss your +guardian with you, Karen," he said; "I haven't said that I thought her +wrong. I've consented that you should do as she wishes. You have no +right to ask anything more of me. I certainly am not going to be forced +by you into saying that I think Betty wrong. If you are not unfair to +Betty you are certainly most unfair to me and it seems to me that it is +your tendency to be fair to one person only. I'm in no danger of +forgetting her control and guidance of your life, I assure you. If you +were to let me forget it, she wouldn't. She is showing me now—after +telling me the other night what she thought of my <i>monde</i>—how she +controls you. It's very natural of her, no doubt, and very natural of +you to feel her right; and I submit. So that you have no ground of +grievance against me." He turned to her again. "And now I think you had +better go to bed. You look very tired. I've some work to get through, so +I'll say good-night to you, Karen dear."</p> + +<p>She rose with a curious automatic obedience, and, coming to him, lifted +her forehead, like a child, for his kiss. Her face showed, perhaps, a +bleak wonder, but it showed no softness. She might be bewildered by this +sudden change in their relation, but she was not weakened. She went +away, softly closing the door behind her.</p> + +<p>In their room, Karen stood for a moment before undressing and looked +about her. Something had happened, and though she could not clearly see +what it was it seemed to have altered the aspect of everything, so that +this pretty room, full of light and comfort, was strange to her. She +felt an alien in it; and as she looked round it she thought of how her +little room at Les Solitudes where, with such an untroubled heart, she +had slept and waked for so many years.</p> + +<p>Three large photographs of Tante hung on the walls, and their eyes met +hers as if with an unfaltering love and comprehension. And on the +dressing-table was a photograph of Gregory; the new thing in her life; +the thing that menaced the old. She went and took it up, and Gregory's +face, too, was suddenly strange to her; cold, hard, sardonic. She +wondered, gazing at it, that she had never seen before how cold and hard +it was. Quickly undressing she lay down and closed her eyes. A +succession of images passed with processional steadiness before her +mind; the carriage in the Forest of Fontainebleau and Tante in it +looking at her; Tante in the hotel at Fontainebleau, her arm around the +little waif, saying: "But it is a Norse child; her name and her hair and +her eyes;" Tante's dreadful face as she tottered back to Karen's arms +from the sight at the lake-edge; Tante that evening lying white and +sombre on her pillows with eyelids pressed down as if on tears, saying: +"Do they wish to take my child, too, from me?"</p> + +<p>Then came the other face, the new face; like a sword; thrusting among +the sacred visions. Consciously she saw her husband's face now, as she +had often, with a half wilful unconsciousness, seen it, looking at +Tante—ah, a fierce resentment flamed up in her at last with the +unavoidable clearness of her vision—looking at Tante with a courteous +blankness that cloaked hostility; with cold curiosity; with mastered +irony, suspicion, dislike. He was, then, a man not generous, not large +and wise of heart, a man without the loving humour that would have +enabled him to see past the defects and flaws of greatness, nor with the +heart and mind to recognize and love it when he saw it. He was petty, +too, and narrow, and arrogantly sure of his own small measures. Her +memories heaped themselves into the overwhelming realisation. She was +married to a man who was hostile to what—until he had come—had been +the dearest thing in her life. She had taken to her heart something that +killed its very pulse. How could she love a man who looked such things +at Tante—who thought such things of Tante? How love him without +disloyalty to the older tie? Already her forbearance, her hiding from +him of her fear, had been disloyalty, a cowardly acquiescence in +something that, from the first hint of it, she should openly have +rebelled against. Slow flames of shame and anger burned her. How could +she not hate him? But how could she not love him? He was part of her +life, as unquestionably, as indissolubly, as Tante.</p> + +<p>Then, the visions crumbling, the flames falling, a chaos of mere feeling +overwhelmed her. It was as though her blood were running backward, +knotting itself in clots of darkness and agony. He had sent her away +unlovingly—punishing her for her fidelity. Her love for Tante destroyed +his love for her. He must have known her pain; yet he could speak like +that to her; look like that. The tears rose to her eyes and rolled down +her cheeks as she lay straightly in the bed, on her back, the clothes +drawn to her throat, her hands clasped tightly on her breast. Hours had +passed and here she lay alone.</p> + +<p>Hours had passed and she heard at last his careful step along the +passage, and the shock of it tingled through her with a renewal of fear +and irrepressible joy. He opened, carefully, the dressing-room door. She +listened, stilling her breaths.</p> + +<p>He would come to her. They would speak together. He would not leave her +when she was so unhappy. Even the thought of Tante's wrongs was effaced +by the fear and yearning, and, as the bedroom door opened and Gregory +came in, her heart seemed to lift and dissolve in a throb of relief and +blissfulness.</p> + +<p>But, with her joy, the thought of Tante hovered like a heavy darkness +above her eyes, keeping them closed. She lay still, ashamed of so much +gladness, yet knowing that if he took her in his arms her arms could but +close about him.</p> + +<p>The stillness deceived Gregory. In the dim light from the dressing-room +he saw her, as he thought, sleeping placidly, her broad braids lying +along the sheet.</p> + +<p>He looked at her for a moment. Then, not stooping to her, he turned +away.</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XXII" id="CHAPTER_XXII"></a>CHAPTER XXII</h2> + + +<p>If only, Gregory often felt, in thinking it over and over in the days of +outer unity and inner estrangement that followed, she had not been able +to go to sleep so placidly.</p> + +<p>All resentment had faded from his heart when he went in to her. He had +longed for reconciliation and for reassurance. But as he had looked at +the seeming calm of Karen's face his tenderness and compunction passed +into a bitter consciousness of frustrated love. Her calm was like a +repulse. Their personal estrangement and misunderstanding left her +unmoved. She had said what she had to say to him; she had vindicated her +guardian; and now she slept, unmindful of him. He asked himself, and for +the first time clearly and steadily, as he lay awake for hours +afterwards in the little dressing-room bed, whether Karen's feelings for +him passed beyond a faithful, sober affection that took him for granted, +unhesitatingly and uncritically, as a new asset in a life dedicated +elsewhere. Romance for her was personified in Tante, and her husband was +a creature of mere kindly domesticity. It was to think too bitterly of +Karen's love for him to see it thus, he knew, even while the torment +grasped him; but the pressure of his own love for her, the loveliness, +the romance that she so supremely personified for him, surged too +strongly against the barrier of her mute, unanswering face, for him to +feel temperately and weigh fairly. There was a lack in her, and because +of it she hurt him thus cruelly.</p> + +<p>They met next morning over a mutual misinterpretation, and, with a sense +of mingled discord and relief, found themselves kissing and smiling as +if nothing had happened. Pride sustained them; the hope that, since the +other seemed so unconscious, a hurt dealt so unconsciously need not, for +pride's sake, be resented; the fear that explanation or protest might +emphasise estrangement. The easiest thing to do was to go on acting as +if nothing had happened. Karen poured out his coffee and questioned him +about the latest political news. He helped her to eggs and bacon and +took an interest in her letters.</p> + +<p>And since it was easiest to begin so, it was easiest so to go on. The +routine of their shared life blurred for them the sharp realisations of +the night. But while the fact that such suffering had come to them was +one that could, perhaps, be lived down, the fact that they did not speak +of it spread through all their life with a strange, new savour.</p> + +<p>Karen went to her ducal week-end; but she did not, when she came back +from it, regale her husband with her usual wealth of detailed +description. She could no longer assume the air of happy confidence +where Tante and her doings with Tante were concerned. That air of +determined cheerfulness, that pretence that nothing was really the +matter and that Tante and Gregory were bound to get on together if she +took it for granted that they would, had broken down. There was relief +for Gregory, though relief of a chill, grey order, in seeing that Karen +had accepted the fact that he and Tante were not to get on. Yet he +smarted from the new sense of being shut out from her life.</p> + +<p>It was he who assumed the air; he who pretended that nothing was the +matter. He questioned her genially about the visit, and Karen answered +all his questions as genially. Yes; it had been very nice; the great +house sometimes very beautiful and sometimes very ugly; the beauty +seemed, in a funny way, almost as accidental as the ugliness. The people +had been very interesting to look at; so many slender pretty women; +there were no fat women and no ugly women at all, or, if they were, they +contrived not to look it. It all seemed perfectly arranged.</p> + +<p>Had she talked to many of them? Gregory asked. Had she come across +anybody she liked? Karen shook her head. She had liked them all—to look +at—but it had gone no further than that; she had talked very little +with any of them; and, soberly, unemphatically, she had added: "They +were all too much occupied with Tante—or with each other—to think much +of me. I was the only one not slender and not beautiful!"</p> + +<p>Gregory asked who had taken her in to dinner on the two nights, and +masked ironic inner comments when he heard that on Saturday it had been +a young actor who, she thought, had been a little cross at having her as +his portion. "He didn't try to talk to me; nor I to him, when I found +that he was cross," she said. "I didn't like him at all. He had fat +cheeks and very shrewd black eyes." On Sunday it had been a young son of +the house, a boy at Eton. "Very, very dear and nice. We had a great talk +about climbing Swiss mountains, which I have done a good deal, you +know."</p> + +<p>Tante, it appeared, had had the ambassador on Saturday and the Duke +himself on Sunday. And she and Tante, as usual, had had great fun in +their own rooms every night, talking everybody over when the day was +done. Karen said nothing to emphasise the contrast between the duke's +friends and Gregory's, but she couldn't have failed to draw her +comparison. Here was a <i>monde</i> where Tante was fully appreciated. That +she herself had not been was not a matter to engage her thoughts. But it +engaged Gregory's. The position in which she had been placed was a +further proof to him of Tante's lack of consideration. Where Karen was +placed depended, precisely, he felt sure of it, on where Madame von +Marwitz wished her to be placed. It was as the little camp-follower that +she had taken her.</p> + +<p>After this event came a pause in the fortunes of our young couple. +Madame von Marwitz, with Mrs. Forrester, went to Paris to give her two +concerts there and was gone for a fortnight. In this fortnight he and +Karen resumed, though warily, as it were, some old customs. They read +their political economy again in the evenings when they did not go out, +and he found her at tea-time waiting for him as she had used to do. She +shared his life; she was gentle and thoughtful; yet she had never been +less near. He felt that she guarded herself against admissions. To come +near now would be to grant that it had been Tante's presence that had +parted them.</p> + +<p>She wrote to Madame von Marwitz, and heard from her, constantly. Madame +von Marwitz sent her presents from Paris; a wonderful white silk +dressing-gown; a box of chocolate; a charming bit of old enamel picked +up in a <i>rive gauche</i> curiosity shop. Then one day she wrote to say that +Tallie had been quite ill—<i>povera vecchia</i>—and would Karen be a kind, +kind child and run down and see her at Les Solitudes.</p> + +<p>Gregory had not forgotten the plan for having Mrs. Talcott with them +that winter and had reminded Karen of it, but it appeared then that she +had not forgotten, either; had indeed, spoken to Tante of it; but that +Tante had not seemed to think it a good plan. Tante said that Mrs. +Talcott did not like leaving Les Solitudes; and, moreover, that she +herself, might be going down there for the inside of a week at any +moment and Karen knew how Tallie would hate the idea of not being on the +spot to prepare for her. Let them postpone the idea of a visit; at all +events until she was no longer in England.</p> + +<p>Gregory now suggested that Karen might bring Mrs. Talcott back with her. +There was some guile in the suggestion. Encircling this little oasis of +peace where he and Karen could, at all events, draw their breaths, were +storms and arid wastes. Madame von Marwitz would soon be back. She might +even be thinking of redeeming her promise of coming to stay with them. +If old Mrs. Talcott, slightly invalided, could be installed before the +great woman's return, she might keep her out for the rest of her stay in +London, and must, certainly, keep Karen in to a greater extent than when +she had no guest to entertain.</p> + +<p>Karen could not suspect his motive; he saw that from her frank look of +pleasure. She promised to do her best. It was worth while, he reflected, +to lose her for a few days if she were to bring back such a bulwark as +Mrs. Talcott might prove herself to be. And, besides, he would be +sincerely glad to see the old woman. The thought of her gave him a sense +of comfort and security.</p> + +<p>He saw Karen off next morning. She was to be at Les Solitudes for three +or four days, and on the second day of her stay he had his first letter +from her. It was strange to hear from her again, from Cornwall. It was +the first letter he had had from Karen since their marriage and, with +all its odd recalling of the girlish formality of tone, it was a sweet +one. She had found Mrs. Talcott much better, but still quite weak and +jaded, and very glad indeed to see her. And Mrs. Talcott really seemed +to think that she would like to get away. Karen believed that Mrs. +Talcott had actually been feeling lonely, uncharacteristic as that +seemed. She would probably bring her back on Saturday. The letter ended: +"My dear husband, your loving Karen."</p> + +<p>Mrs. Talcott, therefore, was expected, and Mrs. Barker was told to make +ready for her.</p> + +<p>But on Saturday morning, when Karen was starting, he had a wire from her +telling him that plans were altered and that she was coming back alone.</p> + +<p>He went to meet her at Paddington, remembering the meeting when she had +come up after their engagement. It was a different Karen, a Karen furred +and finished and nearly elegant, who stepped from the train; but she +had, as then, her little basket with the knitting and the book; and the +girlish face was scarcely altered; there was even a preoccupation on it +that recalled still more vividly the former meeting at Paddington. +"Well, dearest, and why isn't Mrs. Talcott here, too?" were his first +words.</p> + +<p>Karen took his arm as he steered her towards the luggage. "It is only +put off, I hope, that visit," she said, "because I heard this morning, +Gregory, and wired to you then, that Tante asks if she may come to us +next week." Her voice was not artificial; it expressed determination as +well as gentleness and seemed to warn him that he must not show her if +he were not pleased. Yet duplicity, in his unpleasant surprise, was +difficult to assume.</p> + +<p>"Really. At last. How nice," he said; and his voice rang oddly. "But +poor old Mrs. Talcott. Madame von Marwitz didn't know, I suppose," he +went on, "that we'd just been planning to have her?"</p> + +<p>Karen, her arm still in his, stood looking over the heaped up luggage +and now pointed out her box to the porter. Then, as they turned away and +went towards their cab, she said, more gently and more determinedly: +"Yes; she did know we had planned it. I wrote and told her so, and that +is why she wrote back so quickly to ask if we could not put off Mrs. +Talcott for her; because she will be leaving London very soon and it +will be, this next week, her only chance of being with us. Mrs. Talcott +did not mind at all. I don't think she really wanted to come so much, +Gregory. It is as Tante says, you know," Karen settled herself in a +corner of the hansom, "she really does not like leaving Les Solitudes."</p> + +<p>Gregory had the feeling of being enmeshed. Why had Madame von Marwitz +thrown this web? Had she really divined in a flash his hope and his +intention? Was there any truth in her sudden statement that this was the +only week she could give them? "Oh! Really," was all that he found to +say to Karen's explanations, and then, "Where is Madame von Marwitz +going when she leaves us then?"</p> + +<p>"To the Riviera, with the Duchess of Bannister, I think it is arranged. +I may wire to her, then, Gregory, at once, and say that she is to come?"</p> + +<p>"Of course. How long are we to have the pleasure of entertaining her?"</p> + +<p>"She did not say; for a week at least, I hope. Perhaps, even, for a +fortnight if that will be convenient for you. It will be a great joy to +me," Karen went on, "if only"—she was speaking with that determined +steadiness, looking before her as they drove; now, suddenly, she turned +her eyes on him "if only you will try to enjoy it, too, Gregory."</p> + +<p>It was, in a sense, a challenge, yet it was, too, almost an appeal, and +it brought them nearer than they had been for weeks.</p> + +<p>Gregory's hand caught hers and, holding it tightly, smiling at her +rather tremulously, he said: "I enjoy anything, darling, that makes you +happy."</p> + +<p>"Ah, but," said Karen, her voice keeping its earnest control, "I cannot +be happy with you and Tante unless you can enjoy her for yourself. Try +to know Tante, Gregory," she went on, now with a little breathlessness; +"she wants that so much. One of the first things she asked me when she +came back was that I should try to make you care for her. She felt at +once—and oh! so did I, Gregory—that something was not happy between +you."</p> + +<p>Her hand holding his tightly, her earnest eyes on his, Gregory felt his +blood turn a little cold as he recognized once more the soft, +unremitting pressure. It had begun, then, so early. She had asked Karen +that when she first came back. "But you see, dearest," he said, trying +to keep his head between realizations of Madame von Marwitz's craft and +Karen's candour, "I've never been able to feel that Madame von Marwitz +wanted me to care for her or to come in at all, as it were. I don't mean +anything unkind; only that I imagined that what she did ask of me was to +keep outside and leave your relation and hers alone. And that's what +I've tried to do."</p> + +<p>"Oh, you mistake Tante, Gregory, you mistake her." Karen's hand grasped +his more tightly in the urgency of her opportunity. "She cared for me +too much—yes, it is there that you do not understand—to feel what you +think. For she knows that I cannot be happy while you shut yourself away +from her."</p> + +<p>"Then it's not she who shuts me out?" he tried to smile.</p> + +<p>"No; no; oh, no, Gregory."</p> + +<p>"I must push in, even when I seem to feel I'm not wanted?"</p> + +<p>She would not yield to his attempted lightness. "You mustn't push in; +you must be in; with us, with Tante and me."</p> + +<p>"Do you mean literally? I'm to be a third at your <i>tête-à-têtes</i>?"</p> + +<p>"No, Gregory, I do not mean that; but in thought, in sympathy. You will +try to know Tante. You will make her feel that you and I are not parted +when she is there."</p> + +<p>She saw it all, all Tante's side, with a dreadful clearness. And it was +impossible that she should see what he did. He must submit to seeming +blurred and dull, to pretending not to see anything. At all events her +hand was in his. He felt able to face the duel at close quarters with +Madame von Marwitz as long as Karen let him keep her hand.</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XXIII" id="CHAPTER_XXIII"></a>CHAPTER XXIII</h2> + + +<p>Tante arrived on Monday afternoon and the arrival reminded Gregory of +the Bouddha's installation; but, whereas the Bouddha had overflowed the +drawing-room only, Madame von Marwitz overflowed the flat.</p> + +<p>A multitude of boxes were borne into the passages where, end to end, +like a good's train on a main line, they stood impeding traffic.</p> + +<p>Louise, harassed and sallow, hurried from room to room, expostulating, +explaining, replying in shrill tones to Madame von Marwitz's sonorous +orders. Victor, led by Mrs. Forrester's footman, made his appearance +shortly after his mistress, and, set at large, penetrated unerringly to +the kitchen where he lapped up a dish of custard; while Mrs. Barker, in +the drawing-room, already with signs of resentment on her face, was +receiving minute directions from Madame von Marwitz in regard to a cup +of chocolate. In the dining-room, Gregory found two strange-looking men, +to whom Barker, also clouded, had served whisky and soda; one of these +was Madame von Marwitz's secretary, Schultz; the other a concert +impresario. They greeted Gregory with a disconcerting affability.</p> + +<p>In the midst of the confusion Madame von Marwitz moved, weary and +benignant, her arm around Karen's shoulders, or seated herself at the +piano to run her fingers appraisingly over it in a majestic surge of +arpeggios. Gregory found her hat and veil tossed on the bed in his and +Karen's room, and when he went into his dressing-room he stumbled over +three band-boxes, just arrived from a modiste's, and hastily thrust +there by Louise.</p> + +<p>Victor bounded to greet him as he sought refuge in the library, and +overturned a table that stood in the hall with two fine pieces of +oriental china upon it. The splintering crash of crockery filled the +flat. Mrs. Barker had taken the chocolate to the drawing-room some time +since, and Madame von Marwitz, the cup in her hand, appeared upon the +threshold with Karen. "Alas! The bad dog!" she said, surveying the +wreckage while she sipped her chocolate.</p> + +<p>Rose was summoned to sweep up the pieces and Karen stooped over them +with murmured regret.</p> + +<p>"Were they wedding-presents, my Karen?" Madame von Marwitz asked. +"Console yourself; they were not of a good period—I noticed them. I +will give you better."</p> + +<p>The vases had belonged to Gregory's mother. He was aware that he stood +rather blankly looking at the fragments, as Rose collected them. "Oh, +Gregory, I am so sorry," said Karen, taking upon herself the +responsibility for Victor's mischance. "I am afraid they are broken to +bits. See, this is the largest piece of all. They can't be mended. No, +Tante, they were not wedding-presents; they belonged to Gregory and we +were very fond of them."</p> + +<p>"Alas!" said Madame von Marwitz above her chocolate, and on a deeper +note.</p> + +<p>Gregory was convinced that she had known they were not wedding-presents. +But her manner was flawless and he saw that she intended to keep it so. +She dined with them alone and at the table addressed her talk to him, +fixing, as ill-luck would have it, on the theatre as her theme, and on +<i>La Gaine d'Or</i> as the piece which, in Paris, had particularly +interested her. "You and Karen, of course, saw it when you were there," +she said.</p> + +<p>It was the piece of sinister fame to which he had refused to take Karen. +He owned that they had not seen it.</p> + +<p>"Ah, but that is a pity, truly a pity," said Madame von Marwitz. "How +did it happen? You cannot have failed to hear of it."</p> + +<p>Unable to plead Karen as the cause for his abstention since Madame von +Marwitz regretted that Karen had missed the piece, Gregory said that he +had heard too much perhaps. "I don't believe I should care for anything +the man wrote," he confessed.</p> + +<p>"<i>Tiens!</i>" said Madame von Marwitz, opening her eyes. "You know him?"</p> + +<p>"Heaven forbid!" Gregory ejaculated, smiling with some tartness.</p> + +<p>"But why this rigour? What have you against M. Saumier?"</p> + +<p>It was difficult for a young Englishman of conventional tastes to +formulate what he had against M. Saumier. Gregory took refuge in +evasions. "Oh, I've glanced at reviews of his plays; seen his face in +illustrated papers. One gets an idea of a man's personality and the kind +of thing he's likely to write."</p> + +<p>"A great artist," Madame von Marwitz mildly suggested. "One of our +greatest."</p> + +<p>"Is he really? I'd hardly grasped that. I had an idea that he was merely +one of the clever lot. But I never can see why one should put oneself, +through a man's art, into contact with the sort of person one would +avoid having anything to do with in life."</p> + +<p>Madame von Marwitz listened attentively. "Do you refuse to look at a +Cellini bronze?"</p> + +<p>"Literature is different, isn't it? It's more personal. There's more +life in it. If a man's a low fellow I don't interest myself in his +interpretation of life. He's seen nothing that I'm likely to want to +see."</p> + +<p>Madame von Marwitz smiled, now with a touch of irony. "But you frighten +me. How am I to tell you that I know M. Saumier?"</p> + +<p>Gregory was decidedly taken back. "That's a penalty you have to pay for +being a celebrity, no doubt," he said. "All celebrities know each other, +I suppose."</p> + +<p>"By no means. I allow no one to be thrust upon me, I assure you. And I +have the greatest admiration for M. Saumier's talent. A great artist +cannot be a low fellow; if he were one he would be so much more than +that that the social defect would be negligible. Few great artists, I +imagine, have been of such a character as would win the approval of a +garden party at Lambeth Palace. I am sorry, indeed sorry, that you and +Karen missed <i>La Gaine d'Or</i>. It is not a play for the <i>jeune fille</i>; +no; though, holding as I do that nothing so fortifies and arms the taste +as liberty, I should have allowed Karen to see it even before her +marriage. It is a play cruel and acrid and beautiful. Yes; there is +great beauty, and it flowers, as so often, on a bitter root. Ah, well, +you will waive your scruples now, I trust. I will take Karen with me to +see it when we are next in Paris together, and that must be soon. We +will go for a night or two. You would like to see Paris with me again; +<i>pas vrai, chérie?</i>"</p> + +<p>Gregory had been uncomfortably aware of Karen's contemplation while he +defended his prejudices, and he was prepared for an open espousal of her +guardian's point of view; it was, he knew, her own. But he received once +more, as he had received already on several occasions, an unexpected and +gratifying proof of Karen's recognition of marital responsibility. "I +should like to be in Paris with you again, Tante," she said, "but not to +go to that play. I agreed not to go to it when Gregory and I were there. +I should not care to go when he so much dislikes it." Her eyes met her +guardian's while she spoke. They were gentle and non-committal; they +gave Gregory no cause for triumph, nor Tante for humiliation; they +expressed merely her own recognition of a bond.</p> + +<p>Madame von Marwitz rose to the occasion, but—oh, it was there, the soft +pressure, never more present to Gregory's consciousness than when it +seemed most absent—she rose too emphatically, as if to a need. Her eyes +mused on the girl's face, tenderly brooded and understood. And Karen's +voice and look had asked her not to understand.</p> + +<p>"Ah, that is right; that is a wife," she murmured. "Though, believe me, +<i>chérie</i>, I did not know that I was so transgressing." And turning her +glance on Gregory, "<i>Je vous fais mes compliments</i>," she added.</p> + +<p>Karen said that he must bring his cigar into the drawing-room, for Tante +would smoke her cigarette with him, and there, until bedtime, things +went as well as they had at dinner—or as badly; for part of their +badness, Gregory more and more resentfully became aware, was that they +were made to seem to go well, from her side, not from his.</p> + +<p>She had a genius, veritably uncanny for, with all sweetness and +hesitancy, revealing him as stiff and unresponsively complacent. It was +impossible for him to talk freely with a person uncongenial to him of +the things he felt deeply; and, pertinaciously, over her coffee and +cigarettes, it was the deep things that she softly wooed him to share +with her.</p> + +<p>He might be stiff and stupid, but he flattered himself that he wasn't +once short or sharp—as he would have been over and over again with any +other woman who so bothered him. And he was sincerely unaware that his +courtesy, in its dry evasiveness, was more repudiating than rudeness.</p> + +<p>When Karen went with her guardian to her room that night, the little +room that looked so choked and overcrowded with the great woman's +multiplied necessities, Madame von Marwitz, sinking on the sofa, drew +her to her and looked closely at her, with an intentness almost tragic, +tenderly smoothing back her hair.</p> + +<p>Karen looked back at her very firmly.</p> + +<p>"Tell me, my child," Madame von Marwitz said, as if, suddenly, taking +refuge in the inessential from the pressure of her own thoughts, "how +did you find our Tallie? I have not heard of that from you yet."</p> + +<p>"She is looking rather pale and thin, Tante; but she is quite well +again; already she will go out into the garden," Karen answered, with, +perhaps, an evident relief.</p> + +<p>"That is well," said Madame von Marwitz with quiet satisfaction. "That +is well. I cannot think of Tallie as ill. She is never ill. It is +perhaps the peaceful, happy life she leads—<i>povera</i>—that preserves +her. And the air, the wonderful air of our Cornwall. I fixed on Cornwall +for the sake of Tallie, in great part; I sought for a truly halcyon spot +where that faithful one might end her days in joy. You knew that, +Karen?"</p> + +<p>"No, Tante; you never told me that."</p> + +<p>"It is so," Madame von Marwitz continued to muse, her eyes on the fire, +"It is so. I have given great thought to my Tallie's happiness. She has +earned it." And after a moment, in the same quiet tone, she went on. +"This idea of yours, my Karen, of bringing Tallie up to town; was it +wise, do you think?"</p> + +<p>Karen, also, had been looking at the flames. She brought her eyes now +back to her guardian. "Wasn't it wise, Tante? We had asked her to come +and stay—long ago, you know."</p> + +<p>"Had she seemed eager?"</p> + +<p>"Eager? No; I can't imagine Mrs. Talcott eager about anything. We hoped +we could persuade her, that was all. Why not wise, Tante?"</p> + +<p>"Only, my child, that after the quiet life there, the solitude that she +loves and that I chose for her sake, the pure sea air and the life among +her flowers, London, I fear, would much weary and fatigue her. Tallie is +getting old. We must not forget that Tallie is very old. This illness +warns us. It does not seem to me a good plan. It was your plan, Karen?"</p> + +<p>Karen was listening, with a little bewilderment. "It seemed, to me very +good. I had not thought of Mrs. Talcott as so old as that. I always +think of her as old, but so strong and tough. It was Gregory who +suggested it, in the first place, and this time, too. When I told him +that I was going he thought of our plan at once and told me that now I +must persuade her to come to us for a good long visit. He is really very +fond of Mrs. Talcott, Tante, and she of him, I think. It would please +you to see them together."</p> + +<p>Karen spoke on innocently; but, as she spoke, she became aware from a +new steadiness in her guardian's look, that her words had conveyed some +significance of which she was herself unconscious.</p> + +<p>Madame von Marwitz's hand had tightened on hers. "Ah," she said after a +moment. She looked away.</p> + +<p>"What is it, Tante?" Karen asked.</p> + +<p>Madame von Marwitz had begun to draw deep, slow breaths. Karen knew the +sound; it meant a painful control. "Tante, what is it?" she repeated.</p> + +<p>"Nothing. Nothing, my child." Madame von Marwitz laid her arm around +Karen's shoulders and continued to look away from her.</p> + +<p>"But it isn't nothing," said Karen, after a little pause. "Something +that I have said troubles or hurts you."</p> + +<p>"Is it so? Perhaps you say the truth, my child. Hurts are not new to me. +No, my Karen, no. It is nothing for us to speak of. I understand. But +your husband, Karen, he must have found it thoughtless in me, +indelicate, to force myself in when he had hoped so strongly for another +guest."</p> + +<p>A slow flush mounted to Karen's cheek. She kept silence for a moment, +then in a careful voice she said: "No, Tante; I do not believe that."</p> + +<p>"No?" said Madame von Marwitz. "No, my Karen?"</p> + +<p>"He knew, on the contrary, that I hoped to have you soon—at any time +that you could come," said Karen, in slightly trembling tones.</p> + +<p>Madame von Marwitz nodded. "He knew that, as you tell me; and, knowing +it, he asked Tallie; hoping that with her installed—for a long +visit—my stay might be prevented. Do not let us hide from each other, +my Karen. We have hidden too long and it is the beginning of the end if +we may not say to each other what we see."</p> + +<p>Sitting with downcast eyes, Karen was silent, struggling perhaps with +new realisations.</p> + +<p>Madame von Marwitz bent to kiss her forehead and then, resuming the +tender stroking of her hair, she went on: "Your husband dislikes me. Let +us look the ugly thing full in the face. You know it, and I know it, +and—<i>parbleu!</i>—he knows it well. There; the truth is out. Ah, the +brave little heart; it sought to hide its sorrow from me. But Tante is +not so dull a person. The loneliness of heart must cease for you. And +the sorrow, too, may pass away. Be patient, Karen. You will see. He may +come to feel more kindly towards the woman who so loves his wife. +Strange, is it not, and a chastisement for my egotism, if I have still +any of that frothy element lingering in my nature, that I should find, +suddenly, at the end of my life—so near me, bound to me by such +ties—one who is unwilling to trust me, oh, for the least little bit; so +unwilling to accept me at merely my face value. Most people," she added, +"have loved me easily."</p> + +<p>Karen sat on in silence. Her guardian knew this apathetic silence, and +that it was symptomatic in her of deep emotion. And, the contagion of +the suffering beside her gaining upon her, her own fictitious calm +wavered. She bent again to look into the girl's averted face. "Karen, +<i>chérie</i>," she said, and now with a quicker utterance; "it is not worse +than I yet realise? You do not hide something that I have not yet seen. +It is dislike; I accept it. It is aversion, even. But his love for you; +that is strong, sincere? He will not make it too difficult for me? I am +not wrong in coming here to be with my child?"</p> + +<p>Karen at length turned her eyes on her guardian with a heavy look. "What +would you find too difficult?" she asked.</p> + +<p>Madame von Marwitz hesitated slightly, taken aback. But she grasped in +an instant her advantage. "That by being here I should feel that I came +between you and your husband. That by being here I made it more +difficult for you."</p> + +<p>"I should not be happier if you were away—if what you think is true, +should I?" said Karen.</p> + +<p>"Yes, my child," Madame von Marwitz returned, and now almost with +severity. "You would. You would not so sharply feel your husband's +aversion for me if I were not here. You would not have it in your ears; +before your eyes."</p> + +<p>"I thought that you talked together quite easily to-night," Karen +continued. "I saw, of course, that you did not understand each other; +but with time that might be. I thought that if you were here he would by +degrees come to know you, for he does not know you yet."</p> + +<p>"We talked easily, did we not, my child, to shield you, and you were not +more deceived by the ease than he or I. He does not understand me? I +hope so indeed. But to say that I do not understand him shows already +your wish to shield him, and at my expense. I do understand him; too +well. And if there is this repugnance in him now, may it not grow with +the enforced intimacy? That is my fear, my dread."</p> + +<p>"He has never said that he disliked you."</p> + +<p>"Said it? To you? I should imagine not, <i>parbleu</i>!"</p> + +<p>"He has only said," Karen pursued with a curious doggedness, "that he +did not feel that you cared for him to care."</p> + +<p>"Ah! Is it so? You have talked of it, then? And he has said that? And +did you believe it? Of me?"</p> + +<p>But the growing passion and urgency of her voice seemed to shut Karen +more closely in upon herself rather than sweep her into impulsive +confidence. There was a hot exasperation in Madame von Marwitz's eye as +it studied the averted, stubborn head. "No," was the reply she received.</p> + +<p>"No, no, indeed. It was not the truth that he said to you and you know +that it was not the truth. Oh, I make no accusation against your +husband; he believed it the truth; but you cannot believe that I would +rest satisfied with what must make you unhappy. And how can you be happy +if your husband does not care for me? How can you be happy if he feels +repugnance for me? You cannot be. Is it not so? Or am I wrong?"</p> + +<p>"No," Karen again repeated.</p> + +<p>"Then," said Madame von Marwitz, and a sob now lifted her voice, "then +do not let him put it upon me. Not that! Oh promise me, my Karen! For +that would be the end."</p> + +<p>Karen turned to her suddenly, and passed her arms around her. +"Tante—Tante," she said; "what are you saying? The end? There could not +be an end for us! Do not speak so. Do not. Do not." She was trembling.</p> + +<p>"Ah—could there not! Could there not!" With the words Madame von +Marwitz broke into violent sobs. "Has it not been my doom, +always—always to have what I love taken from me! You love this man who +hates me! You defend him! He will part you from me! I foresee it! From +the first it has been my dread!"</p> + +<p>"No one can ever part us, Tante. No one. Ever." Karen whispered, holding +her tightly, and her face, bending above the sobbing woman, was suddenly +old and stricken in its tormented and almost maternal love. "Tante; +remember your own words. You gave me courage. Will you not be patient? +For my sake? Be patient, Tante. Be patient. He does not know you yet."</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XXIV" id="CHAPTER_XXIV"></a>CHAPTER XXIV</h2> + + +<p>Gregory heard no word of the revealing talk; yet, when he and Karen were +alone, he was aware of a new chill, or a new discretion, in the +atmosphere. It was as if a veil of ice, invisible yet impassable, hung +between them, and he could only infer that she had something to hide, he +could only suspect, with a bitterer resentment, that Madame von Marwitz +had been more directly exerting her pressure.</p> + +<p>The pressure, whatever it had been, had the effect of making Karen, when +they were all three confronted, more calm, more mildly cheerful than +before, more than ever the fond wife who did not even suspect that a +flaw might be imagined in her happiness.</p> + +<p>Gregory had an idea—his only comfort in this sorry maze where he found +himself so involved—that this attitude of Karen's, combined with his +own undeviating consideration, had a disconcerting effect upon Madame +von Marwitz and at moments induced her to show her weapon too openly in +their wary duel. If he ever betrayed his dislike Karen must see that it +was Tante who wouldn't allow him to conceal it, who, sorrowfully and +gently, turned herself about in the light she elicited and displayed +herself to Karen as rejected and uncomplaining. He hoped that Karen saw +it. But he could be sure of nothing that Karen saw. The flawless loyalty +of her outward bearing might be but the shield for a deepening hurt. All +that he could do was what, in former days and in different conditions, +Mrs. Talcott had advised him to do; "hang on," and parry Madame von +Marwitz's thrusts. She had come, he more and more felt sure of it, urged +by her itching jealousy, for the purpose of making mischief; and if it +was not a motive of which she was conscious, that made her but the more +dangerous with her deep, instinctive craft.</p> + +<p>Meanwhile if there were fundamental anxieties to fret one's heart, there +were superficial irritations that abraded one's nerves.</p> + +<p>Karen was accustomed to the turmoil that surrounded the guarded shrine +where genius slept or worked, too much accustomed, without doubt, to +realise its effect upon her husband.</p> + +<p>The electric bells were never silent. Seated figures, bearing band-boxes +or rolls of music, filled the hall at all hours of the day and night. +Alert interviewers button-holed him on his way in and out and asked for +a few details about Mrs. Jardine's youth, and her relationship to Madame +Okraska.</p> + +<p>Madame von Marwitz rose capriciously and ate capriciously; trays with +strange meals upon them were carried at strange hours to her rooms, and +Barker, Mrs. Barker and Rose all quarrelled with Louise.</p> + +<p>Madame von Marwitz also showed oddities of temper which, with all her +determination to appear at her best, it did not occur to her to control, +oddities that met, from Karen, with a fond tolerance.</p> + +<p>It startled Gregory when they saw Madame von Marwitz, emerging from her +room, administer two smart boxes upon Louise's ears, remarking as she +did so, with gravity rather than anger: "<i>Voilà pour toi, ma fille.</i>"</p> + +<p>"Is Madame von Marwitz in the habit of slapping her servants?" he asked +Karen in their room, aware that his frigid mien required justification.</p> + +<p>She looked at him through the veil of ice. "Tante's servants adore her."</p> + +<p>"Well, it seems a pity to take such an advantage of their adoration."</p> + +<p>"Louise is sometimes very clumsy and impertinent."</p> + +<p>"I can't help thinking that that sort of treatment makes servants +impertinent."</p> + +<p>"I do not care to hear your criticism of my guardian, Gregory."</p> + +<p>"I beg your pardon," said Gregory.</p> + +<p>Betty Jardine met him on a windy April evening in Queen Anne's Gate. "I +see that you had to sacrifice me, Gregory," she said. She smiled; she +bore no grudge; but her smile was tinged with a shrewd pity.</p> + +<p>He felt that he flushed. "You mean that you've not been to see us since +the occasion."</p> + +<p>"I've not been asked!" Betty laughed.</p> + +<p>"Madame von Marwitz is with us, you know," Gregory proffered rather +lamely.</p> + +<p>"Yes; I do know. How do you like having a genius domiciled? I hear that +she is introducing Karen into a very artistic set. After the Bannisters, +Mr. Claude Drew. He is back from America at last, it seems, and is an +assiduous adorer. You have seen a good deal of him?"</p> + +<p>"I haven't seen him at all. Has he been back for long?"</p> + +<p>"Four or five days only, I believe; but I don't know how often he and +Madame von Marwitz and Karen have been seen together. Don't think me a +cat, Gregory; but if she is engaged in a flirtation with that most +unpleasant young man I hope you will see to it that Karen isn't used as +a screen. There have been some really horrid stories about him, you +know."</p> + +<p>Gregory parted from his sister-in-law, perturbed. Indiscreet and naughty +she might be, but Betty was not a cat. The veil of ice was so +impenetrable that no sound of Karen's daily life came to him through it. +He had not an idea of what she did with herself when he wasn't there, +or, rather, of what Madame von Marwitz did with her.</p> + +<p>"You've been seeing something of Mr. Claude Drew, I hear," he said to +Karen that evening. "Do you like him better than you used to do?" They +were in the drawing-room before dinner and dinner had been, as usual, +waiting for half an hour for Madame von Marwitz.</p> + +<p>Gregory's voice betrayed more than a kindly interest, and Karen answered +coldly, if without suspicion; "No; I do not like him better. But Tante +likes him. It is not I who see him, it is Tante. I am only with them +sometimes."</p> + +<p>"And I? Am I to be with them sometimes?" Gregory inquired with an air of +gaiety.</p> + +<p>"If you will come back to tea to-morrow, Gregory," she answered gravely, +"you will meet him. He comes to tea then."</p> + +<p>For the last few days Gregory had fallen into the habit of only getting +back in time for dinner. "You know it's only because I usually find that +you've gone out with your guardian that I haven't come back in time for +tea," he observed.</p> + +<p>"I know," Karen returned, without aggressiveness. "And so, to-morrow, +you will find us if you come."</p> + +<p>He got back at tea-time next day, expecting to make a fourth only of the +small group; but, on his way to the drawing-room, he paused, arrested, +in the hall, where a collection of the oddest looking hats and coats he +had ever seen were piled and hung.</p> + +<p>One of the hats was a large, discoloured, cream-coloured felt, much +battered, with its brown band awry; one was of the type of flat-brimmed +silk, known in Paris as the <i>Latin Quartier</i>; another was an enormous +sombrero. Gregory stood frowning at these strange signs somewhat as if +they had been a drove of cockroaches. He had, as never yet before, the +sense of an alien and offensive invasion of his home, and an old, almost +forgotten disquiet smote upon him in the thought that what to him was +strange was to Karen normal. This was her life and she had never really +entered his.</p> + +<p>In the drawing-room, he paused again at the door, and looked over the +company assembled under the Bouddha's smile. Madame von Marwitz was its +centre; pearl-wreathed, silken and silver, she leaned opulently on the +cushions of the sofa where she sat, and Karen at the tea-table seemed +curiously to have relapsed into the background place where he had first +found her. She was watching, with her old contented placidity, a scene +in which she had little part. No, mercifully, though in it she was not +of it. This was Gregory's relieving thought as his eye ran over them, +the women with powdered faces and extravagant clothes and the men with +the oddest collars and boots and hair. "Shoddy Bohemians," was his terse +definition of them; an inaccurate definition; for though, in the main, +Bohemians, they were not, in the main, shoddy.</p> + +<p>Belot was there, with his massive head and sagacious eyes; and a famous +actress, ugly, thin, with a long, slightly crooked face, tinted hair, +and the melancholy, mysterious eyes of a llama. Claude Drew, at a little +table behind Madame von Marwitz, negligently turned the leaves of a +book. Lady Rose Harding, the only one of the company with whom Gregory +felt an affinity, though a dubious one, talked to the French actress and +to Madame von Marwitz. Lady Rose had ridden across deserts on camels, +and sketched strange Asiatic mountains, and paid a pilgrimage to +Tolstoi, and written books on all these exploits; and she had been to +the Adirondacks that summer with the Aspreys and Madame von Marwitz, and +was now writing a book on that. In a corner a vast, though youthful, +German Jew, with finely crisped red-gold hair, large lips and small, +kind eyes blinking near-sightedly behind gold-rimmed spectacles, sat +with another young man, his hands on his widely parted knees, in an +attitude suggesting a capacity to cope with the most unwieldy +instruments of an orchestra; his companion, black and emaciated, talked +in German, with violent gestures and a strange accent, jerking +constantly a lock of hair out of his eyes. A squat, fat little woman, +bundled up, clasping her knees with her joined hands, sat on a footstool +at Madame von Marwitz's feet, gazing at her and listening to her with a +smile of obsequious attention, and now and then, suddenly, and as if +irrelevantly, breaking into a jubilant laugh. Her dusty hair looked as +though, like the White Queen's, a comb and brush might be entangled in +its masses; the low cut neck of her bodice displayed a ruddy throat +wreathed in many strings of dirty seed-pearls, and her grey satin dress +was garnished with dirty lace.</p> + +<p>Gregory had stood for an appreciable moment at the door surveying the +scene, before either Karen or her guardian saw him, and it was then the +latter who did the honours of the occasion, naming him to the bundled +lady, who was an English poetess, and to Mlle. Suzanne Mauret, the +French actress. The inky-locked youth turned out to be a famous Russian +violinist, and the vast young German Jew none other than Herr Franz +Lippheim, to whom—this was the fact that at once, violently, engaged +Gregory's attention—Madame von Marwitz had destined Karen.</p> + +<p>Franz Lippheim, after Gregory had spoken to everybody and when he at +last was introduced, sprang to his feet and came forward, beaming so +intently from behind his spectacles that Gregory, fearing that he might, +conceivably, be about to kiss him, made an involuntary gesture of +withdrawal. But Herr Lippheim, all unaware, grasped his hand the more +vigorously. "Our little Karen's husband!" "Unserer kleinen Karen's +Mann!" he uttered in a deeply moved German.</p> + +<p>In the driest of tones Gregory asked Karen for some tea, and while he +stood above her Herr Lippheim's beam continued to include them both.</p> + +<p>"Sit down here, Franz, near me," said Karen. She, too, had smiled +joyously as Herr Lippheim greeted her husband. The expression of her +face now had changed.</p> + +<p>Herr Lippheim obeyed, placing, as before, his hands on his knees, the +elbows turned outward, and contemplating Karen's husband with a gaze +that might have softened a heart less steeled than Gregory's.</p> + +<p>This, then, was Madame von Marwitz's next move; her next experiment in +seeing what she could "do." Was not Herr Lippheim a taunt? And with what +did he so unpleasantly associate the name of the French actress? The +link clicked suddenly. <i>La Gaine d'Or</i>, in its veiling French, was about +to be produced in London, and it was Mlle. Mauret who had created the +heroine's role in Paris. These were the people by means of whom Madame +von Marwitz displayed her power over Karen's life;—a depraved woman (he +knew and cared nothing about Mlle. Mauret's private morality; she was +the more repulsive to him if her morals weren't bad; only a woman of no +morals should be capable of acting in <i>La Gaine d'Or</i>;) that impudent +puppy Drew, and this preposterous young man who addressed Karen by her +Christian name and included himself in his inappropriate enthusiasm.</p> + +<p>He drank his tea, standing in silence by Karen's side, and avoiding all +encounter with Herr Lippheim's genial eyes.</p> + +<p>"It is like old times, isn't it, Franz?" said Karen, ignoring her +husband and addressing her former suitor. "It has been—oh, years—since +I have heard such talk. Tante needs all of you, really, to draw her out. +She has been wonderful this afternoon, hasn't she?"</p> + +<p>"<i>Ah, kolossal!</i>" said Herr Lippheim, making no gesture, but expressing +the depths of his appreciation by an emphasized solemnity of gaze.</p> + +<p>"You are right, I think, and so does Tante, evidently," Karen continued, +"about the <i>tempo rubato</i> in the Mozart. It is strange that Monsieur +Ivanowski doesn't feel it."</p> + +<p>"Ah! but that is it, he does feel it; it is only that he does not think +it," said Herr Lippheim, now running his fingers through his hair. "Hear +him play the Mozart. He then contradicts in his music all that his words +have said."</p> + +<p>But though Karen talked so pointedly to him, Herr Lippheim could not +keep his eyes or his thoughts from Gregory. "You are a musician, too, +Mr. Jardine?" he smiled, bending forward, blinking up through his +glasses and laboriously carving out his excellent English. "You do not +express, but you have the soul of an artist? Or perhaps you, too, play, +like our Karen here."</p> + +<p>"No," Gregory returned, with a chill utterance. "I know nothing about +music."</p> + +<p>"Is it so, Karen?" Herr Lippheim questioned, his guileless warmth hardly +tempered.</p> + +<p>"My husband is no artist," Karen answered.</p> + +<p>It was from her tone rather than from Gregory's that Herr Lippheim +seemed to receive his intimation; he was a little disconcerted; he could +interpret Karen's tones. "Ach so! Ach so!" he said; but, his good-will +still seeking to find its way to the polished and ambiguous person who +had gained Karen's heart,—"But now you will live amongst artists, Mr. +Jardine, and you will hear music, great music, played to you by the +greatest. So you will come to feel it in the heart." And as Gregory, to +this, made no reply, "You will educate him, Karen; is it not so? With +you and the great Tante, how could it be otherwise?"</p> + +<p>"I am afraid that one cannot create the love of art when it is not +there, Franz," Karen returned. She was neither plaintive nor confiding; +yet there was an edge in her voice which Gregory felt and which, he +knew, he was intended to feel. Karen was angry with him.</p> + +<p>"Have you seen Belot's portrait of Tante, yet, Franz?"—she again +excluded her husband;—"It is just finished."</p> + +<p>Herr Lippheim had seen it only that morning and he repeated, but now in +preoccupied tones, "<i>Kolossal</i>!"</p> + +<p>They talked, and Gregory stood above them, aloof from their conversation +frigidly gazing over the company, his elbow in his hand, his neat +fingers twisting his moustache. If he was giving Madame von Marwitz a +handle against him he couldn't help it. Over the heads of Karen and Herr +Lippheim his eyes for a moment encountered hers. They looked at each +other steadily and neither feigned a smile.</p> + +<p>Eleanor Scrotton arrived at six, flushed and flustered.</p> + +<p>"Thank heaven, I haven't missed her!" she said to Gregory, to whom, +to-day, Eleanor was an almost welcome sight. Her eyes had fixed +themselves on Mlle. Mauret. "Have you had a talk with her yet?"</p> + +<p>"I haven't had a talk and I yield my claim to you," said Gregory. "Are +you very eager to meet the lady?"</p> + +<p>"Who wouldn't be, my dear Gregory! What a wonderful face! What thought +and suffering! Oh, it has been the most extraordinary of stories. You +don't know? Well, I will tell you about her some time. She is, +doubtless, one of the greatest living actresses. And she is still quite +young. Barely forty."</p> + +<p>He watched Eleanor make her way to the actress's side, reflecting +sardonically upon the modern growths of British tolerance. Half the +respectable matrons in London would, no doubt, take their girls to see +<i>La Gaine d'Or</i>; mercifully, they would in all probability not +understand it; but if they did, was there anything that inartistic +London would not swallow in its terror of being accused of philistinism?</p> + +<p>The company was dispersing. Herr Lippheim stood holding Karen's hands +saying, as she shook them, that he would bring <i>das Mütterchen</i> and <i>die +Schwesterchen</i> to-morrow. Belot came for a last cup of tea and drank it +in sonorous draughts, exchanging a few words with Gregory. He had +nothing against Belot. Mr. Drew leaned on Madame von Marwitz's sofa and +spoke to her in a low voice while she looked at him inscrutably, her +eyes half closed.</p> + +<p>"Lucky man," said Lady Rose to Gregory, on her way out, "to have her +under your roof. I hope you are a scrupulous Boswell and taking notes." +In the hall Barker was assorting the sombrero, the <i>Latin Quartier</i> and +the cream-coloured felt; the last belonged to Herr Lippheim, who was +putting it on when Gregory escorted Lady Rose to the door.</p> + +<p>Gregory gave the young man a listless hand. He couldn't forgive Herr +Lippheim. That he should ever, under whatever encouragements from +Karen's guardian, have dared to aspire to her, was a monstrous fact.</p> + +<p>He watched the thick rims of Herr Lippheim's ears, under the +cream-coloured felt, descending in the lift and wondered if the sight +was to be often inflicted upon him.</p> + +<p>When he went back to the drawing-room, Karen was alone. Madame von +Marwitz had taken Miss Scrotton to her own room. Karen was standing by +the tea-table, looking down at it, her hands on the back of the chair +from which she had risen to say good-bye to her guardian's guests. She +raised her eyes as her husband came in and they rested on him with a +strange expression.</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XXV" id="CHAPTER_XXV"></a>CHAPTER XXV</h2> + + +<p>"Will you shut the door, Gregory?" Karen said. "I want to speak to you." +The feeling with which he looked at her was that with which he had faced +her sleeping, as he thought, after their former dispute. The sense of +failure and disillusion was upon him. As before, it was only of her +guardian that she was thinking. He knew that he had given Madame von +Marwitz a handle against him.</p> + +<p>He obeyed her and when he came and stood before her she went on. "Before +we all meet at dinner again, I must ask you something. Do not make your +contempt of Tante's guests—and of mine—more plain to her than you have +already done this afternoon."</p> + +<p>"Did I make it plain?" Gregory asked, after a moment.</p> + +<p>"I think that if I felt it so strongly, Tante must have felt it," said +Karen, and to this, after another pause, Gregory found nothing further +to say than "I'm sorry."</p> + +<p>"I hardly think," said Karen, holding the back of her chair tightly and +looking down again while she spoke, "that you can have realized that +Herr Lippheim is not only Tante's friend, but mine. I don't think you +can have realized how you treated him. I know that he is very simple and +unworldly; but he is good and kind and faithful; he is a true +artist—almost a great one, and he has the heart of a child. And beside +him, while you were hurting and bewildering him so to-day, you looked to +me—how shall I say it—petty, yes, and foolish, yes, and full of +self-conceit."</p> + +<p>The emotion with which Gregory heard her speak these words, +deliberately, if in a hardened and controlled voice, expressed itself, +as emotion did with him, in a slight, fixed smile. He could not pause to +examine Karen's possible justice; that she should speak so, to him, was +the overpowering fact.</p> + +<p>"I imagined that I behaved with courtesy," he said.</p> + +<p>"Yes, you were courteous," Karen replied. "You made me think of a +painted piece of wood while he was like a growing tree."</p> + +<p>"Your simile is certainly very mortifying," said Gregory, continuing to +smile. But he was not mortified. He was cruelly hurt.</p> + +<p>"I do not wish to mortify you. I have not mortified you, because you +think yourself above it all. But I would like, if I could," said Karen, +"to make you see the truth. I would like to make you see that in +behaving as you have you show yourself not above it but below it."</p> + +<p>"And I would like to make you see the truth, too," Gregory returned, in +the voice of his bitter hurt; "and I ask you, if your prejudice will +permit of it, to make some allowance for my feeling when I found you +surrounded by—this rabble."</p> + +<p>"Rabble? My guardian's friends?" Karen had grown ashen.</p> + +<p>"I hope they're not; but I'm not concerned with her friends; I'm +concerned with you. She can take people in, on the artistic plane, whom +it's not fit that you should meet. That horrible actress,—I wouldn't +have her come within sight of you if I could help it. Your guardian +knows my feeling about the parts she plays. She had no business to ask +her here. As for Herr Lippheim, I have no doubt that he is an admirable +person in his own walk of life, but he is a preposterous person, and it +is preposterous that your guardian should have thought of him as a +possible husband for you." Gregory imagined that he was speaking +carefully and choosing his words, but he was aware that his anger +coloured his voice. He had also been aware, some little time before, in +a lower layer of consciousness, of the stir and rustle of steps and +dresses in the passage outside—Madame von Marwitz conducting Eleanor +Scrotton to the door. And now—had she actually been listening, or did +his words coincide with the sudden opening of the door?—Madame von +Marwitz herself appeared upon the threshold.</p> + +<p>Her face made the catastrophe all too evident. She had heard him. She +had, he felt convinced, crept quietly back and stood to listen before +entering. His memory reconstructed the long pause between the departing +rustle and this apparition.</p> + +<p>Madame von Marwitz's face had its curious look of smothered heat. The +whites of her eyes were suffused though her cheeks were pale.</p> + +<p>"I must apologise," she said. "I overheard you as I entered, Mr. +Jardine, and what I heard I cannot ignore. What is it that you say to +Karen? What is it that you say of the man I thought of as a possible +husband for her?"</p> + +<p>She advanced into the room and laying her arm round Karen's shoulders +she stood confronting him.</p> + +<p>"I don't think I can discuss this with you," said Gregory. "I am very +sorry that you overheard me." The slight smile of his pain had gone. He +looked at Madame von Marwitz with a flinty eye.</p> + +<p>"Ah, but you must discuss it; you shall," said Madame von Marwitz. "You +say things to my child that I am not to overhear. You seek to poison her +mind against me. You take her from me and then blacken me in her eyes. A +possible husband! Would to God," said Madame von Marwitz, with sombre +fury, "that the possibility had been fulfilled! Would to God that it +were my brave, deep-hearted Franz who were her husband—not you, most +ungrateful, most ungenerous of men."</p> + +<p>"Tante," said Karen, who still stood looking down, grasping her +chair-back and encircled by her guardian's arm, "he did not mean you to +hear him. Forgive him."</p> + +<p>"I beg your pardon, Karen," said Gregory, "I am very sorry that Madame +von Marwitz overheard me; but I have said nothing for which I wish to +apologize."</p> + +<p>"Ah! You hear him!" cried Madame von Marwitz, and the inner +conflagration now glittered in her eyes like flames behind the windows +of a burning house. "You hear him, Karen? Forgive him! How can I forgive +him when he has made you wretched! How can I ever forgive him when he +tears your life by thrusting me forth from it—me—and everything I am +and mean! You have witnessed it, Karen—you have seen my efforts to win +your husband. You have seen his contempt for me, his rancour, his +half-hidden insolence. Never—ah, never in my life have I faced such +humiliation as has been offered to me beneath his roof—humiliations, +endured for your sake, Karen—for yours only! Ah"—releasing Karen +suddenly, she advanced a step towards Gregory, with a startling cry, +stretching out her arm—"ungrateful and ungenerous indeed! And you find +yourself one to scorn my Franz! You find yourself one to sneer at my +friends, to stand and look at them and me as if we were vermin infesting +your room! Did I not see it! You! <i>justes cieux!</i> with your bourgeois +little world; your little—little world—so small—so small! your people +like dull beasts pacing in a cage, believing that in the meat thrust in +between their bars and the number of steps to be taken from side to side +lies all the meaning of life; people who survey with their heavy eyes of +surfeit the free souls of the world! Hypocrites! Pharisees! And to this +cage you have consigned my child! and you would make of her, too, a +creature of counted paces and of unearned meat! You would shut her in +from the life of beauty and freedom that she has known! Ah never! never! +there you do not triumph! You have taken her from me; you have won her +love; but her mind is not yours; she sees the cage as I do; you do not +share the deep things of the soul with her. And in her loyal heart—ah, +I know it—will be the cry, undying, for one whose heart you have trod +upon and broken!"</p> + +<p>With these last words, gasped forth on rising sobs, Madame von Marwitz +sank into the chair where Karen still leaned and broke into passionate +tears.</p> + +<p>Gregory again was smiling, with the smile now of decorum at bay, of +embarrassment rather than contempt; but to Karen's eyes it was the smile +of supercilious arrogance. She looked at him sternly over her guardian's +bowed and oddly rolling head. "Speak, Gregory! Speak!" she commanded.</p> + +<p>"My dear," said Gregory—their voices seemed to pass above the clash and +uproar of stormy waters, Madame von Marwitz had abandoned herself to an +elemental grief—"I have nothing to say to your guardian."</p> + +<p>"To me, then," Karen clenched her hands on the back of the chair; "to +me, then, you have something to say. Is it not true? Have you not +repulsed her efforts to come near you? Have you not, behind her back, +permitted yourself to speak with scorn of the man she hoped I would +marry?"</p> + +<p>Gregory paused, and in the pause, as he observed, Madame von Marwitz was +able to withhold for a moment her strange groans and gaspings while she +listened. "I don't think there has been any such effort," he said. "We +were both keeping up appearances, your guardian and I; and I think that +I kept them up best. As for Herr Lippheim, it was only when you accused +me of rudeness to him that I confessed how much it astonished me to find +that he was the man your guardian had wished you to marry. It does +astonish me. Herr Lippheim isn't even a gentleman."</p> + +<p>"Enough!" cried Madame von Marwitz. She sprang to her feet. "Enough!" +she said, half suffocated. "It is the voice of the cage! We will not +stay to hear its standards applied. Come with me, Karen, that I may say +farewell to you."</p> + +<p>She caught Karen by the arm. Her face was strange, savage, suffused. +Gregory went to open the door for them. "Base one!" she said to him. +"Ignominious one!"</p> + +<p>She drew Karen swiftly along the passage and, still keeping her sharp +clasp of her wrist while she opened and closed the door of her room, she +sank, encircling her with her arms, upon the sofa, and wept loudly over +her.</p> + +<p>Karen, too, was now weeping; heavy, shaking sobs.</p> + +<p>"My child! My poor child!" Madame von Marwitz murmured brokenly after a +little time had gone. "I would have spared you this. It has come. We +have both seen it. And now, so that your life may not be ruined, I must +leave it."</p> + +<p>"But Tante—my Tante—" sobbed Karen—Madame von Marwitz did not remember +that Karen had ever so sobbed before—"you cannot mean those words. What +shall I do if you say this? What is left for me?"</p> + +<p>"My child, your life is left you," said Madame von Marwitz, holding her +close and speaking with her lips in the girl's hair. "Your husband's +love is left; the happiness that you chose and that I shall shatter if I +stay; ah, yes, my Karen, how deny it now? I see my path. It is plain +before me. To-night I go to Mrs. Forrester and to-morrow I breathe the +air of Cornwall."</p> + +<p>"But Tante—wait—wait. You will see Gregory again? You will let him +explain? Oh, let me first talk with him! He says bitter things, but so +do you, Tante; and he does not mean to offend as much as you think."</p> + +<p>At this, after a little pause, Madame von Marwitz drew herself slightly +away and put her handkerchief to her eyes and cheeks. The violence of +her grief was over. "Does he still so blind you, Karen?" she then asked. +"Do you still not see that your husband hates me—and has hated me from +the beginning?"</p> + +<p>"Not hate!—Not hate!" Karen sobbed. "He does not understand you—that +is all. Only wait—till to-morrow. Only let me talk to him!"</p> + +<p>"No. He does not understand. That is evident," said Madame von Marwitz +with a bitter smile. "Nor will he ever understand. Will you talk to him, +Karen, so that he shall explain why he smirches my love and my +sincerity? You know as well as I what was the meaning of those words of +his. Can you, loving me, ask me to sue further for the favour of a man +who has so insulted me? No. It cannot be. I cannot see him again. You +and I are still to meet, I trust; but it cannot again be under this +roof."</p> + +<p>Karen now sobbed helplessly, leaning forward, her face in her hands, and +Madame von Marwitz, again laying an arm around her shoulders, gazed with +majestic sorrow into the fire. "Even so," she said at last, when Karen's +sobs had sunken to long, broken breaths; "even so. It is the law of +life. Sacrifice: sacrifice: to the very end. Life, to the artist, must +be this altar where he lays his joys. We are destined to be alone, +Karen. We are driven forth into the wilderness for the sins of the +people. So I have often seen it, and cried out against it in my tortured +youth, and struggled against it in my strength and in my folly. But now, +with another strength, I am enabled to stand upright and to face the +vision of my destiny. I am to be alone. So be it."</p> + +<p>No answer came, from Karen and Madame von Marwitz, after a pause, +continued, in gentler, if no less solemn tones: "And my child, too, is +brave. She, too, will stand upright. She, too, has her destiny to +fulfil—in the world—not in the wilderness. And if the burden should +ever grow too heavy, and the road cut her feet too sharply, and the joy +turn to dust, she will remember—always—that Tante's arms and heart are +open to her—at all times, in all places, and to the end of life. And +now," this, with a sigh of fatigue, came on a more matter-of-fact +note—"let a cab be called for me. Louise will follow with my boxes."</p> + +<p>Karen's tears had ceased. She made no further protest or appeal.</p> + +<p>Rising, she dried her eyes, rang and ordered the cab to be called and +found her guardian's white cloak and veiled hat.</p> + +<p>And while she shrouded her in these, Madame von Marwitz, still gazing, +as if at visions, in the fire, lifted her arms and bent her head with +almost the passivity of a dead thing. Once or twice she murmured broken +phrases: "My ewe-lamb;—taken;—I am very weary. <i>Mon Dieu, mon +Dieu</i>,—and is this, then, the end...."</p> + +<p>She rested heavily on Karen's shoulder in rising. "Forgive me," she +said, leaning her head against hers, "forgive me, beloved one. I have +done harm where I meant to make a safer happiness. Forgive me, too, for +my bitter words. I should not have spoken as I did. My child knows that +it is a hot and passionate heart."</p> + +<p>Karen, in silence, turned her face to her guardian's breast.</p> + +<p>"And do not," said Madame von Marwitz, speaking with infinite +tenderness, while she stroked the bent head, "judge your husband too +hardly because of this. He gives what love he can; as he knows love. It +is as my child said; he does not understand. It is not given to some to +understand. He has lived in a narrow world. Do not judge him hardly, +Karen; it is for the wiser, stronger, more loving soul to lift the +smaller towards the light. He can still give my child happiness. In that +trust I find my strength."</p> + +<p>They went down the passage together. Gregory came to the drawing-room +door. He would have spoken, have questioned, but, shrinking from him and +against Karen, as if from an intolerable searing, Madame von Marwitz +hastened past him. He heard the front door open and the last silent +pause of farewell on the threshold.</p> + +<p>Louise scuttled by past him to her mistress's vacated rooms. She did not +see him and he heard that she muttered under her breath: "<i>Ah! par +exemple! C'est trop fort, ma parole d'honneur!</i>"</p> + +<p>As Karen came back from the door he went to meet her.</p> + +<p>"Karen," he said, "will you come and talk with me, now?"</p> + +<p>She put aside his hand. "I cannot talk. Do not come to me," she said. "I +must think." And going into their room she shut the door.</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XXVI" id="CHAPTER_XXVI"></a>CHAPTER XXVI</h2> + + +<p>The telephone sounded while Gregory next morning ate his solitary +breakfast, and the voice of Mrs. Forrester, disembodied of all but its +gravity, asked him, if he would, to come and see her immediately.</p> + +<p>Gregory asked if Madame von Marwitz were with her. He was not willing, +after the final affront that she had put upon him, to encounter Madame +von Marwitz again in circumstances where he might seem to be justifying +himself. But, with a deeper drop, the disembodied voice informed him +that Madame von Marwitz, ten minutes before, had driven to the station +on her way to Cornwall. "You will understand, I think, Gregory," said +Mrs. Forrester, "that it is hardly possible for her to face in London, +as yet, the situation that you have made for her."</p> + +<p>Gregory, to this, replied, shortly, that he would come to her at once, +reserving his comments on the imputed blame.</p> + +<p>He had passed an almost sleepless night, lying in his little +dressing-room bed where, by a tacit agreement, never explicitly +recognized, he had slept, now, for so many nights. Cold fears, shaped at +last in definite forms, stood round him and bade him see the truth. His +wife did not love him. From the beginning he had been as nothing to her +compared with her guardian. The pale, hard light of her eyes as she had +said to him that afternoon, "Speak!" seemed to light the darkness with +bitter revelations. He knew that he was what would be called, +sentimentally, a broken-hearted man; but it seemed that the process of +breaking had been gradual; so that now, when his heart lay in pieces, +his main feeling was not of sharp pain but of dull fatigue, not of +tragic night, but of a grey commonplace from which all sunlight had +slowly ebbed away.</p> + +<p>He found Mrs. Forrester in her morning-room among loudly singing +canaries and pots of jonquils; and as he shook hands with her he saw +that this old friend, so old and so accustomed that she was like a part +of his life, was embarrassed. The wrinkles on her withered, but oddly +juvenile, face seemed to have shifted to a pattern of perplexity and +pained resolution. He was not embarrassed, though he was beaten and done +in a way Mrs. Forrester could not guess at; yet he felt an awkwardness.</p> + +<p>They had known each other for a life-time, he and Mrs. Forrester, but +they were not intimate; and how intimate they would have to become if +they were to discuss with anything like frankness the causes and +consequences of Madame von Marwitz's conduct! A gloomy indifference +settled on Gregory as he realized that her dear friend's conduct was the +one factor in the causes and consequences that Mrs. Forrester would not +be able to appraise at its true significance.</p> + +<p>She shook his hand, and seating herself at a little table and slightly +tapping it with her fingers, "Now, my dear Gregory," she said, "will +you, please, tell me why you have acted like this?"</p> + +<p>"Isn't my case prejudged?" Gregory asked, reconstructing the scene that +must have taken place last night when Madame von Marwitz had appeared +before her friend.</p> + +<p>"No, Gregory; it is not," Mrs. Forrester returned with some terseness, +for she felt his remark to be unbecoming. "I hope to have some sort of +explanation from you."</p> + +<p>"I'm quite ready to explain; but it's hardly possible that my +explanation will satisfy you," said Gregory. "You spoke, just now, when +you called me up, of a situation and said I'd made it. My explanation +can only consist in saying that I didn't make it; that Madame von +Marwitz made it; that she came to us in order to make it and then to fix +the odium of it on me."</p> + +<p>Already Mrs. Forrester had flushed. She looked hard at the pot of +jonquils near her. "You really believe that?"</p> + +<p>"I do. She can't forgive me for not liking her," said Gregory.</p> + +<p>"And you don't like her. You own to it."</p> + +<p>"I don't like her. I own to it," Gregory replied with a certain frosty +relief. It was like taking off damp, threadbare garments that had +chilled one for a long time and facing the winter wind, naked, but +invigorated. "I dislike her very much."</p> + +<p>"May I ask why?" Mrs. Forrester inquired, with careful courtesy.</p> + +<p>"I distrust her," said Gregory. "I think she's dangerous, and tyrannous, +and unscrupulous. I think that she's devoured by egotism. I'm sorry. But +if you ask me why, I can only tell you."</p> + +<p>Mrs. Forrester sat silent for a moment, and then, the flush on her +delicate old cheek deepening, she murmured: "It is worse, far worse, +than Mercedes told me. Even Mercedes didn't suspect this. Gregory,—I +must ask you another question: Do you really imagine that you and your +cruel thoughts of her would be of the slightest consequence to Mercedes +Okraska, if you had not married the child for whose happiness she holds +herself responsible?"</p> + +<p>"Of course not. She wouldn't give me another thought, if I weren't +there, in her path; I am in her path, and she feels that I don't like +her, and she hasn't been able to let me alone."</p> + +<p>"She has not let you alone because she hoped to make your marriage +secure in the only way in which security was possible for you and Karen. +What happiness could she see for Karen's future if she were to have cut +herself apart from her life; dropped you, and Karen with you? That, +doubtless, would have been the easy thing to do. There is indeed no +reason why women like Mercedes Okraska, women with the world at their +feet, should trouble to think of the young men they may chance to meet, +whose exacting moral sense they don't satisfy. I am glad you see that," +said Mrs. Forrester, tapping her table.</p> + +<p>"It would have been far kinder to have dropped Karen than deliberately +to set to work, as she has done, to ruin her happiness. She hasn't been +able to keep her hands off it. She couldn't stand it—a happiness she +hadn't given; a happiness for which gratitude wasn't due to her."</p> + +<p>"Gregory, Gregory," Mrs. Forrester raised her eyes to him now; "you are +frank with me, very frank; and I must be frank with you. There is more +than dislike here, and distrust, and morbid prejudice. There is +jealousy. Hints of it have come to me; I've tried to put them aside; +I've tried to believe, as my poor Mercedes did, that, by degrees, you +would adjust yourself to the claims on Karen's life, and be generous and +understanding, even when you had no spontaneous sympathy to give. But it +is all quite clear to me now. You can't accept the fact of your wife's +relation to Mercedes. You can't accept the fact of a devotion not wholly +directed towards yourself. I've known you since boyhood, Gregory, and +I've always had regard and fondness for you; but this is a serious +breach between us. You seem to me more wrong and arrogant than I could +trust myself to say. And you have behaved cruelly to a woman for whom my +feeling is more than mere friendship. In many ways my feeling for +Mercedes Okraska is one of reverence. She is one of the great people of +the world. To know her has been a possession, a privilege. Anyone might +be proud to know such a woman. And when I think of what you have now +said of her to me—when I think of how I saw her—here—last +night,—broken—crushed,—after so many sorrows—"</p> + +<p>Tears had risen to Mrs. Forrester's eyes. She turned her head aside.</p> + +<p>"Do you mean," said Gregory after a moment, in which it seemed to him +that his grey world preceptibly, if slightly, darkened, "do you mean +that I've lost your friendship because of Madame von Marwitz?"</p> + +<p>"I don't know, Gregory; I can't tell you," said Mrs. Forrester, not +looking at him. "I don't recognize you. As to Karen, I cannot imagine +what your position with her can be. How is she to bear it when she knows +that it is said that you insulted her guardian's friends and then turned +her out of your house?"</p> + +<p>"I didn't turn her out," said Gregory; he walked to the window and +stared into the street. "She went because that was the most venomous +thing she could do. And I didn't insult her friends."</p> + +<p>"You said to her that the man she had thought of as a husband for Karen +was not a gentleman. You said that you did not understand how Mercedes +could have chosen such a man for her. You said this with the child +standing between you. Oh, you cannot deny it, Gregory. I have heard in +detail what took place. Mercedes saw that unless she left you Karen's +position was an impossible one. It was to save Karen—and your relation +to Karen—that she went."</p> + +<p>Gregory, still standing at the window, was silent, and then asked: "Have +you seen Herr Lippheim?"</p> + +<p>"No, Gregory," Mrs. Forrester returned, and now with trenchancy, the +concrete case being easier to deal with openly. "No; I have not seen +him; but Mercedes spoke to me about him last winter, when she hoped for +the match, and told me, moreover, that she was surprised by Karen's +refusal, as the child was much attached to him. I have not seen him; but +I know the type—and intimately. He is a warm-hearted and intelligent +musician."</p> + +<p>"Your bootmaker may be warm-hearted and intelligent."</p> + +<p>"That is petulant—almost an insolent simile, Gregory. It only reveals, +pitifully, your narrowness and prejudice—and, I will add, your +ignorance. Herr Lippheim is an artist; a man of character and +significance. Many of my dearest friends have been such; hearts of gold; +the salt of the world."</p> + +<p>"Would you have allowed a daughter of yours, may I ask, to marry one of +these hearts of gold?"</p> + +<p>"Certainly; most certainly," said Mrs. Forrester, but with a haste and +heat somewhat suspicious. "If she loved him."</p> + +<p>"If he were personally fit, you mean. Herr Lippheim is undoubtedly +warm-hearted and, in his own way, intelligent, but he is as unfit to be +Karen's husband as your bootmaker to be yours."</p> + +<p>They had come now, on this lower, easier level, to one of the points +where temper betrays itself as it cannot do on the heights of contest. +Gregory's reiteration of the bootmaker greatly incensed Mrs. Forrester.</p> + +<p>"My dear Gregory," she said, "I yield to no one in my appreciation of +Karen; owing to the education and opportunities that Mercedes has given +her, she is a charming young woman. But, since we are dealing with, +facts, the bare, bald, worldly aspects of things, we must not forget the +facts of Karen's parentage and antecedents. Herr Lippheim is, in these +respects, I imagine, altogether her equal. A rising young musician, the +friend and <i>protégé</i> of one of the world's great geniuses, and a +penniless, illegitimate girl. Do not let your rancour, your jealousy, +blind you so completely."</p> + +<p>Gregory turned from the window at this, smiling a pallid, frosty smile +and Mrs. Forrester was now aware that she had made him very angry. "I +may be narrow," he said, "and conventional and ignorant; but I'm +unconventional and clear-sighted enough to judge people by their actual, +not their market, value. Of Herr Lippheim I know nothing, except that +his parentage and antecedents haven't made a gentleman, or anything +resembling one, of him; while of Karen I know that hers, unfortunate as +they certainly were, have made a lady and a very perfect one. I don't +forgive Madame von Marwitz for a great many things in regard to her +treatment of Karen," Gregory went on with growing bitterness, "chief +among them that she has taken her at her market value and allowed her +friends to do the same. I've been able, thank goodness, to rescue Karen, +at all events, from that. Madame von Marwitz can't carry her about any +longer like a badge from some charitable society on her shoulder. No +woman who really loved Karen, or who really appreciated her," Gregory +added, falling back on his concrete fact, "could have thought of Herr +Lippheim as a husband for her."</p> + +<p>Mrs. Forrester sat looking up at him, and she was genuinely aghast.</p> + +<p>"You are incredible to me, Gregory," she said. "You set your one year of +devotion to Karen against Mercedes's life-time, and you presume to +discredit hers."</p> + +<p>"Yes. I do. I don't believe in her devotion to Karen."</p> + +<p>"Do you realize that your attitude may mean a complete rupture between +Karen and her guardian?"</p> + +<p>"No such luck; I'm afraid!" said Gregory with a grim laugh. "My only +hope is that it may mean a complete rupture between Madame von Marwitz +and me. It goes without saying, feeling as I do, that, if it wouldn't +break Karen's heart, I'd do my best to prevent Madame von Marwitz from +ever seeing her again."</p> + +<p>There was a little silence and then Mrs. Forrester got up sharply.</p> + +<p>"Very well, Gregory," she said. "That will do."</p> + +<p>"Are you going to shake hands with me?" he asked, still with the grim +smile.</p> + +<p>"Yes. I will shake hands with you, Gregory," Mrs. Forrester replied. +"Because, in spite of everything, I am fond of you. But you must not +come here again. Not now."</p> + +<p>"Never any more, do you really mean?"</p> + +<p>"Not until you are less wickedly blind."</p> + +<p>"I'm sorry," said Gregory. "It's never any more then, I'm afraid."</p> + +<p>He was very sorry. He knew that as he walked away.</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XXVII" id="CHAPTER_XXVII"></a>CHAPTER XXVII</h2> + + +<p>Mrs. Forrester remained among her canaries and jonquils, thinking. She +was seriously perturbed. She was, as she had said, fond of Gregory, but +she was fonder, far, of Mercedes von Marwitz, whom Gregory had caused to +suffer and whom he would, evidently, cause to suffer still more.</p> + +<p>She controlled the impulse to telephone to Eleanor Scrotton and consult +with her; a vague instinct of loyalty towards Gregory restrained her +from that. Eleanor would, in a day or two, hear from Cornwall and what +she would hear could not be so bad as what Mrs. Forrester herself could +tell her. After thinking for the rest of the morning, Mrs. Forrester +decided to go and see Karen. She was not very fond of Karen. She had +always been inclined to think that Mercedes exaggerated the significance +of the girl's devotion, and Gregory's exaggeration, now, of her general +significance—explicable as it might be in an infatuated young +husband—disposed her the less kindly towards her. She felt that Karen +had been clumsy, dull, in the whole affair. She felt that, at bottom, +she was somewhat responsible for it. How had Gregory been able, living +with Karen, to have formed such an insensate conception of Mercedes? The +girl was stupid, acquiescent; she had shown no tact, no skill, no +clarifying courage. Mrs. Forrester determined to show them all—to talk +to Karen.</p> + +<p>She drove to St. James's at four o'clock that afternoon and Barker told +her that Mrs. Jardine was in the drawing-room. Visitors, evidently, were +with her, and it affected Mrs. Forrester very unpleasantly, as Barker +led her along the passage, to hear rich harmonies of music filling the +flat. She had expected to be perhaps ushered into a darkened bedroom; to +administer comfort and sympathy to a shattered creature before +administering reproof and counsel. But Karen not only was up; she was +not alone. The strains were those of chamber-music, and a half-perplexed +delight mingled with Mrs. Forrester's displeasure as she recognized the +heavenly melodies of Schumann's Pianoforte Quintet. The performers were +in the third movement.</p> + +<p>Karen rose, as Barker announced her, from the side of a stout lady at +the piano, and Mrs. Forrester, nodding, her finger at her lips, dropped +into a chair and listened.</p> + +<p>The stout lady at the piano had a pale, fat, pear-shaped face, her +grizzled hair parted above it and twisted to a large outstanding knob +behind. She wore eyeglasses and peered through them at her music with +intelligent intensity and profound humility. The violin was played by an +enormous young man with red hair, and the viola, second violin and +'cello by three young women, all of the black-and-tan Semitic type.</p> + +<p>Mrs. Forrester was too much preoccupied with her wonder to listen as she +would have wished to, but by the time the end of the movement was come +she had realized that they played extremely well.</p> + +<p>Karen came forward in the interval. She was undoubtedly pale and +heavy-eyed; but in her little dress of dark blue silk, with her narrow +lawn ruffles and locket and shining hair, she showed none of the +desperate signs appropriate to her circumstances nor any embarrassment +at the incongruous situation in which Mrs. Forrester found her.</p> + +<p>"This is Frau Lippheim, Mrs. Forrester," she said. "And these are +Fräulein Lotta and Minna and Elizabeth, and this is Herr Franz. I think +you have often heard Tante speak of our friends."</p> + +<p>Her ears buzzing with the name of Lippheim since the night before, Mrs. +Forrester was aware that she showed confusion, also that for a brief, +sharp instant, while her eyes rested on Herr Franz, a pang of perverse +sympathy for Gregory, in a certain aspect of his wickedness, +disintegrated her state of mind. He was singular looking indeed, this +untidy young man, whose ill-kept clothes had a look of insecurity, like +arrested avalanches on a mountain. "No, I can feel for Gregory somewhat +in this," Mrs. Forrester said to herself.</p> + +<p>"We are having some music, you see," said Karen. "Herr Lippheim promised +me yesterday that they would all come and play to me. Can you stay and +listen for a little while? They must go before tea, for they have a +rehearsal for their concert," she added, as though to let Mrs. Forrester +know that she was not unconscious of the matter that must have brought +her.</p> + +<p>There was really no reason why she shouldn't stay. She could not very +well ask to have the Lippheims and their instruments turned out. +Moreover she was very fond of the Quintet. Mrs. Forrester said that she +would be glad to stay.</p> + +<p>When they went on to the fourth movement, and while she listened, giving +her mind to the music, Mrs. Forrester's disintegration slowly recomposed +itself. It was not only that the music was heavenly and that they played +so well. She liked these people; they were the sort of people she had +always liked. She forgot Herr Franz's uncouth and mountainous aspect. +His great head leaning sideways, his eyes half closed, with the +musician's look of mingled voluptuous rapture and cold, grave, listening +intellect, he had a certain majesty. The mother, too, all devout +concentration, was an artist of the right sort; the girls had the gentle +benignity that comes of sincere self-dedication. They pleased Mrs. +Forrester greatly and, as she listened, her severity towards Gregory +shaped itself anew and more forcibly. Narrow, blind, bigoted young man. +And it was amusing to think, as a comment on his fierce consciousness of +Herr Lippheim's unfitness, that here Herr Lippheim was, admitted to the +very heart of Karen's sorrow. It was inconceivable that anyone but very +near and dear friends should have been tolerated by her to-day. Karen, +too, after her fashion, was an artist. The music, no doubt, was helpful +to her. Soft thoughts of her great, lacerated friend, speeding now +towards her solitudes, filled Mrs. Forrester's eyes more than once with +tears.</p> + +<p>They finished and Frau Lippheim, rubbing her hands with her +handkerchief, stood smiling near-sightedly, while Mrs. Forrester +expressed her great pleasure and asked all the Lippheims to come and see +her. She planned already a musical. Karen's face showed a pale beam of +gladness.</p> + +<p>"And now, my dear child," said Mrs. Forrester, when the Lippheims had +departed and she and Karen were alone and seated side by side on the +sofa, "we must talk. I have come, of course you know, to talk about this +miserable affair." She put her hand on Karen's; but already something in +the girl's demeanour renewed her first displeasure. She looked heavy, +she looked phlegmatic; there was no response, no softness in her glance.</p> + +<p>"You have perhaps a message to me, Mrs. Forrester, from Tante," she +said.</p> + +<p>"No, Karen, no," Mrs. Forrester with irrepressible severity returned. "I +have no message for you. Any message, I think should come from your +husband and not from your guardian."</p> + +<p>Karen sat silent, her eyes moving away from her visitor's face and +fixing themselves on the wall above her head.</p> + +<p>The impulse that had brought Mrs. Forrester was suffering alterations.</p> + +<p>Gregory had revealed the case to her as worse than she had supposed; +Karen emphasized the revelation. And what of Mercedes between these two +young egoists? "I must ask you, Karen," she said, "whether you realise +how Gregory has behaved, to the woman to whom you, and he, owe so much?"</p> + +<p>Karen continued to look fixedly at the wall and after a moment of +deliberation replied: "Tante did not speak rightly to Gregory, Mrs. +Forrester. She lost her temper very much. You know that Tante can lose +her temper."</p> + +<p>Mrs. Forrester, at this, almost lost hers. "You surprise me, Karen. Your +husband had spoken insultingly of her friends—and yours—to her. Why +attempt to shield him? I heard the whole story, in detail, from your +guardian, you must remember."</p> + +<p>Again Karen withdrew into a considering silence; but, though her face +remained impassive, Mrs. Forrester observed that a slight flush rose to +her cheeks.</p> + +<p>"Gregory did not intend Tante to overhear what he said," she produced at +last. "It was said to me—and I had questioned him—not to her. Tante +came in by chance. It is not likely, Mrs. Forrester, that my version +would differ in any way from hers."</p> + +<p>"You mustn't take offence at what I say, Karen," Mrs. Forrester spoke +with more severity; "your version does differ. To my astonishment you +seem actually to defend your husband."</p> + +<p>"Yes; from what is not true: that is not to differ from Tante as to what +took place." Karen brought her eyes to Mrs. Forrester's.</p> + +<p>"From what is not true. Very well. You will not deny that he so +intensely dislikes your guardian and has shown it so plainly to her that +she has had to leave you. You will not deny that, Karen?"</p> + +<p>"No. I will not deny that," Karen replied.</p> + +<p>"My poor child—it is true, and it is only a small part of the truth. I +don't know what Gregory has said to you in private, but even Mercedes +had not prepared me for what he said to me this morning."</p> + +<p>"What did he say to you this morning, Mrs. Forrester?"</p> + +<p>"He believes her to be a bad woman, Karen; do you realise that; has he +told you that; can you bear it? Dangerous, unscrupulous, tyrannous, +devoured by egotism, were the words he used of her. I shall not forget +them. He accused her of hypocrisy in her feeling for you. He hoped that +you might never see her again. It is terrible, Karen. Terrible. It puts +us all—all of us who love Mercedes, and you through her, into the most +impossible position."</p> + +<p>Karen sat, her head erect, her eyes downcast, with a rigidity of +expression almost torpid.</p> + +<p>"Do you see the position he puts us in, Karen?" Mrs. Forrester went on +with insistence. "Have you had the matter out with Gregory? Did you +realise its gravity? I must really beg you to answer me."</p> + +<p>"I have not yet spoken with my husband," said Karen, in a chill, +lifeless tone.</p> + +<p>"But you will? You cannot let it pass?"</p> + +<p>"No, Mrs. Forrester. I will not let it pass."</p> + +<p>"You will insist that he shall make a full apology to Mercedes?"</p> + +<p>"Is he to apologise to her for hating her?" Karen at this asked +suddenly.</p> + +<p>"For hating her? What do you mean?" Mrs. Forrester was taken aback.</p> + +<p>"If he is to apologise," said Karen, in a still colder, still more +lifeless voice, "it must be for something that can be changed. How can +he apologise to her for hating her if he continues to hate her?"</p> + +<p>"He can apologise for having spoken insultingly to her."</p> + +<p>"He has not done that. It was Tante who overheard what she was not +intended to hear. And it was Tante who spoke with violence."</p> + +<p>"It amazes me to hear you put it on her shoulders, Karen. He can +apologise, then, for what he has said to me," said Mrs. Forrester with +indignation. "You will not deny that what he said of her to me was +insulting."</p> + +<p>"He is to tell her that he has said those words and then apologise, Mrs. +Forrester? Oh, no; you do not think what you say."</p> + +<p>"Really, my dear Karen, you have a most singular fashion of speaking to +a person three times your age!" Mrs. Forrester exclaimed, the more +incensed for the confusion of thought into which the girl's persistence +threw her. "The long and short of it is that he must make it possible +for Mercedes to meet him, with decency, in the future."</p> + +<p>"But I do not know how that can be," said Karen, rising as Mrs. +Forrester rose; "I do not know how Tante, now, can see him. If he thinks +these things and does not say them, there may be pretence; but if he +says them, to Tante's friends, how can there be pretence?"</p> + +<p>There was no appeal in her voice. She put the facts, so evident to +herself, before her visitor and asked her to look at them. Mrs. +Forrester was suddenly aware that her advice might have been somewhat +hasty. She also felt suddenly as though, on a reconnoitring march down a +rough but open path, she found herself merging in the gloomy mysteries +of a forest. There were hidden things in Karen's voice.</p> + +<p>"Well, well," she said, taking the girl's hand and casting about in her +mind for a retreat; "that's to see it as hopeless, isn't it, and we +don't want to do that, do we? We want to bring Gregory to reason, and +you are the person best fitted to do that. We want to clear up these +dreadful ideas he has got into his head, heaven knows how. And no one +but you can do it. No one in the world, my dear Karen, is more fitted +than you to make him understand what our wonderful Tante really is. +There is the trouble, Karen," said Mrs. Forrester, finding now the +original clue with which she had started on her expedition; "he +shouldn't have been able, living with you, seeing your devotion, seeing +from your life, as you must have told him of it, what it was founded on, +he shouldn't have been able to form such a monstrous conception of our +great, dear one. You have been in fault there, my dear, you see it now, +I am sure. At the first hint you should have made things clear to him. I +know that it is hard for a young wife to oppose the man she loves; but +love mustn't make us cowardly," Mrs. Forrester murmured on more +cheerfully as they moved down the passage, "and Gregory will only love +you more wisely and deeply if he is made to recognize, once for all, +that you will not sacrifice your guardian to please him."</p> + +<p>They were now at the door and Karen had not said a word.</p> + +<p>"Well, good-bye, my dear," said Mrs. Forrester. Oddly she did not feel +able to urge more strongly upon Karen that she should not sacrifice her +guardian to her husband. "I hope I've made things clearer by coming. It +was better that you should, realize just what your guardian's friends +felt—and would feel—about it, wasn't it?" Karen still made no reply +and on the threshold Mrs. Forrester paused to add, with some urgency: +"It was right, you see that, don't you, Karen, that you should know what +Gregory is really feeling?"</p> + +<p>"Yes," Karen now assented. "It is better that I should know that."</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XXVIII" id="CHAPTER_XXVIII"></a>CHAPTER XXVIII</h2> + + +<p>Gregory when he came in that evening thought at first, with a pang of +fear, that Karen had gone out. It was time for dressing and she was not +in their room. In the drawing-room it was dark; he stood in the doorway +for a moment and looked about it, sad and tired and troubled, wondering +if Karen had gone to Mrs. Forrester's, wondering whether, in her grave +displeasure with him, she had even followed her guardian. And then, from +beside him, came her voice. "I am here, Gregory. I have been waiting for +you."</p> + +<p>His relief was so intense that, turning up the lights, seeing her +sitting there on a little sofa near the door, he bent involuntarily over +her to kiss her.</p> + +<p>But her hand put him away.</p> + +<p>"No; I must speak to you," she said.</p> + +<p>Gregory straightened himself, compressing his lips.</p> + +<p>Karen had evidently not thought of changing. She wore her dark-blue silk +dress. She had, indeed, been sitting there since Mrs. Forrester went. He +looked about the room, noting, with dull wonder, the grouped chairs, and +open piano. "You have had people here?"</p> + +<p>"Yes. The Lippheims came and played to me. I would have written to them +and told them not to come; but I forgot. And Mrs. Forrester has been +here."</p> + +<p>"Quite a reception," said Gregory. He walked to the window and looked +out. "Well," he said, not turning to his wife, "what have you to say to +me, Karen?" His tone was dry and even ironic.</p> + +<p>"Mrs. Forrester came to tell me," said Karen, "that you had seen her +this morning."</p> + +<p>"Yes. Well?"</p> + +<p>"And she told me," Karen went on, "that you had a great deal to say to +her about my guardian—things that you have never dared to say to me."</p> + +<p>He turned to her now and her eyes from across the room fixed themselves +upon him.</p> + +<p>"I will say them to you if you like," said Gregory, after a moment. He +leaned against the side of the window and folded his arms. And he +examined his wife with, apparently, the cold attention that he would +have given to a strange witness in the box. And indeed she was strange +to him. Over his aching and dispossessed heart he steeled himself in an +impartial scrutiny.</p> + +<p>"It is true, then," said Karen, "that you believe her tyrannous and +dangerous and unscrupulous, and that you think her devoured by egotism, +and hypocritical in her feeling for me, and that you hope that I may +never see her again?"</p> + +<p>She catalogued the morning's declarations accurately, like the witness +giving unimpeachable testimony. But it was rather absurd to see her as +the witness, when, so unmistakably, she considered herself the judge and +him the criminal in the dock. There was relief in pleading guilty to +everything. "Yes: it's perfectly true," he said.</p> + +<p>She looked at him and he could discover no emotion on her face.</p> + +<p>"Why did you not tell me this when you asked me to marry you?" she +questioned.</p> + +<p>"Oh—I wasn't so sure of it then," said Gregory. "And I loved you and +hoped it would never come out. I didn't want to give you pain. That's +why I never dared tell you, as you put it."</p> + +<p>"You wanted to marry me and you knew that if you told me the truth I +would not marry you; that is the reason you did not dare," said Karen.</p> + +<p>"Well, there's probably truth in that," Gregory assented, smiling; "I'm +afraid I was an infatuated creature, perhaps a dishonest one. I can't +expect you to make allowances for my condition, I know."</p> + +<p>She lowered her eyes and sat for so long in silence that presently, +rather ashamed of the bitterness of his last words, he went on in a +kinder tone: "I know that I can never make you understand. You have your +infatuation and it blinds you. You've been blind to the way in which, +from the very beginning, she has tracked me down. You've been blind to +the fact that the thing that has moved her hasn't been love for you but +spite, malicious spite, against me for not giving her the sort of +admiration she's accustomed to. If I've come to hate her—I didn't in +the least at first, of course—it's only fair to say that she hates me +ten times worse. I only asked that she should let me alone."</p> + +<p>"And let me alone," said Karen, who had listened without a movement.</p> + +<p>"Oh no," Gregory said, "that's not at all true. You surely will be fair +enough to own that it's not; that I did everything I could to give you +both complete liberty."</p> + +<p>"As when you applauded and upheld Betty for her insolent interference; +as when you complained to me of my guardian because she asked that I +should have a wider life; as when you hoped to have Mrs. Talcott here so +that my guardian might be kept out."</p> + +<p>"Did she suggest that?"</p> + +<p>"She showed it to me. I had not seen it even then. Do you deny it?"</p> + +<p>"No; I don't suppose I can, though it was nothing so definite. But I +certainly hoped that Madame von Marwitz would not come here."</p> + +<p>"And yet you can tell me that you have not tried to come between us."</p> + +<p>"Yes; I can. I never tried to come between you. I tried to keep away. +It's been she, as I say, who has tracked me down. That was what I was +afraid of if she came here; that she'd force me to show my dislike. Can +you deny, Karen, I ask you this, that from the beginning she has made +capital to you out of my dislike, and pointed it out to you?"</p> + +<p>"I will not discuss that with you," said Karen; "I know that you can +twist all her words and actions."</p> + +<p>"I don't want to do that. I can see a certain justice in her malice. It +was hard for her, of course, to find that you'd married a man she didn't +take to and who didn't take to her; but why couldn't she have left it at +that?"</p> + +<p>"It couldn't be left at that. It wasn't only that," said Karen. "If she +had liked you, you would never have liked her; and if you had liked her +she would have liked you."</p> + +<p>The steadiness of her voice as she thus placed the heart of the matter +before him brought him a certain relief. Perhaps, in spite of his cold +realizations and the death of all illusion as to Karen's love for him, +they could really, now, come to an understanding, an accepted +compromise. His heart ached and would go on aching until time had +blunted its hurts, and a compromise was all he had to hope for. He had +nothing to expect from Karen but acceptance of fact and faithful +domesticity. But, after all the uncertainties and turmoils, this bitter +peace had its balms. He took up her last words.</p> + +<p>"Ah, well, she'd have liked my liking," he analysed it. "I don't know +that she'd have liked me;—unless I could have managed to give her +actual worship, as you and her friends do. But I'm not going to say +anything more against her. She has forced the truth from me, and now we +may bury it. You shall see her, of course, whenever you want to. But I +hope that I shall never have to speak of her to you again."</p> + +<p>The talk seemed to have been brought to an end. Karen, had risen and +Barker, entering at the moment, announced dinner.</p> + +<p>"By Jove, is it as late as that," Gregory muttered, nodding to him. He +turned to Karen when Barker was gone and, the pink electric lights +falling upon her face, he saw as he had not seen before how grey and +sunken it was. She had made no movement towards the door.</p> + +<p>"Gregory," she said, fixing her eyes upon him, and he then saw that he +had misinterpreted her quiet, "I tell you that these things are not +true. They are not true. Will you believe me?"</p> + +<p>"What things?" he asked. But he was temporizing. He saw that the end had +not come.</p> + +<p>"The things you believe of Tante. That she is a heartless woman, using +those who love her—feeding on their love. I say it is not true. Will +you believe me?"</p> + +<p>She stood on the other side of the room, her arms hanging at her sides, +her hands hanging open, all her being concentrated in the ultimate +demand of her compelling gaze.</p> + +<p>"Karen," he said, "I know that she must be lovable; I know, of course, +that she has power, and charm, and tenderness. I think I can understand +why you feel for her as you do. But I don't think that there is any +chance that I shall change my opinion of her; not for anything you say. +I believe that she takes you in completely."</p> + +<p>Karen gazed at him. "You will still believe that she is tyrannous, and +dangerous, and false, whatever I may say?"</p> + +<p>"Yes, Karen. I know it sounds horrible to you. You must try to forgive +me for it. We won't speak of it again; I promise you."</p> + +<p>She turned from him, looking before her at the Bouddha, but not as if +she saw it. "We shall never speak of it again," she said. "I am going to +leave you, Gregory."</p> + +<p>For a moment he stared at her. Then he smiled. "You mustn't punish me +for telling you the truth, Karen, by silly threats."</p> + +<p>"I do not punish you. You have done rightly to tell me the truth. But I +cannot live with a man who believes these things."</p> + +<p>She still gazed at the Bouddha and again Gregory stared at her. His face +hardened. "Don't be absurd, Karen. You cannot mean what you say."</p> + +<p>"I am going to-night. Now," said Karen.</p> + +<p>"Going? Where?"</p> + +<p>"To Cornwall, back to my guardian. She will take care of me again. I +will not live with you."</p> + +<p>"If you really mean what you say," said Gregory, after a moment, "you +are telling me that you don't love me. I've suspected it for some time."</p> + +<p>"I feel as if that were true," said Karen, looking now down upon the +ground. "I think I have no more love for you. I find you a petty man." +It was impossible to hope that she was speaking recklessly or +passionately. She had come to the conclusion with deliberation; she had +been thinking of it since last night. She was willing to cast him off +because he could not love where she loved. How deeply the roots of hope +still knotted themselves in him he was now to realize. He felt his heart +and mind rock with the reverberation of the shattering, the pulverizing +explosion, and he saw his life lying in a wilderness of dust about him.</p> + +<p>Yet the words he found were not the words of his despair. "Even if you +feel like this, Karen," he said, "there is no necessity for behaving +like a lunatic. Go and stay with your guardian, by all means, and +whenever you like. Start to-morrow morning. Spend most of your time with +her. I shall not put the smallest difficulty in your way. But—if only +for your own sake—have some common-sense and keep up appearances. You +must remain my wife in name and the mistress of my house."</p> + +<p>"Thank you, you mean to be kind, I know," said Karen, who had not looked +at him since her declaration; "But I am not a conventional woman and I +do not wish to live with a man who is no longer my husband. I do not +wish to keep up appearances. I do not wish it to be said—by those who +know my guardian and what she has done for me and been to me—that I +keep up the appearance of regard for a man who hates her. I made a +mistake in marrying you; you allowed me to make it. Now, as far as I +can, I undo it by leaving you. Perhaps," she added, "you could divorce +me. That would set you free."</p> + +<p>The remark in its childishness, callousness, and considerateness struck +him as one of the most revealing she had made. He laughed icily. "Our +laws only allow of divorce for one cause and I advise you not to seek +freedom for yourself—or for me—by disgracing yourself. It's not worth +it. The conventions you scorn have their solid value."</p> + +<p>She had now turned her head and was looking at him. "I think you are +insulting me," she said.</p> + +<p>For the first time he observed a trembling in her voice and interpreted +it as anger. It gave him a hurting satisfaction to have made her angry. +She had appalled and shattered him.</p> + +<p>"I am not insulting you, I am warning you, Karen," he said. "A woman who +can behave as you are behaving is capable of acts of criminal folly. You +don't believe in convention, and in your guardian's world you will meet +many men who don't."</p> + +<p>"What do you mean by criminal folly?"</p> + +<p>"I mean living with a man you're not married to."</p> + +<p>He had simply and sincerely forgotten something. Karen's face grew +ashen.</p> + +<p>"You mean that my mother was a criminal?"</p> + +<p>Even at this moment of his despair Gregory was horribly sorry. Yet the +memory that she recalled brought a deeper fear for her future. He had +spoken with irony of her suggestion about divorce and freedom. But did +not her very blood, as well as her environment, give him reason to +emphasise his warning?</p> + +<p>"I didn't mean that. I wasn't thinking of that," he said, "as you must +know. And to be criminally foolish is a very different thing from being +a criminal. But I'm convinced that to break social laws—and these laws +about men and women have deeper than merely social sanctions—to break +them, I'm convinced, can bring no happiness. I feel about your mother, +and what she did—I say it with all reverence—that she was as mistaken +as she was unfortunate. And I beg of you, Karen, never to follow her +example."</p> + +<p>"It is not for you to speak of her!" Karen said, not moving from her +place but uttering the words with a still and sudden passion that he had +never heard from her. "It is not for you to preach sermons to me on the +text of my mother's misfortunes. I do not call them misfortunes—nor did +she. I do not accept your laws, and she was not afraid of them. How dare +you call her unfortunate? She lost nothing that she valued and she +gained great happiness, and gave it, for she was happy with my father. +It was a truer marriage than any I have known. She was more married than +you or I have ever been or could ever have been; for there was deep love +between them, and trust and understanding. Do not speak to me of her. I +forbid it."</p> + +<p>She turned to the door. Gregory sprang to her side and seized her wrist. +"Karen! Where are you going? Wait till to-morrow!" he exclaimed, fear +for her actual safety surmounting every other feeling.</p> + +<p>She stood still under his hand and looked at him with her still passion +of repudiation. "I will not wait. I shall go to-night to Frau Lippheim. +And to-morrow I shall go to Cornwall. I shall tell Mrs. Barker to pack +my clothes and send them to me there."</p> + +<p>"You have no money."</p> + +<p>"Frau Lippheim will lend me money. My guardian will take care of me. It +is not for you to have any thought for me."</p> + +<p>He dropped her arm. "Very well. Go then," he said.</p> + +<p>He turned from her. He heard that she paused, the knob of the door in +her hand. "Good-bye," she then said.</p> + +<p>Again it was, inconceivably, the mingled childishness, callousness and +considerateness. That, at the moment, she could think of the formality, +suffocated him. "Good-bye," he replied, not looking round.</p> + +<p>The door opened and closed. He heard her swift feet passing down the +passage to their room.</p> + +<p>She was not reckless. She needed her hat and coat at least. Quiet, +rational determination was in all her actions.</p> + +<p>Yet, as he waited to hear her come out again, a hope that he knew to be +chimerical rose in him. She would, perhaps, return, throw herself in his +arms and, weeping, say that she loved him and could not leave him. +Gregory's heart beat quickly.</p> + +<p>But when he heard her footsteps again they were not returning. They +passed along to the kitchen; she was speaking to Mrs. Barker—Gregory +had a shoot of surface thought for Mrs. Barker's astonishment; they +entered the hall again, the hall door closed behind them.</p> + +<p>Gregory stood looking at the Bouddha. The tears kept mounting to his +throat and eyes and, furiously, he choked them back. He did not see the +Bouddha.</p> + +<p>But, suddenly becoming aware of the bland contemplative gaze of the +great bronze image, his eyes fixed themselves on it.</p> + +<p>He had known it from the first to be an enemy. Its presage was +fulfilled. The tidal wave had broken over his life.</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="PART_II" id="PART_II"></a>PART II</h2> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XXIX" id="CHAPTER_XXIX"></a>CHAPTER XXIX</h2> + + +<p>Karen sat in her corner of the railway carriage looking out at familiar +scenery.</p> + +<p>Reading and the spring-tide beauties of the Thames valley had gone by in +the morning. Then, after the attendant had passed along the corridor +announcing lunch, and those who were lunching had followed him in single +file, had come the lonely majesty of the Somerset downs, lying like +great headlands along the plain, a vast sky of rippled blue and silver +above them. They had passed Plymouth where she had always used to look +down from the high bridges and wonder over the lives of the midshipmen +on the training-ships, and now they were winding through wooded Cornish +valleys.</p> + +<p>Karen had looked out of her window all day. She had not read, though +kind Frau Lippheim had put the latest <i>tendenz-roman</i>, paper-bound, into +the little basket, which was also stocked with stout beef-sandwiches, a +bottle of milk, and the packet of chocolate and bun in paper bag that +Franz had added to it at the station.</p> + +<p>Poor Franz. He and his mother had come to see her off and they had both +wept as the train moved away, and strange indeed it must have been for +them to see the Karen Jardine who, only yesterday, had been, apparently, +so happy, and so secure in her new life, carried back to the old; a wife +who had left her husband.</p> + +<p>Karen had slept little the night before, and kind Franz must have slept +less; for he had given her his meagre bedroom and spent the night on the +narrowest, hardest, most slippery of sofas in the sitting-room of the +Bayswater lodging-house where Karen had found the Lippheims very +cheaply, very grimly, not to say greasily, installed. It was no wonder +that Franz's eyes had been so heavy, his face so puffed and pale that +morning; and his tears had given the last touch of desolation to his +countenance.</p> + +<p>Karen herself had not wept, either at the parting or at the meeting of +the night before. She had told them, with no explanations at all, that +she had left her husband and was going back to her guardian, and the +Lippheims had asked no questions.</p> + +<p>It might have been possible that Franz, as he sat at the table, his +fingers run through his hair, clutching his head while he and his mother +listened to her, was not so dazed and lost as was Frau Lippheim, who had +not seen Gregory. Franz might have his vague perceptions. "<i>Ach! Ach!</i>" +he had ejaculated once or twice while she spoke.</p> + +<p>And Frau Lippheim had only said: "<i>Liebes Kind! Liebes, armes Kind!</i>"</p> + +<p>She was, after all, going back to the great Tante and they felt, no +doubt, that no grief could be ultimate which had that compensatory +refuge.</p> + +<p>She was going back to Tante. As the valleys, in their deepened shadows, +streamed past her, Karen remembered that it had hardly been at all of +Tante that she had thought while the long hours passed and her eyes +observed the flying hills and fields. Perhaps she had thought of +nothing. The heavy feeling, as of a stone resting on her heart, of doom, +defeat and bitterness, could hardly have been defined as thought. She +had thought and thought and thought during these last dreadful days; +every mental cog had been adjusted, every wheel had turned; she had held +herself together as never before in all her life, in order to give +thought every chance. For wasn't that to give him every chance? and +wasn't that, above all, to give herself any chance that might still be +left her?</p> + +<p>And now the machinery seemed to lie wrecked. There was not an ember of +hope left with which to kindle its activity. How much hope there must +have been to have made it work so firmly and so furiously during these +last days! how much, she hadn't known until her husband had come in last +night, and, at last, spoken openly.</p> + +<p>Even Mrs. Forrester's revelations, though they had paralyzed her, had +not put out the fires. She had still hoped that he could deny, explain, +recant, own that he had been hasty, perhaps; perhaps mistaken; give her +some loophole. She could have understood—oh, to a degree almost +abject—his point of view. Mrs. Forrester had accused her of that. And +Tante had accused her of it, too. But no; it had been slowly to freeze +to stillness to hear his clear cold utterance of shameful words, see the +folly of his arrogance and his complacency, realise, in his glacial look +and glib, ironic smile, that he was blind to what he was destroying in +her. For he could not have torn her heart to shreds and then stood +bland, unaware of what he had done, had he loved her. Her young spirit, +unversed in irony, drank in the bitter draught of disillusion. They had +never loved each other; or, worse, far worse, they had loved and love +was this puny thing that a blow could kill. His love for her was dead.</p> + +<p>She still trembled when the ultimate realization surged over her, +looking fixedly out of the window lest she should weep aloud.</p> + +<p>She had only one travelling companion, an old woman who got out at +Plymouth. Karen had found her curiously repulsive and that was one +reason why she had kept her eyes fixed on the landscape. She had been +afraid that the old woman would talk to her, perhaps offer her +refreshments, or sympathy; for she was a kind old woman, with bland eyes +and a moist warm face and two oily curls hanging forward from her +old-fashioned bonnet upon her shoulders. She was stout, dressed in tight +black cashmere, and she sat with her knees apart and her hands, gloved +in grey thread gloves, lying on them. She held a handkerchief rolled +into a ball, and from time to time, as if furtively, she would raise +this handkerchief to her brow and wipe it. And all the time, Karen felt, +she looked mildly and humbly at her and seemed to divine her distress.</p> + +<p>Karen was thankful when she got out. She had been ashamed of her +antipathy.</p> + +<p>Bodmin Road was now passed and the early spring sunset shone over the +tree-tops in the valleys below. Karen leaned her head back and closed +her eyes. She was suddenly aware of her great fatigue, and when they +reached Gwinear Road she found that she had been dozing.</p> + +<p>The fresh, chill air, as she walked along the platform, waiting for the +change of trains, revived her. She had not been able to eat her beef +sandwiches and the thought that so much of Frau Lippheim's good food +should be wasted troubled her; she was glad to find a little wandering +fox-terrier who ate the meat eagerly. She herself, sitting beside the +dog, nibbled at Franz's chocolate. She had had nothing on her journey +but the milk and part of the bun which Franz had given her.</p> + +<p>Now she was in the little local train and the bleak Cornish country, +nearing the coast, spread before her eyes like a map of her future life. +She began to think of the future, and of Tante.</p> + +<p>She had not sent word to Tante that she was coming. She felt that it +would be easiest to appear before her in silence and Tante would +understand. There need be no explanations.</p> + +<p>She imagined that Tante would find it best that she should live, +permanently now, in Cornwall with Mrs. Talcott. It could hardly be +convenient for her to take about with her a wife who had left her +husband. Karen quite realized that her status must be a very different +one from that of the unshadowed young girl.</p> + +<p>And it would be strange to take up the old life again and to look back +from it at the months of life with Gregory—that mirage of happiness +receding as if to a blur of light seen over a stretch of desert. Still +with her quiet and unrevealing young face turned towards the evening +landscape, Karen felt as if she had grown very old and were looking +back, after a life-time without Gregory, at the mirage. How faint and +far it would seem to be when she was really old—like a nebulous star +trembling on the horizon. But it would never grow invisible; she would +never forget it; oh never; nor the dreadful pain of loss. To the very +end of life, she was sure of it, she would keep the pang of the shining +memory.</p> + +<p>When they reached Helston, dusk had fallen. She found a carriage that +would drive her the twelve miles to the coast. It was a quiet, grey +evening and as they jolted slowly along the dusty roads and climbed the +steep hills at a snail's pace, she leaned back too tired to feel +anything any longer. And now they were out upon the moors where the +gorse was breaking into flowers; and now, over the sea, she saw at last +the great beacon of the Lizard lighthouse sweeping the country with its +vast, desolate, yet benignant beam.</p> + +<p>They reached the long road and the stile where, a year before, she had +met Gregory. Here was the hedge of fuchsia; here the tamarisks on their +high bank; here the entrance to Les Solitudes. The steeply pitched grey +roofs rose before her, and the white walls with their squares of orange +light glimmered among the trees.</p> + +<p>She alighted, paid the man, and rang.</p> + +<p>A maid, unknown to her, came to the door and showed surprise at seeing +her there with her bag.</p> + +<p>Yes; Madame von Marwitz was within. Karen had entered with the asking. +"Whom shall I announce, Madam?" the maid inquired.</p> + +<p>Karen looked at her vaguely. "She is in the music-room? I do not need to +be announced. That will go to my room." She put down the bag and crossed +the hall.</p> + +<p>She was not aware of feeling any emotion; yet a sob had taken her by the +throat and tears had risen to her eyes; she opened them widely as she +entered the dusky room, presenting a strange face.</p> + +<p>Madame von Marwitz rose from a distant sofa.</p> + +<p>In her astonishment, she stood still for a moment; then, like a great, +white, widely-winged moth, she came forward, rapidly, yet with hesitant, +reconnoitring pauses, her eyes on the girl who stood in the doorway +looking blindly towards her.</p> + +<p>"Karen!" she exclaimed sharply. "What brings you here?"</p> + +<p>"I have come back to you, Tante," said Karen.</p> + +<p>Tante stood before her, not taking her into her arms, not taking her +hands.</p> + +<p>"Come back to me? What do you mean?"</p> + +<p>"I have left Gregory," said Karen. She was bewildered now. What had +happened? She did not know; but it was something that made it impossible +to throw herself in Tante's arms and weep.</p> + +<p>Then she saw that another person was with them. A man was seated on the +distant sofa. He rose, wandering slowly down the room, and revealed +himself in the dim light that came from the evening sky and sea as Mr. +Claude Drew. Pausing at some little distance he fixed his eyes on Karen, +and in the midst of all the impressions, striking like chill, moulding +blows on the melted iron of her mood, she was aware of these large, dark +eyes of Mr. Drew's and of their intent curiosity.</p> + +<p>The predominant impression, however, was of a changed aspect in +everything, and as Tante, now holding her hands, still stood silent, +also looking at her with intent curiosity, the impression vaguely and +terribly shaped itself for her as a piercing question: Was Tante not +glad to have her back?</p> + +<p>There came from Tante in another moment a more accustomed note.</p> + +<p>"You have left your husband—because of me—my poor child?"</p> + +<p>Karen nodded. Mr. Drew's presence made speech impossible.</p> + +<p>"He made it too difficult for you?"</p> + +<p>Karen nodded again.</p> + +<p>"And you have come back to me." Madame von Marwitz summed it up rather +than inquired. And then, after another pause, she folded Karen in her +arms.</p> + +<p>The piercing question seemed answered. Yet Karen could not now have +wept. A dry, hard desolation filled her. "May I go to my room, Tante?"</p> + +<p>"Yes, my child. Go to your room. You will find Tallie. Tallie is in the +house, I think—or did I send her in to Helston?—no, that was for +to-morrow." She held Karen's hand at a stretch of her arm while she +seemed, with difficulty still, to collect her thoughts. "But I will come +with you myself. Yes; that is best. Wait here, Claude." This to the +silent, dusky figure behind them.</p> + +<p>"Do not let me be a trouble." Karen controlled the trembling of her +voice. "I know my way."</p> + +<p>"No trouble, my child; no trouble. Or none that I am not glad to take."</p> + +<p>Tante had her now on the stair—her arm around her shoulders. "You will +find us at sixes and sevens; a household hastily organized, but Tallie, +directed by wires, has done wonders. So. My poor Karen. You have left +him. For good? Or is it only to punish him that you come to me?"</p> + +<p>"I have left him for good."</p> + +<p>"So," Madame von Marwitz repeated.</p> + +<p>With all the veils and fluctuations, one thing was growing clear to +Karen. Tante might be glad to have her back; but she was confused, +trying to think swiftly, to adjust her thoughts. They were in Karen's +little room overlooking the trees at the corner of the house. It was +dismantled; a bare dressing-table, the ewer upturned in the basin, the +bed and its piled bedding covered with a sheet. Madame von Marwitz sat +down on the bed and drew Karen beside her.</p> + +<p>"But is not that to punish him too much?"</p> + +<p>"It is not to punish him. I cannot live with him any longer."</p> + +<p>"I see; I see;" said Madame von Marwitz, with a certain briskness, as +though, still, to give herself time to think. "It might have been wiser +to wait—to wait for a little. I would have written to you. We could +have consulted. It is serious, you know, my Karen, very serious, to +leave one's husband. I went away so that this should not come to you."</p> + +<p>"I could not wait. I could not stay with him any longer," said Karen +heavily.</p> + +<p>"There is more, you mean. You had words? He hates me more than you +thought?"</p> + +<p>Karen paused, and then assented: "Yes; more than I thought."</p> + +<p>Above the girl's head, which she held pressed down on her shoulder, +Madame von Marwitz pondered for some moments. "Alas!" she then uttered +in a deep voice. And, Karen saying nothing, she repeated on a yet more +melancholy note: "Alas!"</p> + +<p>Karen now raised herself from Tante's shoulder; but, at the gesture of +withdrawal, Madame von Marwitz caught her close again and embraced her. +"I feared it," she said. "I saw it. I hoped to hide it by my flight. My +poor child! My beloved Karen!"</p> + +<p>They held each other for some silent moments. Then Madame von Marwitz +rose. "You are weary, my Karen; you must rest; is it not so? I will send +Tallie to you. You will see Tallie—she is a perfection of discretion; +you do not shrink from Tallie. And you need tell her nothing; she will +not question you. Between ourselves; is it not so? Yes; that is best. +For the present. I will come again, later—I have guests, a guest, you +see. Rest here, my Karen." She moved towards the door.</p> + +<p>Karen looked after her. An intolerable fear pressed on her. She could +not bear, in her physical weakness, to be left alone with it. "Tante!" +she exclaimed.</p> + +<p>Madame von Marwitz turned. "My child?"</p> + +<p>"Tante—you are glad to have me back?"</p> + +<p>Her pride broke in a sob. She hid her face in her hands.</p> + +<p>Madame von Marwitz returned to the bed.</p> + +<p>"Glad, my child?" she said. "For all the sorrow that it means? and to +know that I am the cause? How can I be glad for my child's unhappiness?"</p> + +<p>She spoke with a touch of severity, as though in Karen's tears she felt +an unexpressed accusation.</p> + +<p>"Not for that," Karen spoke with difficulty. "But to have me with you +again. It will not be a trouble?"</p> + +<p>There was a little silence and then, her severity passing to melancholy +reproof, Madame von Marwitz said: "Did we not, long since, speak of +this, Karen? Have you forgotten? Can you so wound me once again? Only my +child's grief can excuse her. It is a sorrow to see your life in ruins; +I had hoped before I died to see it joyous and secure. It is a sorrow to +know that you have maimed yourself; that you are tied to an unworthy +man. But how could it be a trouble to me to have you with me? It is a +consolation—my only consolation in this calamity. With me you shall +find peace and happiness again."</p> + +<p>She laid her hand on Karen's head. Karen put her hand to her lips.</p> + +<p>"There. That is well," said Madame von Marwitz with a sigh, bending to +kiss her. "That is my child. Tante is sad at heart. It is a heavy blow. +But her child is welcome."</p> + +<p>When she had gone Karen lay, her face in the billows of the bed, while +she fixed her thoughts on Tante's last words.</p> + +<p>They became a sing-song monotone. "Tante is sad at heart. But her child +is welcome. It is a heavy blow. But her child is welcome."</p> + +<p>After the anguish there was a certain ease. She rested in the given +reassurance. Yet the sing-song monotone oppressed her.</p> + +<p>She felt presently that her hat, wrenched to one side, and still fixed +to her hair by its pins, was hurting her. She unfastened it and dropped +it to the floor. She felt too tired to do more just then.</p> + +<p>Soon after this the door opened and Mrs. Talcott appeared carrying a +candle, a can of hot water, towels and sheets.</p> + +<p>Karen drew herself up, murmuring some vague words of welcome, and Mrs. +Talcott, after setting the candle on the dressing-table and the hot +water in the basin, remarked: "Just you lie down again, Karen, and let +me wash your face for you. You must be pretty tired and dirty after that +long journey."</p> + +<p>But Karen put her feet to the ground. They just sustained her. "Thank +you, Mrs. Talcott. I will do it," she said.</p> + +<p>She bent over the water, and, while she washed, Mrs. Talcott, with +deliberate skill, made up the bed. Karen sank in a chair.</p> + +<p>"You poor thing," said Mrs. Talcott, turning to her as she smoothed down +the sheet; "Why you're green. Sit right there and I'll undress you. Yes; +you're only fit to be put to bed."</p> + +<p>She spoke with mild authority, and Karen, under her hands, relapsed to +childhood.</p> + +<p>"This all the baggage you've brought?" Mrs. Talcott inquired, finding a +nightdress in Karen's dressing-case. She expressed no surprise when +Karen said that it was all, passed the nightdress over her head and, +when she had lain down, tucked the bed-clothes round her.</p> + +<p>"Now what you want is a hot-water bottle and some dinner. I guess you're +hungry. Did you have any lunch on the train?"</p> + +<p>"I've had some chocolate and a bun and some milk, oh yes, I had enough," +said Karen faintly, raising her hand to her forehead; "but I must be +hungry; for my head aches so badly. How kind you are, Mrs. Talcott."</p> + +<p>"You lie right there and I'll bring you some dinner." Mrs. Talcott was +swiftly tidying the room.</p> + +<p>"But what of yours, Mrs. Talcott? Isn't it your dinner-time?"</p> + +<p>"I've had my supper. I have supper early these days."</p> + +<p>Karen dimly reflected, when she was gone, that this was an innovation. +Whoever Madame von Marwitz's guests, Mrs. Talcott had, until now, always +made an <i>acte de présence</i> at every meal. She was tired and not feeling +well enough after her illness, she thought.</p> + +<p>Mrs. Talcott soon returned with a tray on which were set out hot +<i>consommée</i> and chicken and salad, a peach beside them. Hot-house fruit +was never wanting when Madame von Marwitz was at Les Solitudes.</p> + +<p>"Lie back. I'll feed it to you," said Mrs. Talcott. "It's good and +strong. You know Adolphe can make as good a <i>consommée</i> as anybody, if +he's a mind to."</p> + +<p>"Is Adolphe here?" Karen asked as she swallowed the spoonfuls.</p> + +<p>"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?"</p> + +<p>Mrs. Talcott, meanwhile, as Madame von Marwitz had prophesied, asked no +questions.</p> + +<p>"Now you have a good long sleep," she said, when she rose to go. "That's +what you need."</p> + +<p>She needed it very much. The midges turned more and more slowly, then +sank into the pool; mist enveloped everything, and darkness.</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XXX" id="CHAPTER_XXX"></a>CHAPTER XXX</h2> + + +<p>Karen was waked next morning by the familiar sound of the +<i>Wohltemperirtes Clavier</i>.</p> + +<p>Tante was at work in the music-room and was playing the prelude in D +flat, a special favourite of Karen's.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>It was impossible to hide them from Mrs. Talcott, who came in carrying a +breakfast tray; but Karen checked them, and dried her eyes.</p> + +<p>Mrs. Talcott set the tray down on the little table near the bed.</p> + +<p>"Is it late, Mrs. Talcott?" Karen asked.</p> + +<p>"It's just nine; Mercedes is up early so as to get some work in before +she goes out motoring."</p> + +<p>"She is going motoring?"</p> + +<p>"Yes, she and Mr. Drew are going off for the day." Mrs. Talcott adjusted +Karen's pillow.</p> + +<p>"But I shall see Tante before she goes?" It was the formless, +featureless fear that came closer.</p> + +<p>"My, yes! You'll see her all right," said Mrs. Talcott. "She was asking +after you the first thing and hoped you'd stay in bed till lunch. Now +you eat your breakfast right away like a good girl."</p> + +<p>Karen tried to eat her breakfast like a good girl and the sound of the +<i>Wohltemperirtes Clavier</i> seemed again to encircle and sustain her.</p> + +<p>"How'd you sleep, honey?" Mrs. Talcott inquired. The term hardly +expressed endearment, yet it was such an unusual one from Mrs. Talcott +that Karen could only surmise that her tears had touched the old woman.</p> + +<p>"Very, very well," she said.</p> + +<p>"How'd you like me to bring up some mending I've got to do and sit by +you till Mercedes comes?" Mrs. Talcott pursued.</p> + +<p>"Oh, please do, Mrs. Talcott," said Karen. She felt that she would like +to have Mrs. Talcott there with her very much. She would probably cry +unless Mrs. Talcott stayed with her, and she did not want Tante to find +her crying.</p> + +<p>So Mrs. Talcott brought her basket of mending and sat by the window, +sewing in silence for the most part, but exchanging with Karen now and +then a quiet remark about the state of the garden and how the plants +were doing.</p> + +<p>At eleven the sound of the piano ceased and soon after the stately tread +of Madame von Marwitz was heard outside. Mrs. Talcott, saying that she +would come back later on, gathered up her mending as she appeared. She +was dressed for motoring, with a long white cloak lined with white fur +and her head bound in nun-like fashion with a white coif and veil. +Beautiful she looked, and sad, and gentle; a succouring Madonna; and +Karen's heart rose up to her. It clung to her and prayed; and the +realisation of her own need, her own dependence, was a new thing. She +had never before felt dependence on Tante as anything but proud and +glad. To pray to her now that she should never belie her loveliness, to +cling to that faith in her without which all her life would be a thing +distorted and unrecognisable, was not pride or gladness and seemed to be +the other side of fear. Yet so gentle were the eyes, so tender the smile +and the firm clasp of the hands taking hers, while Tante murmured, +stooping to kiss her: "Good morning to my child," that the prayer seemed +answered, the faith approved.</p> + +<p>If Madame von Marwitz had been taken by surprise the night before, if +she had had to give herself time to think, she had now, it was evident, +done her thinking. The result was this warmly cherishing tenderness.</p> + +<p>"Ah," she said, still stooping over Karen, while she put back her hair, +"it is good to have my child back again, mine—quite mine—once more."</p> + +<p>"I have slept so well, Tante," said Karen. She was able to smile up at +her.</p> + +<p>Madame von Marwitz looked about the room. "And now it is to gather the +dear old life closely about her again. Gardening, and reading; and quiet +times with Tante and Tallie. Though, for the moment, I must be much with +my guest; I am helping him with his work. He has talent, yes; it is a +strange and complicated nature. You did not expect to find him here?"</p> + +<p>Karen held Tante's hand and her gaze was innocent of surmise. Mr. Drew +had never entered her thoughts. "No. Yes. No, Tante. He came with you?"</p> + +<p>"Yes, he came with me," said Madame von Marwitz. "I had promised him +that he should see Les Solitudes one day. I was glad to find an +occupation for my thoughts in helping him. I told him that if he were +free he might join me. It is good, in great sorrow, to think of others. +Now it is, for the young man and for me, our work. Work, work; we must +all work, <i>ma chérie</i>. It is our only clue in the darkness of life; our +only nourishment in the desert places." Again she looked about the room. +"You came without boxes?"</p> + +<p>"Yes, Mrs. Barker is to send them to me."</p> + +<p>"Ah, yes. When," said Madame von Marwitz, in a lower voice, "did you +leave? Yesterday morning?"</p> + +<p>"No, Tante. The night before."</p> + +<p>"The night before? So? And where did you spend the night? With Mrs. +Forrester? With Scrotton? I have not yet written to Scrotton."</p> + +<p>"No. I went to the Lippheims."</p> + +<p>"The Lippheims? So?"</p> + +<p>"The others, Tante, would have talked to me; and questioned me. I could +not have borne that. The Lippheims were so kind."</p> + +<p>"I can believe it. They have hearts of gold, those Lippheims. They would +cut themselves in four to help one. And the good Lise? How is she? I am +sorry to have missed Lise."</p> + +<p>"And she was, oh, so sorry to have missed you, Tante. She is well, I +think, though tired; she is always tired, you remember. She has too much +to do."</p> + +<p>"Indeed, yes; poor Lise. She might have been an artist of the first rank +if she had not given herself over to the making of children. Why did she +not stop at Franz and Lotta and Minna? That would have given her the +quartette,"—Madame von Marwitz smiled—she was in a mildly merry mood. +"But on they go—four, five, six, seven, eight—how many are there—<i>bon +Dieu!</i> of how many am I the god-mother? One grows bewildered. It is +almost a rat's family. Lise is not unlike a white mother-rat, with the +small round eye and the fat body."</p> + +<p>"Oh—not a rat, Tante," Karen protested, a little pained.</p> + +<p>"A rabbit, you think? And a rabbit, too, is prolific. No; for the rabbit +has not the sharpness, not the pointed nose, the anxious, eager look—is +not so the mother, indeed. Rat it is, my Karen; and rat with a golden +heart. How do you find Tallie? She has been with you all the morning? +You have not talked with Tallie of our calamities?"</p> + +<p>"Oh, no, Tante."</p> + +<p>"She is a wise person, Tallie; wise, silent, discreet. And I find her +looking well; but very, very well; this air preserves her. And how old +is Tallie now?" she mused.</p> + +<p>Though she talked so sweetly there was, Karen felt it now, a +perfunctoriness in Tante's remarks. She was, for all the play of her +nimble fancy, preoccupied, and the sound of the motor-horn below seemed +a signal for release. "Tallie is, <i>mon Dieu</i>," she computed, +rising—"she was twenty-three when I was born—and I am nearly +fifty"—Madame von Marwitz was as far above cowardly reticences about +her age as a timeless goddess—"Tallie is actually seventy-two. Well, I +must be off, <i>ma chérie</i>. We have a long trip to make to-day. We go to +Fowey. He wishes to see Fowey. I pray the weather may continue fine. You +will be with us this evening? You will get up? You will come to dinner?"</p> + +<p>She paused at the mantelpiece to adjust her veil, and Karen, in the +glass, saw that her eyes were fixed on hers with a certain intentness.</p> + +<p>"Yes, I will get up this morning, Tante," she said. "I will help Mrs. +Talcott with the garden. But dinner? Mrs. Talcott says that she has +supper now. Shall I not have my supper with her? Perhaps she would like +that?"</p> + +<p>"That would perhaps be well," said Madame von Marwitz. "That is perhaps +well thought." Still she paused and still, in the glass, she fixed +cogitating eyes on Karen. She turned, then, abruptly. "But no; I do not +think so. On second thoughts I do not think so. You will dine with us. +Tallie is quite happy alone. She is pleased with the early supper. I +shall see you, then, this evening."</p> + +<p>A slight irritation lay on her brows; but she leaned with all her +tenderness to kiss Karen, murmuring, "<i>Adieu, mon enfant</i>."</p> + +<p>When the sound of the motor had died away Karen got up, dressed and went +downstairs.</p> + +<p>The music-room, its windows open to the sea, was full of the signs of +occupancy.</p> + +<p>The great piano stood open. Karen went to it and, standing over it, +played softly the dearly loved notes of the prelude in D flat.</p> + +<p>She practised, always, on the upright piano in the morning-room; but +when Tante was at home and left the grand piano open she often played on +that. It was a privilege rarely to be resisted and to-day she sat down +and played the fugue through, still very softly. Then, covering the +keys, she shut the lid and looked more carefully about the room.</p> + +<p>Flowers and books were everywhere. Mrs. Talcott arranged flowers +beautifully; Karen recognized her skilful hand in the tall branches of +budding green standing high in a corner, the glasses of violets, the +bowls of anemones and the flat dishes of Italian earthenware filled with +primroses.</p> + +<p>On a table lay a pile of manuscript; she knew Mr. Drew's small, thick +handwriting. A square silver box for cigarettes stood near by; it was +marked with Mr. Drew's initials in Tante's hand. How kind she was to +that young man; but Tante had always been lavish with those of whom she +was fond.</p> + +<p>Out on the verandah the vine-tendrils were already green against the +sky, and on a lower terrace she saw Mrs. Talcott at work, as usual, +among the borders. Mrs. Talcott then, had not yet gone to Helston and +she would not be alone and she was glad of that. In the little cupboard +near the pantry she found a pair of old gardening gloves and her own old +gardening hat. The day was peaceful and balmy; all was as it had always +been, except herself.</p> + +<p>She worked all the morning in the garden and walked in the afternoon on +the cliffs with Victor. Victor had come down with Tante.</p> + +<p>Mrs. Talcott had adjourned the trip to Helston; so they had tea +together. Her boxes had not yet come and when it was time to dress for +dinner she had nothing to change to but the little white silk with the +flat blue bows upon it, the dress in which Gregory had first seen her. +She had left it behind her when she married and found it now hanging in +a cupboard in her room.</p> + +<p>The horn of the returning motor did not sound until she was dressed and +on going down she had the music-room to herself for nearly half an hour. +Then Mr. Drew appeared.</p> + +<p>The tall white lamps with their white shades had been brought in, but +the light from the windows mingled a pale azure with the gold. Mr. Drew, +Karen reflected, looked in the dual illumination like a portrait by +Besnard. He had, certainly, an unusual and an interesting face, and it +pleased her to verify and emphasize this fact; for, accustomed as she +was to watching Tante's preoccupations with interesting people, she +could not quite accustom herself to her preoccupation with Mr. Drew. To +account for it he must be so very interesting.</p> + +<p>She was not embarrassed by conjectures as to what, after her entry of +last night, Mr. Drew might be thinking about her. It occurred to her no +more than in the past to imagine that anybody attached to Tante could +spare thought to her. And as in the past, despite all the inner +desolation, it was easy to assume to this guest of Tante's the attitude +so habitual to her of the attendant in the temple, the attendant who, +rising from his seat at the door, comes forward tranquilly to greet the +worshipper and entertain him with quiet comment until the goddess shall +descend.</p> + +<p>"Did you have a nice drive?" she inquired. "The weather has been +beautiful."</p> + +<p>Mr. Drew, coming up to her as she stood in the open window, looked at +her with his impenetrable, melancholy eyes, smiling at her a little.</p> + +<p>There was no tastelessness in his gaze, nothing that suggested a +recollection of what he had heard or seen last night; yet Karen was made +vaguely aware from his look that she had acquired some sort of +significance for him.</p> + +<p>"Yes, it's been nice," he said. "I'm very fond of motoring. I'd like to +spend my days in a motor—always going faster and faster; and then drop +down in a blissful torpor at night. Madame von Marwitz was so kind and +made the chauffeur go very fast."</p> + +<p>Karen was somewhat disturbed by this suggestion. "I am sure that she, +too, would like going very fast. I hope you will not tempt her."</p> + +<p>"Oh, but I'm afraid I do," Mr. Drew confessed. "What is the good of a +motor unless you go too fast in it? A motor has no meaning unless it's a +method of intoxication."</p> + +<p>Karen received the remark with inattention. She looked out over the sea, +preoccupied with the thought of Tante's recklessness. "I do not think +that going so fast can be good for her music," she said.</p> + +<p>"Oh, but yes," Mr. Drew assured her, "nothing is so good for art as +intoxication. Art is rooted in intoxication. It's all a question of how +to get it."</p> + +<p>"But with motoring you only get torpor, you say," Karen remarked. And, +going on with her own train of thoughts, "So much shaking will be bad, +perhaps, for the muscles. And there is always the danger to consider. I +hope she will not go too fast. She is too important a person to take +risks." There was no suggestion that Mr. Drew should not take them.</p> + +<p>"Don't you like going fast? Don't you like taking risks? Don't you like +intoxication?" Mr. Drew inquired, and his eyes travelled from the blue +bows on her breast to the blue bows on her elbow-sleeves.</p> + +<p>"I have never been intoxicated," said Karen calmly—she was quite +accustomed to all manner of fantastic visitors in the temple—"I do not +think that I should like it. And I prefer walking to any kind of +driving. No, I do not like risks."</p> + +<p>"Ah yes, I can see that. Yes, that's altogether in character," said Mr. +Drew. He turned, then, as Madame von Marwitz came in, but remained +standing in the window while Karen went forward to greet her guardian. +Madame von Marwitz, as she took her hands and kissed her, looked over +Karen's shoulder at Mr. Drew.</p> + +<p>"Why did you not come to my room, <i>chérie</i>?" she asked. "I had hoped to +see you alone before I came down."</p> + +<p>"I thought you might be tired and perhaps resting, Tante," said Karen, +who had, indeed, paused before her guardian's door on her way down, and +then passed on with a certain sense of shyness; she did not want in any +way to force herself on Tante.</p> + +<p>"But you know that I like to have you with me when I am tired," Madame +von Marwitz returned. "And I am not tired: no: it has been a day of +wings."</p> + +<p>She walked down the long room, her arm around Karen, with a buoyancy of +tread and demeanour in which, however, Karen, so deep an adept in her +moods discovered excitement rather than gaiety. "Has it been a good day +for my child?" she questioned; "a happy, peaceful day? Yes? You have +been much with Tallie? I told Tallie that she must postpone the trip to +Helston so that she might stay with you." Tante on the sofa encircled +her and looked brightly at her; yet her eye swerved to the window where +Mr. Drew remained looking at a paper.</p> + +<p>Karen said that she had been gardening and walking.</p> + +<p>"Good; bravo!" said Tante, and then, in a lower voice: "No news, I +suppose?"</p> + +<p>"No; oh no. That could not be, Tante," said Karen, with a startled look, +and Tante went on quickly: "But no; I see. It could not be. And it has, +then, been a happy day for my Karen. What is it you read, Claude?"</p> + +<p>Karen's sense of slight perplexity in regard to Tante's interest in Mr. +Drew was deepened when she called him Claude, and her tone now, half +vexed, half light, was perplexing.</p> + +<p>"Some silly things that are being said in the House," Mr. Drew returned, +going on reading.</p> + +<p>"What things?" said Tante sharply.</p> + +<p>"Oh, you wouldn't expect me to read a stupid debate to you," said Mr. +Drew, lifting his eyes with a smile.</p> + +<p>Dinner was announced and they went in, Tante keeping her arm around +Karen's shoulders and sweeping ahead with an effect of unawareness as to +her other guest. She had, perhaps, a little lost her temper with him; +and his manner was, Karen reflected, by no means assiduous. At the +table, however, Tante showed herself suave and sweet.</p> + +<p>One reason why things seemed a little strange, Karen further reflected, +was that Mrs. Talcott came no longer to dinner; and she was vaguely +sorry for this.</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XXXI" id="CHAPTER_XXXI"></a>CHAPTER XXXI</h2> + + +<p>Karen's boxes arrived next day, neatly packed by Mrs. Barker. And not +only her clothes were in them. She had left behind her the jewel-box +with the pearl necklace that Gregory had given her, the pearl and +sapphire ring, the old enamel brooch and clasp and chain, his presents +all. The box was kept locked, and in a cupboard of which Gregory had the +key; so that he must have given it to Mrs. Barker. The photographs, too, +from their room, not those of him, but those of Tante; of her father; +and a half a dozen little porcelain and silver trinkets from the +drawing-room, presents and purchases particularly hers.</p> + +<p>It was right, quite right, that he should send them. She knew it. It was +right that he should accept their parting as final. Yet that he should +so accurately select and send to her everything that could remind him of +her seemed to roll the stone before the tomb.</p> + +<p>She looked at the necklace, the ring, all the pretty things, and shut +the box. Impossible that she should keep them yet impossible to send +them back as if in a bandying of rebuffs. She would wait for some years +to pass and then they should be returned without comment.</p> + +<p>And the clothes, all these dear clothes of her married life; every dress +and hat was associated with Gregory. She could never wear them again. +And it felt, not so much that she was locking them away, as that Gregory +had locked her out into darkness and loneliness. She took up the round +of the days. She practised; she gardened, she walked and read. Of Tante +she saw little.</p> + +<p>She was accustomed to seeing little of Tante, even when Tante was there; +quite accustomed to Tante's preoccupations. Yet, through the fog of her +own unhappiness, it came to her, like an object dimly perceived, that in +this preoccupation of Tante's there was a difference. It showed, itself +in a high-pitched restlessness, verging now and again on irritation—not +with her, Karen, but with Mr. Drew. To Karen she was brightly, +punctually tender, yet it was a tenderness that held her away rather +than drew her near.</p> + +<p>Karen did not need to be put aside. She had always known how to efface +herself; she needed no atonement for the so apparent fact that Tante +wanted to be left alone with Mr. Drew as much as possible. The +difficulty in leaving her came with perceiving that though Tante wanted +her to go she did not want to seem to want it.</p> + +<p>She caressed Karen; she addressed her talk to her; she kept her; yet, +under the smile of the eyes, there was an intentness that Karen could +interpret. It devolved upon her to find the excuse, the necessity, for +withdrawal. Mrs. Talcott, in the morning-room, was a solution. Karen +could go to her almost directly after dinner, as soon as coffee had been +served; for on the first occasion when she rose, saying that she would +have her coffee with Mrs. Talcott, Tante said with some sharpness—after +a hesitation: "No; you will have your coffee here. Tallie does not have +coffee." Groping her way, Karen seemed to touch strange forms. Tante +cared so much about this young man; so much that it was almost as if she +would be willing to abandon her dignity for him. It was more than the +indulgent, indolent interest, wholly Olympian, that she had so often +seen her bestow. She really cared. And the strangeness for Karen was in +part made up of pain for Tante; for it almost seemed that Tante cared +more than Mr. Drew did. Karen had seen so many men care for Tante; so +many who were, obviously, in love with her; but she had seen Tante +always throned high above the prostrate adorers, idly kind; holding out +a hand, perhaps, for them to kiss; smiling, from time to time, if they, +fortunately, pleased her; but never, oh never, stepping down towards +them.</p> + +<p>It seemed to her now that she had seen Tante stepping down. It was only +a step; she could never become the suppliant, the pursuing goddess; and, +as if with her hand still laid on the arm of her throne, she kept all +her air of high command.</p> + +<p>But had she kept its power? Mr. Drew's demeanour reminded Karen +sometimes of a cat's. Before the glance and voice of authority he would, +metaphorically, pace away; pausing to blink up at some object that +attracted his attention or to interest himself in the furbishing of +flank or chest. At a hint of anger or coercion, he would tranquilly +disappear. Tante, controlling indignation, was left to stare after him +and to regain the throne as best she might, and at these moments Karen +felt that Tante's eye turned on her, gauging her power of +interpretation, ready, did she not feign the right degree of +unconsciousness, to wreak on her something of the controlled emotion. +The fear that had come on the night of her arrival pressed closely on +Karen then, but, more closely still, the pain for Tante. Tante's clear +dignity was blurred; her image, in its rebuffed and ineffectual +autocracy, became hovering, uncertain, piteous. And, in seeing and +feeling all these things, as if with a lacerated sensitiveness, Karen +was aware that, in this last week of her life, she had grown much older. +She felt herself in some ways older than her guardian.</p> + +<p>It was on the morning of her seventh day at Les Solitudes that she met +Mr. Drew walking early in the garden.</p> + +<p>The sea was glittering blue and gold; the air was melancholy in its +sweetness; birds whistled.</p> + +<p>Karen examined Mr. Drew as he approached her along the sunny upper +terrace.</p> + +<p>With his dense, dark eyes, delicate face and golden hair, his white +clothes and loose black tie, she was able to recognize in him an object +that might charm and even subjugate. To Karen he seemed but one among +the many strange young men she had seen surrounding Tante; yet this +morning, clearly, and for the first time, she saw why he subjugated +Tante and why she resented her subjugation. There was more in him than +mere pose and peculiarity; he had some power; the power of the cat: he +was sincerely indifferent to anything that did not attract him. And at +the same time he was unimportant; insignificant in all but his +sincerity. He was not a great writer; Tante could never make a great +writer out of him. And he was, when all was said and done, but one among +many strange young men.</p> + +<p>"Good morning," he said. He doffed his hat. He turned and walked beside +her. They were in full view of the house. "I hoped that I might find +you. Let us go up to the flagged garden," he suggested; "the sea is +glittering like a million scimitars. One has a better view up there."</p> + +<p>"But it is not so warm," said Karen. "I am walking here to be in the +sun."</p> + +<p>Mr. Drew had also been walking there to be in the sun; but they were in +full view of the house and he was aware of a hand at Madame von +Marwitz's window-curtain. He continued, however, to walk beside Karen up +and down the terrace.</p> + +<p>"I think of you," he said, "as a person always in the sun. You suggest +glaciers and fields of snow and meadows full of flowers—the sun pouring +down on all of them. I always imagine Apollo as a Norse God. Are you +really a Norwegian?"</p> + +<p>Karen was, as we have said, accustomed to young men who talked in a +fantastic manner. She answered placidly: "Yes. I am half Norwegian."</p> + +<p>"Your name, then, is really yours?—your untamed, yet intimate, name. It +is like a wild bird that feeds out of one's hand."</p> + +<p>"Yes; it is really mine. It is quite a common name in Norway."</p> + +<p>"Wild birds are common," Mr. Drew observed, smiling softly.</p> + +<p>He found her literalness charming. He was finding her altogether +charming. From the moment that she had appeared at the door in the dusk, +with her white, blind, searching face, she had begun to interest him. +She was stupid and delightful; a limpid and indomitable young creature +who, in a clash of loyalties, had chosen, without a hesitation, to leave +the obvious one. Also she was married yet unawakened, and this, to Mr. +Drew, was a pre-eminently charming combination. The question of the +awakened and the unawakened, of the human attitude to passion, +preoccupied him, practically, more than any other. His art dealt mainly +in themes of emotion as an end in itself.</p> + +<p>The possibilities of passion in Madame von Marwitz, as artist and +genius, had strongly attracted him. He had genuinely been in love with +Madame von Marwitz. But the mere woman, as she more and more helplessly +revealed herself, was beginning to oppress and bore him.</p> + +<p>He had amused himself, of late, by imaging his relation to her in the +fable of the sun and the traveller. Her beams from their high, sublime +solitudes had filled him with delight and exhilaration. Then the +radiance had concentrated itself, had begun to follow him—rather in the +manner of stage sunlight—very unflaggingly. He had wished for intervals +of shade. He had been aware, even during his long absence in America, of +sultriness brooding over him, and now, at these close quarters, he had +begun to throw off his cloak of allegiance. She bored him. It wasn't +good enough. She pretended to be sublime and far; but she wasn't sublime +and far; she was near and watchful and exacting; as watchful and +exacting as a mistress and as haughty as a Diana. She was not, and had, +evidently, no intention of being, his mistress, and for the mere +pleasure of adoring her Mr. Drew found the price too high to pay. He did +not care to proffer, indefinitely, a reverent passion, and he did not +like people, when he showed his weariness, to lose their tempers with +him. Already Madame von Marwitz had lost hers. He did not forget what +she looked like nor what she said on these occasions. She had mentioned +the large-mouthed children at Wimbledon—facts that he preferred to +forget as much as possible—and he did not know that he forgave her. +There was a tranquil malice in realizing that as Madame von Marwitz +became more and more displeasing to him, Mrs. Jardine, more and more, +became pleasing. A new savour had come into his life since her +appearance and he had determined to postpone a final rupture with his +great friend and remain on for some time longer at Les Solitudes. He +wondered if it would be possible to awaken Mrs. Jardine.</p> + +<p>"Haven't I heard you practising, once or twice lately?" he asked her +now, as they turned at the end of the terrace and walked back.</p> + +<p>"Yes," said Karen; "I practise every morning."</p> + +<p>"I'd no idea you played, too."</p> + +<p>"It is hardly a case of 'too', is it," Karen said, mildly amused.</p> + +<p>"I don't know. Perhaps it is. One may look at a Memling after a Michael +Angelo, you know. I wish you'd play to me."</p> + +<p>"I am no Memling, I assure you."</p> + +<p>"You can't, until I hear you. Do play to me. Brahms; a little Brahms."</p> + +<p>"I have practised no Brahms for a long time. I find him too difficult."</p> + +<p>"I heard you doing a Bach prelude yesterday; play that."</p> + +<p>"Certainly, if you wish it, I will play it to you," said Karen, "though +I do not think that you will much enjoy it."</p> + +<p>Mrs. Talcott was in the morning-room over accounts; so Karen went with +the young man into the music-room and opened the grand piano there.</p> + +<p>She then played her prelude, delicately, carefully, composedly. She knew +Mr. Drew to be musicianly; she did not mind playing to him.</p> + +<p>More and more, Mr. Drew reflected, looking down at her, she reminded him +of flower-brimmed, inaccessible mountain-slopes. He must discover some +method of ascent; for the music brought her no nearer; he was aware, +indeed, that it removed her. She quite forgot him as she played.</p> + +<p>The last bars had been reached when the door opened suddenly and Madame +von Marwitz appeared.</p> + +<p>She had come in haste—that was evident—and a mingled fatigue and +excitement was on her face. Her white cheeks had soft, sodden +depressions and under her eyes were little pinches in the skin, as +though hot fingers had nipped her there. She looked almost old, and she +smiled a determined, adjusted smile, with heavy eyes. "<i>Tiens, tiens</i>," +she said, and, turning elaborately, she shut the door.</p> + +<p>Karen finished her bars and rose.</p> + +<p>"This is a new departure," said Madame von Marwitz. She came swiftly to +them, her loose lace sleeves flowing back from her bare arms. "I do not +like my piano touched, you know, Karen, unless permission is given. No +matter, no matter, my child. Let it not occur again, that is all. You +have not found the right balance of that phrase," she stooped and +reiterated with emphasis a fragment of the prelude. "And now I will +begin my work, if you please. Tallie waits for you, I think, in the +garden, and would be glad of your help. Tallie grows old. It does not do +to forget her."</p> + +<p>"Am I to go into the garden, too?" Mr. Drew inquired, as Madame von +Marwitz seated herself and ran her fingers over the keys. "I thought we +were to motor this morning."</p> + +<p>"We will motor when I have done my work. Go into the garden, by all +means, if you wish to."</p> + +<p>"May I come into the garden with you? May I help you there?" Mr. Drew +serenely drawled, addressing Karen, who, with a curious, concentrated +look, stood gazing at her guardian.</p> + +<p>She turned her eyes on him and her glance put him far, far away, like an +object scarcely perceived. "I am not going into the garden," she said. +"Mrs. Talcott is working in the morning-room and does not need me yet."</p> + +<p>"Ah. She is in the morning-room," Madame von Marwitz murmured, still not +raising her eyes, and still running loud and soft scales up and down. +Karen left the room.</p> + +<p>As the door closed upon her, Madame von Marwitz, with a singular effect +of control, began to weave a spider's-web of intricate, nearly +impalpable, sound. "Go, if you please," she said to Mr. Drew.</p> + +<p>He stood beside her, placid. "Why are you angry?" he asked.</p> + +<p>"I am not pleased that my rules should be broken. Karen has many +privileges. She must learn not to take, always, the extra inch when the +ell is so gladly granted."</p> + +<p>He leaned on the piano. Her controlled face, bent with absorption above +the lacey pattern of sound that she evoked, interested him.</p> + +<p>"When you are angry and harness your anger to your art like this, you +become singularly beautiful," he remarked. He felt it; and, after all, +if he were to remain at Les Solitudes and attempt to scale those Alpine +slopes he must keep on good terms with Madame von Marwitz.</p> + +<p>"So," was her only reply. Yet her eyes softened.</p> + +<p>He raised the lace wing of her sleeve and kissed it, keeping it in his +hand.</p> + +<p>"No foolishness if you please," said Madame von Marwitz. "Of what have +you and Karen been talking?"</p> + +<p>"I can't get her to talk," said Mr. Drew. "But I like to hear her play."</p> + +<p>"She plays with right feeling," said Madame von Marwitz. "She is not a +child to express herself in speech. Her music reveals her more truly."</p> + +<p>"<i>Nur wo du bist sei alles, immer kindlich</i>," Mr. Drew mused. "That is +what she makes me think of." With anybody of Madame von Marwitz's +intelligence, frankness was far more likely to allay suspicion than +guile. And for very pride now she was forced to seem reassured. "Yes. +That is so," she said. And she continued to play.</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XXXII" id="CHAPTER_XXXII"></a>CHAPTER XXXII</h2> + + +<p>Karen meanwhile made her way to the cliff-path and, seating herself on a +grassy slope, she clasped her knees with her hands and gazed out over +the sea. She was thinking hard of something, and trying to think only of +that. It was true, the permission had been that she was to play on the +grand-piano when it was left open. There had been no rule set; it had +not been said that she was not to play at other times and indeed, on +many occasions, she had played unrebuked, before Tante came down. But +the thing to remember now, with all her power, was that, technically, +Tante had been right. To hold fast to that thought was to beat away a +fear that hovered about her, like a horrible bird of prey. She sat there +for a long time, and she became aware at last that though she held so +tightly to her thought, it had, as it were, become something lifeless, +inefficacious, and that fear had invaded her. Tante had been unkind, +unjust, unloving.</p> + +<p>It was as though, in taking refuge with Tante, she had leaped from a +great height, seeing security beneath, and as though, alighting, she +slipped and stumbled on a sloping surface with no foothold anywhere. +Since she came, there had been only this sliding, sliding, and now it +seemed to be down to unseen depths. For this was more and worse than the +first fear of her coming. Tante had been unkind, and she so loved Mr. +Drew that she forgot herself when he bestowed his least attention +elsewhere.</p> + +<p>Karen rose to her feet suddenly, aware that she was trembling.</p> + +<p>She looked over the sea and the bright day was dreadful to her. Where +was she and what was she, and what was Tante, if this fear were true? +Not even on that far day of childhood when she had lost herself in the +forest had such a horror of loneliness filled her. She was a lost, an +unwanted creature.</p> + +<p>She turned from the unanswering immensities and ran down the cliff-path +towards Les Solitudes. She could not be alone. To think these things was +to feel herself drowning in fear.</p> + +<p>Emerging from the higher trees she caught sight below her of Mrs. +Talcott's old straw hat moving among the borders; and, in the midst of +the emptiness, the sight was strength and hope. The whole world seemed +to narrow to Mrs. Talcott. She was secure and real. She was a spar to be +clung to. The nightmare would reveal itself as illusion if she kept near +Mrs. Talcott. She ran down to her.</p> + +<p>Mrs. Talcott was slaying slugs. She had placed pieces of orange-peel +around cherished young plants to attract the depredators and she held a +jar of soot; into the soot the slugs were dropped as she discovered +them.</p> + +<p>The sight of her was like a draught of water to parching lips. Reality +slowly grew round Karen once more. Tante had been hasty, even unkind; +but she was piteous, absorbed in this great devotion; and Tante loved +her.</p> + +<p>She walked beside Mrs. Talcott and helped her with the slugs.</p> + +<p>"Been out for a walk, Karen?" Mrs. Talcott inquired. They had reached +the end of the border and moved on to a higher one.</p> + +<p>"Only to the cliff," said Karen.</p> + +<p>"You look kind of tired," Mrs. Talcott remarked, and Karen owned that +she felt tired. "It's so warm to-day," she said.</p> + +<p>"Yes; it's real hot. Let's walk under the trees." Mrs. Talcott took out +her handkerchief and wiped her large, saffron-coloured forehead.</p> + +<p>They walked slowly in the thin shadow of the young foliage.</p> + +<p>"You're staying on for a while, aren't you?" Mrs. Talcott inquired +presently. She had as yet asked Karen no question and Karen felt that +something in her own demeanour had caused this one.</p> + +<p>"For more than a while," she said. "I am not going away again." In the +sound of the words she found a curious reassurance. Was it not her home, +Les Solitudes?</p> + +<p>Mrs. Talcott said nothing for some moments, stooping to nip a drooping +leaf from a plant they passed. Then she questioned further: "Is Mr. +Jardine coming down here?"</p> + +<p>"I have left my husband," said Karen.</p> + +<p>For some moments, Mrs. Talcott, again, said nothing, but she no longer +had an eye for the plants. Neither did she look at Karen; her gaze was +fixed before her. "Is that so," was at last her comment.</p> + +<p>The phrase might have expressed amazement, commiseration or protest; its +sound remained ambiguous. They had come to a rustic bench. "Let's sit +down for a while," she said; "I'm not as young as I was."</p> + +<p>They sat down, the old woman heavily, and she drew a sigh of relief. +Looking at her Karen saw that she, too, was very tired. And she, +too—was it not strange that to-day she should see it for the first +time?—was very lonely. A sudden pity, profound and almost passionate, +filled her for Mrs. Talcott.</p> + +<p>"You'll not mind having me here—for all the time now—again, will you?" +she asked, smiling a little, with determination, for she did not wish +Mrs. Talcott to guess what she had seen.</p> + +<p>"No," said Mrs. Talcott, continuing to gaze before her, and shaking her +head. "No, I'll be glad of that. We get on real well together, I think." +And, after another moment of silence, she went on in the same +contemplative tone: "I used to quarrel pretty bad with my husband when I +was first married, Karen. He was the nicest, mildest kind of man, as +loving as could be. But I guess most young things find it hard to get +used to each other all at once. It ain't easy, married life; at least +not at the beginning. You expect such a high standard of each other and +everything seems to hurt. After a while you get so discouraged, perhaps, +finding it isn't like what you expected, that you commence to think you +don't care any more and it was all a mistake. I guess every young wife +thinks that in the first year, and it makes you feel mighty sick. Why, +if marriage didn't tie people up so tight, most of 'em would fly apart +in the first year and think they just hated each other, and that's why +it's such a good thing that they're tied so tight. Why I remember once +the only thing that seemed to keep me back was thinking how Homer—Homer +was my husband's name, Homer G. Talcott—sort of snorted when he +laughed. I was awful mad with him and it seemed as if he'd behaved so +mean and misunderstood me so that I'd got to go; but when I thought of +that sort of childish snort he'd give sometimes, I felt I couldn't leave +him. It's mighty queer, human nature, and the teeny things that seem to +decide your mind for you; I guess they're not as teeny as they seem. But +those hurt feelings are almost always a mistake—I'm pretty sure of it. +Any two people find it hard to live together and get used to each other; +it don't make any difference how much in love they are."</p> + +<p>There was no urgency in Mrs. Talcott's voice and no pathos of +retrospect. Its contemplative placidity might have been inviting another +sad and wise old woman to recognize these facts of life with her.</p> + +<p>Karen's mood, while she listened to her, was hardening to the iron of +her final realization, the realization that had divided her and Gregory. +"It isn't so with us, Mrs. Talcott," she said. "He has shown himself a +man I cannot live with. None of our feelings are the same. All my sacred +things he despises."</p> + +<p>"Mercedes, you mean?" Mrs. Talcott suggested after a moment's silence.</p> + +<p>"Yes. And more." Karen could not name her mother.</p> + +<p>Mrs. Talcott sat silent.</p> + +<p>"Has Tante not told you why I was here?" Karen presently asked.</p> + +<p>"No," said Mrs. Talcott. "I haven't had a real talk with Mercedes since +she got back. Her mind is pretty well taken up with this young man."</p> + +<p>To this Karen, glancing at Mrs. Talcott in a slight bewilderment, was +able to say nothing, and Mrs. Talcott pursued, resuming her former tone: +"There's another upsetting thing about marriage, Karen, and that is that +you can't expect your families to feel about each other like you feel. +It isn't in nature that they should, and that's one of the things that +young married people can't make up their minds to. Now Mr. Jardine isn't +the sort of young man to care about many people; few and far between +they are, I should infer, and Mercedes ain't one of them. Mercedes +wouldn't appeal to him one mite. I saw that as plain as could be from +the first."</p> + +<p>"He should have told me so," said Karen, with her rocky face and voice.</p> + +<p>"Well, he didn't tell you he found her attractive, did he?"</p> + +<p>"No. But though I saw that there was blindness, I thought it was because +he did not know her. I thought that when he knew her he would care for +her. And I could forgive his not caring. I could forgive so much. But it +is worse, far worse than that. He accuses Tante of dreadful things. It +is hatred that he feels for her. He has confessed it." The colour had +risen to Karen's cheeks and burned there as she spoke.</p> + +<p>"Well now!" Mrs. Talcott imperturbably ejaculated.</p> + +<p>"You can see that I could not live with a man who hated Tante," said +Karen.</p> + +<p>"What sort of things for instance?" Mrs. Talcott took up her former +statement.</p> + +<p>"How can I tell you, Mrs. Talcott. It burns me to think of them. +Hypocrisy in her feeling for me; selfishness and tyranny and deceit. It +is terrible. In his eyes she is a malignant woman."</p> + +<p>"Tch! Tch!" Mrs. Talcott made an indeterminate cluck with her tongue.</p> + +<p>"I struggled not to see," said Karen, and her voice took on a sombre +energy, "and Tante struggled, too, for me. She, too, saw from the very +first what it might mean. She asked me, on the very first day that they +met, Mrs. Talcott, when she came back, she asked me to try and make him +like her. She was so sweet, so magnanimous," her voice trembled. Oh the +deep relief, so deep that it seemed to cut like a knife—of remembering, +pressing to her, what Tante had done for her, endured for her! "So +sweet, so magnanimous, Mrs. Talcott. She did all that she could—and so +did I—to give him time. For it was not that I lacked love for my +husband. No. I loved him. More, even more, than I loved Tante. There was +perhaps the wrong. I was perhaps cowardly, for his sake. I would not +see. And it was all useless. It grew worse and worse. He was not rude to +her. It was not that. It was worse. He was so careful—oh I see it +now—not to put himself in the wrong. He tried, instead, to put her in +the wrong. He misread every word and look. He sneered—oh, I saw it, and +shut my eyes—at her little foibles and weaknesses; why should she not +have them as well as other people, Mrs. Talcott? And he was +blind—blind—blind," Karen's voice trembled more violently, "to all the +rest. So that it had to end," she went on in broken sentences. "Tante +went because she could bear it no longer. And because she saw that I +could bear it no longer. She hoped, by leaving me, to save my happiness. +But that could not be. Mrs. Talcott, even then I might have tried to go +on living with that chasm—between Tante and my husband—in my life; but +I learned the whole truth as even I hadn't seen it; as even she hadn't +seen it. Mrs. Forrester came to me, Mrs. Talcott, and told me what +Gregory had said to her of Tante. He believes her a malignant woman," +said Karen, repeating her former words and rising as she spoke. "And to +me he did not deny it. Everything, then, was finished for us. We saw +that we did not love each other any longer."</p> + +<p>She stood before Mrs. Talcott in the path, her hands hanging at her +sides, her eyes fixed on the wall above Mrs. Talcott's head.</p> + +<p>Mrs. Talcott did not rise. She sat silent, looking up at Karen, and so +for some moments they said nothing, while in the spring sunshine about +them the birds whistled and an early white butterfly dipped and +fluttered by.</p> + +<p>"I feel mighty tired, Karen," Mrs. Talcott then said. Her eyelid with +the white mole twitched over her eye, the lines of her large, firm old +mouth were relaxed. Karen's eyes went to her and pity filled her.</p> + +<p>"It is my miserable story," she said. "I am so sorry."</p> + +<p>"Yes, I feel mighty tired," Mrs. Talcott repeated, looking away and out +at the sea. "It's discouraging. I thought you were fixed up all safe and +happy for life."</p> + +<p>"Dear Mrs. Talcott," said Karen, earnestly.</p> + +<p>"I don't like to see things that ought to turn out right turning out +wrong," Mrs. Talcott continued, "and I've seen a sight too many of them +in my life. Things turning out wrong that were meant to go right. Things +spoiled. People, nice, good people, like you and Mr. Jardine, all upset +and miserable. I've seen worse things, too," Mrs. Talcott slowly rose as +she spoke. "Yes, I've seen about as bad things happen as can happen, and +it's always been when Mercedes is about."</p> + +<p>She stood still beside Karen, her bleak, intense old gaze fixed on the +sea.</p> + +<p>Karen thought that she had misheard her last words. "When Tante is +about?" she repeated. "You mean that dreadful things happen to her? That +is one of the worst parts of it now, Mrs. Talcott—only that I am so +selfish that I do not think of it enough—to know that I have added to +Tante's troubles."</p> + +<p>"No." Mrs. Talcott now said, and with a curious mildness and firmness. +"No, that ain't what I mean. Mercedes has had a sight of trouble. I +don't deny it, but that ain't what I mean. She makes trouble. She makes +it for herself and she makes it for other people. There's always trouble +going, of some sort or other, when Mercedes is about."</p> + +<p>"I don't understand you, Mrs. Talcott," said Karen. An uncanny feeling +had crept over her while the old woman spoke. It was as if, helplessly, +she were listening to a sleep-walker who, in tranced unconsciousness, +spoke forth mildly the hidden thought of his waking life.</p> + +<p>"No, you don't understand, yet," said Mrs. Talcott. "Perhaps it's fair +that you don't. Perhaps she can't help it. She was born so, I guess." +Mrs. Talcott turned and walked towards the house.</p> + +<p>The panic of the cliff was rising in Karen again. Mrs. Talcott was worse +than the cliff and the unanswering immensities. She walked beside her, +trying to control her terror.</p> + +<p>"You mean, I think," she said, "that Tante is a tragic person and people +who love her must suffer because of all that she has had to suffer."</p> + +<p>"Yes, she's tragic all right," said Mrs. Talcott. "She's had about as +bad a time as they make 'em—off and on. But she spoils things. And it +makes me tired to see it going on. I've had too much of it," said Mrs. +Talcott, "and if this can't come right—this between you and your nice +young husband—I don't feel like I could get over it somehow." Leaning +on Karen's arm with both hands she had paused and looked intently down +at the path.</p> + +<p>"But Mrs. Talcott," Karen's voice trembled; it was incredible, yet one +was forced by Mrs. Talcott's whole demeanour to ask the question without +indignation—"you speak as if you were blaming Tante for something. You +do not blame her, do you?"</p> + +<p>Mrs. Talcott still paused and still looked down, as if deeply pondering. +"I've done a lot of thinking about that very point, Karen," she said. +"And I don't know as I've made up my mind yet. It's a mighty intricate +question. Perhaps we've all got only so much will-power and when most of +it is ladled out into one thing there's nothing left to ladle out into +the others. That's the way I try, sometimes, to figure it out to myself. +Mercedes has got a powerful sight of will-power; but look at all she's +got to use up in her piano-playing. There she is, working up to the last +notch all the time, taking it out of herself, getting all wrought up. +Well, to live so as you won't be spoiling things for other people needs +about as much will-power as piano-playing, I guess, when you're as big a +person as Mercedes and want as many things. And if you ain't got any +will-power left you just do the easiest thing; you just take what you've +a mind to; you just let yourself go in every other way to make up for +the one way you held yourself in. That's how it is, perhaps."</p> + +<p>"But Mrs. Talcott," said Karen in a low voice, "all this—about me and +my husband—has come because Tante has thought too much of us and too +little of herself. It would have been much easier for her to let us +alone and not try and make Gregory like her. I do not recognise her in +what you are saying. You are saying dreadful things."</p> + +<p>"Well, dreadful things have happened, I guess," said Mrs. Talcott. "I +want you to go back to your nice husband, Karen."</p> + +<p>"No; no. Never. I can never go back to him," said Karen, walking on.</p> + +<p>"Because he hates Mercedes?"</p> + +<p>"Not only that. No. He is not what I thought. Do not ask me, Mrs. +Talcott. We do not love each other any longer. It is over."</p> + +<p>"Well, I won't say anything about it, then," said Mrs. Talcott, who, +walking beside her, kept her hand on her arm. "Only I liked Mr. Jardine. +I took to him right off, and I don't take to people so easy. And I take +to you, Karen, more than you know, I guess. And I'll lay my bottom +dollar there's some mistake between you and him, and that Mercedes is +the reason of it."</p> + +<p>They had reached the house.</p> + +<p>"But wait," said Karen, turning to her. She laid both her hands on the +old woman's arm while she steadied her voice to speak this last thought. +"Wait. You are so kind to me, Mrs. Talcott; but you have made everything +strange—and dreadful. I must ask you—one question, Mrs. Talcott. You +have been with Tante all her life. No one knows her as you do. Tell me, +Mrs. Talcott. You love Tante?"</p> + +<p>They faced each other at the top of the steps, on the verandah. And the +young eyes plunged deep into the old eyes, passionately searching.</p> + +<p>For a moment Mrs. Talcott did not reply. When she did speak, it was +decisively as if, while recognising Karen's right to ask, Karen must +recognise that the answer must suffice. "I'd be pretty badly off if I +didn't love Mercedes. She's all I've got in the world."</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XXXIII" id="CHAPTER_XXXIII"></a>CHAPTER XXXIII</h2> + + +<p>The sound of the motor, whirring skilfully among the lanes, was heard at +six, and shortly after Madame von Marwitz's return Mrs. Talcott knocked +at her door.</p> + +<p>Madame von Marwitz was lying on the sofa. Louise had removed her wraps +and dress and was drawing off her shoes. Her eyes were closed. She +seemed weary.</p> + +<p>"I'll see to Madame," said Mrs. Talcott with her air of composed and +unassuming authority. It was somewhat the air of an old nurse, sure of +her prerogatives in the nursery.</p> + +<p>Louise went and Mrs. Talcott took off the other shoe and fetched the +white silk <i>mules</i>.</p> + +<p>Madame von Marwitz had only opened her eye for a glimmer of recognition, +but as Mrs. Talcott adjusted a <i>mule</i>, she tipped it off and muttered +gloomily: "Stockings, please. I want fresh stockings."</p> + +<p>There was oddity—as Mrs. Talcott found, and came back, with a pair of +white silk stockings—in the sight of the opulent, middle-aged figure on +the sofa, childishly stretching out first one large bare leg and then +the other to be clothed; and it might have aroused in Mrs. Talcott a +vista of memories ending with the picture of a child in the same +attitude, a child as idle and as autocratic.</p> + +<p>"Thank you, Tallie," Madame von Marwitz said, wearily but kindly, when +the stockings were changed.</p> + +<p>Mrs. Talcott drew a chair in front of the sofa, seated herself and +clasped her hands at her waist. "I've come for a talk, Mercedes," she +said.</p> + +<p>Madame von Marwitz now was sleepily observing her.</p> + +<p>"A talk! <i>Bon Dieu!</i> But I have been talking all day long!"</p> + +<p>She yawned, putting a folded arm under her head so that, slightly +raising it, she could look at Mrs. Talcott more comfortably. "What do +you want to talk about?" she inquired.</p> + +<p>Mrs. Talcott's eyes, with their melancholy, immovable gaze, rested upon +her. "About Karen and her husband," she said. "I gathered from some talk +I had with Karen to-day that you let her think you came away from London +simply and solely because you'd had a quarrel with Mr. Jardine."</p> + +<p>Madame von Marwitz lay as if arrested by these words for some moments of +an almost lethargic interchange, and then in an impatient voice she +returned: "What business is it of Karen's, pray, if I didn't leave +London simply and solely on account of my quarrel with her husband? I +had found it intolerable to be under his roof and I took the first +opportunity for leaving it. The opportunity happened to coincide with my +arrangements for coming here. What has that to do with Karen?"</p> + +<p>"It has to do with her, Mercedes, because the child believes you were +thinking about her when, as a matter of fact, you weren't thinking about +her or about anyone but this young man you've gotten so taken up with. +Karen believes you care for her something in the same way she does for +you, and it's a sin and a shame, Mercedes," Mrs. Talcott spoke with no +vehemence at all of tone or look, but with decision, "a sin and a shame +to let that child ruin her life because of you."</p> + +<p>Again Madame von Marwitz, now turning her eyes on the ceiling, seemed to +reflect dispassionately. "I never conceived it possible that she would +leave him," she then said. "I found him insufferable and I saw that +unless I went Karen also would come to see him as insufferable. To spare +the poor child this I came away. And I was amazed when she appeared +here. Amazed and distressed," said Madame von Marwitz. And after another +moment she took up: "As for him, he has what he deserves."</p> + +<p>Mrs. Talcott eyed her. "And what do you deserve, I'd like to know, for +going meddling with those poor happy young things? Why couldn't you let +them alone? Karen's been a bother to you for years. Why couldn't you be +satisfied at having her nicely fixed up and let her tend to her own +potato-patch while you tended to yours? You can't make me believe that +it wasn't your fault—the whole thing—right from the beginning. I know +you too well, Mercedes."</p> + +<p>Again Madame von Marwitz lay, surprisingly still and surprisingly +unresentful. It was as if, placidly, she were willing to be undressed, +body or soul, by her old nurse and guardian. But after a moment, and +with sudden indignation, she took up one of Mrs. Talcott's sentences.</p> + +<p>"A bother to me? I am very fond of Karen. I am devoted to Karen. I +should much like to know what right you have to intimate that my feeling +for her isn't sincere. My life proves the contrary. As for saying that +it is my fault, that is merely your habit. Everything is always my fault +with you."</p> + +<p>"It always has been, as far as I've been able to keep an eye on your +tracks," Mrs. Talcott remarked.</p> + +<p>"Well, this is not. I deny it. I absolutely," said Madame von Marwitz, +and now with some excitement, "deny it. Did I not give her to him? Did I +not go to them with tenderest solicitude and strive to make possible +between him and me some relation of bare good fellowship? Did I not curb +my spirit, and it is a proud and impatient one, as you know, to endure, +lest she should see it, his veiled insolence and hostility? Oh! when I +think of what I have borne with from that young man, I marvel at my own +forbearance. I have nothing to reproach myself with, Tallie; nothing; +and if his life is ruined I can say, with my hand on my heart,"—Madame +von Marwitz laid it there—"that he alone is to blame for it. A more +odious, arrogant, ignorant being," she added, "I have never encountered. +Karen is well rid of him."</p> + +<p>Mrs. Talcott remained unmoved. "You don't like him because he don't like +you and that's about all you've got against him, I reckon, if the truth +were known," she said. "You can make yourself see it all like that if +you've a mind to, but you can't make me; I know you too well, Mercedes. +You were mad at him because he didn't admire you like you're used to +being admired, and you went to work pinching and picking here and there, +pretending it was all on Karen's account, but really so as you could get +even with him. You couldn't stand their being happy all off by +themselves without you. Why I can see it all as plain and clear as if +I'd been there right along. Just think of your telling that poor deluded +child that you wanted her to make her husband like you. That was a nice +way, wasn't it, for setting her heart at rest about you and him. If you +didn't like him and saw he didn't like you, why didn't you keep your +mouth shut? That's all you had to do, and keep out of their way all you +could. If you'd been a stupid woman there might have been some excuse +for you, but you ain't a stupid woman, and you know precious well what +you're about all the time. I don't say you intended to blow up the whole +concern like you've done; but you wanted to get even with Mr. Jardine +and show him that Karen cared as much for you as she did for him, and +you didn't mind two straws what happened to Karen while you were doing +it."</p> + +<p>Madame von Marwitz had listened, turning on her back and with her eyes +still on the ceiling, and the calm of her face might have been that of +indifference or meditation. But now, after a moment of receptive +silence, indignation again seemed to seize her. "It's false!" she +exclaimed.</p> + +<p>"No it ain't false, Mercedes, and you know it ain't," said Mrs. Talcott +gloomily.</p> + +<p>"False, and absolutely false!" Madame von Marwitz repeated. "How could I +keep my mouth shut—as you delicately put it—when I saw that Karen saw? +How keep my mouth shut without warping her relation to me? I spoke to +her with lightest, most tender understanding, so that she should know +that my heart was with her while never dreaming of the chasms that I saw +in her happiness. It was he who forced me to an open declaration and he +who forced me to leave; for how was happiness possible for Karen if I +remained with them? No. He hated me, and was devoured by jealousy of +Karen's love for me."</p> + +<p>"I guess if it comes to jealousy you've got enough for two in any +situation. It don't do for you to talk to me about jealousy, Mercedes," +Mrs. Talcott returned, "I've seen too much of you. You can't persuade me +it wasn't your fault, not if you were to talk till the cows come home. I +don't deny but what it was pretty hard for you to see that Mr. Jardine +didn't admire you. I make allowances for that; but my gracious me," said +Mrs. Talcott with melancholy emphasis, "was that any reason for a big +middle-aged woman like you behaving like a spiteful child? Was it any +reason for your setting to work to spoil Karen's life? No, Mercedes, +you've done about as mean a thing as any I've seen you up to and what I +want to know now is what you're going to do about it."</p> + +<p>"Do about it?" Madame von Marwitz wrathfully repeated. "What more can I +do? I open my house and my heart to the child. I take her back. I mend +the life that he has broken. What more do you expect of me?"</p> + +<p>"Don't talk that sort of stage talk to me, Mercedes. What I want you to +do is to make it possible so as he can get her back."</p> + +<p>"He is welcome to get her back if he can. I shall not stand in his way. +It would be a profound relief to me were he to get her back."</p> + +<p>"I can see that well enough. But how'll you help standing in his way? +The only thing you could do to get out of his way would be to help Karen +to be quit of you. Make her see that you're just as bad as he thinks +you. I guess if you told her some things about yourself she'd begin to +see that her husband wasn't so far wrong about you."</p> + +<p>"<i>Par exemple!</i>" said Madame von Marwitz with a short laugh. She raised +herself to give her pillow a blow and turning on her side and +contemplating more directly her ancient monitress she said, "I sometimes +wonder what I keep you here for."</p> + +<p>"I do, too, sometimes," said Mrs. Talcott, "and I make it out that you +need me."</p> + +<p>"I make it out," Madame von Marwitz repeated the phrase with a noble +dignity of manner, "that I am too kind of heart, too aware of what I owe +you in gratitude, to resent, as I have every right to do, the license +you allow yourself in speaking to me."</p> + +<p>"Yes; you'll always get plain speaking from me, Mercedes," Mrs. Talcott +remarked, "just as long as you have anything to do with me."</p> + +<p>"Indeed I shall. I am but too well aware of the fact," said Madame von +Marwitz, "and I only tolerate it because of our life-long tie."</p> + +<p>"You'll go on tolerating it, I guess, Mercedes. You'd feel mighty queer, +I expect, if the one person in the world who knew you through and +through and had stood by you through everything wasn't there to fall +back on."</p> + +<p>"I deny that you know me through and through," Madame von Marwitz +declared, but with a drop from her high manner; sulkily rather than with +conviction. "You have always seen me with the eye of a lizard." Her +simile amused her and she suddenly laughed. "You have somewhat the +vision of a lizard, Tallie. You scrutinize the cracks and the fissures, +but of the mountain itself you are unaware. I have cracks and fissures, +no doubt, like all the rest of our sad humanity; but, <i>bon Dieu!</i>—I am +a mountain, and you, Tallie," she went on, laughing softly, "are a +lizard on the mountain. As for Mr. Jardine, he is a mole. But if you +think that Karen will be happier burrowing underground with him than +here with me, I will do my best. Yes;" she reflected; "I will write to +Mrs. Forrester. She shall see the mole and tell him that when he sends +me an apology I send him Karen. It is a wild thing to leave one's +husband like this. I will make her see it."</p> + +<p>"Now you see here, Mercedes," said Mrs. Talcott, rising and fixing an +acute gaze upon her, "don't you go and make things worse than they are. +Don't you go interfering between Karen and her husband. The first move's +got to come from them. I don't trust you round the corner where your +vanity comes in, and I guess what you've got in your mind now is that +you'd like to make it out to your friends how you've tried to reconcile +Karen and her husband after he's treated you so bad. If you want to tell +Karen that he was right in all the things he believed about you and that +this isn't the first time by a long shot that you've wrecked people with +your jealousy, and that he loves her ten times more than you do, that's +a different thing, and I'll stand by you through it. But I won't have +you meddling any more with those two poor young things, so you may as +well take it in right here."</p> + +<p>Madame von Marwitz's good humour fell away. "And for you, may I ask you +kindly to mind your own business?" she demanded.</p> + +<p>"I'll make this affair of Karen's my business if you ain't real careful, +Mercedes," said Mrs. Talcott, standing solid and thick and black, in the +centre of the room. "Yes, you'd better go slow and sure or you'll find +there are some things I can't put up with. This affair of Karen has made +me feel pretty sick, I can tell you. I've seen you do a sight of mean +things in your life, but I don't know as I've seen you do a meaner. I +guess," Mrs. Talcott continued, turning her eyes on the evening sea +outside, "it would make your friends sit up—all these folks who admire +you so much—if they could know a thing or two you've done."</p> + +<p>"Leave the room," said Madame von Marwitz, now raising herself on her +elbow and pointing to the door. "Leave the room at once. I refuse to lie +here and be threatened and insulted and brow-beaten by you. Out of my +sight."</p> + +<p>Mrs. Talcott looked at the sea for a moment longer, in no provocative +manner, but rather as if she had hardly heard the words addressed to +her; and then she looked at Mercedes, who, still raised on her elbow, +still held her arm very effectively outstretched. This, too, was no +doubt a scene to which she was fully accustomed.</p> + +<p>"All right," she said, "I'm going." She moved towards the door. At the +door she halted, turned and faced Madame von Marwitz again. "But don't +you forget, Mercedes Okraska," she said, "that I'll make it my affair if +you ain't careful."</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XXXIV" id="CHAPTER_XXXIV"></a>CHAPTER XXXIV</h2> + + +<p>Karen, during the two or three days that followed her strange +conversation with Mrs. Talcott, felt that while she pitied and cared for +Mrs. Talcott as she had never yet pitied and cared for her, she was also +afraid of her. Mrs. Talcott had spoken no further word and her eyes +rested on her with no more than their customary steadiness; but Karen +knew that there were many words she could speak. What were they? What +was it that Mrs. Talcott knew? What secrets were they that she carried +about in her lonely, ancient heart?</p> + +<p>Mrs. Talcott loomed before her like a veiled figure of destiny bearing +an urn within which lay the ashes of dead hopes. Mrs. Talcott's eyes +looked at her above the urn. It was always with them. When they gardened +together it was as if Mrs. Talcott set it down on the ground between +them and as if she took it up again with a sigh of fatigue—it was +heavy—when they turned to go. Karen felt herself tremble as she +scrutinized the funereal shape. There was no refuge with Mrs. Talcott. +Mrs. Talcott holding her urn was worse than the lonely fears.</p> + +<p>And, for those two or three days of balmy, melancholy spring, the lonely +fears did not press so closely. They wheeled far away against the blue. +Tante was kinder to her and was more aware of her. She almost seemed a +little ashamed of the scene with the piano. She spoke to Karen of it, +flushing a little, explaining that she had slept badly and that Karen's +rendering of the Bach had made her nervous, emphasizing, too, the rule, +new in its explicitness, that the grand piano was only to be played on +by Karen when it was left open. "You did not understand. But it is well +to understand rules, is it not, my child?" said Madame von Marwitz. "And +this one, I know, you will not transgress again."</p> + +<p>Karen said that she understood. She had something of her rocky manner in +receiving these implicit apologies and commands, yet her guardian could +see an almost sick relief rising in her jaded young eyes.</p> + +<p>Other things were different. Tante seemed now to wish very constantly to +have her there when Mr. Drew was with her. She made much of her to Mr. +Drew. She called his attention to her skill in gardening, to her +directness of speech, to her individuality of taste in dress. These +expositions made Karen uncomfortable, yet they seemed an expression of +Tante's desire to make amends. And Mr. Drew, with his vague, +impenetrable regard, helped her to bear them. It was as if, a clumsy +child, she were continually pushed forward by a fond, tactless mother, +and as if, mildly shaking her hand, the guest before whom she was +displayed showed her, by kind, inattentive eyes, that he was paying very +little attention to her. Mr. Drew put her at her ease and Tante +embarrassed her. She became, even, a little grateful to Mr. Drew. But +now, aware of this strange bond, it was more difficult to talk to him +when they were alone and when, once or twice, he met her in the garden +or house, she made always an excuse to leave him. She and Mr. Drew could +have nothing to say to each other when Tante was not there.</p> + +<p>One evening, returning to Les Solitudes after a walk along the cliffs, +Karen found that tea was over, as she had intended that it should be, +Tante and Mr. Drew not yet come in from their motoring, and Mrs. Talcott +safely busied in the garden. There was not one of them with whom she +could be happily alone, and she was glad to find the morning-room empty. +Mrs. Talcott had left the kettle boiling for her on the tea-table and +the small tea-pot, which they used in their usual <i>tête-à-tête</i>, ready, +and Karen made herself a cup.</p> + +<p>She was tired. She sat down, when she had had her tea, near the window +and looked out over the ranged white flowers growing in their low white +pots on the window-seat, at the pale sea and sky. She sat quietly, her +cheek on one hand, the other in her lap, and from time to time a great +involuntary sigh lifted her breast. It seemed nearer peace than fear, +this mood of immeasurable, pale sorrow. It folded her round like the +twilight falling outside.</p> + +<p>The room was dim when she heard the sound of the returning motor and she +sat on, believing that here she would be undisturbed. Tante rarely came +to the morning-room. But it was Tante who presently appeared, wearing +still her motoring cloak and veil, the nun-like veil bound round her +head. Karen thought, as she rose, and looked at her, that she was like +one of the ghost-like white flowers. And there was no joy for her in +seeing her. She seemed to be part of the sadness.</p> + +<p>She turned and closed the door with some elaboration, and as she came +nearer Karen recognized in her eyes the piteous look of quelled +watchfulness.</p> + +<p>"You are sitting here, alone, my child?" she said, laying her hand, but +for a moment only, on Karen's shoulder. Karen had resumed her seat, and +Tante moved away at once to take up a vase of flowers from the +mantelpiece, smell the flowers, and set it back. "Where is Tallie?"</p> + +<p>"Still in the garden, I think. I worked with her this morning and before +tea. Since tea I have had a walk."</p> + +<p>"Where did you walk?" Madame von Marwitz inquired, moving now over to +the upright piano and bending to examine in the dusk the music that +stood on it. Karen described her route.</p> + +<p>"But it is lonely, very lonely, for you, is it not?" Tante murmured +after a moment's silence. Karen said nothing and she went on, "And it +will be still more lonely if, as I think probable, I must leave you here +before long. I shall be going; perhaps to Italy."</p> + +<p>A sensation of oppression that she could not have analyzed passed over +Karen. Why was Tante going to Italy? Why must she leave Les Solitudes? +Her mind could not rest on the supposition that her own presence drove +Tante forth, that the broken <i>tête-à-tête</i> was to be resumed under less +disturbing circumstances. She could not ask Tante if Mr. Drew was to be +in Italy; yet this was the question that pressed on her heart.</p> + +<p>"Oh, but I am very used to Les Solitudes," she said.</p> + +<p>"Used to it. Yes. Too used to it," said Madame von Marwitz, seating +herself now near Karen, her eyes still moving about the room. "But it is +not right, it is not fitting, that you should spend your youth here. +That was not the destiny I had hoped for you. I came here to find you, +Karen, so that I might talk to you." Her fingers slightly tapped her +chair-arm. "We must talk. We must see what is to be done."</p> + +<p>"Do you mean about me, Tante?" Karen asked after a moment. The look of +the ghostly room and of the white, enfolded figure seated before her +with its restless eyes seemed part of the chill that Tante's words +brought.</p> + +<p>"About you. Yes. About who else, <i>parbleu</i>!" said Madame von Marwitz +with a slight laugh, her eyes shifting about the room; and with a change +of tone she added: "I have it on my heart—your situation—day and +night. Something must be done and I am prepared to do it."</p> + +<p>"To do what?" asked Karen. Her voice, too, had changed, but not, as +Madame von Marwitz's, to a greater sweetness.</p> + +<p>"Well, to save it—the situation; to help you." Madame von Marwitz's ear +was quick to catch the change. "And I have come, my Karen, to consult +with you. It is a matter, many would say, for my pride to consider; but +I will not count my pride. Your happiness, your dignity, your future are +the things that weigh with me. I am prostrated, made ill, by the +miserable affair; you see it, you see that I am not myself. I cannot +sleep. It haunts me—you and your broken life. And what I have to +propose," Tante looked down at her tapping fingers while she spoke, "is +that I offer myself as intermediary. Your husband will not take the +first step forward. So be it. I will take it. I will write to Mrs. +Forrester. I will tell her that if your husband will but offer me the +formal word of apology I will myself induce you to return to him. What +do you say, my Karen? Oh, to me, as you know, the forms are indifferent; +it is of you and your dignity that I think. I know you; without that +apology from him to me you could not contemplate a reconciliation. But +he has now had his lesson, your young man, and when he knows that, +through me, you would hold out the olive-branch, he will, I predict, +spring to grasp it. After all, he is in love with you and has had time +to find it out; and even if he were not, his mere man's pride must +writhe to see himself abandoned. And you, too, have had your lesson, my +poor Karen, and have seen that romance is a treacherous sand to build +one's life upon. Dignity, fitness, one's rightful place in life have +their claims. You are one, as I told you, to work out your destiny in +the world, not in the wilderness. What do you say, Karen? I would not +write without consulting you. <i>Hein!</i> What is it?"</p> + +<p>Karen had risen, and Madame von Marwitz's eyelashes fluttered a little +in looking up at her.</p> + +<p>"I will never forgive you, I will never forgive you," said Karen in a +harsh voice, "if you speak of this again."</p> + +<p>"What is this that you say to me, Karen?" Madame von Marwitz, too, rose.</p> + +<p>"Never speak to me of this again," said Karen.</p> + +<p>In the darkening room they looked at each other as they had never in all +their lives looked before. They were equals in maturity of demand.</p> + +<p>For a strange moment sheer fury struggled with subtler emotions in +Madame von Marwitz's face, and then self-pity, overpowering, engulfing +all else. "And is this the return you make me for my love?" she cried. +Her voice broke in desperate sobs and long-pent misery found relief. She +sank into her chair.</p> + +<p>"I asked for no reconciliation," said Karen. "I left him and we knew +that we were parting forever. There is no love between us. Have you no +understanding at all, and no thought of my pride?"</p> + +<p>It was woman addressing woman. The child Karen was gone.</p> + +<p>"Your pride?" Madame von Marwitz repeated in her sobs. "And what of +mine? Was it not for you, stony-hearted girl? Is it not your happiness I +seek? If I have been mistaken in my hopes for you, is that a reason for +turning upon me like a serpent!"</p> + +<p>Karen had walked to the long window that opened to the verandah and +looked out, pressing her forehead to the pane. "You must forgive me if I +was unkind. What you said burned me."</p> + +<p>"Ah, it is well for you to speak of burnings!" Madame von Marwitz +sobbed, aware that Karen's wrath was quelled. "I am scorched by all of +you! by all of you!" she repeated incoherently. "All the burdens fall +upon me and, in reward, I am spurned and spat upon by those I seek to +serve!"</p> + +<p>"I am sorry, Tante. It was what you said. That you should think it +possible."</p> + +<p>"Sorry! Sorry! It is easy to say that you are sorry when you have rolled +me in the dust of your insults and your ingratitude!" Yet the sobs were +quieter.</p> + +<p>"Let us say, then, that it has been misunderstanding," said Karen. She +still stood in the window, but as she spoke the words she drew back +suddenly. She had found herself looking into Mr. Drew's eyes. His face, +gazing in oddly upon her, was at the other side of the pane, and, in the +apparition, its suddenness, its pallor, rising from the dusk, there was +something almost horrible.</p> + +<p>"Who is that?" came Tante's voice, as Karen drew away. She had turned in +her chair.</p> + +<p>It seemed to Karen, then, that the room was filled with the whirring +wings of wild emotions, caught and crushed together. Tante had sprung up +and came with long, swift strides to the window. She, too, pressed her +face against the pane. "Ah! It is Claude," she said, in a hushed strange +voice, "and he did not see that I was here. What does he mean by looking +in like that?" she spoke now angrily, drying her eyes as she spoke. She +threw open the window. "Claude. Come here."</p> + +<p>Mr. Drew, whose face seemed to have sunk, like a drowned face, back into +dark water, returned to the threshold and paused, arrested by his +friend's wretched aspect. "Come in. Enter," said Madame von Marwitz, +with a withering stateliness of utterance. "You have the manner of a +spy. Did you think that Karen and I were quarrelling?"</p> + +<p>"I couldn't think that," said Mr. Drew, stepping into the room, "for I +didn't see that you were here."</p> + +<p>"We have had a misunderstanding," said Madame von Marwitz. "No more. And +now we understand again. Is it not so, my Karen? You are going?"</p> + +<p>"I think I will go to my room," said Karen, who looked at neither Madame +von Marwitz nor Mr. Drew. "You will not mind if I do not come to dinner +to-night."</p> + +<p>"Certainly not. No. Do as you please. You are tired. I see it. And I, +too, am tired." She followed Karen to the door, murmuring: "<i>Sans +rancune, n'est-ce-pas?</i>"</p> + +<p>"Yes, Tante."</p> + +<p>As the door closed upon Karen, Madame von Marwitz turned to Mr. Drew.</p> + +<p>"If you wish to see her, why not seek her openly? Who makes it difficult +for you to approach her?" Her voice had the sharpness of splintering +ice.</p> + +<p>"Why, no one, <i>ma chére</i>," said Mr. Drew. "I wasn't seeking her."</p> + +<p>"No? And what did it mean, then, your face pressed close to hers, there +at the window?"</p> + +<p>"It meant that I couldn't see who it was who stood there. Just as I can +hardly now see more than that you are unhappy. What is the matter, my +dear and beautiful friend?" His voice was solicitous.</p> + +<p>Madame von Marwitz dropped again into her chair and leaning forward, her +hands hanging clasped between her knees, she again wept. "The matter is +the old one," she sobbed. "Ingratitude! Ingratitude on every hand! My +crime now has been that I have sought—at the sacrifice of my own +pride—to bring a reconciliation between that stubborn child and her +husband, and for my reward she overwhelms me with abuse!"</p> + +<p>"Tell me about it," said Mr. Drew, seating himself beside her and, +unreproved, taking her hand.</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XXXV" id="CHAPTER_XXXV"></a>CHAPTER XXXV</h2> + + +<p>Karen did not go to her room. She was afraid that Mrs. Talcott would +come to her there. She asked the cook for a few sandwiches and going to +one of the lower terraces she found a seat there and sat down. She felt +ill. Her mind was sore and vague. She sat leaning her head on her hand, +as she had sat in the morning-room, her eyes closed, and did not try to +think.</p> + +<p>She had escaped something—mercifully. Yes, the supreme humiliation that +Tante had prepared for her was frustrated. And she had been strangely +hard and harsh to Tante and in return Tante had been piteous yet +unmoving. Her heart was dulled towards Tante. She felt that she saw her +from a great distance.</p> + +<p>The moon had risen and was shining brightly when she at last got up and +climbed the winding paths up to the house.</p> + +<p>A definite thought, after the hours that she had sat there, had at last +risen through the dull waters of her mind. Why should Tante go away? Why +should not she herself go? There need be no affront to Tante, no +alienation. But, for a time, at least, would it not be well to prove to +Tante that she could be something more than a problem and a burden? +Could she not go to the Lippheims in Germany and teach English and +French and Italian there—she knew them all—and make a little money, +and, when Tante wanted her again to come to Les Solitudes, come as an +independent person?</p> + +<p>It was a curious thought. It contradicted the assumptions upon which her +life was founded; for was she not Tante's child and Tante's home her +home? So curious it was that she contemplated it like an intricate +weapon laid in her hand, its oddity concealing its significance.</p> + +<p>She turned the weapon over. She might be Tante's child and Tante's home +might be hers; yet a child could gain its own bread, could it not? What +was there to pierce and shatter in the thought that it would be well for +her to gain her bread? "Tante has worked for me too long," she said to +herself. She was not pierced or shattered. Something very strange was in +her hand, but she was only reasonable.</p> + +<p>She had stood still, in the midst of her swift climbing towards the +house, to think it all out clearly, and it was as she stood there that +she saw the light of a cigarette approaching her. It was Mr. Drew and he +had seen her. Karen was aware of a deep stirring of displeasure and +weariness. "But, please," he said, as, slightly bowing her head, and +murmuring, "Good-night," she passed him; "I want—I very particularly +want—to see you." He turned to walk beside her, tossing away his +cigarette. "There is something I particularly want to say."</p> + +<p>His tone was grave and kind and urgent. It reproached her impatient +impulse. He might have come with a message from Tante.</p> + +<p>"Where is my guardian?" she asked.</p> + +<p>"She has gone to bed. She has a horrible headache, poor thing," said Mr. +Drew, who was leading her through the little copse of trees and along +the upper paths. "Here, shall we sit down here? You are not cold?"</p> + +<p>They were in the flagged garden. Karen, vaguely expectant, sat down on +the rustic bench and Mr. Drew sat beside her. The moonlight shone +through the trees and fell fantastically on the young man's face and +figure and on Karen, sitting upright, her little shawl of white knitted +wool drawn closely about her shoulders and enfolding her arms. "Not for +long, please," she said. "It is growing late and although I am not cold +I am tired. What have you to say, Mr. Drew?"</p> + +<p>He had so much to say and it was, so obviously, his opportunity, his +complete opportunity at last, that, before the exquisite and perilous +task of awakening this creature of flowers and glaciers, Mr. Drew +collected his resources with something of the skill and composure of an +artist preparing canvas and palette. He must begin delicately and +discreetly, and then he must be sudden and decisive.</p> + +<p>"I want to make you feel, in the first place, if I can," he said, +leaning forward to look into her face and observing with satisfaction +that she made no movement of withdrawal as he came a little nearer in so +doing, "that I'm your friend. Can I, do you think, succeed in making you +feel that?" His experience had told him that it really didn't matter so +much what one said. To come near was the point, and to look deeply. +"I've had so few chances of showing you how much your friend I am."</p> + +<p>"Thank you," said Karen. "You are kind." She did not say that he would +succeed in making her feel him a friend.</p> + +<p>"We have been talking about you, talking a great deal, since you left +us, your guardian and I," Mr. Drew continued, and he looked at the one +of Karen's hands that was visible, emerging from the shawl to clasp her +elbow, the left hand with its wedding-ring, "and ludicrous as it may +seem to you, I can't but feel that I understand you a great deal better +than she does. She still thinks of you as a child—a child whose little +problems can be solved by facile solutions. Forgive me, I know it may +sound fatuous to you, but I see what she does not see, that you are a +suffering woman, and that for some problems there are no solutions." His +eyes now came back to hers and found them fixed on him with a wide +astonished gaze.</p> + +<p>"Has my guardian asked you to say anything to me?" she said.</p> + +<p>"No, not exactly that," said Mr. Drew, a little disconcerted by her tone +and look, while at the same time he was marvelling at the greater and +greater beauty he found in the impassive moonlit face—how had he been +so unconscionably stupid as not to see for so long how beautiful she +was!—"No, she certainly hasn't asked me to say anything to you. She is +going away, you know, to Italy; it's a sudden decision and she's been +telling me about it. I can't go with her. I don't think it a good plan. +I can stay on here, but I can't go to Italy. Perhaps she'll give it up. +She didn't find me altogether sympathetic and I'm afraid we've had +something of a disagreement. I am sure you've seen since you've been +here that if your guardian doesn't understand you she doesn't understand +me, either."</p> + +<p>"But I cannot speak of my guardian to you," said Karen. She had kept her +eyes steadily upon him waiting to hear what he might have to say, but +now the thought of Tante in her rejected queenliness broke insufferably +upon her making her sick with pity. This man did not love Tante. She +rose as she spoke.</p> + +<p>"Do not speak of her to me," she said.</p> + +<p>"But we will not speak of her. I do not wish to speak of her," said Mr. +Drew, also rising, a stress of excitement and anxiety making itself felt +in his soft, sibilant, hurried tones; "I understand every exquisite +loyalty that hedges your path. And I'm hedged, too; you see that. Wait, +wait—please listen. We won't speak of her. What I want to speak of is +you. I want to ask you to make use of me. I want to ask you to trust me. +You love her, but how can you depend on her? She is a child, an +undisciplined, capricious child, and she is displeased with you, +seriously displeased. Who is there in the world you can depend on? You +are unutterably alone. And I ask you to turn to me."</p> + +<p>Her frosty scrutiny disconcerted him. He had not touched her in the +least.</p> + +<p>"These are things you cannot say to me," she said. "There is nothing +that you can do for me. I only know you as my guardian's friend; you +forgot that, I think, when you brought me here." She turned from him.</p> + +<p>"Oh, but you do not understand! I have made you angry! Oh, please, Mrs. +Jardine;" his voice rose to sharp distress. He caught her hand with a +supplicating yet determined grasp. "You can't understand. You are so +inconceivably unaware. It is because of you; all because of you. Haven't +you really seen or understood? She can't forgive you because I love you. +I love you, you adorable child. I have only stayed on and borne with her +because of you!"</p> + +<p>His passion flamed before her frozen face. And as, for a transfixed +moment of stupor, she stood still, held by him, he read into her +stillness the pause of the woman to whom the apple of the tree of life +is proffered, amazed, afraid, yet thrilled through all her being, +tempted by the very suddenness, incapable of swift repudiation. He threw +his arms around her, taking, in a draught of delight, the impression of +silvery, glacial loveliness that sent dancing stars of metaphor +streaming in his head, and pressed his lips to her cheek.</p> + +<p>It was but one moment of attainment. The thrust that drove him from her +was that, indeed, of the strong young goddess, implacable and outraged. +Yet even as he read his deep miscalculation in her aspect he felt that +the moment had been worth it. Not many men, not even many poets, could +say that they had held, in such a scene, on such a night, an unwilling +goddess to their breast.</p> + +<p>She did not speak. Her eyes did not pause to wither. They passed over +him. He had an image of the goddess wheeling to mount some chariot of +the sky as, with no indignity of haste, she turned from him. She turned. +And in the path, in the entrance to the flagged garden, Tante stood +confronting them.</p> + +<p>She stood before them in the moonlight with a majesty at once +magnificent and ludicrous. She had come swiftly, borne on the wings of a +devouring suspicion, and she maintained for a long moment her Medusa +stare of horror. Then, it was the ugliest thing that Karen had ever +seen, the mask broke. Hatred, fury, malice, blind, atavistic passions +distorted her face. It was to fall from one nightmare to another and a +worse; for Tante seized her by the shoulders and shook and shook and +shook her, till the blood sprang and rang in her ears and eyeballs, and +her teeth chattered together, and her hair, loosened by the great jerks, +fell down upon her shoulders and about her face. And while she shook +her, Tante snarled—seeming to crush the words between her grinding +teeth, "Ah! <i>perfide! perfide! perfide!</i>"</p> + +<p>From behind, other hands grasped Karen's shoulders. Mr. Drew grappled +with Tante for possession of her.</p> + +<p>"Leave me—with my guardian," she gathered her broken breath to say. She +repeated it and Mr. Drew, invisible to her, replied, "I can't. She'll +tear you to pieces."</p> + +<p>"Ah! You have still to hear from me—vile seducer!" Madame von Marwitz +cried, addressing the young man over Karen's shoulder. "Do you dare +dispute my right to save her from you—foul serpent! Leave us! Does she +not tell you to leave us?"</p> + +<p>"I'll see her safely out of your hands before I leave her," said Mr. +Drew. "How dare you speak of perfidy when you saw her repulse me? You'd +have found it easier to forgive, no doubt, if she hadn't."</p> + +<p>These insolent words, hurled at it, convulsed the livid face that +fronted Karen. And suddenly, holding Karen's shoulders and leaning +forward, Madame von Marwitz broke into tears, horrible tears—in all her +life Karen had never pitied her as she pitied her then—sobbing with +raking breaths: "No, no; it is too much. Have I not loved him with a +saintly love, seeking to uplift what would draw me down? Has he not +loved me? Has he not sought to be my lover? And he can spit upon me in +the dust!" She raised her head. "Did you believe me blind, infatuated? +Did you think by your tricks and pretences to evade me? Did I not see, +from the moment that she came, that your false heart had turned from +me?" Her eyes came back to Karen's face and fury again seized her. "And +as for you, ungrateful girl—perfidious, yes, and insolent one—you +deserve to be denounced to the world. Oh, we understand those retreats. +What more alluring to the man who pursues than the woman who flees? What +more inflaming than the pose of white, idiotic innocence? You did not +know. You did not understand—" fiercely, in a mincing voice, she +mimicked a supposed exculpation. "You are so young, so ignorant of +life—so <i>immer kindlich</i>! Ah!" she laughed, half strangled, "until the +man seizes you in his arms you are quite unaware—but quite, quite +unaware—of what he seeks from you. Little fool! And more than fool. +Have I not seen your wiles? From day to day have I not watched you? Now +it is the piano. You must play him your favourite little piece; so +small; you have so little talent; but you will do your best. Now the +chance meeting in the garden; you are so fond of flowers; you so love +the open air, the sea, the wandering on the cliffs; such a free, wild +creature you are. And now we have the frustrated <i>rendezvous</i> of this +evening; he should find you dreaming, among your flowers, in the dusk. +The pretty picture. And no, you want no dinner; you will go to your own +room. But you are not to be found in your own room. Oh, no; it is again +the garden; the moon; the sea and solitude that you seek! Be silent!" +this was almost shouted at Claude Drew, who broke in with savage +denials. "Do you think still to impose on me—you traitor?—No," her +eyes burned on Karen's face. "No; you are wiser. You do not speak. You +know that the time for insolence has passed. What! You take refuge with +me here. You fly from your husband and throw yourself on my hands and +say to me,"—again she assumed the mincing tones—"Yes, here I am again. +Continue, pray, to work for me; continue, pray, to clothe and feed and +lodge me; continue to share your life with me and all of rich and wide +and brilliant it can offer; continue, in a word, to hold me high—but +very high—above the gutter from which I came—and I take you, I receive +you in my arms, I shelter you from malicious tongues, I humble myself in +seeking to mend your shattered life; and for my reward you steal from me +the heart of the one creature in the world I loved—the one—the only +one! Until you came he was mine. Until you came he yearned for me—only +for me. Oh, my heart is broken! broken! broken!" She leaned forward, +wildly sobbing, and raising herself she shook the girl with all her +force, crying: "Out of my sight! Be off! Let me see no more of you!" +Covering her face with her hands, she reeled back, and Karen fled down +the path, hearing a clamour of sobs and outcries behind her.</p> + +<p>She fled along the cliff-path and an incomparable horror was in her +soul. Her life had been struck from her. It seemed a ghost that ran, +watched by the moon, among the trees.</p> + +<p>On the open cliff-path it was very light. The sky was without a cloud. +The sea lay like a vast cloth of silk, diapered in silver.</p> + +<p>Karen ran to where the path led to a rocky verge.</p> + +<p>From here, in daylight, one looked down into a vast hollow in the coast +and saw at the bottom, far beneath, a stony beach, always sad, and set +with rocks. To-night the enormous cup was brimmed with blackness.</p> + +<p>Karen, pausing and leaning forward, resting on her hands, stared across +the appalling gulf of inky dark, and down into the nothingness.</p> + +<p>Horror had driven her to the spot, and horror, like a presence, rose +from the void, and beckoned her down to oblivion. Why not? Why not? The +question of despair seemed, like a vast pendulum, to swing her to and +fro between the sky and the blackness, so that, blind and deaf and dumb, +she felt only the horror, and her own pulse of life suspended over +annihilation. And while her fingers clutched tightly at the rock, the +thought of Gregory's face, as it had loved her, dimly, like a far +beacon, flashed before her. Their love was dead. He did not love her. +But they had loved. She moved back, trembling. She did not want to die. +She lay down with her face to the ground on the grassy cliff.</p> + +<p>When she raised herself it was as if after a long slumber. She was +immensely weary, with leaden limbs. Horror was spent; but a dull +oppression urged her up and on. There was something that she must never +see again; something that would open before her again the black abyss of +nothingness; something like the moon, that once had lived, but was now a +ghost, white, ghastly, glittering. She must go. At once. And, as if far +away, a tiny picture rose before her of some little German town, where +she might earn a living and be hidden and forgotten.</p> + +<p>But first she must see Mrs. Talcott. She must say good-bye to Mrs. +Talcott. There was nothing now that Mrs. Talcott could show her.</p> + +<p>She went back softly and carefully, pausing to listen, pushing through +unused, overgrown paths and among thickets of gorse and stunted Cornish +elms. In the garden all was still; the dreadful clamour had ceased. By +the back way she stole up to her room.</p> + +<p>A form rose to meet her as she opened the door. Mrs. Talcott had been +waiting for her. Taking her hand, Mrs. Talcott drew her in and closed +the door.</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XXXVI" id="CHAPTER_XXXVI"></a>CHAPTER XXXVI</h2> + + +<p>Mrs. Talcott sat down on the bed and Karen knelt before her with her +head in her lap. The old woman's passed quietly over her hair while she +wept, and the homely gentleness, like the simplicity of milk to famished +lips, flowed into her horror-haunted mind.</p> + +<p>She tried to tell Mrs. Talcott what had happened. "She does not love me, +Mrs. Talcott. She has turned me out. Tante has told me to go."</p> + +<p>"I've seen her," said Mrs. Talcott, stroking on. "I was just going out +to look for you if you didn't come in. Did she tear your hair down like +this? It's all undone."</p> + +<p>"It was when she shook me, Mrs. Talcott. She found me with Mr. Drew. He +had kissed me. I could not help it. She knew that I could not help it. +She knows that I am not a bad woman."</p> + +<p>"You mustn't take Mercedes at her word when she's in a state like that, +Karen. She's in an awful state. She's parted from that young man."</p> + +<p>"And I am going, Mrs. Talcott."</p> + +<p>"Well, I've wanted you to go, from the first. Now you've found her out, +this ain't any place for you. You can't go hanging on for all your life, +like I've done."</p> + +<p>"But Mrs. Talcott—what does it mean? What have I found out? What is +Tante?" Karen sobbed. "For all these years so beautiful—so +beautiful—to me, and suddenly to become my enemy—someone I do not +know."</p> + +<p>"You never got in her way before. She's got no mercy, Mercedes hasn't, +if you get in her way. Where'd you thought of going, Karen?"</p> + +<p>"To Frau Lippheim. She is still in London, I think. I could join her +there. You could lend me a little money, Mrs. Talcott. Enough to take me +to London."</p> + +<p>Mrs. Talcott was silent for a moment. "Come up here, on the bed, Karen," +she then said. "Here, wrap this cloak around you; you're awful cold. +That's right. Now I want you to sit quiet while I explain things to you +the best I can. I've made up my mind to do it. Mercedes will be in her +right mind to-morrow and frantic to get hold of you again and get you to +forgive her. Oh, I know her. And I don't want her to get hold of you +again. I want you to be quit of her. I want you to see, as clear as day, +how your husband was right about Mercedes, all along."</p> + +<p>"Oh, do not speak of him—" Karen moaned, covering her face as she sat on +the bed beside Mrs. Talcott.</p> + +<p>"I ain't going to speak about him. I'm going to tell you about me and +Mercedes," said Mrs. Talcott. "I'm going to explain Mercedes. And I'm +going way back to the very beginning to do it."</p> + +<p>"Explain it to me. What is she? Has it all been false—all her +loveliness?"</p> + +<p>"I don't know about false," said Mrs. Talcott. "Mercedes ain't all bad; +not by a long shot. She feels good sometimes, like most folks, when it +ain't too much trouble. You know how it began, Karen. You know how I'm a +sort of connection of Mercedes's mother and I've told you about Dolores. +The prettiest creature you ever set eyes on. Mercedes looks like her; +only it was a softer face than Mercedes's with great, big black eyes. I +can see her now, walking round the galleries of that lovely house in New +Orleans with a big white camellia in her black hair and a white muslin +dress, standing out round her—like they wore then; singing—singing—so +young and happy—it almost breaks my heart to think about her. I've told +you about Mercedes's father, too, Pavelek Okraski, and how he came out +to New Orleans and gave lessons to Dolores Bastida and made love to her +on the sly and got her to run away with him—poor silly thing. When I +think it all over I seem to piece things out and see how Mercedes came +to be what she is. Her mother was just as sweet and loving as she could +be, but scatter-brained and hot-tempered. And Pavelek was a mighty mean +man and a mighty bad man, too, a queer, tricky, sly sort of man; but +geniusy, with very attractive manners. Mercedes has got his eyes and his +way of laughing; she shows her teeth just like he used to do when he +laughed. Well, he took Dolores off to Poland and spent all her money as +fast as he could get it, and then Señor Bastida and the two boys—nice, +hot-tempered boys they were and perfect pictures—all got killed in a +vendetta they had with another family in Louisiana, and poor Señora +Bastida got sick and died and all the family fortunes went to pieces and +there was no more home and no more money either, for Dolores. She just +lost everything straight off.</p> + +<p>"She sent for me then. Her baby was coming and Pavelek had gone off and +she didn't know where he was and she was about distracted. I'd been +married before she ran away with Pavelek, but Homer only lived four +years and I was a widow then. I had folks left still in Maine; but no +one very near and there wasn't anybody I seemed to take to so much as I +always had to Dolores. You may say she had a sort of fascination for me. +So I sold out what I had and came. My, what a queer journey that was. I +don't know how I got to Cracow. I only spoke English and travelling +wasn't what it is nowadays. But I got there somehow and found that poor +child. She was the wretchedest creature you ever set eyes on; thin as +thin; and all haggard and wild. Pavelek neglected her and ran after +other women and drank, and when he got drunk and she used to fly out at +him—for she was as hot-tempered as she could be—he used to beat her. +Yes; that man used to beat Dolores." A note of profound and enduring +anger was in Mrs. Talcott's voice.</p> + +<p>"He came back after I got there. I guess he thought I'd brought some +money, and he came in drunk one day and tried to hit her before me. He +didn't ever try it again after that. I just got up and struck him with +all my might and main right in the face and he fell down and hurt his +head pretty bad and Dolores began to shriek and said I'd killed her +husband; but he didn't try it again. He was sort of scared of me, I +guess. No: I ain't forgiven Pavelek Okraski yet and I reckon I never +shall. I don't seem to want to forgive him, neither in this world nor +the next—if there is a next," Mrs. Talcott commented.</p> + +<p>"Well, the time for the baby came and on the day Mercedes was born the +Austrians bombarded Cracow; it was in '48. I took Dolores down to the +cellar and all day long we heard the shells bursting, and the people +screeching. And that was the time Mercedes came into the world. Dolores +most died, but she got through. But afterwards I couldn't get proper +care for her, or food either. She just pined off and died five months +after the baby came. Pavelek most went off his head. He was always fond +of her in his own mean way, and I guess he suffered considerable when +she died. He went off, saying he'd send some money for me and the baby, +but precious little of it did I ever see. I made some by sewing and +giving lessons in English—I reckon some of those young Poles got queer +ways of speaking from me, I was never what you'd call a polished +speaker—and I scraped on. Time and time again we were near starving. +My! that little garret room, and that big church—Panna Marya they +called it—where I'd go and sit with the baby when the services were on +to see if I could keep warm in the crowd! And the big fire in '50, when +I carried the baby out in a field with lots of other people and slept +out. It lasted for ten days that fire.</p> + +<p>"It seems like a dream sometimes, all that time," Mrs. Talcott mused, +and the distant sorrow of her voice was like the blowing of a winter +wind. "It seems like a dream to think I got through with the child +alive, and that my sweet, pretty little Dolores went under. There's some +things that don't bear thinking about. Well, I kept that baby warm and I +kept it fat, and it got to be the prettiest, proudest thing you ever set +eyes on. She might have been a queen from the very beginning. And as for +Pavelek, she just ruled him from the time she began to have any sense. +It was mighty queer to see that man, who had behaved so bad to her +mother, cringing before that child. He doted on her, and she didn't care +a button for him. It used to make me feel almost sorry for Pavelek, +sometimes. She'd look at him, when he tried to please her and amuse her, +like he was a performing dog. It kept Pavelek in order, I can tell you, +and made things easier for me. She'd just say she wanted things and if +she didn't get them straight off she'd go into a black rage, and he'd be +scared out of his life and go and work and get 'em for her. And then she +began to show she was a prodigy. Pavelek taught her the violin first and +then the piano and when he realized she was a genius he most went off +his head with pride. Why that man—the selfishest, laziest creature by +nature—worked himself to skin and bone so that she should have the best +lessons and everything she needed. We both held our noses to the +grindstone just as tight as ever we could, and Mercedes was brought up +pretty well, I think, considering.</p> + +<p>"She gave that first concert in Warsaw—we'd moved to Warsaw—and then +Pavelek seemed to go to pieces. He just drank himself to death. Well, +after that, rich relations of Mercedes's turned up—cousins of the +Bastidas', who lived in Paris. They hadn't lifted a finger to help +Dolores, or me with the baby after Dolores died; but they remembered +about us now Mercedes was famous and made us come to live with them in +Paris and said they had first claim on Mercedes. I didn't take to the +Bastidas. But I stayed on because of Mercedes. I got to be a sort of +nurse for her, you may say. Well, as she got older, and prettier and +prettier, and everyone just crazy about her, I saw she didn't have much +use for me. I didn't judge her too hard; but I began to see through her +then. She'd behaved mighty bad to me again and again, she used to fly at +me and bite me and tear my hair, when she was a child, if I thwarted +her; but I always believed she really loved me; perhaps she did, as much +as she can. But after these rich folks turned up and her life got so +bright and easy she just seemed to forget all about me. So I went home.</p> + +<p>"I stayed home for four or five years and then Mercedes sent for me. She +used to write now and then to her 'Dearest Tallie' as she always called +me, and I'd heard all about how she'd come out in Paris and Vienna as a +great pianist, and how she'd quarrelled with her relations and how she'd +run away with a young English painter and got married to him. It was an +awful silly match, and they'd all opposed it; but it pleased me somehow. +I thought it showed that Mercedes was soft-hearted like her mother, and +unworldly. Well, she wrote that she was miserable and that her husband +was a fiend and broke her heart and that she hated all her relations and +they'd all behaved like serpents to her—Mercedes is always running +across serpents—and how I was the only true friend she had and the only +one who understood her, and how she longed for her dear Tallie. So I +sold out again—I'd just started a sort of little farm near the old +place in Maine, raising chickens and making jam—and came over again. I +don't know what it is about Mercedes, but she gets a hold over you. And +guess I always felt like she was my own baby. I had a baby, but it died +when it was born. Well, she was living in Paris then and they had a fine +flat and a big studio, and when Mercedes got into a passion with her +husband she'd take a knife and slash up his canvases. She quarrelled +with him day and night, and I wasn't long with them before I saw that it +was all her fault and that he was a weak, harmless sort of young +creature—he had yellow hair, longish, and used to wear a black velvet +cap and paint sort of dismal pictures of girls with long necks and wild +sort of eyes—but that the truth was she was sick of him and wanted to +marry the Baron von Marwitz.</p> + +<p>"You can commence to get hold of the story now, Karen. You remember the +Baron. A sad, stately man he was, as cultured and intellectual as could +be and going in the best society. Mercedes had found pretty quick that +there wasn't much fun in being married to a yellow-haired boy who lived +on the money she made and wasn't a mite in society. And the Baron was +just crazy over her in his dignified, reverential way. Poor fellow!" +said Mrs. Talcott pausing in a retrospect over this vanished figure, +"Poor fellow! I guess he came to rue the day he ever set eyes on her. +Well, Mercedes made out to him how terrible her life was and how she was +tied to a dissipated, worthless man who lived on her and was unfaithful +to her. And it's true that Baldwin Tanner behaved as he shouldn't; but +he was a weak creature and she'd disillusionized him so and made him so +miserable that he just got reckless. And he'd never asked any more than +to live in a garret with her and adore her, and paint his lanky people +and eat bread and cheese; he told me so, poor boy; he just used to lay +his head down on my lap and cry like a baby sometimes. But Mercedes made +it out that she was a victim and he was a serpent; and she believed it, +too; that's the power of her; she's just determined to be in the right +always. So at last she made it all out. She couldn't divorce Baldwin, +being a Catholic; but she made it out that she wasn't really married to +him. It appears he didn't get baptized by his folks; they hadn't +believed in baptizing; they were free-thinkers. And the Baron got his +powerful friends to help and they all set to work at the Pope, and they +got him to fix it up, and Mercedes's marriage was annulled and she was +free to marry again. That's what was in her mind in sending for me, you +see; she'd quarrelled with her folks and she wanted a steady respectable +person who knew all about her to stand by her and chaperon her while she +was getting rid of Baldwin. Mercedes has always been pretty careful +about her reputation; she's hardly ever taken any risks.</p> + +<p>"Well, she was free and she married the Baron, and poor Baldwin got a +nice young English girl to marry him, and she reformed him, and they're +alive and happy to this day, and I guess he paints pretty poor pictures. +And it makes Mercedes awful mad to hear about how happy they are; she +has a sort of idea, I imagine, that Baldwin didn't have any right to get +married again. I've always had a good deal of satisfaction over +Baldwin," said Mrs. Talcott. "It's queer to realize that Mercedes was +once just plain Mrs. Baldwin Tanner, ain't it? It was a silly match and +no mistake. Well, it took two or three years to work it all out, and +Mercedes was twenty-five when she married the Baron. I didn't see much +of them for a while. They put me around in their houses to look after +things and be there when Mercedes wanted me. She'd found out she +couldn't get along without me in those two or three years. Mercedes was +the most beautiful creature alive at that time, I do believe, and all +Europe was wild about her. She and the Baron went about and she gave +concerts, and it was just a triumphal tour. But after a spell I began to +see that things weren't going smooth. Mercedes is the sort of person +who's never satisfied with what she's got. And the Baron was beginning +to find her out. My! I used to be sorry for that man. I'll never forget +his white, sick face the first time she flew out at him and made one of +her scenes. '<i>Emprisonné ma jeunesse</i>,'" Mrs. Talcott quoted with a +heavy accent. "That's what she said he'd done to her. He was twenty +years older than Mercedes, the Baron. Mercedes always liked to have men +who were in love with her hanging about, and that's what the trouble was +over. The more they cared the worse she treated them, and the Baron was +a very dignified man and didn't like having them around. And she was +dreadful jealous of him, too, and used to fly out at him if he so much +as looked at another woman; in her way I guess he was the person +Mercedes cared for most in all her life; she respected him, too, and she +knew he was as clever as she was and more so, and as for him, in spite +of everything, he always stayed in love with her. They used to have +reconciliations, and when he'd look at her sort of scornful and loving +and sad all together, it would make her go all to pieces. She'd throw +herself in his arms and cry and cry. No, she ain't all bad, Mercedes. +And she thought she could make things all right with him after she'd let +herself go; she depended on his caring for her so much and being sorry +for her. But I saw well enough as the years went on that he got more and +more depressed. He was a depressed man by nature, I reckon, and he read +a sight of philosophy of the gloomy kind—that writer Schopenhauer was a +favourite of his, I recollect, and Mercedes thought a sight of him, +too—and after ten years or so of Mercedes I expect the Baron was pretty +sick of life.</p> + +<p>"Well, you came. You thought it was Mercedes who was so good to you, and +it was in a way. But it was poor Ernst who really cared. He took to you +the moment he set eyes on you, and he'd liked your father. And he wanted +to have you to live with them and be their adopted daughter and inherit +their money when they died. It had always been a grief to him that +Mercedes wouldn't have any children. She just had a horror of having +children, and he had to give up any hope of it. Well, the moment +Mercedes realized how he cared for you she got jealous and they had a +scene over you right off, in that hotel at Fontainebleau. She took on +like her heart would break and put it that she couldn't bear to have any +one with them for good, she loved him so. It was true in a way. I didn't +count of course. He looked at her, sick and scornful and loving, and he +gave way. That was why you were put to school. She tried to make up by +being awful nice to you when you came for your holidays now and then; +but she never liked having you round much and Ernst saw it and never +showed how much he cared for you. But he did care. You had a real friend +in him, Karen. Well, after that came the worst thing Mercedes ever did." +Mrs. Talcott paused, gazing before her in the dimly lighted room. "Poor +things! Poor Mercedes! It nearly killed her. She's never been the same +since. And it was all her fault and she knows it and that's why she's +afraid. That's why," she added in a lower voice, "you're sorry for her +and put up with everything, because you know she's a miserable woman and +it wouldn't do for her to be alone.</p> + +<p>"A young man turned up. His name don't matter now, poor fellow. He was +just a clever all-over-the-place young man like so many of them, +thinking they know more about everything than God Almighty;—like this +young man in a way, only not a bad young man like him;—and downright +sick with love of Mercedes. He followed her about all over Europe and +went to every concert she gave and laid himself out to please her in all +the ways he could. And he had a great charm of manner—he was a Russian +and very high-bred—and he sort of fascinated her, and she liked it all, +I can tell you. Her youth was beginning to go, and the Baron was mighty +gloomy, and she just basked in this young man's love, and pretty soon +she began to think she was in love with him—perhaps she was—and had +never loved before, and she certainly worked herself up to suffer +considerably. Well, the Baron saw it. He saw she didn't treat him the +way she'd treated the others; she was kind of humble and tender and +distracted all the time. The Baron saw it all, but she never noticed +that he was getting gloomier and gloomier. I sometimes wonder if things +might have been different if he'd been willing to confide in me some. It +does folks a sight of good if there's someone they can tell things to. +But the Baron was very reserved and never said a word. And at last she +burst out with a dreadful scene. You were with them; yes, it was that +summer at Felsenschloss; but you didn't know anything about it of +course. I was pretty much in the thick of it all, as far as Mercedes +went, and I tried to make her see reason and told her she was a sinful +woman to treat her husband so; but I couldn't hold her back. She broke +out at him one day and told him he was like a jailor to her, and that he +suffocated her talent and that he hung on her like a vampire and sucked +her youth, and that she loved the other man. I can see her now, rushing +up and down that long saloon on that afternoon, with the white blinds +drawn down and the sun filtering through them, snatching with her hands +at her dress and waving her arms up and down in the air. And the Baron +sat on a sofa leaning on his elbow with his hand up over his eyes and +watched her under it. And he didn't say one word. When she fell down on +another sofa and cried and cried, he got up and looked at her for a +moment; but it wasn't the scornful, loving look; it was a queer, dark, +dead way. And he just went out. And we never saw him alive again.</p> + +<p>"You know the rest, Karen. You found him. But no one knows why he did +it, no one but you and me. He put an end to himself, because he couldn't +stand it any longer, and to set her free. They called it suicidal mania +and the doctors said he must have had melancholia for years. But I +shan't ever forget his face when he went out, and no more will Mercedes. +After he was gone she thought she'd never cared for anything in the +world but him. She never saw that young man again. She wrote him a +letter and laid the blame on him, and said he'd tried to take her from +her adored husband and that she'd never forgive him and loathed the +thought of him, and that he had made her the most wretched of women, and +he went and blew his brains out and that was the end of him. I had +considerable difficulty in getting hold of that letter. It was on him +when he killed himself. But I managed to talk over the police and hush +it up. Mercedes gave me plenty of money to manage with. I don't know +what she thinks about that poor fellow; she's never named his name since +that day. And she went on like a mad thing for two years or more. You +remember about that, Karen. She said she'd never play the piano again or +see anybody and wanted to go and be a nun. But she had a friend who was +a prioress of a convent, and she advised her not to. I guess poor +Mercedes wouldn't have stayed long in a convent. And the reason she was +nice to you was because the Baron had been fond of you and she wanted to +make up all she could for that dreadful thing in her life. She had you +to come and live with her. You didn't interfere with anything any longer +and it sort of soothed her to think it was what he'd have liked. She's +fond of you, too. She wouldn't have put up with you for so long if she +hadn't been. She'd have found some excuse for being quit of you. But as +for loving you, Karen child, like you thought she did, or like you love +her, why it's pitiful. I used to wonder how long it would be before you +found her out."</p> + +<p>Karen's face was hidden; she had rested it upon her hands, leaning +forward, her elbows on her knees, and she had not moved while Mrs. +Talcott told her story. Now, as Mrs. Talcott sat silent, she stirred +slightly.</p> + +<p>"Tante! Tante!" she muttered. "My beautiful!"</p> + +<p>Mrs. Talcott did not reply to this for some moments; then she laid her +hand on Karen's shoulder. "That's it," she said. "She's beautiful and it +most kills us to find out how cruel and bad she can be. But I guess we +can't judge people like Mercedes, Karen. When you go through life like a +mowing-machine and see everyone flatten out before you, you must get +kind of exalted ideas about yourself. If anything happens that makes a +hitch, or if anybody don't flatten out, why it must seem to you as if +they were wrong in some way, doing you an injury. That's the way it is +with Mercedes. She don't mean to be cruel, she don't mean to be bad; but +she's a mowing-machine and if you get in her way she'll cut you up fine +and leave you behind. And the thing for you to do, Karen, is to get out +of her way as quick as you can."</p> + +<p>"Yes, I am going," said Karen.</p> + +<p>Again Mrs. Talcott sat silent. "I'd like to talk to you about that, +Karen," she then said. "I want to ask you to give up going to Frau +Lippheim. There ain't any sense in that. It's a poor plan. What you +ought to do, Karen, is to go right back to your nice young husband."</p> + +<p>Karen, who sat on as if crushed beyond the point where anything could +crush her further, shook her head. "Do not ask me that, Mrs. Talcott," +she said. "I can never go back to him."</p> + +<p>"But, Karen, I guess you've got to own now that he was right and you +were wrong in that quarrel of yours. I guess you'll have to own that it +must have made him pretty sick to see her putting him in the wrong with +you all the time and spoiling everything; and there's no one on earth +can do that better than Mercedes."</p> + +<p>"I see it all," said Karen. "But that does not change what happened +between Gregory and me. He does not love me. I saw it plainly. If he had +me back it would only be because he cares for conventions. He said cruel +things to me."</p> + +<p>"I guess you said cruel things to him, Karen."</p> + +<p>Karen shook her head slightly, with weariness rather than impatience.</p> + +<p>"No, for he saw that it was my loyalty to her—my love of her—that he +was wounding. And he never understood. He never helped me. I can never +go back to him, for he does not love me."</p> + +<p>"Now, see here, Karen," said Mrs. Talcott, after a pause, "you just let +me work it out. You'll have a good sleep and to-morrow morning I'll see +you off, before Mercedes is up, to a nice little farm near here that I +know about—just a little way by train—and there you'll stay, nice and +quiet, and I'll not let Mercedes know where you are. And I'll write to +Mr. Jardine and tell him just what's happened and what you meant to do, +and that you want to go to Frau Lippheim; and you mark my words, Karen, +that nice young husband of yours'll be here quicker than you can say +Jack Robinson."</p> + +<p>Karen had dropped her hands and was looking at her old friend intently. +"Mrs. Talcott, you do not understand," she said. "You cannot write to +him. Have I not told you that he does not love me?"</p> + +<p>"Shucks!" said Mrs. Talcott. "He'll love you fast enough now that +Mercedes is out of the way."</p> + +<p>"But, Mrs. Talcott," said Karen, rising and looking down at the old +woman, whose face, in the dim light, had assumed to her reeling mind an +aspect of dangerous infatuation—"I do not think you know what you are +saying. What do I want of a man who only loves me when I cease to love +my guardian?"</p> + +<p>"Well, say you give up love, then," Mrs. Talcott persisted, and a panic +seized Karen as she heard the unmoved tones. "Say you don't love him and +he don't love you. You can have conventions, then—he wants that you +say, and so can you—and a good home and a nice husband who won't treat +you bad in any way. That's better than batting about the world all by +yourself, Karen; you take my word for it. And you can take my word for +it, too, that if you behave sensible and do as I say, you'll find out +that all this is just a miserable mistake and that he loves you just as +much as ever. Now, see here," Mrs. Talcott, also, had risen, and stood +in her habitual attitude, resting heavily on one hip, "you're not fit to +talk and I'm not going to worry you any more. You go to sleep and we'll +see about what to do to-morrow. You go right to sleep, Karen," she +patted the girl's shoulder.</p> + +<p>The panic was deepening in Karen. She saw guile on Mrs. Talcott's +storm-beaten and immutable face; and she heard specious reassurance in +her voice. Mrs. Talcott was dangerous. She had set her heart on this +last desire of her passionless, impersonal life and had determined that +she and Gregory should come together again. It was this desire that had +unsealed her lips: she would never relinquish, it. She might write to +Gregory; she might appeal to him and put before him the desperate plight +in which his wife was placed. And he might come. What were a wife's +powers if she was homeless and penniless, and a husband claimed her? +Karen did not know; but panic breathed upon her, and she felt that she +must fly. She, too, could use guile. "Yes," she said. "I will go to +sleep. And to-morrow we will talk. But what you hope cannot be. +Good-night, Mrs. Talcott."</p> + +<p>"Good-night, child," said Mrs. Talcott.</p> + +<p>They had joined hands and the strangeness of this farewell, the +knowledge that she might never see Mrs. Talcott again, and that she was +leaving her to a life empty of all that she had believed it to contain, +rose up in Karen so strongly that it blotted out for a moment her own +terror.</p> + +<p>"You have been so good to me," she said, in a trembling voice. "Never +shall I forget what you have done for me, Mrs. Talcott. May I kiss you +good-night?"</p> + +<p>They had never kissed.</p> + +<p>Mrs. Talcott's eyes blinked rapidly, and a curious contortion puckered +her mouth and chin. Karen thought that she was going to cry and her own +eyes filled with tears.</p> + +<p>But Mrs. Talcott in another moment had mastered her emotion, or, more +probably, it could find no outlet. The silent, stoic years had sealed +the fount of weeping. Only that dry contortion of her face spoke of her +deep feeling. Karen put her arms around her and they kissed each other.</p> + +<p>"Good-night, child," Mrs. Talcott then said in a muffled voice, and +disengaging herself she went out quickly.</p> + +<p>Karen stood listening to the sound of her footsteps passing down the +corridor. They went down the little flight of stairs that led to another +side of the house and faded away. All was still.</p> + +<p>She did not pause or hesitate. She did not seem to think. Swiftly and +accurately she found her walking-shoes and put them on, her hat and +cloak; her purse with its half-crown, its sixpence and its few coppers. +Swiftly she laid together a change of underwear and took from her +dressing-table its few toilet appurtenances. She paused then, looking at +the ornaments of her girlhood. She must have money. She must sell +something; yet all these her guardian had given her.</p> + +<p>No; not all. Her little gold watch ticked peacefully, lying on the table +beside her bed as it had lain beside her for so many years; her +beautiful little watch, treasured by her since the distant birthday when +Onkel Ernst had given it.</p> + +<p>She clutched it tightly in her hand and it seemed to her, as she had +once said to Gregory, that the iron drove deep into her heart and turned +up not only dark forgotten things but dark and dreadful things never +seen before.</p> + +<p>She leaned against the table, putting the hand that held Onkel Ernst's +watch to her eyes, and his agony became part of her own. How he had +suffered. And the other man, the young, forgotten Russian. Mrs. +Talcott's story became real to her as it had not yet been. It entered +her; it filled her past; it linked itself with everything that she had +been and done and believed. And the iron drove down deeper, until of her +heart there seemed only to be left a deep black hole.</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XXXVII" id="CHAPTER_XXXVII"></a>CHAPTER XXXVII</h2> + + +<p>Mrs. Talcott had a broken night and it was like a continuation of some +difficult and troubled dream when she heard the voice of Mercedes saying +to her: "Tallie, Tallie, wake up. Tallie, will you wake! <i>Bon Dieu!</i> how +she sleeps!"</p> + +<p>The voice of Mercedes when she had heard it last had been the voice of +passion and desperation, but its tone was changed this morning; it was +fretful, feverishly irritable, rather than frantic.</p> + +<p>Mrs. Talcott opened her eyes and sat up in bed. She wore a Jaeger +nightgown and her head, with its white hair coiled at the top, was +curiously unaltered by its informal setting.</p> + +<p>"What do you mean by coming waking me up like this after the night +you've given me," she demanded, fully awakened now. "Go right straight +away or I'll put you out."</p> + +<p>"Don't be a fool, Tallie," said Madame von Marwitz, who, in a silken +dressing-gown and with her hair unbound, had an appearance at once +childish and damaged. "Where is Karen? I've been to her room and she is +not there. The door downstairs is unbolted. Is she gone out to walk so +early?"</p> + +<p>Mrs. Talcott sat still and upright in her bed. "What time is it?" she +asked.</p> + +<p>"It is seven. I have been awake since dawn. Do you imagine that I have +had a pleasant night?"</p> + +<p>Mrs. Talcott did not answer this query. She sprang out of bed.</p> + +<p>"Perhaps she's gone to meet the bus at the cross-roads. But I told her I +was going to take her. Tell Burton to come round with the car as quick +as he can. I'll go after her and see that she's all right. Why, the +child hasn't got any money," Mrs. Talcott muttered, deftly drawing on +her clothes beneath her nightgown which she held by the edge of the neck +between her teeth.</p> + +<p>Madame von Marwitz listened to her impeded utterance frowning.</p> + +<p>"The bus? What do you mean? Why is she meeting the bus?"</p> + +<p>"To take her to London where she's going to the Lippheims," said Mrs. +Talcott, casting aside the nightgown and revealing herself in chemise +and petticoat. "You go and order that car, Mercedes," she added, as she +buckled together her sturdy, widely-waisted stays. "This ain't no time +for talk."</p> + +<p>Madame von Marwitz looked at her for another moment and then rang the +bell. She put her head outside the door to await the housemaid and, as +this person made some delay, shouted in a loud voice: "Handcock! Jane! +Louise! Where are you? <i>Fainéantes!</i>" she stamped her foot, and, as the +housemaid appeared, running; "Burton," she commanded. "The car. At once. +And tell Louise to bring me my tea-gown, my shoes and stockings, my fur +cloak, at once; but at once; make haste!"</p> + +<p>"What are you up to, Mercedes?" Mrs. Talcott inquired, as Madame von +Marwitz thrust her aside from the dressing-table and began to wind up +her hair before the mirror.</p> + +<p>"I am getting ready to go with you, <i>parbleu</i>!" Madame von Marwitz +replied. "Is that you, Louise? Come in. You have the things? Put on my +shoes and stockings; quickly; <i>mais dépêchez-vous donc</i>! The +tea-gown—yes, over this—over it I say! So. Now bring me a motor-veil +and gloves. I shall do thus."</p> + +<p>Mrs. Talcott, while Louise with an air of profoundest gloom arrayed her +mistress, kept silence, but when Louise had gone in search of the +motor-veil she remarked in a low but imperative voice: "You'll get out +at the roadside and wait for me, that's what you'll do. I won't have you +along when I meet Karen. She couldn't bear the sight of you."</p> + +<p>"Peace!" Madame von Marwitz commanded, adjusting the sash of her +tea-gown. "I shall see Karen. The deplorable misunderstanding of last +night shall be set right. Her behaviour has been undignified and +underhanded; but I misunderstood her, and, pierced to the heart by the +treachery of a man I trusted, I spoke wildly, without thought. Karen +will understand. I know my Karen."</p> + +<p>It was not the moment for dispute. Louise had re-entered with the veil +and Madame von Marwitz bound it about her head, standing before the +mirror, and gazing at herself, fixedly and unseeingly, with dark eyes +set in purpled orbits. She turned then and swept from the room, and Mrs. +Talcott, pinning on her hat as she went, followed her.</p> + +<p>Not until they were speeding through the fresh, chill air, did Mrs. +Talcott speak. Madame von Marwitz, leaning to one side of the open car, +scanned the stretch of road before them, melancholy and monotonous under +the pale morning sky, and Mrs. Talcott, moving round determinedly in her +corner, faced her.</p> + +<p>"I want to tell you, right now, Mercedes," said Mrs. Talcott, "that +Karen's done with you. There's no use in your coming, for you'll never +get her back. I've told her all about you, Mercedes;—yes, I ain't +afraid of you and you know it;—I told her. I made up my mind to it last +night after I'd seen you and heard all your shameful story and how you'd +treated her. I made up my mind that you shouldn't get hold of her again, +not if I could help it. The time had come to tell that child that her +husband was right all along and that you ain't a woman to be trusted. +She'd seen for herself what you could do, and I made a sure thing of it. +I've held my tongue for all my life, but I spoke out last night. I want +her to be quit of you for good. I want her to go back to her husband. +Yes, Mercedes; I've burst up the whole concern."</p> + +<p>Madame von Marwitz, her hand holding tightly the side of the car and her +eyes like large, dark stones in her white face, was sitting upright and +was staring at her. She could not speak and Mrs. Talcott went on.</p> + +<p>"She knows all about you now; about you and Baldwin Tanner and you and +Ernst, and about that pitiful young Russian. She knows how you treated +them. She knows how it wasn't you but Ernst who was her real friend, and +how you didn't want her to live with you. She knows that you're a mighty +unfortunate creature and a mighty dangerous one; and what I advise you +to do, Mercedes, is to get out here and go right home. Karen won't ever +come back to you again, I'm as sure of it as I'm sure my name's Hannah +Talcott."</p> + +<p>They sped, with softly singing speed, through the chill morning air. The +hard, tight, dark eyeballs still fixed themselves on the old woman +almost lifelessly, and still she sat grasping the side of the car. She +had the look of a creature shot through the heart and maintaining the +poise and pride of its startled and arrested life. Mechanical forces +rather than volition seemed to sustain her.</p> + +<p>"Say, Mercedes, will you get out?" Mrs. Talcott repeated. And the rigid +figure then moved its head slightly in negation.</p> + +<p>They reached the cross-roads where a few carts and an ancient fly stood +waiting for the arrival of the omnibus that plied between the Lizard and +Helston. Karen was nowhere to be seen.</p> + +<p>"Perhaps she went across the fields and got into the bus at the Lizard," +said Mrs. Talcott. "We'll wait and see, and if she isn't in the bus +we'll go on to Helston. Perhaps she's walking."</p> + +<p>Madame von Marwitz continued to say nothing, and in a moment they heard +behind them the clashing and creaking of the omnibus. It drew up at the +halt and Karen was not in it.</p> + +<p>"To Helston," said Mrs. Talcott, standing up to speak to the chauffeur.</p> + +<p>They sped on before the omnibus had resumed its journey.</p> + +<p>Tints of azure and purple crept over the moors; the whitening sky showed +rifts of blue; it was a beautiful morning. Mrs. Talcott, keeping a keen +eye on the surrounding country, became aware presently that Mercedes had +turned her gaze upon her and was examining her.</p> + +<p>She looked round.</p> + +<p>There was no anger, no resentment, even, on the pallid face. It seemed +engaged, rather, in a deep perplexity—that of a child struck down by +the hand that, till then, had cherished it. It brooded in sick wonder on +Mrs. Talcott, and Mrs. Talcott looked back with her ancient, weary eyes. +Madame von Marwitz broke the silence. She spoke in a toneless voice. +"Tallie—how could you?" she said. "Oh, Tallie—how could you have told +her?"</p> + +<p>"Mercedes," said Mrs. Talcott, gently but implacably, "I had to. It was +right to make sure you shouldn't get hold of her again. She had to go, +and she had to go for good. If you want me to go, too, I will, but it's +only fair to tell you that I never felt much sorrier for you than I do +at this minute."</p> + +<p>"There have been tragedies in my life," Madame von Marwitz went on in +the low, dulled voice. "I have been a passion-tossed woman. Yes, I have +not been guiltless. But how could you cut out my heart with all its +scars and show it to my child?"</p> + +<p>"It was right to do it, Mercedes, so as you shouldn't ruin her life. +She's not your child, and you've shown her she's not. A mother don't +behave so to her child, however off her head she goes."</p> + +<p>"I was mad last night." The tears ran slowly down Madame von Marwitz's +cheeks. "I can tell that to Karen. I can explain. I can throw myself on +her mercy. I loved him and my heart was broken. One is not responsible. +It is the animal, wounded to death, that shrieks and tears at the spear +it feels entering its flesh."</p> + +<p>"I'm awful sorry for you, Mercedes," said Mrs. Talcott.</p> + +<p>And now, hiding her face in her hands and leaning back in her cushions, +Madame von Marwitz began to weep with the soft reiterated sobbing of a +miserable child. "I have no one left. I am alone," she sobbed. "Even you +have turned against me."</p> + +<p>"No, I haven't turned against you," said Mrs. Talcott. "I'm here." And +presently, while Mercedes wept, Mrs. Talcott took her hand and held it.</p> + +<p>They reached Helston and climbed the steep, stony road to the station. +There was no sign of Karen. Mrs. Talcott got out and made inquiries. She +might have gone to London by the train that left at dawn; but no one had +noticed such a young lady. Mrs. Talcott came back to the car with her +fruitless story.</p> + +<p>Mercedes, by this time, had dried her eyes and was regaining, +apparently, her more normal energies. "Not here? Not seen? Not heard +of?" she repeated. "But where is she then?"</p> + +<p>Mrs. Talcott stood at the door of the car and looked at her charge. +"Well, I'm afraid she made off in the night, straight away, after I'd +talked to her."</p> + +<p>"Made off in the night?" A dark colour suddenly suffused Madame von +Marwitz's face.</p> + +<p>"Yes, that's it, I reckon. I must have said something to scare her about +her going back to her husband. Perhaps she thought I'd bring him down +without her knowing, and perhaps she wasn't far wrong. I'm afraid I've +played the fool. She thought I'd round on her in some way and so she +just lit out."</p> + +<p>Madame von Marwitz stared at her. The expression of her face had +entirely altered; there was no trace of the dazed and wretched child. +Dark forces lit her eyes and the relaxed lines of her lips tightened.</p> + +<p>"Get in," she commanded. "Tell him to drive back, and get in." And when +Mrs. Talcott had taken her place beside her she went on in a low, +concentrated voice: "Is it not possible that she has joined that vile +seducer?"</p> + +<p>Mrs. Talcott eyed her with the fixity of a lion-tamer. Their moment of +instinctive closeness had passed. "Now see here, Mercedes," she said; "I +advise you to be careful what you say."</p> + +<p>"Careful! I am half mad! Between you all you will drive me mad!" said +Madame von Marwitz with intensity of fury. "You fill Karen's mind with +lies about my past—oh, there are two sides to every story! she shall +hear my side!—you drive her forth with your threats to hand her over to +the man she loathes, and she takes refuge—where else?—with that +miscreant. Why not? Where else had she to go? You say that she had no +money. We call now at the hotel. If he is gone, and if within the day we +do not hear that she is with Lise, we will send at once for detectives."</p> + +<p>"You'd better control yourself, Mercedes," said Mrs. Talcott. "If Karen +ain't found it'll be a mighty ugly story for you to face up to, and if +she's found it won't be all plain sailing for you either; you've got to +pay the price for what you've done. But if it gets round that you drove +her out and then spread scandal about her, you'll do for yourself—just +keep your mind on that if you can."</p> + +<p>"Scandal! What scandal shall I spread? If he disappears and she with +him, will the facts not shriek aloud? If she is found she will be found +by me. I will wire at once to Lise."</p> + +<p>"We'll wire to Lise and we'll wire to Mr. Jardine, that's what we'll do. +Karen may have changed her mind. She may have felt shy of telling me she +had. She may have come to see that he's the thing she's got to hang on +to. What I hope for is that if she ain't in London already with him, +she's hiding somewhere about here and has sent for him herself."</p> + +<p>"Ah, I understand your hope; it is of a piece with all your treachery," +said Madame von Marwitz in a voice suffocated by conflicting angers. "If +she is with her husband he, too, will hear the story—the false, garbled +story of my crimes. He is my enemy, you know it; my malignant enemy; you +know that he will spread this affair broadcast. And you can rejoice in +this! You are glad for my disgrace and ruin!" Tears again streamed from +her eyes.</p> + +<p>"Don't take on so, Mercedes," said Mrs. Talcott. "If Karen's with her +husband all they're likely to be thinking about is that he was right and +has got her back again. Karen's bound to tell him something about what +happened, and you can depend upon Karen for saying as little as she can. +But if you imagine that you're going to be let off from being found out +by that young man, you're letting yourself in for a big disappointment, +and you can take my word for it. It's because he's right about you that +Karen'll go back to him."</p> + +<p>Madame von Marwitz turned her head away and fixed her eyes on the +landscape.</p> + +<p>They reached the little village near Les Solitudes, and at the little +hotel, with its drowsy, out-of-season air, Mrs. Talcott descended, +leaving Mercedes proudly seated in the car, indifferent to the possible +gaze from above of her faithless devotee. Mrs. Talcott returned with the +information that Mr. Drew was upstairs and not yet awake. "Go up. Go up +to him," said the tormented woman, after a moment of realized relief or +disappointment—who can say? "He may have seen her. He may have given +her money for her journey. They may have arranged to meet later."</p> + +<p>Mrs. Talcott again disappeared and she only returned after some ten +minutes. "Home," she then said to Burton, climbing heavily into the car. +"Yes, there he was, sleeping as peaceful as a dormouse in his silk +pyjamas," she remarked. "I startled him some, I reckon, when I waked him +up. No, he don't know anything about her. Wanted to jump up and look for +her when I told him she was missing. Keep still, Mercedes—what do you +mean by bouncing about like that—folks can see you. I talked to him +pretty short and sharp, that young man, and I told him the best thing he +could do now was to pack his grip-sack and clear out. He's going right +away and he promised to send me a telegram from London to-night. He can +catch the second train."</p> + +<p>Madame von Marwitz leaned back. She closed her eyes. The car had climbed +to the entrance of Les Solitudes and the fuchsia hedge was passing on +each side. Mrs. Talcott, looking at her companion, saw that she had +either actually fainted or was simulating a very realistic fainting-fit. +Mercedes often had fainting-fits at moments of crisis; but she was a +robust woman, and Mrs. Talcott had no reason to believe that any of them +had been genuine. She did not believe that this one was genuine, yet she +had to own, looking at the leaden eyelids and ashen face, that Mercedes +had been through enough in the last twelve hours to break down a +stronger person. And it was appropriate that she should return to her +desolate home in a prostrate condition.</p> + +<p>Mrs. Talcott, as often before, played her part. The maids were summoned; +they supported Madame von Marwitz's body; Burton took her shoulders and +Mrs. Talcott her feet. So the afflicted woman was carried into the house +and upstairs and laid upon her bed.</p> + +<p>Mrs. Talcott then went and sent telegrams to Frau Lippheim and to +Gregory Jardine. She asked them to let her know if Karen arrived in +London during the day. She had her answers that evening. That from +Gregory ran—"Not seen or heard of Karen. What has happened? Write by +return. Or shall I come to you?" The other was from the Lippheims' +landlady and said that the Lippheims had returned to Germany four days +before and that no one had arrived to see them.</p> + +<p>The evening post had gone. Mrs. Talcott went out and answered Gregory by +wire: "Writing to-morrow morning. We think Karen is in London. Stay +where you are."</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XXXVIII" id="CHAPTER_XXXVIII"></a>CHAPTER XXXVIII</h2> + + +<p>Mrs. Talcott went early to Madame von Marwitz's room next morning, as +soon, in fact, as she had seen her breakfast-tray carried away. She had +shown Mercedes her telegrams the evening before, and Mercedes, lying on +her bed where she had passed the day in heavy slumbers, had muttered, +"Let me sleep. The post is gone. We can do nothing more till to-morrow." +Like a wounded creature she was regaining strength and wholeness in +oblivion. When Mrs. Talcott had gone softly into her room at bedtime, +she had found her soundly sleeping.</p> + +<p>But the fumes and torpors of grief and pain were this morning dispersed. +Mercedes sat at the desk in her bedroom attired in a <i>robe-de-chambre</i>, +and rapidly and feverishly wrote.</p> + +<p>"I'm glad to see you're feeling better, Mercedes," said Mrs. Talcott, +closing the door and coming to her side. "We've got a lot to talk over +this morning. I guess we'll have to send for those detectives. What are +you writing there?"</p> + +<p>Madame von Marwitz, whose face had the sodden, slumbrous look that +follows long repose, drew the paper quickly to one side and replied: +"You may mind your affairs and leave me to mind my own. I write to my +friend. I write to Mrs. Forrester."</p> + +<p>"You hand me that letter, Mercedes," said Mrs. Talcott, in a mild but +singularly determined tone, and after a moment Madame von Marwitz did +hand it to her.</p> + +<p>Mrs. Talcott perused the first page. Then she lifted her eyes to her +companion, who, averting hers with a sullen look, fixed them on the sea +outside. It was raining and the sea was leaden.</p> + +<p>"Now just you listen to me, Mercedes Okraska," said Mrs. Talcott, +heavily emphasizing her words and leaning the hand that held the letter +on the writing-table, "I'll go straight up to London and tell the whole +story to Mr. Jardine and Mrs. Forrester—the same as I told it to Karen +with all that's happened here besides—I will as sure as my name's +Hannah Talcott—if you write one word of that shameful idea to your +friends. Lay down that pen."</p> + +<p>Madame von Marwitz did not lay it down, but she turned in her chair and +confronted her accuser, though with averted eyes. "You say 'shameful.' I +say, yes; shameful, and true. She has not gone to her husband. She has +not gone to the Lippheims. I believe that he has joined her. I believe +that it was arranged. I believe that she is with him now."</p> + +<p>"You can't look me in the eye and say you believe it, Mercedes," said +Mrs. Talcott.</p> + +<p>Madame von Marwitz looked her in the eye, sombrely, and she then varied +her former statement. "He has pursued her. He has found her. He will try +to keep her. He is a depraved and dangerous man."</p> + +<p>"We'll let him alone. We're done with him for good and all, I guess. My +point is this: don't you write any lies to your friends thinking that +you're going to whiten yourself by blackening Karen. I'm speaking the +sober truth when I say I'll go straight off to London and tell Mr. +Jardine and Mrs. Forrester the whole story, unless you write a letter, +right now, as you sit here, that I can pass."</p> + +<p>Again averting her eyes, Madame von Marwitz clutched her pen in rigid +fingers and sat silent.</p> + +<p>"It is blackmail! Tyranny!" she ejaculated presently.</p> + +<p>"All right. Call it any name you like. But my advice to you, Mercedes, +is to pull yourself together and see this thing straight for your own +sake. I know what's the matter with you, you pitiful, silly thing; it's +this young man; it makes you behave like a distracted creature. But +don't you see as plain as can be that what Karen's probably done is to +go to London and that Mr. Jardine'll find her in a day or two. Now when +those two young people come together again, what kind of a story will +Karen tell her husband about you—what'll he think of you—what'll your +friends think of you—if they all find out that in addition to behaving +like a wild-cat to that poor child because you were fairly daft with +jealousy, and driving her away—oh, yes you did, Mercedes, it don't do +any good to deny it now—if in addition to all that they find out that +you've been trying to save your face by blackening her character? Why, +they'll think you're the meanest skunk that ever walked on two legs; and +they'll be about right. Whereas, Mercedes," Mrs. Talcott had been +standing square and erect for some time in front of her companion, and +now, as her tone became more argumentative and persuasive, she allowed +her tired old body to sag and rest heavily on one hip—"whereas if you +write a nice, kind, loving, self-reproachful letter, all full of your +dreadful anxiety and affection—why, if Karen ever sees it it'll soften +her towards you perhaps; and it'll make all your friends sorry for you, +too, and inclined to hush things up if Mr. Drew spreads the story +around—won't it, Mercedes?"—Madame von Marwitz had turned in her chair +and was staring before her with a deeply thoughtful eye.—"Why, it's as +plain as can be, Mercedes, that that's your line."</p> + +<p>"True," Madame von Marwitz now said. "True." Her voice was deep and +almost solemn. "You are right. Yes; you are right, Tallie."</p> + +<p>She leaned her forehead on her hand, shading her eyes as she pondered. +"A letter of noble admission; of sorrow; of love. Ah! you recall me to +my better self. It will touch her, Tallie; it is bound to touch her, is +it not? She cannot feel the bitterness she now feels if she reads such a +letter; is not that so, Tallie?"</p> + +<p>"That's so. You've got it," said Mrs. Talcott.</p> + +<p>Madame von Marwitz, however, continued to lean on her desk and to shade +her eyes, and some moments of silence passed thus. Then, as she leaned, +the abjectness of her own position seemed suddenly borne in upon her. +She pushed back her chair and clutching the edge of the desk with both +hands, gave a low cry.</p> + +<p>Mrs. Talcott looked at her, inquiring, but unmoved.</p> + +<p>"Oh—it is easy for you—standing there—watching my humiliation—making +your terms!" Madame von Marwitz exclaimed in bitter, trembling tones. +"You see me in the dust,—and it is you who strike me there. I am to +drag myself—with precautions—apologies—to that child's feet—that +waif!—that bastard!—that thing I picked up and made! I am to be glad +because I may hope to move her to mercy! Ah!—it is too much! too much! +I curse the day that I saw her! I had a presentiment—I remember it +now—as I saw her standing there in the forest with her foolish face. I +felt in my inmost soul that she was to bring me sorrow. She takes him +from me! She puts me to shame before the world! And I am to implore her +to take pity on me!"</p> + +<p>She had extended her clenched hand in speaking and now struck it +violently on the desk. The silver blotter, the candlesticks, the +pen-tray and ink-stand leaped in their places and the ink, splashing up, +spattered her white silk robe.</p> + +<p>"There now," said Mrs. Talcott, eyeing her impassively, "you've gone and +spoiled your nice dress."</p> + +<p>"Damn the dress!" said Madame von Marwitz. Leaning her elbows on the +desk and her face on her hands, she wept; the tears trickled between her +fingers.</p> + +<p>But in a very little while the storm passed. She straightened herself, +found her lace-edged handkerchief and dried her eyes and cheeks; then, +taking a long breath, she drew forward a pad of paper.</p> + +<p>"I am a fool, am I not, Tallie," she remarked. "And you are wise; a +traitor, yet wise. I will do as you say. Wait there and you shall see."</p> + +<p>Mrs. Talcott now subsided heavily into a chair and for some fifteen +minutes there was no sound but the scratching of Madame von Marwitz's +pen and the deep sighs that from time to time she heaved.</p> + +<p>Then: "So: will that do?" she asked, leaning back with the deepest of +the sighs and handing the pages to Mrs. Talcott.</p> + +<p>Her dark, cold eyes, all clouded with weeping, had a singularly +child-like expression as she thus passed on her letter for inspection. +And—as when she had stretched out her legs for Mrs. Talcott to put on +her stockings—one saw beyond the instinctively confiding gesture a long +series of scenes reaching back to childhood, scenes where, in crises, +her own craft and violence and unscrupulous resource having undone her, +she had fallen back in fundamental dependence on the one stable and +inalienable figure in her life.</p> + +<p>Mrs. Talcott read:</p> + +<div class="blockquot"><p>"My Friend—Dearest and best Beloved,—I am in the straits of a +terrible grief.—I am blind with weeping, dazed from a sleepless +night and a day of anguish.—My child, my Karen, is gone and, oh my +friend, I am in part to blame.—I am hot of blood, quick of tongue, +as you know, and you know that Karen is haughty, resentful, +unwilling to brook reproof even from me. But I do not attempt to +exonerate myself. I will open my heart to you and my friend will +read aright and interpret the broken words. You know that I cared +for Claude Drew; you guessed perhaps how strong was the hold upon +me of the frail, ambiguous, yet so intelligent modern spirit. It +was to feel the Spring blossom once more on my frosty branches when +this young life fell at my knees and seemed to find in me its +source and goal. Mine was a sacred love and pain mingled with my +maternal tenderness when he revealed himself to me as seeking from +me the lesser things of love, the things I could not give, that +elemental soil of sense and passion without which a man's devotion +so strangely withers,—I could give him water from the wells and +light from the air; I could not give him earth. My friend, he was +here when Karen came, and, already I had seen it, his love was +passing from me. Her youth, her guilelessness, her courage and the +loyalty of her return to me, aroused his curiosity, his indolent +and—you will remember—his unsatisfied, passion. I saw at once, +and I saw danger. I knew him to be a man believing in neither good +nor evil, seeking only beauty and the satisfaction of desire. Not +once—but twice, thrice, did I warn Karen, and she resented my +warnings. She is a creature profoundly pure and profoundly simple +and her stubborn spirit rests in security upon its own assurances. +She resented my warnings and she repulsed my attempts to lead and +guard her. Another difference had also come between us. I hoped to +effect a reconciliation between her and her husband; I suggested to +Karen that I should write to you and offer myself as an +intermediary; I could not bear to see her young life ruined for my +sake. Karen was not kind to me; the thought of her husband is +intolerable to her and she turned upon me with bitterness. I was +hurt and I told her so. She brought me to tears. My friend, it was +late on the night of that day—the night before last—that I found +her with Claude Drew in the garden; and found her in his arms. Do +not misunderstand; she had not returned his love; she repulsed him +as I came upon them; but I, in my consternation, my anger, my +dismay, snatched her from him and spoke to them both with +passionate reproof. I sent Karen to the house and remained behind +to deal with the creature who had so betrayed my trust. He is now +my avowed enemy. So be it. I do not see him again.</p> + +<p>"At dawn, after a sleepless night, I went to Karen's room to take +her in my arms and to ask her pardon for my harsh words. She was +gone. Gone, my friend. Tallie tells me that she believed me to have +said that unless she could obey me I must forbid her to remain +under my roof. These were not my words; but she had misunderstood +and had fiercely resented my displeasure. She told Tallie that she +would go to the Lippheims,—for them, as I have told you, she has a +deep affection. Tallie urged upon her that she should communicate +with her husband, let him know what had happened, return to +him—even if it were to blacken me in his eyes—and would to God +that it had been so!—But she repulsed the suggestion with +bitterness. It must also have filled her with terror lest we should +ourselves make some further attempt to bring about a +reconciliation; for it was in the night, and immediately after her +talk with Tallie, that she went, although she and Tallie had +arranged that she was to go to the Lippheims next day.</p> + +<p>"We have wired to the Lippheims and find that they have left +England. And we have wired to Mr. Jardine, and she is not with him. +She may be on her way to Germany; she may be concealed in the +country near here; she may be in London. Unless we have news of her +to-morrow I send for a detective. Oh, to hold her in my arms! I am +crushed to the earth with sorrow and remorse. Show this letter to +her husband. I have no thought of pride.</p> + +<p>"Your devoted and unhappy Mercedes."</p></div> + +<p>Mrs. Talcott read and remained for some moments reflecting after she had +read. "Well, I suppose that's got to do," she commented, "though I don't +call it a satisfactory letter. You've fixed it up real smart, but it's a +long way off the truth."</p> + +<p>Madame von Marwitz, while Mrs. Talcott read, had been putting back the +disordered strands of her hair, adjusting her laces, and dabbing vaguely +with her handkerchief at the splashes of ink that disfigured the front +of her dress—thereby ruining the handkerchief; she looked up sharply +now.</p> + +<p>"I deny that it is a long way off the truth."</p> + +<p>"A long way off," Mrs. Talcott repeated colourlessly; "but I guess it'll +have to do. I'm willing you should make the best story out for yourself +you can to your friends, so long as Karen knows the truth and so long as +you don't spread scandal about her. Now I'll write to Mr. Jardine."</p> + +<p>Madame von Marwitz's eyes were still fixed sharply on her and a sudden +suspicion leapt to them. "Here then!" she exclaimed. "You write in my +presence as I have done in yours. And we go to the village together that +I may see you post the self-same letter. I have had enough of +betrayals!"</p> + +<p>Mrs. Talcott allowed a grim smile to touch her lips. "My, but you're +silly, Mercedes," she said. "Get up, then, and let me sit there. I'd +just as leave I'm sure. You know I'm determined that Karen shall go back +to her husband and that I'm going to do all I can so as she shall. So +there's nothing I want to hide."</p> + +<p>She took up the pen and Madame von Marwitz leaned over her shoulder and +read as she wrote:</p> + +<div class="blockquot"><p>"Dear Mr. Jardine,—Mercedes and Karen have had a disagreement and +Karen took it very hard and has made off, we don't know where. Go +round to Mrs. Forrester and see what Mercedes has got to say about +it. Karen will tell you her side when you see her. She feels very +bad about you yet; and thinks things are over between you; but you +hang on, Mr. Jardine, and it'll all come right. You'd better find +out whether Karen's called at the Lippheims' and get a detective +and try and trace her out. If she's with them in Germany I advise +you to go right over and see her.—Yours sincerely,</p> + +<p>"Hannah Talcott."</p></div> + +<p>Mrs. Talcott, as she finished, heard that the breathing of Mercedes, +close upon her, had become heavier. She did not look at her. She knew +what Mercedes was feeling, and dreading; and that Mercedes was helpless.</p> + +<p>"There's no reason under the sun why Handcock shouldn't take these +letters as usual," she remarked; "but if you're set on it that you're +being betrayed, put on your shoes and dress and we'll walk down and mail +them together."</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XXXIX" id="CHAPTER_XXXIX"></a>CHAPTER XXXIX</h2> + + +<p>It was on the second morning after this that the letters were brought in +to Madame von Marwitz while she and Mrs. Talcott sat in the music-room +together.</p> + +<p>The two days had told upon them both. The face of Mercedes was like a +beautiful fruit, rain-sodden and gnawed at the heart by a worm. Mrs. +Talcott's was more bleached, more desolate, more austere.</p> + +<p>The one letter that Handcock brought to Mrs. Talcott was from Gregory +Jardine:</p> + +<div class="blockquot"><p>"Dear Mrs. Talcott," it said, "Thank you for your kind note. I am +very unhappy and only a little less unhappy than when Karen left +me. One cause of our estrangement is, perhaps, removed; but the +fact borne in upon me at the time of that parting was that, while +she was everything in life to me, she hardly knew the meaning of +the words love and marriage. I need not tell you that I will do all +in my power to induce her to return to me, and all in my power to +win her heart. It was useless to make any attempt at reconciliation +while her guardian stood between us. I cannot pretend that I feel +more kindly towards Madame von Marwitz now; rather the reverse. It +is plain to me that she has treated Karen shamefully. You must +forgive me for my frankness.—Sincerely yours,</p> + +<p>"Gregory Jardine."</p></div> + +<p>Mrs. Talcott when she looked up from this letter saw that Mercedes was +absorbed in hers. Her expression had stiffened as she read, and when she +had finished the hand holding it dropped to her side. She sat looking +down in a dark contemplation.</p> + +<p>Mrs. Talcott asked no question. United in the practical exigencies of +their search for Karen, united in their indestructible relation of +respective dependence and stability, which the last catastrophe had +hardly touched—for Mercedes had accepted her betrayal with a singular +passivity, as if it had been a force of nature that had overtaken +her—there was yet a whole new region of distrust between them. She and +Mercedes, as Mrs. Talcott cheerlessly imaged it, were like a constable +and his captive adrift, by a curious turn of fortune, on the waters of a +sudden inundation. Together they baled out water and worked at the oar, +but both were aware that when the present peril was past a sentence had +still to be carried out on one of them. Mercedes could not evade her +punishment. If Karen were found Gregory Jardine must come to know that +her guardian had, literally, driven her from her home. In that case it +rested with Gregory's sense of mercy whether Mercedes should be exposed +to the world or not. And after reading Gregory's letter Mrs. Talcott +reflected that there was not much to hope of mercy from him. So she +showed a tactful consideration of her companion's state of nerves by +pressing her no further than was necessary.</p> + +<p>On this occasion, however, there was no need for pressure; Mercedes, in +her dismal plight, turned to her with the latest development of it.</p> + +<p>"Ah," she said, while she still continued to gaze down fixedly, "this it +is to have true friends. This is human loyalty. It is well."</p> + +<p>"What's the matter, Mercedes?" Mrs. Talcott asked, as she was evidently +invited to do.</p> + +<p>"Read if you will," said Madame von Marwitz. She held out the letter +which Mrs. Talcott rose to take.</p> + +<p>It was from Mrs. Forrester and was full of sympathy for her afflicted +friend, and full of sympathy for foolish, headstrong little Karen. The +mingled sympathies rang strangely. She avowed self-reproach. She was +afraid that she had precipitated the rupture between Karen and her +husband, not quite, perhaps, understanding the facts. She had seen +Gregory, she was very sorry for him. She was, apparently, sorry for +everyone; except of course, Mr. Drew, the villain of the piece; but of +Mr. Drew and of Mercedes's sacred love for him, she made no mention. +Mrs. Forrester was fond, but she was wary. She had received, evidently, +her dim thrust of disillusion. Mercedes had blamed herself and Mrs. +Forrester did not deny that Mercedes must be to blame.</p> + +<p>"Yes; she's feeling pretty sick," Mrs. Talcott commented when she had +read. "The trouble is that anybody who knows how much Karen loved you +knows that she wouldn't have made off like that without you'd treated +her ugly. That'll be the trouble with most of your friends, I reckon. +Who's your other letter from?"</p> + +<p>Madame von Marwitz roused herself from her state of contemplation. She +opened the second letter saying, tersely: "Scrotton."</p> + +<p>"She ain't likely to take sides with Karen," Mrs. Talcott observed, +inserting her hand once more in the stocking she was darning, these +homely occupations having for the last few days been brought into the +music-room, since Mercedes would not be left alone. "She was always just +as jealous of Karen as could be."</p> + +<p>She proceeded to darn and Madame von Marwitz to read, and as she read a +dark flush mounted to her face. Clenching her hand on Miss Scrotton's +letter, she brought it down heavily on the back of the chair she sat in. +Then, without speaking, she got up, tossed the letter to Mrs. Talcott, +and began to pace the room, setting the furniture that she encountered +out of her way with vindictive violence.</p> + +<div class="blockquot"><p>"My Darling, Darling Mercedes," Miss Scrotton wrote, "This is too +terrible. Shall I come to you at once? I thought this morning after +I had seen Mrs. Forrester and read your heartbreaking letter that I +would start to-day; but let me hear from you, you may be coming up +to town. If you stay in Cornwall, Mercedes, you must not be alone; +you must not; and I am, as you know, devoted heart and soul. If all +the world turned against you, Mercedes, I should keep my faith in +you. I need hardly tell you what is being said. Claude Drew is in +London and though, naturally, he does not dare face your friends +with his story, rumours are abroad. Betty Jardine does not know +him, but already she has heard; I met her only a few hours ago and +the miserable little creature was full of malicious satisfaction. +The story that she has heard—and believes—and that London will +believe—is the crude, gross one that facts, so disastrously, have +lent colour to; you, in a fit of furious jealousy, driving Karen +away. My poor, great, suffering friend, I need not tell you that I +understand. Your letter rings true to me in every line, and is but +too magnanimous.—Oh Mercedes!—had you but listened to my warnings +about that wretched man. Do you remember that I told you that you +were scattering your pearls before swine? And your exculpation of +Karen did not convince me as it seemed to do Mrs. Forrester. A +really guileless woman is not found—late at night—in a man's +arms. I cannot forget Karen's origins. There must be in her the +element of reckless passion. Mr. Drew is spreading a highly +idealised account of her and says that to see you together was to +see Antigone in the clutches of Clytemnestra. There is some +satisfaction in knowing that the miserable man is quite distracted +and is haunted by the idea that Karen may have committed suicide. +Betty Jardine says that in that case you and he would have to +appear at the inquest.—Oh, my poor Mercedes!—But I feel sure that +this is impossible. Temper, not tragedy, drove Karen from you and +it was on her part a dastardly action. I am seeing everybody that I +can; they shall have my version. The Duchess is in the country; I +have wired to her that I will go to her at once if you do not send +for me; it is important that she should have the facts as I see +them before these abominable rumours reach her. Dear Mrs. Forrester +means, I am sure, to do loyally; you may count upon her to listen +to no scandal; but its breath alarms and chills her: she does not +interpret your letter as I do.</p> + +<p>"Good-bye, my dear one. Wire to me please, at once. Ever and always +<i>ton Eleanor devouée</i>."</p></div> + +<p>"Well," Mrs. Talcott commented warily, folding the letter and glancing +at Madame von Marwitz; "she don't let any grass grow under her feet, +does she? Do you want her down?"</p> + +<p>"Want her! Why should I want her! The insufferable fool!" cried Madame +von Marwitz still striding to and fro with tigerish regularity. "Does +she think me, too, a fool, to be taken in by her grimaces of loyalty +when it is as apparent as the day that delight is her chief emotion. +Here is her opportunity—<i>parbleu!</i>—At last! I am in the dust—and if +also in the dock so much the better. She will stand by me when others +fall away. She will defend the prostrate Titaness from the vultures that +prey upon her and gain at last the significance she has, for so long, so +eagerly and so fruitlessly pursued. Ah!—<i>par exemple!</i> Let her come to +me expecting gratitude. I will spurn her from me like a dog!" Madame von +Marwitz, varying her course, struck a chair aside as she spoke.</p> + +<p>"Well, I shouldn't fly out at her if I was you," said Mrs. Talcott. +"She's as silly as they make 'em, I allow, but it's all to the good if +her silliness keeps her sticking to you through thick and thin. It's +just as well to have someone around to drive off the vultures, even if +it's only a scarecrow—and Miss Scrotton is better than that. She's a +pretty brainy woman, for all her silliness, and she's pretty fond of +you, too, only you haven't treated her as well as she thinks you ought +to have, and it makes her feel kind of spry and cheerful to see that her +time's come to show you what a fine fellow she is. Most folks are like +that, I guess," Mrs. Talcott mused, returning to her stocking, "they +don't suffer so powerful over their friends' misfortunes if it gives +them a chance of showing what fine fellows they are."</p> + +<p>"Friends!" Madame von Marwitz repeated with scorching emphasis. +"Friends! Truly I have proved them, these friends of mine. Cowards and +traitors all, or crouching hounds. I am to be left, I perceive, with the +Scrotton as my sole companion." But now she paused in her course, struck +by a belated memory. "You had a letter. You have heard from the +husband."</p> + +<p>"Yes, I have," said Mrs. Talcott, "and you may as well see it." She drew +forth Gregory's letter from under the heap of darning appliances on her +lap.</p> + +<p>Madame von Marwitz snatched it from her and read it, once rapidly, once +slowly; and then, absorbed again in dark meditations, she stood holding +it, her eyes fixed on the ground.</p> + +<p>"He ain't as violent as might be expected, is he?" Mrs. Talcott +suggested. Distrust was abroad in the air between her and Mercedes; she +offered the fact of Gregory's temperateness as one that might mitigate +some anticipations.</p> + +<p>"He is as insolent as might be expected," said Madame von Marwitz. She +flung the letter back to Mrs. Talcott, resuming her pacing, with a +bitter laugh. "And to think," she said presently, "that I hoped—but +truly hoped—with all my heart—to reconcile them! To think that I +offered myself to Karen as an intermediary. It was true—yes, literally +true—what I told Mrs. Forrester—that I spoke to Karen of it—with all +love and gentleness and that she turned upon me like a tigress."</p> + +<p>"And you'll recollect," said Mrs. Talcott, "that I told you to keep your +hands off them and that you'd made enough mischief as it was. Why I +guess you did hope she'd go back. You wanted to get rid of Karen and to +have that young man to yourself; that's the truth, but you didn't tell +that to Mrs. Forrester."</p> + +<p>"I deny it," said Madame von Marwitz; but mechanically; her thoughts +were elsewhere. She still paced.</p> + +<p>"Well," said Mrs. Talcott, "you'd better send that telegram to Miss +Scrotton, telling her not to come, or you'll have her down here as soon +as she's seen the Duchess."</p> + +<p>"Send it; send it at once," said Madame von Marwitz. "Tell her that I do +not need her. Tell her that I will write." The force of her fury had +passed; counsels of discretion were making themselves felt. "Go at once +and send it."</p> + +<p>She paused again as Mrs. Talcott rose. "If Karen is not found within +three days, Tallie, I go to London. I believe that she is in London."</p> + +<p>Mrs. Talcott faced her. "If she's in London she'll be found as soon by +Mr. Jardine as by you."</p> + +<p>"Yes; that may be," said Mercedes, and discretion, now, had evidently +the mastery; "but Karen will not refuse to see me. I must see her. I +must implore her forgiveness. You would not oppose that, would you, +Tallie?"</p> + +<p>"No, I'd not oppose your asking her to forgive you," Mrs. Talcott +conceded, "when she's got back to her husband. Only I advise you to stay +where you are till you hear she's found."</p> + +<p>"I will do as you say, Tallie," said Madame von Marwitz meekly. She went +to the piano, and seating herself began to play the <i>Wohltemperirtes +Clavier</i>.</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XL" id="CHAPTER_XL"></a>CHAPTER XL</h2> + + +<p>Six days had passed since Karen's disappearance. The country had been +searched; London, still, was being examined, and the papers were +beginning to break into portraits of the missing girl. Karen became +remote, non-existent, more than dead, it seemed, when her face, like +that of some heroine of a newspaper novelette, gazed at one from the +breakfast-table. The first time that this happened, Madame von Marwitz, +flinging the sheet from her, had burst into a violent storm of weeping.</p> + +<p>She sat, on the afternoon of the sixth day, in a sunny corner of the +lower terrace and turned the leaves of a book with a listless hand. She +was to be alone till dinner-time; Tallie had gone in to Helston by bus, +and she had the air of one who feels solitude at once an oppression and +a relief. She read little, raising her eyes to gaze unseeingly over the +blue expanses stretched beneath her or to look down as vaguely into the +eyes of Victor, who lay at her feet. The restless spirit of the house +had reached Victor. He lay with his head on his extended paws in an +attitude of quiescence; but his ears were pricked to watchfulness, his +eyes, as he turned them now and again up to his mistress, were troubled. +Aware of his glance, on one occasion, Madame von Marwitz stooped and +caressed his head, murmuring: "<i>Nous sommes des infortunés, hein, mon +chien.</i>" Her voice was profoundly sad. Victor understood her. Slightly +thudding his tail he gave a soft responsive groan; and it was then, +while she still leaned to him and still caressed his head, that shrill, +emphatic voices struck on Madame von Marwitz's ear.</p> + +<p>The gravelled nook where she sat, her garden chair, with its adjusted +cushions, set against a wall, was linked by ascending paths and terraces +to the cliff-path, and this again, though only through a way overgrown +with gorse and bramble, to the public coast-guards' path along the +cliff-top. The white stones that marked the way for the coast-guards +made a wide <i>détour</i> behind Madame von Marwitz's property and this +nearer egress to the cliff was guarded by a large placard warning off +trespassers. Yet, looking in the direction of the voices, Madame von +Marwitz, to her astonishment, saw that three ladies, braving the +interdict, were actually marching down in single file upon her.</p> + +<p>One was elderly and two were young; they wore travelling dress, and, as +she gazed at them in chill displeasure, the features of the first became +dimly familiar to her. Where, she could not have said, yet she had seen +that neat, grey head before, that box-like hat with its depending veil, +that firmly corseted, matronly form, with its silver-set pouch, +suggesting, typical of the travelling American lady as it was, a +marsupial species. She did not know where she had seen this lady; but +she was a travelling American; she accosted one in determined tones, +and, at some time in the past, she had waylaid and inconvenienced her. +Madame von Marwitz, as the three trooped down upon her, did not rise. +She pointed to the lower terrace. "This is private property," she said, +and her aspect might well have turned the unwary visitors, Acteon-like, +into stags, "I must ask you to leave it at once. You see the small door +in the garden wall below; it is unlocked and it leads to the village. +Good-day to you."</p> + +<p>But, with a singularly bright and puckered look, the look of a +surf-bather, who measures with swift eye the height of the rolling +breaker and plunges therein, the elderly lady addressed her with +extraordinary volubility.</p> + +<p>"Baroness, you don't remember us—but we've met before, we have a mutual +friend:—Mrs. General Tollman of St. Paul's, Minnesota.—Allow me to +introduce myself again:—Mrs. Slifer—Mrs. Hamilton K. Slifer:—my +girls, Maude and Beatrice. We had the privilege of making your +acquaintance over a year ago, Baroness, at the station in London, just +before you sailed, and we had some talks on the steamer to that +perfectly charming woman, Miss Scrotton. I hope she's well. We're over +again this year, you see; we pine for dear old England and come just as +often as we can. We feel we belong here more than over there sometimes, +I'm afraid,"—Mrs. Slifer laughed swiftly and deprecatingly.—"My girls +are so often taken for English girls, the Burne-Jones type you know. +We've got friends staying at Mullion, so we thought we'd just drop down +on Cornwall for a little tour after we landed at Southampton, and we +drove over this afternoon and came down by the cliff—we are just crazy +about your scenery, Baroness—it's just the right setting for you—we've +been saying so all day—to have a peek at the house we've heard so much +about; and we don't want to disturb you, but it's the greatest possible +pleasure, Baroness, to have this beautiful glimpse of you—with your +splendid dog—how d' ye do, Victor—why I do believe he remembers me; we +petted him so much at the station when your niece was holding him. We +saw Mrs. Jardine the other day, Baroness—such a pleasant surprise that +was, too—only we're sorry to see she's so delicate. The New Forest will +be just the place for her. We stayed there three days after landing, +because my Beatrice here was very sea-sick and I wanted her to have a +little rest. We were simply crazy over it. I do hope Mrs. Jardine's +getting better."</p> + +<p>All this had been delivered with such speed, such an air of decision and +purpose, that Madame von Marwitz, who had risen in her bewildered +indignation and stood, her book beneath her arm, her white cloak caught +about her, had found no opportunity to check the torrent of speech, and +as these last words came as swiftly and as casually as the rest she +could hardly, for a moment, collect her faculties.</p> + +<p>"My niece? Mrs. Jardine?" she repeated, with a wild, wan utterance. +"What do you say of her?"</p> + +<p>It was at this moment that Miss Beatrice began, in the background, to +adjust her camera. She told her mother and sister afterwards that she +seemed to feel it in her bones that something was doing.</p> + +<p>Mrs. Slifer, emerging from her breaker in triumph, struck out, blinking +and smiling affably. "We heard all about the wedding in America," she +said, "and we thought we might call upon her in London and see that +splendid temple you'd given her—we heard all about that, too. I never +saw a picture of him, but I knew her in a minute, naturally, though she +did look so pulled down. Why, Baroness—what's the matter!"</p> + +<p>Madame von Marwitz had suddenly clutched Mrs. Slifer's arm with an +almost appalling violence of mien and gesture.</p> + +<p>"What is the matter?" Madame von Marwitz repeated, shaking Mrs. Slifer's +arm. "Do you know what you are saying? My niece has been lost for a +week! The whole country is searching for her! Where have you seen her? +When was it? Answer me at once!"</p> + +<p>"Why Baroness, by all means, but you needn't shake my head off," said +Mrs. Slifer, not without dignity, raising her free hand to straighten +her hat. "We've never heard a word about it. Why this is perfectly +providential.—Baroness—I must ask you not to go on shaking me like +that. I've got a very delicate stomach and the least thing upsets my +digestion."</p> + +<p>"<i>Justes cieux!</i>" Madame von Marwitz cried, dropping Mrs. Slifer's arm +and raising her hands to her head, while, in the background, Miss +Beatrice's kodak gave a click—"Will the woman drive me mad! Karen! My +child! Where is she!"</p> + +<p>"Why, we saw her at the station at Brockenhurst—in the New +Forest—didn't we Maude," said Mrs. Slifer, "and it must have been—now +let me see—" poor Mrs. Slifer collected her wits, a bent forefinger at +her lips. "To-day's Thursday and we got to Mullion yesterday—and we +stopped at Winchester for a day and night on our way to the New Forest, +it was on Saturday last of course. We'd been having a drive about that +part of the forest and we were taking the train and they had just come +and we saw them on the opposite platform. He was just helping her out of +the train and we didn't have any time to go round and speak to them—"</p> + +<p>"They!" Madame von Marwitz nearly shouted. "She was with a man! Last +Saturday! Who was it? Describe him to me! Was he slender—with fair +hair—dark eyes—the air of a poet?" She panted. And her aspect was so +singular that Miss Beatrice, startled out of her professional readiness, +failed to snap it.</p> + +<p>"Why no," said Mrs. Slifer, keeping her clue. "I shouldn't say a +poetical looking man, should you, Maude? A fleshy man—very big and +fleshy, and he was taking such good care of her and looked so kind of +tender and worried that I concluded he was her husband. She looked like +a very sick woman, Baroness."</p> + +<p>"Fleshy?" Madame von Marwitz repeated, and the word, in her moan, was +almost graceful. "Fleshy, you say? An old man? A stout old man?" she +held her hands distractedly pressed to her head. "What stout old man +does Karen know? Is it a stranger she has met?"</p> + +<p>"No, he wasn't old. This was a young man, Baroness. He had—now let me +see—his hair was sort of red—I remember noticing his hair; and he wore +knee-pants and a soft hat with a feather in it and was very high +coloured."</p> + +<p>"<i>Bon Dieu!</i>" Madame von Marwitz gasped. She had again, while Mrs. +Slifer spoke, seized her by the arm as though afraid that she might +escape her and she now gazed with a fixed gaze above Mrs. Slifer's head +and through the absorbed Maude and Beatrice. "Red hair?—A large young +man?—Was he clean shaven? Did he wear eyeglasses? Had he the face of a +musician? Did he look like an Englishman—an English gentleman?"</p> + +<p>Mrs. Slifer, nodding earnest assent to the first questions, shook her +head at the latter. "No, he didn't. What I said to Maude and Beatrice +was that Mr. Jardine looked more German than English. He looked just +like a German student, Baroness."</p> + +<p>"Franz Lippheim!" cried Madame von Marwitz. She sank back upon the seat +from which she had risen, putting a hand before her eyes.</p> + +<p>Victor, at her knees, laid a paw upon her lap and whined an +interrogative sympathy. The three American ladies gathered near and +gazed in silence upon the great woman, and Beatrice, carefully adjusting +her camera, again took a snap. The picture of Madame von Marwitz, with +her hand before her eyes, her anxious dog at her knees, found its way +into the American press and illustrated touchingly the story of the lost +adopted child. Madame von Marwitz was not sorry when, among a batch of +press-cuttings, she came across the photograph and saw that her most +genuine emotion had been thus made public.</p> + +<p>She looked up at last, and the dizziness of untried and perilous freedom +was in her eyes; but curious, now, of other objects, they took in, +weighed and measured the little group before her; power grew in them, an +upwelling of force and strategy.</p> + +<p>She smiled upon the Slifers and she rose.</p> + +<p>"You have done me an immeasurable service," she said, and as she spoke +she took Mrs. Slifer's hand with a noble dignity. "You have lifted me +from despair. It is blessed news that you bring. My child is safe with a +good, a talented man; one for whom I have the deepest affection. And in +the New Forest—at Brockenhurst—on Saturday. Ah, I shall soon have her +in my arms."</p> + +<p>Still holding Mrs. Slifer's hand she led them up the terraces and +towards the house. "The poor child is ill, distraught. She had parted +from her husband—fled from him. Ah, it has been a miserable affair, +that marriage. But now, all will be well. <i>Bon Dieu!</i> what joy! What +peace of heart you have brought me! I shall be with her to-morrow. I +start at once. And you, my good friends, let me hear your plans. Let me +be of service to you. Come with me for the last stage of your journey. I +will not part with you willingly."</p> + +<p>"It's all simply too wonderful, Baroness," Mrs. Slifer gasped, as she +skipped along on her short legs beside the goddess-like stride of the +great woman, who held her—who held her very tightly. "We were just +going to drift along up to Tintagel and then work up to London, taking +in all the cathedrals we could on our way."</p> + +<p>"And you will change your route in order to give me the pleasure of your +company. You will forfeit Tintagel: is it not so?" Madame von Marwitz +smiled divinely. "You will come with me in my car to Truro where we take +the train and I will drop you to-night at the feet of a cathedral. So. +Your luggage is at Mullion? That is simple. We wire to your friends to +pack and send it on at once. Leave it to me. You are in my hands. It is +a kindness that you will do me. I need you, Mrs. Slifer," she pressed +the lady's arm. "My old friend, who lives with me, has left me for the +day, and, moreover, she is too old to travel. I must not be alone. I +need you. It is a kindness that you will do me. Now you will wait for me +here and tea will be brought to you. I shall keep you waiting but for a +few moments."</p> + +<p>It was to be lifted on the back of a genie. She had wafted them up, +along the garden paths, across the verandah, into the serenity and +spaciousness and dim whites and greens and silvers of the great +music-room, with a backward gaze that had, in all its sweetness, +something of hypnotic force and fixity.</p> + +<p>She left them with the Sargent portrait looking down at them and the +room in its strangeness and beauty seemed part of the spell she laid +upon them. The Slifers, herded together in the middle of it, gazed about +them half awe-struck and spoke almost in whispers.</p> + +<p>"Why, girls," said Mrs. Slifer, who was the first to find words, "this +is the most thrilling thing I ever came across."</p> + +<p>"You've pulled it off this time, mother, and no mistake," said Maude, +glancing somewhat furtively up at the Sargent. "Do look at that +perfectly lovely dress she has on in that picture. Did you ever see such +pearls; and the eyes seem to follow you, don't they?"</p> + +<p>"The poor, distracted thing just clings to us," said Mrs. Slifer. "I +shouldn't wonder if she was as lonely as could be."</p> + +<p>"All the same," Beatrice, the doubting Thomas of the group, now +commented, "I don't think however excited she was she ought to have +shaken you like that, mother." Beatrice had examined the appurtenances +of the great room with a touch of nonchalance. It was she whom Gregory +had seen at the station, seated on the pile of luggage.</p> + +<p>"That's petty of you, Bee," said Mrs. Slifer gravely. "Real small and +petty. It's a great soul at white heat we've been looking at."</p> + +<p>Handcock at this point brought in tea, and after she had placed the tray +and disposed the plates of cake and bread-and-butter and left the +Slifers alone again, Mrs. Slifer went on under her breath, seating +herself to pour out the tea. "And do look at this tea-pot, girls; isn't +it too cute for words. My! What will the Jones say when they hear about +this! They'd give their eye-teeth to be with us now."</p> + +<p>The Slifers, indeed, were never to forget their adventure. It was to be +impressed upon their minds not only by its supreme enviableness but by +its supreme discomfort. It was almost five when, like three Ganymedes +uplifted by the talons of a fierce, bright bird, they soared with Madame +von Marwitz towards Truro, and at Truro, in spite of a reckless speed +which desperately dishevelled their hair and hats, they arrived too late +to catch the 6.40 train for Exeter.</p> + +<p>Madame von Marwitz strode majestically along the platform, her white +cloak trailing in the dust, called for station-masters, demanded special +trains, fixed haughty, uncomprehending eyes upon the officials who +informed her that she could not possibly get a train until ten, resigned +herself, with sundry exclamations of indignation and stamps of the foot, +to the tedious wait, sailed into the refreshment room only to sail out +again, mounted the car not yet dismissed, bore the Slifers to a hotel +where they had a dinner over which she murmured at intervals "<i>Bon Dieu, +est-ce-donc possible!</i>" and then, in the chill, dark evening, toured +about in the adjacent country until ten, when Burton was sent back to +Les Solitudes and when they all got into the train for Exeter.</p> + +<p>She had never in all her life travelled alone before. She hardly knew +how to procure her ticket, and her helplessness in regard to box and +dressing-case was so apparent that Mrs. Slifer saw to the one and Maude +carried the other, together with the fur-lined coat when this was thrown +aside.</p> + +<p>The hours that they passed with her in the train were the strangest that +the Slifers had ever passed. They were chilled, they were sleepy, they +were utterly exhausted; but they kept their eyes fixed on the +perplexing, resplendent object that upbore them.</p> + +<p>Beatrice, it is true, showed by degrees, a slight sulkiness. She had not +liked it when, at Truro, Madame von Marwitz had supervised their wires +to the Jones, and she liked it less when Madame von Marwitz explained to +them in the train that she relied upon them not to let the Jones—or +anybody for the present—know anything about Mrs. Jardine. Something in +Madame von Marwitz's low-toned and richly murmured confidences as she +told Maude and Mrs. Slifer that it was important for Mrs. Jardine's +peace of mind, and for her very sanity, that her dreaded husband should +not hear of her whereabouts, made Beatrice, as she expressed it to +herself, "tired."</p> + +<p>She looked out of the window while her mother and sister murmured, "Why +certainly, Baroness; why yes; we perfectly understand," leaning forward +in the illuminated carriage like docile conspirators.</p> + +<p>After this Madame von Marwitz said that she would try to sleep; but, +propped in her corner, she complained so piteously of discomfort that +Mrs. Slifer and Maude finally divested themselves of their jackets and +contrived a pillow for her out of them. They assured her that they were +not cold and Madame von Marwitz, reclining now at full length, murmured +"<i>Mille remerciements</i>." Soon she fell asleep and Mrs. Slifer and Maude, +very cold and very unresentful, sat and watched her slumbers. From time +to time she softly snored. She was very comfortable in her fur-lined +cloak.</p> + +<p>It was one o'clock when they reached Exeter and drove, dazed and numbed, +to a hotel. Here Madame von Marwitz further availed herself of the +services of Maude and Mrs. Slifer, for she was incapable of unpacking +her box and dressing-case. Mrs. Slifer maided her while Maude, with +difficulty at the late hour, procured her hot water, bouillon and toast. +Beatrice meanwhile, callously avowing her unworthiness, said that she +was "dead tired" and went to bed.</p> + +<p>Madame von Marwitz bade Mrs. Slifer and Maude the kindest good-night, +smiling dimly at them over her bedroom candlestick as she ushered them +to the door. "So," she said; "I leave you to your cathedral."</p> + +<p>When the Slifers arose next day, late, for they were very weary, they +found that Madame von Marwitz had departed by an early train.</p> + +<hr style='width: 45%;' /> + +<p>Meanwhile, at Les Solitudes, old Mrs. Talcott turned from side to side +all night, sleepless. Her heart was heavy with anxiety.</p> + +<p>Karen was found and to-morrow Mercedes would be with her; she had sent +for Mercedes, so the note pinned to Mrs. Talcott's dressing-table had +informed her, and Mercedes would write.</p> + +<p>What had happened? Who were the unknown ladies who had appeared from no +one knew where during her absence at Helston and departed with Mercedes +for Truro?</p> + +<p>"Something's wrong. Something's wrong," Mrs. Talcott muttered to herself +during the long hours. "I don't believe she's sent for Mercedes—not +unless she's gone crazy."</p> + +<p>At dawn she fell at last into an uneasy sleep. She dreamed that she and +Mercedes were walking in the streets of Cracow, and Mercedes was a +little child. She jumped beside Mrs. Talcott, holding her by the hand. +The scene was innocent, yet the presage of disaster filled it with a +strange horror. Mrs. Talcott woke bathed in sweat.</p> + +<p>"I'll get an answer to my telegram this morning," she said to herself. +She had telegraphed to Gregory last night, at once: "Karen is found. +Mercedes has gone to her. That's all I know yet."</p> + +<p>She clung to the thought of Gregory's answer. Perhaps he, too, had news. +But she had no answer to her telegram. The post, instead, brought her a +letter from Gregory that had been written the morning before.</p> + +<div class="blockquot"><p>"Dear Mrs. Talcott," it ran. "Karen is found. The detectives +discovered that Mr. Franz Lippheim had not gone to Germany with his +family. They traced him to an inn in the New Forest. Karen is with +him and has taken his name. May I ask you, if possible, to keep +this fact from her guardian for the present.—Yours sincerely,</p> + +<p>"Gregory Jardine."</p></div> + +<p>When Mrs. Talcott had read this she felt herself overcome by a sudden +sickness and trembling. She had not yet well recovered from her illness +of the Spring. She crept upstairs to her room and went to bed.</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XLI" id="CHAPTER_XLI"></a>CHAPTER XLI</h2> + + +<p>It seemed to Karen, after hours had passed, that she had ceased to be +tired and that her body, wafted by an involuntary rhythm, was as light +as thistle-down on the wind.</p> + +<p>She had crossed the Goonhilly Downs where the moonlight, spreading far +and wide with vast unearthly brightness, filled all the vision with +immensities of space and brought memories of strains from Schubert's +symphonies, silver monotonies of never-ending sound.</p> + +<p>She had plunged down winding roads, blackly shadowed by their hedgerow +trees, passing sometimes a cottage that slept between its clumps of +fuchsia and veronica. She had climbed bare hill-sides where abandoned +mines or quarries had left desolate mementoes that looked in the +moonlight like ancient tombs and catacombs.</p> + +<p>Horror lay behind her at Les Solitudes, a long, low cloud on the horizon +to which she had turned her back. The misery that had overpowered and +made her one with its dread realities lay beneath her feet. She was +lifted above it in a strange, disembodied enfranchisement all the night, +and the steady blowing of the wind, the leagues of silver, the mighty +sky with its far, high priestess, were part of an ecstasy of sadness, +impersonal, serene, hallucinated, like that of the music that +accompanied the rhythm of her feet.</p> + +<p>The night was almost over and dawn was coming, when, on a long uphill +road, she felt her heart flag and her footsteps stagger.</p> + +<p>The moon still rode sharp and high, but its light seemed concentrated in +its own glittering disk and the world was visible in an uncanny darkness +that was not dark. The magic of the night had vanished and the beat of +vast, winding melodies melted from Karen's mind leaving her dry and +brittle and empty, like a shell from which the tides have drawn away.</p> + +<p>She knew what she had still to do. At the top of the road she was to +turn and cut across fields to a headland above Falmouth—from which a +path she knew led to the town. She had not gone to Helston, but had +taken this cross-country way to Falmouth because she knew that at any +hour of the night she might be missed and followed and captured. They +would not think of Falmouth; they would not dream that she could walk so +far. In the town she would pawn Onkel Ernst's watch and take the early +train to London and by evening she would be with Frau Lippheim. So she +had seen it all, in flashes, last night.</p> + +<p>But now, toiling up the interminable road, clots of darkness floating +before her eyes, cold sweats standing on her forehead, the sense of her +exhaustion crushed down upon her. She tried to fix her thoughts on the +trivial memories and forecasts that danced in her mind. The odd blinking +of Mrs. Talcott's eyelid as she had told her story; the pattern of the +breakfast set that she and Gregory had used—ah, no!—not that! she must +not fix that memory!—the roofs and chimneys of some little German town +where she was to find a refuge; for though it was to join the Lippheims +that she fled, she did not see her life as led with theirs. Leaning upon +these pictures as if upon a staff she held, she reached the hill-top. +Her head now seemed to dance like a balloon, buffeted by the great +throbs of her blood. She trailed with leaden feet across the fields. In +the last high meadow she paused and looked down at the bend of the great +bay under the pallid sky and at the town lying like a scattering of +shells along its edge. How distant it was. How like a mirage.</p> + +<p>A little tree was beside her and its leaves in the uncanny light looked +like crisp black metal. The sea was grey. The sunrise was still far off. +Karen sank beneath the tree and leaned her head against it. What should +she do if she were unable to walk on? There was still time—hours and +hours of time—till the train left Falmouth; but how was she to reach +Falmouth? Fears rolled in upon her like dark breakers, heaping +themselves one upon the other, stealthy, swift, not to be escaped. She +saw the horrible kindness in Mrs. Talcott's eyes, relegated, not +relinquished. She saw herself pursued, entrapped, confronted by Gregory, +equally entrapped, forced by her need, her helplessness, to come to her +and coldly determined—as she had seen him on that dreadful evening of +their parting—to do his duty by her, to make her and to keep her safe, +and his own dignity secure. To see him again, to strive against him +again, weaponless, now, without refuge, and revealed to herself and to +him as a creature whose whole life had been founded on illusion, to +strive not only against his ironic authority but, worst of all, against +a longing, unavowed, unlooked at, a longing that crippled and unstrung +her, and that ran under everything like a hidden river under granite +hills—she would die, she felt, rather than endure it.</p> + +<p>She had closed her eyes as she leaned her head against the tree and when +she opened them she saw that the leaves of the tree had turned from +black to green and that the grass was green and the sea and sky faintly +blue. Above her head the long, carved ripples of the morning cirri +flushed with a heavenly pink and there came from a thicket of a little +wood the first soft whistle of a wakened bird. Another came and then +another, and suddenly the air was full of an almost jangling sweetness. +Karen felt herself trembling. Shudders ran over her. She was ravished to +life, yet without the answering power of life. Her longing, her +loneliness, her fear, were part of the intolerable loveliness and they +pierced her through and through.</p> + +<p>She struggled to her feet, holding the tree in her clasp, and, after the +galvanised effort, she closed her eyes again, and again leaned her head +upon the bark.</p> + +<p>Then it was that she heard footsteps, sudden footsteps, near. For a +moment a paralysis of fear held down her eyelids. "<i>Ach Gott!</i>" she +heard. And opening her eyes, she saw Franz Lippheim before her.</p> + +<p>Franz Lippheim was dressed, very strangely dressed, in tweeds and +knicker-bockers and wore a soft round hat with a quill in it—the oddest +of hats—and had a knapsack on his back. The colours of the coming day +were caricatured in his ruddy face and red-gold hair, his bright green +stockings and bright red tie. He was Germanic, flagrant, incredible, and +a Perseus, an undreamed of, God-sent Perseus.</p> + +<p>"<i>Ach Gott!</i> Can it be so!" he was saying, as he approached her, walking +softly as though in fear of dispersing a vision.</p> + +<p>And as, not speaking, still clasping her tree, she held out her hand to +him, he saw the extremity of her exhaustion and put his arm around her.</p> + +<p>She did not faint; she kept her consciousness of the blue sky and the +cirri—golden now—and even of Franz's tie and eyeglasses, glistening +golden in the rising sunlight; but he had lowered her gently to the +ground, kneeling beside her, and was supporting her shoulders and +putting brandy to her lips. After a little while he made her drink some +milk and then she could speak to him.</p> + +<p>She must speak and she must tell him that she had left her guardian. She +must speak of Tante. But what to say of her? The shame and pity that had +gone with her for days laid their fingers on her lips as she thought of +Tante and of why she had left her. Her mind groped for some availing +substitute.</p> + +<p>"Franz," she said, "you must help me. I have left Tante. You will not +question me. There is a breach between us; she has been unkind to me. I +can never see her again." And now with clearer thought she found a +sufficient truth. "She has not understood about me and my husband. She +has tried to make me go back to him; and I have fled from her because I +was afraid that she would send for him. She is not as fond of me as I +thought she was, Franz, and I was a burden to her when I came. Franz, +will you take me to London, to your mother? I am going with you all to +Germany. I am going to earn my living there."</p> + +<p>"<i>Du lieber Gott!</i>" Herr Lippheim ejaculated. He stared at Karen in +consternation. "Our great lady—our great Tante—has been unkind to you? +Is it then possible, Karen?"</p> + +<p>"Yes, Franz; you must believe me. You must not question me."</p> + +<p>"Trust me, my Karen," said Herr Lippheim now; "do not fear. It shall be +as you say. But I cannot take you to the Mütterchen in London, for she +is not there. They have gone back to Germany, Karen, and it is to +Germany that we must go."</p> + +<p>"Can you take me there, Franz, at once? I have no money; but I am going +to pawn this watch that Onkel Ernst gave me."</p> + +<p>"That is all simple, my Karen. I have money. I took with me the money +for my tour; I was on a walking-tour, do you see, and reached Falmouth +last night and had but started now to pay my respects at Les Solitudes. +I wished to see you, Karen, and to see if you were well. But it is very +far to your village. How have you come so far, at night?"</p> + +<p>"I walked. I have walked all night. I am so tired, Franz. So tired. I do +not know how I shall go any further." She closed her eyes; her head +rested against his shoulder.</p> + +<p>Franz Lippheim looked down at her with an infinite compassion and +gentleness. "It will all be well, my Karen; do not fear," he said. "The +train does not go from Falmouth for three hours still. We will take it +then and go to Southampton and sail for Germany to-night. And for now, +you will drink this milk—so, yes; that is well;—and eat this +chocolate;—you cannot; it will be for later then. And you will lie +still with my cloak around you, so; and you will sleep. And I will sit +beside you and you will have no troubled thoughts. You are with your +friends, my Karen." While he spoke he had wrapped her round and laid her +head softly on a folded garment that he drew from his knapsack; and in a +few moments he saw that she slept, the profound sleep of complete +exhaustion.</p> + +<p>Franz Lippheim sat above her, not daring to light his pipe for fear of +waking her. He, watched the glory of the sunrise. It was perhaps the +most wonderful hour in Franz's life.</p> + +<p>Phrases of splendid music passed through his mind, mingling with the +sound of the sea. No personal pain and no personal hope was in his +heart. He was uplifted, translated, with the beauty of the hour and its +significance.</p> + +<p>Karen needed him. Karen was to come to them. He was to see her +henceforward in his life. He was to guard and help her. He was her +friend. The splendour and the peace of the golden sky and golden sea +were the angels of a great initiation. Nothing could henceforth be as it +had been. His brain stirred with exquisite intuitions, finding form for +them in the loved music that, henceforth, he would play as he had never +before played it. And when he looked from the sea and sky down at the +sleeping face beside him, wasted and drawn and piteous in its repose, +large tears rose in his eyes and flowed down his cheeks, and the sadness +was more beautiful than any joy that he had known.</p> + +<p>What she had suffered!—the dear one. What they must help her to forget! +To her, also, the hour would send it angels: she would wake to a new +life.</p> + +<p>He turned his eyes again to the rising sun, and his heart silently +chanted its love and pride and sadness in the phrases of Beethoven, of +Schubert and of Brahms, and from time to time, softly, he muttered to +himself, this stout young German Jew with the red neck-tie and the +strange round hat: "<i>Süsses Kind! Unglückliches Kind! Oh—der schöne +Tag!</i>"</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XLII" id="CHAPTER_XLII"></a>CHAPTER XLII</h2> + + +<p>Madame Von Marwitz looked out from her fly at the ugly little wayside +inn with its narrow lawn and its bands of early flowers. Trees rose +round it, the moors of the forest stretched before. It was remote and +very silent.</p> + +<p>Here it was, she had learned at the station, some miles away, that the +German lady and gentleman were staying, and the lady was said to be very +ill. Madame von Marwitz's glance, as it rested upon the goal of her +journey, had in it the look of vast, constructive power, as when, for +the first time, it rested on a new piece of music, realized it, mastered +it, possessed it, actual, in her mind, before her fingers gave it to the +world. So, now, she realized and mastered and possessed the scene that +was to be enacted.</p> + +<p>She got out of the fly and told the man to carry in her box and +dressing-case and then to wait. She opened the little gate, and as she +did so, glancing up, she saw Franz Lippheim standing looking out at her +from a ground-floor window. His gaze was stark in its astonishment. She +returned it with a solemn smile. In another moment she had put the +landlady aside with benign authority and was in the little sitting-room. +"My Franz!" she exclaimed in German. "Thank God!" She threw her arms +around his neck and burst into sobs.</p> + +<p>Franz, holding a pipe extended in his hand, stood for a moment in +silence his eyes still staring their innocent dismay over her shoulder. +Then he said: "How have you come here, <i>gnädige Frau</i>?"</p> + +<p>"Come, Franz!" Madame von Marwitz echoed, weeping: "Have I not been +seeking my child for the last six days! Love such as mine is a torch +that lights one's path! Come! Yes; I am come. I have found her! She is +safe, and with my Franz!"</p> + +<p>"But Karen is ill, very ill indeed," said Franz, speaking with some +difficulty, locked as he was in the great woman's arms. "The doctor +feared for her life three days ago. She has been delirious. And it is +you, <i>gnädige Frau</i>, whom she fears;—you and her husband."</p> + +<p>Madame von Marwitz leaned back her head to draw her hand across her +eyes, clearing them of tears.</p> + +<p>"But do I not know it, Franz?" she said, smiling a trembling smile at +him. "Do I not know it? I have been in fault; yes; and I will make +confession to you. But—oh!—my child has punished me too cruelly. To +leave me without a word! At night! It was the terror of her husband that +drove her to it, Franz. Yes; it has been a delirium of terror. She was +ill when she went from me."</p> + +<p>She had released him now, though keeping his hands in hers, and she +still held them as they sat down at the centre table in the little room, +he on one side, she on the other, she leaning to him across it; and she +read in his face his deep discomfort.</p> + +<p>"But you see, <i>gnädige Frau</i>," Franz again took up his theme; "she +believes that you wish to send her back to him; she has said it; she +could not trust you. And so she fled from you. And I have promised to +take care of her. I am to take her to my mother in Germany as soon as +she can travel. We were on our way to Southampton and would have been, +days since, with the Mütterchen, if in the train Karen had not become so +ill—so very ill. It was a fever that grew on her, and delirium. I did +not know what was best to do. And I remembered this little inn where the +Mütterchen and we four stayed some years ago, when we came first to +England. The landlady was very good; and so I thought of her and brought +Karen here. But when she is better I must take her to Germany, <i>gnädige +Frau</i>. I have promised it."</p> + +<p>While Franz thus spoke a new steadiness had come to Madame von Marwitz's +eyes. They dilated singularly, and with them her nostrils, as though she +drew a deep new breath of realisation. It was as if Franz had let down a +barrier; pointed out a way. There was no confession to be made to Franz. +Karen had spared her.</p> + +<p>She looked at him, looked and looked, and she shook her head with +infinite gentleness. "But Franz," she said, "I do not wish her to go +back to her husband. I was in fault, yes, grave fault, to urge it upon +her; but Karen's terror was her mistake, her delirium. It was for my +sake that she had left him, Franz, because to me he had shown insolence +and insult;—for your sake, too, Franz, for he tried to part her from +all her friends and of you he spoke with an unworthy jealousy. But +though my heart bled that Karen should be tied to such a man, I knew him +to be not a bad man; hard, narrow, but in his narrowness upright, and +fond, I truly believed it, of his wife. And I could not let her break +her marriage—do you not see, Franz,—if it were for my sake. I could +not see her young life ruined in its dawn. I wished to write to my good +friend Mrs. Forrester—who is also Karen's friend, and his, and I +offered myself as intermediary, as intercessor from him to Karen, if +need be. Was it so black, my fault? For it was this that Karen resented +so cruelly, Franz. Our Karen can be harsh and quick, you know that, +Franz. But no! Can she—can you, believe for one moment that I would now +have her return to him, if, indeed, it were any longer possible? No, +Franz; no; no; no; Karen shall never see that man again. Only over my +dead body should he pass to her. I swear it, not only to you, but to +myself. And Franz, dear Franz, what I think of now is you, and your love +and loyalty to my Karen. You have saved her; you have saved me; it is +life you bring—a new life, Franz," and smiling upon him, her cheeks +still wet with tears, she softly sang Tristan's phrase to Kurvenal: +"<i>Holder! Treuer!—wie soll dir Tristan danken!</i>"</p> + +<p>Her joy, her ecstasy of gratitude, shone upon him. She was the tutelary +goddess of his family. Trust, for himself and for his loved Karen, went +out to her and took refuge beneath the great wings she spread. And as +she held his hands and smiled upon him he told her in his earnest, +honest German, all that had happened to him and Karen; of his +walking-tour; and of the meeting on the Falmouth headland at dawn; and +of their journey here. "And one thing, <i>gnädige Frau</i>," he said, "that +troubled me, but that will now be well, since you are come to us, is +that I have told them here that Karen is my wife. See you, <i>gnädige +Frau</i>, the good landlady knows us all and knows that Lotta, Minna and +Elizabeth are the only daughters that the Mütterchen has—besides the +little ones. I remembered that the Mütterchen had told her this; she +talked much with her; it was but three years ago, <i>gnädige Frau</i>; it was +not time enough for a very little one to grow up; so I could not say +that Karen was my sister; and I have to be much with her; I sit beside +her all through the night—for she is afraid to be alone, the <i>armes +Kind</i>; and the good landlady and the maid must sleep. So it seemed to me +that it was right to tell them that Karen was my wife. You think so, +too, <i>nicht wahr, gnädige Frau</i>?"</p> + +<p>Madame von Marwitz had listened, her deeply smiling eyes following, +understanding all; and as the last phase of the story came they deepened +to only a greater sweetness. They showed no surprise. A content almost +blissful shone on Franz Lippheim.</p> + +<p>"It is well, Franz," she said. "Yes, you have done rightly. All is well; +more well than you yet perhaps see. Karen is safe, and Karen shall be +free. What has happened is God-sent. The situation is in our hands."</p> + +<p>For a further moment, silent and weighty, she gazed at him and then she +added: "There need be no fear for you and Karen. I will face all pain +and difficulty for you both. You are to marry Karen, Franz."</p> + +<p>The shuttle that held the great gold thread of her plan was thrown. She +saw the pattern stretch firm and fair before her. Silently and sweetly, +with the intentness of a sibyl who pours and holds forth a deep potion, +she smiled at him across the table.</p> + +<p>Franz, who all this time had been leaning on his arms, his hands in +hers, his eyes, through their enlarging pince-nez, fixed on her, did not +move for some moments after the astounding statement reached him. His +stillness and his look of arrested stupor suggested, indeed, a large +blue-bottle slung securely in the subtle threads of a spider's web and +reduced to torpid acquiescence by the spider's stealthy ministrations. +He gazed with mildness, almost with blandness, upon the enchantress, as +if some prodigy of nature overtopping all human power of comment had +taken place before him. Then in a small, feeble voice he said: "<i>Wass +meinen Sie, gnädige Frau?</i>"</p> + +<p>"Dear, dear Franz," Madame von Marwitz murmured, pressing his hands with +maternal solicitude, and thus giving him more time to adjust himself to +his situation. "It is not as strange as your humility finds it. And it +is now inevitable. You do not I think realize the position in which you +and Karen are placed. I am not the only witness; the landlady, the +doctor, the maid, and who knows who else,—all will testify that you +have been here with Karen as your wife, that you have been with her day +and night. Do not imagine that Mr. Jardine has sought to take Karen back +or would try to. He has made no movement to get her back. He has most +completely acquiesced in their estrangement. And when he hears that she +has fled with you, that she has passed here, for a week almost, as your +wife, he will be delighted—but delighted, with all his anger against +you—to seize the opportunity for divorcing her and setting himself +free."</p> + +<p>But while she spoke Franz's large and ruddy face had paled. He had drawn +his hands from hers though she tried to retain them. He rose from his +chair. "But, <i>gnädige Frau</i>," he said, "that is not right. No; that is +wrong. He may not divorce Karen."</p> + +<p>"How will you prevent him from divorcing her, Franz?" Madame von Marwitz +returned, holding him with her eye, while, in great agitation, he passed +his hand repeatedly over his forehead and hair. "You have been seen. I +have been told by those who had seen you that you and Karen were here. +Already Karen's husband must know it. And if you could prevent it, would +you wish to, Franz? Would you wish, if you could, to bind her to this +man for life? Try to think clearly, my friend. It is Karen's happiness +that hangs in the balance. It is upon that that we must fix our eyes. My +faith forbids divorce; but I am not <i>dévote</i>, and Karen is not of my +faith, nor is her husband, nor are you. I take my stand beside Karen. I +say that one so young, so blameless, so unfortunate, shall not have her +life wrecked by one mistake. With me as your champion you and Karen can +afford to snap your fingers at the world's gross verdict. Karen will be +with me. I will take her abroad. I will cherish her as never child was +cherished. We make no defence. In less than a year the case is over. +Then you will come for Karen and you will be married from my house. I +will give Karen a large dot; she shall want for nothing in her life. And +you and she will live in Germany, with your friends and your great +music, and your babies, Franz. What I had hoped for two years ago shall +come to pass and this bad dream shall be forgotten."</p> + +<p>Franz, looking dazedly about him while she spoke, now dropped heavily on +his chair and joining his hands before his eyes leaned his head upon +them. He muttered broken ejaculations. "<i>Ach Gott! Unbegreiflich!</i> Such +happiness is not to think on! You are kind, kind, <i>gnädige Frau</i>. You +believe that all is for the best. But Karen—<i>gnädige Frau</i>, our little +Karen! She does not love me. How could she be happy with me? Never for +one moment have I hoped. It was against my wish that the Mütterchen +wrote to you that time two years ago. No; always I saw it; she had +kindness only for me and friendliness; but no love; never any love. And +it will be to smirch our Karen's name, <i>gnädige Frau</i>. It will be to +accept disgrace for her. We must defend her from this accusation, for it +is not true. Ah, <i>gnädige Frau</i>, you are powerful in the world. Can you +not make it known that it is untrue, that Karen did not come to me?"</p> + +<p>He leaned his forehead on his clasped hands, protesting, appealing, +expostulating, and Madame von Marwitz, leaning slightly back in her +chair, resting her cheek against her finger, scrutinized his bent head +with a change of expression. Intently, almost fiercely, with half-closed +lids, she examined Franz's crisp upstanding hair, the thick rims of his +ruddy ears, the thick fingers with their square and rather dirty nails +and the large turquoise that adorned one of them. Cogitation, +self-control and fierce determination were in her gaze; then it veiled +itself again in gentleness and, with a steady and insistent patience, +she said: "You are astray, my friend, much astray, and very ignorant. +Look with me at fact, and then say, if you can, that we can make it +known that it is untrue. You are known to be in love with Karen; you are +known to have asked me for her hand. Karen makes a marriage that is +unhappy; it is known that she is not happy with her husband. Did you not +yourself see that all was not well with them? It has been known for +long. You arrive in London; Karen sees you again; next day she flies +from Mr. Jardine and takes refuge with you at your lodgings. Yes, you +will say, but your mother, your sisters, too, were there. Yes, the world +will answer, and she came to me to wait till they were gone and you free +to join her. In a fortnight's time she seizes a pretext for leaving +me—I speak of what the world will say Franz—and meets you. Will the +world, will Karen's husband, believe that it was by chance? She is found +hidden with you here, those who see you come to me; it is so I find you, +and she is here bearing your name. Come, my friend, it is no question of +saving Karen from smirches; the world will say that it is your duty as +an honourable man to marry Karen. Better that she should be known as +your wife than as your abandoned mistress. So speaks the world, Franz. +And though we know that it speaks falsely we have no power to undeceive +it. But now, mark me, my friend; I have no wish to undeceive it. I do +not see the story, told even in these terms, as disgraceful; I do not +see my Karen smirched. I am not one who weighs the human heart and its +needs in the measures of convention. Bravely and in truth, Karen frees +herself. So be it. You say that she does not love you. I say, Franz, how +do you know that? I say that if she does not love you yet, she will love +you; and I add, Franz, for the full ease of your conscience, that if +Karen, when she is free, does not wish to marry you, then—it is very +simple—she remains with me and does not marry. But what I ask of you +now is bravery and discretion, for our Karen's sake. She must be freed; +in your heart you know that it is well that Karen should be freed. In +your heart you know that Karen must not be bound till death to this man +she loathes and dreads and will never see again. If not you, Franz, is +it not possible that Karen may love another man one day? But it is you +that she will love; nay, it is you she loves. I know my Karen's heart. +Tell me, Franz, am I not right in what I say?"</p> + +<p>For some time now Franz had been looking at her and her voice grew more +tender and more soft as she saw that he found no word of protest. He sat +upright, still, at intervals, running his fingers through his hair, +breathing deeply, near tears, yet arrested and appeased. And hope, +beautiful, strange hope, linking itself to the intuitions of the dawn +when he had sat above Karen's sleep, stole into his heart. Why could it +not be true? Why should not Karen come to love him? She would be with +him, free, knowing how deep and tender was his love for her, and that it +made no claim. Would not her heart answer his one day? And as if +guessing at his thoughts Madame von Marwitz added, the dimness of tears +in her own eyes: "See, my Franz, let it be in this wise. I bring Karen +to your mother in a few days; she will be strong enough for travel in a +few days, is it not so? She will then be with you and yours in Germany, +and I watching over you. So you will see her from day to day? So you +will gently mend the torn young heart and come to read it. And you may +trust a wise old woman, Franz, when I prophesy to you that Karen's heart +will turn and grow to yours. You may trust one wise in hearts when she +tells you that Karen is to be your loving wife."</p> + +<p>She rose, and the sincerity of her voice was unfeigned. She was moved, +deeply moved, by the beauty of the pattern she wove. She was deeply +convinced by her own creation.</p> + +<p>Franz, too, got up, stumbling.</p> + +<p>"And now, Franz," she said, "we say <i>au revoir</i>. I have come and it is +not seemly that you remain here longer. You go to Germany to make ready +for us and I write to your mother to-day. Ah!—the dear Lise! Her heart +will rejoice! Where is your room, Franz, and where is Karen's?"</p> + +<p>There were three doors in the little sitting-room. She had entered from +the passage by one. She looked now towards the others.</p> + +<p>Franz opened one, it showed a flight of stairs. "Karen's room is up +those stairs," he said, closing it very softly. "And mine is here, next +this one where we are. We are very quiet, you see, and shut in to +ourselves. There is no other way to Karen's room but this, and her room +is at the back, so that no disturbance reaches her. I think that she +still sleeps, <i>gnädige Frau</i>; we must not wake her if she sleeps. I will +take you to her as soon as she is awake."</p> + +<p>Madame von Marwitz, with her unchanging smile, was pressing him towards +the door of his own room.</p> + +<p>"I will wait. I will wait until she wakes, Franz. Your luggage? It is +here? I will help you to pack, my Franz."</p> + +<p>She had drawn him into his room, her arm passed into his, and, even +while she spoke, she pointed out the few effects scattered here and +there. And, with his torpid look of a creature hypnotized, Franz obeyed +her, taking from her hands the worn brush, the shaving appliances, the +socks and book and nightshirt.</p> + +<p>When all were laid together in his knapsack and he had drawn the straps, +he turned to her, still with the dazzled gaze. "But this may wait," he +said, "until I have said good-bye to Karen."</p> + +<p>Madame von Marwitz looked at him with an almost musing sweetness. She +had the aspect of a conjuror who, with a last light puff of breath or +touch of a magic finger, puts forth the final resource of a stupefying +dexterity. So delicately, so softly, with a calm that knew no doubt or +hesitation, she shook her head. "No; no farewells, now, my Franz. That +would not be well. That would agitate her. She could not listen to all +our story. She could not understand. Later, when she is in my arms, at +peace, I will tell her all and that you are gone to wait for us, and +give her your adieu."</p> + +<p>He gazed at the conjuror. "But, <i>gnädige Frau</i>, may I not say good-bye +to Karen? Together we could tell her. It will be strange to her to wake +and find that I am gone."</p> + +<p>Her arm was passed in his again. She was leading him through the +sitting-room. And she repeated with no change of voice: "No, my Franz. I +know these illnesses. A little agitation is very bad. You will write to +her daily. She shall have your letters, every day. You promise me—but I +need not ask it of our Franz—to write. In three days, or in four, we +will be with you."</p> + +<p>She had got him out of his room, out of the sitting-room, into the +passage. The cab still waited, the cabman dozed on his box in the spring +sunlight. Before the landlady Madame von Marwitz embraced Franz and +kissed and blessed him. She kept an arm round him till she had him at +the cab-door. She almost lifted him in.</p> + +<p>"You will tell Karen—that you did not find it right—that I should say +good-bye to her," he stammered.</p> + +<p>And with a last long pressure of the hand she said: "I will tell her, +Franz. We will talk much of you, Karen and I. Trust me, I am with you +both. In my hands you are safe."</p> + +<p>The cab rolled away and Franz's face, from under the round hat and the +quill, looked back at the triumphant conjuror, dulled and dazed rather +than elated, by the spectacle of her inconceivable skill.</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XLIII" id="CHAPTER_XLIII"></a>CHAPTER XLIII</h2> + + +<p>Karen lay sleeping in the little room above. She had slept so much since +they had carried her, Franz, and the two women with kind faces, into +this little room; deep draughts of sleep, as though her exhausted nature +could never rest enough. Fever still drowsed in her blood and a haze of +half delirious visions often accompanied her waking. They seemed to +gather round her now, as, in confused and painful dreams, she rose from +the depths towards consciousness again. Dimly she heard the sound of +voices and her dream wove them into images of fear and sorrow.</p> + +<p>She was running along the cliff-top. She had run for miles and it was +night and beside her yawned the black gulfs of the cliff-edge. And from +far below, in the darkness, she heard a voice wailing as if from some +creature lost upon the rocky beach. It was Gregory in some great peril. +Pity and fear beat upon her like black wings as she ran, and whether it +was to escape him or to succour him she did not know.</p> + +<p>Then from the waking world came distinctly the sound of rolling wheels, +and opening her eyes she looked out upon her room, its low uneven +ceiling, its coloured print of Queen Victoria over the mantelpiece, its +text above the washhand-stand and chest of drawers. On the little table +beside her bed Onkel Ernst's watch ticked softly. The window was open +and a tree rustled outside. And through these small, familiar sounds she +still heard the rolling of retreating wheels. The terror of her dream +fastened upon this sound until another seemed to strike, like a soft, +stealthy blow, upon her consciousness.</p> + +<p>Footsteps were mounting the stairs to her room. Not Franz's footsteps, +nor the doctor's, nor the landlady's, nor Annie the housemaid's. She +knew all these.</p> + +<p>Who was it then who mounted, softly rustling, towards her? The terror of +the dream vanished in a tense, frozen panic of actuality.</p> + +<p>She wished to scream, and could not; she wished to leap up and fly, but +there was no way of escape. It was Tante who came, slowly, softly, +rustling in silken fabrics; the very scent of her garments seemed wafted +before her, and Karen's heart stopped in its heavy beating as the door +handle gently turned and Tante stood within the room.</p> + +<p>Karen looked at her and Madame von Marwitz looked back, and Madame von +Marwitz's face was almost as white as the death-like face on the pillow. +She said no word, nor did Karen, and in the long stillness delirium +again flickered through Karen's brain, and Tante, standing there, became +a nightmare presence, dead, gazing, immutable. Then she moved again, and +the slow, soft moving was more dreadful than the stillness, and coming +forward Tante fell on her knees beside the bed and hid her face in the +bed-clothes.</p> + +<p>Karen gave a strange hoarse cry. She heard herself crying, and the sound +of her own voice seemed to waken her again to reality: "Franz! Franz! +Franz!"</p> + +<p>Madame von Marwitz was weeping; her large white shoulders shook with +sobs. "Karen," she said, "forgive me! Karen, it is I. Forgive me!"</p> + +<p>"Franz!" Karen repeated, turning her head away on the pillow.</p> + +<p>"Karen, you know me?" said Madame von Marwitz. She had lifted her head +and she gazed through her tears at the strange, changed, yet so +intimately known, profile. It was as if Karen were the more herself, +reduced to the bare elements of personality; rocky, wasted, alienated. +"Do not kill me, my child," she sobbed, "Listen to me, Karen! I have +come to explain all, and to implore for your forgiveness." She possessed +herself of one of the hot, emaciated hands. Karen drew it away, but she +turned her head towards her.</p> + +<p>Tante's tears, her words and attitude of abjection, dispersed the +nightmare horror. She understood that Tante had come not as a ghastly +wraith; not as a pursuing fury; but as a suppliant. Her eyes rested on +her guardian and their gaze, now, was like cold, calm daylight. "Why are +you here?" she asked.</p> + +<p>Madame von Marwitz's sobs, at this, broke forth more violently. "You +remember our parting, my child! You remember my mad and shameful words! +How could I not come!" she articulated brokenly. "Oh, I have sought you +in terror, in unspeakable longing! My child—it was a madness. Did you +not see it? I went to you at dawn that day to kneel before you, as I +kneel now, and to implore your pardon. And you were gone! Oh, Karen—you +will listen to me now!"</p> + +<p>"You need not tell me," said Karen. "I understand."</p> + +<p>"Ah, no: ah, no:" said Madame von Marwitz, laying her supplicating hand +on the sleeve of Karen's nightdress. "You do not understand. How could +you—young and cold and flawless—understand my heart, my wild, stained +heart, Karen, my fierce and desolate and broken heart. You are air and +water; I am earth and fire; how could you understand my darkness and my +rage?" She spoke, sobbing, with a sincerity dreadful and irrefragable, +as if she stripped herself and showed a body scarred and burning. With +all the forces of her nature she threw herself on Karen's pity, tearing +from herself, with a humility far above pride and shame, the glamour +that had held Karen's heart to hers. Deep instinct guided her +spontaneity. Her glamour, now, must consist in having none; her nobility +must consist in abasement, her greatness in being piteous.</p> + +<p>"Listen to me, Karen," she sobbed, "The world knows but one side of +me—you have known but one side;—even Tallie, who knows so much, who +understands so much—does not know the other—the dark and tortured +soul. I am not a good woman, Karen, the blood that flows in my veins is +tainted, ambiguous. I have sinned. I have been savage and dastardly; but +it has always been in a madness when I could not seize my better self: +flames seem to sweep me on. Listen, Karen, you are so strong, so calm, +how could you dream of what a woman's last wild passion can be, a woman +whose whole soul is passion? Love! it is all that I have craved. Love! +love! all my inner life has been enmeshed in it—in craving, in seeking, +in destroying. It is like a curse upon me, Karen. You will not +understand; yet that love of love, is it not so with all us wretched +women; do we not long, always, all of us, for the great flame to which +we may surrender, the flame that will appease and exalt us, annihilate +us, yet give us life in its supremacy? So I have always longed; and not +grossly; mine has never been the sensual passion; it has been beauty and +the heights of life that I have sought. And my curse has been that for +me has come no appeasement, no exaltation, but only, always, a dark +smouldering of joylessness. With my own hand I broke the great and +sacred devotion that blessed my life, because I was thus cursed. +Jealousy, the craving for a more complete possession, for the ecstasy I +had not found, blind forces in my blood, drove me on to the destruction +of that precious thing. I wrecked myself, I killed him. Oh, Karen, you +know of whom I speak." Convulsively, the blackness of her memories +assailing her in their old forms of horror, Madame von Marwitz sobbed, +burying her face in the bed-clothes, her hand forgetting to clutch at +Karen's sleeve. She lifted her face and the tears streamed from under +her closed lids. "Let me not think of it or I shall go mad. How could I, +having known that devotion, sink to the place where you have seen me? Be +pitiful. He needed me so much—I believed. My youth was fading; I was +growing old. Soon the time was to come when no man's heart would turn to +me. Be pitiful. You do not know what it is to look without and see life +slowly growing dark and look within and see only sinister memories. It +came to me like late sunlight—like cool, sweet water—his love. I +believed in it. I loved him. Oh—" she sobbed, "how I loved him, Karen! +How my heart was torn with sick jealousy when I saw that his had turned +from me to you. I loved you, Karen, yet I hated you. Open your generous +heart to me, my child; do not spurn me from you. Understand how it may +be that one can strike at the thing one loves. I knew myself in the +grasp of an evil passion, but I could not tear it from me. I even +feared, with a savage fear that seemed to eat into my brain, that you +responded to his love. Oh, Karen, it was not I who spoke those shameful +words, when I found you with him, but a creature maddened with pain and +jealousy, who for days had fought against her madness and knew when she +spoke that she was mad. When I had sent him from me, when he was gone +from my life, and I knew that all was over, the evil fury passed from my +brain like a mist. I knew myself again. I saw again the sweet and sacred +places of my life. I saw you, Karen. Oh, my child," again the pleading +hand trembled on Karen's sleeve, "it has not all been misplaced, your +love for me; not all illusion. I am still the woman who has loved you +through so many years. You will not let one hour of frenzy efface our +happy years together?"</p> + +<p>The words, the sobbing questions that waited for no answer, the wailing +supplications, had been poured forth in one great upwelling. Through the +tears that streamed she had seen Karen's face in blurred glimpses, lying +in profile to her on its pillow. Now, when all had been said and her +mind was empty, waiting, she passed her hand over her eyes, clearing +them of tears, and fixed them on Karen.</p> + +<p>And silence followed. So long a silence that wonder came. Had she +understood? Was she half unconscious? Had all the long appeal been +wasted?</p> + +<p>But Karen at last spoke and the words, in their calm, seemed to the +listening woman to pass like a cold wind over buds and tendrils of +reviving life, blighting them.</p> + +<p>"I am sorry for you," said Karen. "And I understand."</p> + +<p>Madame von Marwitz stared at her for another silent moment. "Yes," she +then said, "you are sorry for me. You understand. It is my child's great +heart. And you forgive me, Karen?"</p> + +<p>Again came silence; then, restlessly turning her head as if the effort +to think pained her, Karen said, "What do you mean by forgiveness?"</p> + +<p>"I mean pity, Karen," said Madame von Marwitz. "And compassion, and +tenderness. To be forgiven is to be taken back."</p> + +<p>"Taken back?" Karen repeated. "But I do not feel that I love you any +longer." She spoke in a dull, calm voice.</p> + +<p>Madame von Marwitz remained kneeling for some moments longer. Then a +dark flush mounted to her face. She became aware that her knees were +stiff with kneeling and her cheeks salt with tears. Her head ached and a +feeling of nausea made her giddy. She rose and looked about her with dim +eyes.</p> + +<p>A small wooden chair stood against the wall at a little distance from +the bed. She went to it and sank down upon it, and leaning her head upon +her hand she wept softly to herself. Her desolation was extreme.</p> + +<p>Karen listened to her for a long time, and without any emotion. Now that +the horror had passed, her only feeling was one of sorrow and +oppression. She was very sorry for the weeping woman; but she wished +that she would go away. And her mind at last wandered from the thought +of Tante. "Where is Franz?" she asked.</p> + +<p>The fount of Madame von Marwitz's tears was exhausted. She dried her +eyes and cheeks. She blew her nose. She gathered together her thoughts. +"Karen," she said, "I will not speak of myself. You say that you do not +love me. I can only pray that my love for you may in time win you to me +again. Never again, I know it, can I stand before you, untarnished, as I +stood before; but I will trust my child's deep heart as strength once +more comes to her. Pity will grow to love. I will love you; that will be +enough. But I have come to you not only as a mother to her child. I have +come to you as a friend to whom your welfare is of the first importance. +I have much to say to you, Karen."</p> + +<p>Madame von Marwitz rose. She went to the washhand-stand and bathed her +face. The triumph that she had held in her hand seemed melting through +her fingers; but, thinking rapidly and deeply, she drew the scattered +threads of the plan together once more, faced her peril and computed her +resources.</p> + +<p>The still face on the pillow was unchanged, its eyes still calmly +closed. She could not attempt to take the hand of this alien Karen, nor +even to touch her sleeve. She went back to her chair.</p> + +<p>"Karen," she said, "if you cannot love me, you can still think of me as +your friend and counsellor. I am glad to hear you speak of our Franz. +That lights my way. I have had much talk with our good and faithful +Franz. Together we have faced all that there is of difficult and sad to +face. My child shall be spared all that could trouble her. Franz and I +are beside you through it all. Your husband, Karen, is to divorce you +because of Franz. You are to be set free, my child."</p> + +<p>A strange thing happened then. If Madame von Marwitz had plunged a +dagger into Karen's heart, the change that transformed her deathly face +could hardly have been more violent. It was as if all the amazed and +desperate life fled to her eyes and lips and cheeks. Colour flooded her. +Her eyes opened and shone. Her lips parted, trembled, uttered a loud +cry. She turned her head and looked at her guardian. Her dream was with +her. What was that loud cry for help, hers or his?</p> + +<p>Madame von Marwitz looked back and her face, too, was changed. +Realizations, till then evaded, flashed over it as though from Karen's +it caught the bright up-flaming of the truth. Fear followed, darkening +it. Karen's truth threatened the whole fabric of the plan, threatened +her life in all that it held of value. Resentment for a moment convulsed +it. Then, with a steady mastery, yet the glance, sunken, sickened, of +one who holds off disabling pity while he presses out a fluttering life +beneath his hand, she said: "Yes, my child. Your wild adventure is +known. You have been here for days and nights with this young man who +loves you and he has given you his name. Your husband seizes the +opportunity to free himself. Can you not rejoice, Karen, that it is to +set you free also? It is of that only that I have thought. I have +rejoiced for you. And I have told Franz that I will stand by you and by +him so that no breath of shame or difficulty shall touch you. In me you +have the staunchest friend."</p> + +<p>Madame von Marwitz, while she addressed these remarks to the strange, +vivid face that stared at her with wide and shining eyes, was aware of a +sense of nausea and giddiness so acute that she feared she might succumb +to sickness. She put her hand before her eyes, reflecting that she must +have some food if she were to think clearly. She sat thus for some +moments, struggling against the invading weakness. When she looked up +again, the flame whose up-leaping had so arrested her, which had, to be +just, so horrified her, was fallen to ashes.</p> + +<p>Karen's eyes were closed. A bitter composure, like that sometimes seen +on the face of the dead, folded her lips.</p> + +<p>Madame von Marwitz, suddenly afraid, rose and went to her and stooped +over her. And, for a dreadful moment, she did not know whether it was +with fear or hope that she scanned the deathly face. Abysses of horror +seemed to fall within her as she thus bent over Karen and wondered +whether she had died.</p> + +<p>It had been a foolish fear. The child had not even fainted. Madame von +Marwitz's breath came back to her, almost in a sob, as, not opening her +eyes, Karen repeated her former question: "Where is Franz?"</p> + +<p>"He will be back soon; Franz will soon be here," said Madame von Marwitz +gently and soothingly.</p> + +<p>"I must see him," said Karen.</p> + +<p>"You shall. You shall see him, my Karen," said Madame von Marwitz. "You +are with those who love you. Have no fear. Franz is of my mind in this +matter, Karen. You will not wish to defend yourself against your +husband's suit, is it not so? Defence, I fear, my Karen, would be +useless. The chain of evidence against you is complete. But even if it +were not, if there were defence to make, you would not wish to sue to +your husband to take you back?"</p> + +<p>Karen still with closed eyes, turned her head away on the pillow. "Let +him be free," she said. "He knows that I wished him to be free. When I +left him I told him that I hoped to set him free. Let him believe that I +have done so."</p> + +<p>Madame von Marwitz still leaned above her and, as when Franz had +imparted the unlooked-for tidings of Karen's reticence, so now her eyes +dilated with a deepened hope.</p> + +<p>"You told him so, Karen?" she repeated gently, after a moment.</p> + +<p>"Yes," said Karen, "I told him so. I shall make no defence. Will you go +now? I am tired. And will you send Franz to me when he comes back?"</p> + +<p>"Yes, my child; yes," said Madame von Marwitz. "It is well. I will be +below. I will watch over you." She raised herself at last. "There is +nothing that I can do for you, my Karen?"</p> + +<p>"Nothing," said Karen. Her voice, too, seemed sinking into ashes.</p> + +<p>Madame von Marwitz opened the door to the dark little staircase and +closed it. In the cloaking darkness she paused and leaned against the +wall. "<i>Bon Dieu!</i>" she murmured to herself "<i>Bon Dieu!</i>"</p> + +<p>She felt sick. She wished to sleep. But she could not sleep yet. She +must eat and restore her strength. And she had letters to write; a +letter to Mrs. Forrester, a letter to Frau Lippheim, and a note to +Tallie. It was as if she had thrown her shuttle across a vast loom that, +drawing her after the thread she held, enmeshed her now with all the +others in its moving web. She no longer wove; she was being woven into +the pattern. Even if she would she could not extricate herself.</p> + +<p>The thought of this overmastering destiny sustained and fortified her. +She went on down the stairs and into the little sitting-room.</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XLIV" id="CHAPTER_XLIV"></a>CHAPTER XLIV</h2> + + +<p>The days that passed after her arrival at the inn were to live in Madame +von Marwitz's memory as a glare of intolerable anxiety, obliterating all +details in its heat and urgency. She might, during the hours when she +knelt supplicating beside Karen's bed, have been imaged as a furnace and +Karen as a corpse lying in it, strangely unconsumed, passive and +unresponsive. There was no cruelty in Karen's coldness, no unkindness +even. Pity and comprehension were there; but they were rocks against +which Madame von Marwitz dashed herself in vain.</p> + +<p>When she would slip from her kneeling position and lie grovelling and +groaning on the ground, Karen sometimes would say: "Please get up. +Please don't cry," in a tone of distress. But when the question, +repeated in every key, came: "Karen, will you not love me again?" +Karen's answer was a helpless silence.</p> + +<p>Schooling the fury of her eagerness, and in another mood, Madame von +Marwitz, after long cogitations in the little sitting-room, would mount +to point out to Karen that to persist in her refusal to marry Franz, +when she was freed, would be to disgrace herself and him, and to this +Karen monotonously and immovably would reply that she would not marry +Franz.</p> + +<p>Madame von Marwitz had not been able to keep from her beyond the evening +of the first day that Franz had gone. "To Germany, my Karen, where he +will wait for you." Karen's eyes had dwelt widely, but dully, on her +when she made this announcement and she had spoken no word; nor had she +made any comment on Madame von Marwitz's further explanations.</p> + +<p>"He felt it right to go at once, now that I had come, and bring no +further scandal on your head. He would not have you waked to say +good-bye."</p> + +<p>Karen lay silent, but the impassive bitterness deepened on her lips. +When Franz's first letter to Karen arrived Madame von Marwitz opened, +read and destroyed it. It revealed too plainly, in its ingenuous +solicitude and sorrow, the coercion under which Franz had departed. Yes; +the plan was there and they were all enmeshed in it; but what was to +happen if Karen would not marry Franz? How could that be made to match +the story she had now written to Mrs. Forrester? And what was to happen +if Karen refused to come with her? It would not do, Madame von Marwitz +saw that clearly, for an alienated Karen to be taken to the Lippheims'. +Comparisons and disclosures would ensue that would send the loom, with a +mighty whirr, weaving rapidly in an opposite direction to that of the +plan. Franz, in Germany, must be pacified, and Karen be carried off to +some lovely, lonely spot until the husband's suit was safely won. It was +not fatal to the plan that Karen should be supposed, finally, to refuse +to marry Franz; that might be mitigated, explained away when the time +came; but a loveless Karen at large in the world was a figure only less +terrifying than a Karen reunited to her husband. She felt as if she had +drawn herself up from the bottom of the well where Karen's flight had +precipitated her and as if, breathing the air, seeing the light of the +happy world, she swung in a circle, clutching her wet rope, horrible +depths below her and no helping hand put out to draw her to the brink.</p> + +<p>Gregory's letter in answer to the letter she had sent to Mrs. Forrester, +with the request that he should be informed of its contents, came on the +second morning. It fortified her. There was no questioning; no doubt. He +formally assured her that he would at once take steps to set Karen free.</p> + +<p>"Ah, he does not love her, that is evident," said Madame von Marwitz to +herself, and with a sense of quieted pulses. The letter was shown to +Karen.</p> + +<p>Mrs. Forrester's note was not quite reassuring. It, also, accepted her +story; but its dismay constituted a lack of sympathy, even, Madame von +Marwitz felt, a reproach.</p> + +<p>She wrote of Gregory's broken heart. She lamented the breach that had +come between him and Karen and made this disaster possible.</p> + +<p>Miss Scrotton's pæan was what it inevitably would be. From Tallie came +no word, and this implied that Tallie, too, was convinced, though +Tallie, no doubt, was furious, and would, as usual, lay the blame on +her.</p> + +<p>Danger, however, lurked in Tallie's direction, and until she was safely +out of England with Karen she should not feel herself secure. +Pertinaciously and blandly she insisted to the doctor that Frau Lippheim +was now quite well enough to make a short sea voyage. She would secure +the best of yachts and the best of trained nurses, and a little voyage +would be the very thing for her. The doctor was recalcitrant, and Madame +von Marwitz was in terror lest, during the moments they spent by her +bedside, Karen should burst forth in a sudden appeal to him.</p> + +<p>A change for the worse, very much for the worse, had, he said, come over +his patient. He was troubled and perplexed. "Has anything happened to +disturb her?" he asked in the little sitting-room, and something in his +chill manner reminded her unpleasantly of Gregory Jardine;—"her +husband's sudden departure?"</p> + +<p>Madame von Marwitz felt it advisable, then, to take the doctor into her +confidence. He grew graver as she spoke. He looked at her with eyes more +scrutinizing, more troubled and more perplexed. But, reluctantly, he saw +her point. The unfortunate young woman upstairs, a fugitive from her +husband, must be spared the shock of a possible brutal encounter. +Perhaps, in a day or two, it might be possible to move her. She could be +taken in her bed to Southampton and carried on board the yacht.</p> + +<p>Madame von Marwitz wired at once and secured the yacht.</p> + +<p>It was after this interview with the doctor, after the sending of the +wire, that she mounted the staircase to Karen's room with the most +difficult part of her task still before her. She had as yet not openly +broached to Karen the question of what the immediate future should be. +She approached it now by a circuitous way, seating herself near Karen's +bed and unfolding and handing to her a letter she had that morning +received from Franz. It was a letter she could show. Franz was in +Germany.</p> + +<p>"The dear Franz. The good Franz," Madame von Marwitz mused, when Karen +had finished and her weak hand dropped with the letter to the sheet. "No +woman had ever a truer friend than Franz. You see how he writes, Karen. +He will never trouble you with his hopes."</p> + +<p>"No; Franz will never trouble me," said Karen.</p> + +<p>"Poor Franz," Madame von Marwitz repeated. "He will be seen by the world +as a man who refuses to marry his mistress when she is freed."</p> + +<p>"I am not his mistress," said Karen, who, for all her apathy, could show +at moments a disconcerting vehemence.</p> + +<p>"You will be thought so, my child."</p> + +<p>"Not by him," said Karen.</p> + +<p>"No; not by him," Madame von Marwitz assented with melancholy.</p> + +<p>"Not by his mother and sisters," said Karen. "And not by Mrs. Talcott."</p> + +<p>"Nor by me, my Karen," said Madame von Marwitz with a more profound +gloom.</p> + +<p>"No; not by you. No one who knows me will think so," said Karen.</p> + +<p>Madame von Marwitz paused after this for a few moments. Experience had +taught her that to abandon herself to her grief was not the way to move +Karen. When she spoke again it was in a firm, calm voice.</p> + +<p>"Listen, my Karen," she said. "I see that you are fixed in this resolve +and I will plead with you no further. I will weary you no more. Remember +only, in fairness, that it is for your sake that I have pleaded. You +will be divorced; so be it. And you will not marry Franz. But after this +Karen? and until this?"</p> + +<p>Karen lay silent for a moment and then turned her head restlessly away.</p> + +<p>"Why do you ask me? How can I tell?" she said. "I wish to go to Frau +Lippheim. When I am well again I wish to work and make my living."</p> + +<p>"But, my Karen," said Madame von Marwitz with great gentleness, "do you +not see that for you to go to Franz's mother now, in her joy and belief +in you, is a cruelty? Later on, yes; you could then perhaps go to her, +though it will be at any time, with this scandal behind you, to place +our poor Lise, our poor Franz, in an ambiguous position indeed. But now, +Karen? While the case is going on? Your husband says, you remember, that +he starts proceedings at once."</p> + +<p>Karen lay still. And suddenly the tears ran down her cheeks. "Why cannot +I see Franz?" she said. "Why do you ask me questions that I cannot +answer? How do I know what I shall do?" She sobbed, quick, dry, alarming +sobs.</p> + +<p>"Karen—my Karen," Madame von Marwitz murmured, "do not weep, my dear +one. You exhaust yourself. Do not speak so harshly to me, Karen. Will +you let me think for you? See, my child, I accept all. I ask for +nothing. You do not forgive me—oh, not truely—you do not love me. Our +old life is dead. I have killed it with my own hand. I see it all, +Karen. And I accept my doom. But even so, can you not be merciful to me +and let me help you now? Do not break my heart, my child. Do not crush +me down into the dust. Come with me. I will take you to quiet and +beautiful shores. I will trouble you in nothing. There will be no more +pleading; no more urgency. You shall do as it pleases you in all things, +and I will ask only to watch over you. Let me do this until you are free +and can choose your own life. Do not tell me that you hate me so much +that you will not do this for me."</p> + +<p>Her voice was weighted with its longing, its humility, its tenderness. +The sound of it seemed to beat its way to Karen through mists that lay +about her as Tante's cries and tears had not done. A sharper thrust of +pity pierced her. "I do not hate you," she said. "You must not think +that. I understand and I am very sorry. But I do not love you. I shall +not love you again. And how could I come with you? You said—what did +you say that night?" She put her hand before her eyes in the effort of +memory. "That I was ungrateful;—that you fed and clothed me;—that I +took all and gave nothing. And other, worse things; you said them to me. +How can that be again? How could I come with a person who said those +things to me?"</p> + +<p>"Oh—but—my child— "Madame von Marwitz's voice trembled in its hope and +fear, though she restrained herself from rising and bending to the girl: +"did I not make you believe me when I told you that I was mad? Do you +not know that the vile words were the weapons I took up against you in +my madness? That you gave nothing, Karen? When you are my only stay in +life, the only thing near me in the world—you and Tallie—the thing +that I have thought of as mine—as if you were my child. And if you came +to me now you would give still more. If it is known that you will not +return—that you will not forgive me and come with me—I am disgraced, +my child. All the world will believe that I have been cruel to you. All +the world will believe that you hate me and that hatred is all that I +have deserved from you."</p> + +<p>Karen again had put her hand to her head. "What do you mean?" she +questioned faintly. "Will it help you if I come with you?"</p> + +<p>Madame von Marwitz steadied her voice that now shook with rising sobs. +"If you will not come I am ruined."</p> + +<p>"You ask to have me to come—though I do not love you?"</p> + +<p>"I ask you to come—on any terms, my Karen. And because I love you; +because you will always be the thing dearest in the world to me."</p> + +<p>"I could go to Frau Lippheim, if you would help to send me to her," said +Karen, still holding her hand to her head; "I could, I am sure, explain +to her and to Franz so that they would not blame me. But people must not +think that I hate you."</p> + +<p>"No; no?" Madame von Marwitz hardly breathed.</p> + +<p>"They must not think that; for it is not true. I do not love you, but I +have no hatred for you," said Karen.</p> + +<p>"You will come then, Karen?"</p> + +<p>Still with her eyes hidden the girl hesitated as if bewildered by the +pressure of new realisations. "You would leave me much alone? You would +not talk to me? I should be quiet?"</p> + +<p>"Oh, my Karen—quiet—quiet—" Madame von Marwitz was now sobbing. "You +will send for me if you feel that you can see me; unless you send I do +not obtrude myself on you. You will have an attendant of your own. All +shall be as you wish."</p> + +<p>"And when I am free I may choose my own life?"</p> + +<p>"Free! free! the world before you! all that I have at your feet, to +spurn or stoop to!" Tante moaned incoherently.</p> + +<p>"When will it be—that we must go?" Karen then, more faintly, asked. +Madame von Marwitz had risen to her feet. In her ecstasy of gladness she +could have clapped her hands above her head and danced. And the strong +control she put upon herself gave to her face almost the grimace of a +child that masters its weeping. She was drawn from her well. She stood +upon firm ground. "In two days, my child, if you are strong enough. In +two days we will set sail."</p> + +<p>"In two days," Karen repeated. And, dully, she repeated again; "I come +with you in two days."</p> + +<p>Madame von Marwitz now noticed that tears ran from under the hand. These +tears of Karen's alarmed her. She had not wept at all before to-day.</p> + +<p>"My child is worn and tired. She would rest. Is it not so? Shall I leave +her?" she leaned above the girl to ask.</p> + +<p>"Yes; I am tired," said Karen.</p> + +<p>And leaning there, above the hidden face, above the heart wrung with its +secret agony, in all her ecstasy and profound relief, Madame von Marwitz +knew one of the bitterest moments of her life. She had gained safety. +But what was her loss, her irreparable loss? In the dark little +staircase she leaned, as on the day of her coming, against the wall, and +murmured, as she had murmured then: "<i>Bon Dieu! Bon Dieu!</i>" But the +words were broken by the sobs that, now uncontrollably, shook her as she +stumbled on in the darkness.</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XLV" id="CHAPTER_XLV"></a>CHAPTER XLV</h2> + + +<p>Some years had passed since Mrs. Talcott had been in London, and it +seemed to her, coming up from her solitudes, noisier, more crowded, more +oppressive than when she had seen it last. She had a jaded yet an acute +eye for its various aspects, as she drove from Paddington towards St. +James's, and a distaste, born of her many years of life in cities, took +more definite shape in her, even while the excitement of the movement +and uproar accompanied not inappropriately the strong impulses that +moved her valorous soul.</p> + +<p>Mrs. Talcott wore a small, round, black straw hat trimmed with a black +bow. It was the shape that she had worn for years; it was unaffected by +the weather and indifferent to the shifting of fashion. Her neck-gear +was the one invariable with her in the daytime; a collar of lawn turned +down over a black silk stock. About her shoulders was a black cloth +cape. Sitting there in her hansom, she looked very old, and she looked +also very national and typical; the adventurous, indomitable old girl of +America, bent on seeing all that there was to see, emerged for the first +time in her life from her provinces, and carrying, it might have been, a +Baedeker under her arm.</p> + +<p>It was many years since Mrs. Talcott had passed beyond the need of +Baedekers, and her provinces were a distant memory; yet she, too, was +engaged, like the old American girl, in the final adventure of her life. +She did not know, as she drove along in her hansom with her shabby +little box on the roof, whether she were ever to see Les Solitudes +again.</p> + +<p>"Carry it right up," she said to the porter at the mansions in St. +James's when she arrived there. "I've come for the night, I expect."</p> + +<p>The porter had told her that Mr. Jardine had come in. And he looked at +Mrs. Talcott curiously.</p> + +<p>At the door of Gregory's flat Mrs. Talcott encountered a check. Barker, +mournful and low-toned as an undertaker, informed her firmly that Mr. +Jardine was seeing nobody. He fixed an astonished eye upon Mrs. +Talcott's box which was being taken from the lift.</p> + +<p>"That's all right," said Mrs. Talcott. "Mr. Jardine'll see me. You tell +him that Mrs. Talcott is here."</p> + +<p>She had walked past Barker into the hall and her box was placed beside +her.</p> + +<p>Barker was very much disconcerted, yet he felt Mrs. Talcott to be a +person of weight. He ushered her into the drawing-room.</p> + +<p>In the late sunlight it was as gay and as crisp as ever, but for the +lack of flowers, and the Bouddha still sat presiding in his golden +niche.</p> + +<p>"Mr. Jardine is in the smoking-room, Madam," said Barker, and, gauging +still further the peculiar significance of this guest whose name he now +recovered as one familiar to him on letters, he added in a low voice: +"He has not used this room since Mrs. Jardine left us."</p> + +<p>"Is that so?" said Mrs. Talcott gravely. "Well, you go and bring him +here right away."</p> + +<p>Mrs. Talcott stood in the centre of the room when Barker had gone and +gazed at the Bouddha. And again her figure strongly suggested that of +the sight-seer, unperturbed and adequate amidst strange and alien +surroundings. Gregory found her before the Bouddha when he came in. If +Mrs. Talcott had been in any doubt as to one of the deep intuitions that +had, from the first, sustained her, Gregory's face would have reassured +her. It had a look of suffocated grief; it was ravaged; it asked nothing +and gave nothing; it was fixed on its one devouring preoccupation.</p> + +<p>"How do you do, Mrs. Talcott," he said. They shook hands. His voice was +curiously soft.</p> + +<p>"I've come up, you see," said Mrs. Talcott. "I've come up to see you, +Mr. Jardine."</p> + +<p>"Yes?" said Gregory gently. He had placed a chair for her but, when she +sat down, he remained standing. He did not, it was evident, imagine her +errand to be one that would require a prolonged attention from him.</p> + +<p>"Mr. Jardine," said Mrs. Talcott, "what was your idea when you first +found out about Karen from the detective and asked me not to tell?"</p> + +<p>Gregory collected his thoughts, with difficulty. "I don't know that I +had any idea," he answered. "I was stunned. I wanted time to think."</p> + +<p>"And you hoped it wasn't true, perhaps?"</p> + +<p>"No; I hadn't any hope. I knew it was true. Karen had said things to me +that made it nothing of a surprise. But perhaps my idea was that she +would be sorry for what she had done and write to me, or to you. I think +I wanted to give Karen time."</p> + +<p>"Well, and then?" Mrs. Talcott asked. "If she had written?"</p> + +<p>"Well, then, I'd have gone to her."</p> + +<p>"You'd have taken her back?"</p> + +<p>"If she would have come, of course," said Gregory, in his voice of +wraith-like gentleness.</p> + +<p>"You wanted her back if she'd gone off with another man like that and +didn't love you any more?"</p> + +<p>Gregory was silent for a moment and she saw that her persistence +troubled and perplexed him.</p> + +<p>"As to love," he said, "Karen was a child in some things. I believe that +she would have grown to love me if her guardian hadn't come between us. +And it might have been to escape from her guardian as well as with the +idea of freeing herself from me that she took refuge with this man. I am +convinced that her guardian behaved badly to her. It's rather difficult +for me to talk to you, Mrs. Talcott," said Gregory, "though I am +grateful for your kindness, because I so inexpressibly detest a person +whom you care for."</p> + +<p>"Mr. Jardine," said Mrs. Talcott, fixing her eyes upon him, "I want to +say something right here, so as there shan't be any mistake about it. +You were right about Mercedes, all along; do you take that in? I don't +want to say any more about Mercedes than I've got to; I've cut loose +from my moorings, but I guess I do care more about Mercedes than +anyone's ever done who's known her as well as I do. But you were right +about her. And I'm your friend and I'm Karen's friend, and it pretty +near killed me when all this happened."</p> + +<p>Gregory now had taken a chair before her and his eyes, with a new look, +gazed deeply into hers as she went on: "I wouldn't have accepted what +your letter said, not for a minute, if I hadn't got Mercedes's next +thing and if I hadn't seen that Mercedes, for a wonder, wasn't telling +lies. I was a mighty sick woman, Mr. Jardine, for a few days; I just +seemed to give up. But then I got to thinking. I got to thinking, and +the more I thought the more I couldn't lie there and take it. I thought +about Mercedes, and what she's capable of; and I thought about you and +how I felt dead sure you loved Karen; and I thought about that poor +child and all she'd gone through; and the long and short of it was that +I felt it in my bones that Mercedes was up to mischief. Karen sent for +her, she said; but I don't believe Karen sent for her;—I believe she +got wind somehow of where Karen was and lit out before I could stop her; +yes, I was away that day, Mr. Jardine, and when I came back I found that +three ladies had come for Mercedes and she'd made off with them. It may +be true about Karen; she may have done this wicked thing; but if she's +done it I don't believe it's the way Mercedes says she has. And I've +worked it out to this: you must see Karen, Mr. Jardine; you must have it +from her own mouth that she loves Franz and wants to go off with him and +marry him before you give her up."</p> + +<p>Gregory's face, as these last words were spoken, showed a delicate +stiffening. "She won't see me," he said.</p> + +<p>"Who says so?" asked Mrs. Talcott.</p> + +<p>"Don't imagine that I'd have accepted her guardian's word for it," said +Gregory, "but everything Madame von Marwitz has written has been merely +corroborative. She told us that Karen was there with this man and I knew +it already. She said that Karen had begun to look to him as a rescuer +from me on the day she saw him here in London, and what I remembered of +that day bore it out. She said that I should remember that on the night +we parted Karen told me that she would try to set herself free. Karen +has confided in her; it was true. And it's true, isn't it, that Karen +was in terror of falling into my hands. You can't deny this, can you? +Why should I torture Karen and myself by seeing her?" said Gregory. He +had averted his eyes as he spoke.</p> + +<p>"But do you want her back, Mr. Jardine?" Mrs. Talcott had faced his +catalogue of evidence immovably.</p> + +<p>"Not if she loves this man," said Gregory. "And that's the final fact. I +know Karen; she couldn't have done this unless she loved him. The +provocation wasn't extreme enough otherwise. She wouldn't, from sheer +generosity, disgrace herself to free me, especially since she knew that +I considered that that would be to disgrace me, too. No; her guardian's +story has all the marks of truth on it. She loves the man and she had +planned to meet him. And all I've got to do now is to see that she is +free to marry him as soon as possible." He got up as he spoke and walked +up and down the room.</p> + +<p>Mrs. Talcott's eye followed him and his despair seemed a fuel to her +faith. "Mr. Jardine," she said, after a moment of silence, "I'll stake +my life on it you're wrong. I know Karen better than you do; I guess +women understand each other better than a man ever understands them. The +bed-rock fact about a woman is that she'll hide the thing she feels most +and she'll say what she hopes ain't true so as to give the man a chance +for convincing her it ain't true. And the blamed foolishness of the man +is that he never does. He just goes off, sick and mournful, and leaves +her to fight it out the best she can. Karen don't love Franz Lippheim, +Mr. Jardine; nothing'll make me believe she loves him. And nothing'll +make me believe but what you could have got her to stay that time she +left you if you'd understood women better. She loves you, Mr. Jardine, +though she mayn't know it, and it's on the cards she knows it so well +that she's dead scared of showing it. Because Karen's a wife through and +through; can't you see it in her face? You're youngish yet, and a man, +so I don't feel as angry with you as you deserve, perhaps, for not +understanding better and for letting Karen get it into her head you +didn't love her any more; for that's what she believes, Mr. Jardine. And +what I'm as sure of as that my name's Hannah Talcott is that she'll +never get over you. She's that kind of woman; a rare kind; rocky; she +don't change. And if she's gone and done this thing, like it appears she +has, it isn't in the way Mercedes says; it's only to set you free and to +get away from the fear of being handed over to a man who don't love her. +For she didn't understand, either, Mr. Jardine. Women are blamed foolish +in their way, too."</p> + +<p>Gregory had stopped in his walk and was standing before Mrs. Talcott +looking down at her; and while Mrs. Talcott fixed the intense blue of +her eyes upon him he became aware of an impression almost physical in +its vividness. It was as if Mrs. Talcott were the most wise, most +skilful, most benevolent of doctors who, by some miraculous modern +invention, were pumping blood into his veins from her own +superabundance. It seemed to find its way along hardened arteries, to +creep, to run, to tingle; to spread with a radiant glow through all his +chilled and weary body. Hope and fear mounted in him suddenly.</p> + +<p>He could not have said, after that, exactly what happened, but he could +afterwards recall, brokenly, that he must have shed tears; for his first +distinct recollection was that he was leaning against the end of the +piano and that Mrs. Talcott, who had risen, was holding him by the hand +and saying: "There now, yes, I guess you've had a pretty bad time. You +hang on, Mr. Jardine, and we'll get her back yet."</p> + +<p>He wanted to put his head on Mrs. Talcott's shoulder and be held by her +to her broad breast for a long time; but, since such action would have +been startlingly uncharacteristic of them both, he only, when he could +speak, thanked her.</p> + +<p>"What shall I do, now?" he asked. He was in Mrs. Talcott's hands. "It's +no good writing to Karen. Madame von Marwitz will intercept my letter if +what you believe is true. Shall we go down to the New Forest directly? +Shall I force my way in on Karen?"</p> + +<p>"That's just what you'll have to do; I don't doubt it," said Mrs. +Talcott. "And I'll go with you, to manage Mercedes while you get hold of +Karen. And I'm not fit for it till I've had a night's rest, so we'll go +down first thing to-morrow, Mr. Jardine. I'm spending the night here so +as we can talk it all out to-night. But first I'm going round to Mrs. +Forrester's. If I'm right, Mr. Jardine, and there ain't any 'if' about +it in my own mind, it's important that people should know what the truth +is now, before we go. We don't want to have to seem to work up a story +to shield Karen if she comes back to you. I'm going to Mrs. Forrester's +and I'm going to that mighty silly woman, Miss Scrotton, and I'll have +to tell them a thing or two that'll make them sit up."</p> + +<p>"But wait first, you must be so tired. Do have some tea first," Gregory +urged, as the indomitable old woman made her way towards the door. "And +what can you say to them, after all? We are sure of nothing."</p> + +<p>Mrs. Talcott paused with her hand on the door knob; "I'm sure of one +thing, and they've got to hear it; and that is that Mercedes treated +Karen so bad she had to go. Mercedes isn't going to get let off that. I +told her so. I told her I'd come right up and tell her friends about her +if she stole a march on me, and that's what she's done. Yes," said Mrs. +Talcott, opening the door, "I've cut loose from my moorings and +Mercedes's friends have got to hear the truth of that story and I'm +going to see that they do right away. Good-bye, Mr. Jardine. I don't +want any tea; I'll be back in time for dinner, I guess."</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XLVI" id="CHAPTER_XLVI"></a>CHAPTER XLVI</h2> + + +<p>Peace had descended upon the little room where Karen lay, cold, still +peace. There were no longer any tears or clamour, no appeals and +agonies. Tante was often with her; but she seldom spoke now and Karen +had ceased to feel more than a dull discomfort when she came into the +room.</p> + +<p>Tante smiled at her with the soft, unmurmuring patience of her exile, +she tended her carefully, she told her that in a day or two, at +furthest, they would be out at sea in the most beautiful of yachts. "All +has been chosen for my child," she said. "The nurse meets us at +Southampton and we wing our way straight to Sicily."</p> + +<p>Karen was willing that anything should be done with her except the one +thing. It had surprised her to find how much it meant to Tante that she +should consent to go back to her. It had not been difficult to consent, +when she understood that that was all that Tante wanted and why she +wanted it so much. It was the easier since in her heart she believed +that she was dying.</p> + +<p>All these days it had been like holding her way through a whirlpool. The +foam and uproar of the water had beat upon her fragile bark of life, had +twisted it and turned it again and again to the one goal where she would +not be. Tante had been the torrent, at once stealthy and impetuous, and +the goal where she had wished to drive her had been marriage to Franz. +Karen had known no fear of yielding, it would have been impossible to +her to yield; yet she had thought sometimes that the bark would crack +under the onslaught of the torrent and she be dragged down finally to +unconsciousness.</p> + +<p>All that torment was over. She seemed to be sliding rapidly and smoothly +down a misty river. She could see no banks, no sky; all was white, soft, +silent. There was no strength left in her with which to struggle against +the thought of death, no strength with which to fear it.</p> + +<p>But, as she lay in the little room, her hands folded on her breast, +corpse-like already in her placidity, something wailed within her and +lamented. And sometimes tears rose slowly and swelled her eyelids and +she felt herself a creature coffined and underground, put away and +forgotten, though not yet a creature dead. Her heart in the darkness +still lived and throbbed. Thoughts of Gregory were with her always, +memories of him and of their life together which, now that she had lost +him forever, she might cherish. She felt, though she lay so still, that +she put out her hands always, in supplication, to Gregory. He would +forget her, or remember her only as his disgrace. It seemed to her that +if she could feel Gregory lean to her and kiss her forehead in +tenderness and reconciliation her breath could sweetly cease.</p> + +<p>The day before the departure was come and it was a warm, quiet +afternoon. Tante had been with her in the morning, engaged in +preparations for the journey. She had brought to show to Karen the +exquisite nightgowns and wrappers, of softest wool and silk, that she +was to wear on the yacht. The long cloak, too, of silk all lined with +swansdown, such a garment as the tenderest, most cherished of mortals +should wear. This was for Karen when she lay on deck in the sun. And +there was a heavier fur-lined cloak for chilly days and the loveliest of +shoes and stockings and scarves. All these things Tante had sent for for +Karen, and Karen thanked her, as she displayed them before her, gently +and coldly. She felt that Tante was piteous at these moments, but +nothing in her was moved towards her. Already she was dead to Tante.</p> + +<p>She was alone now, again, and she would not see Tante till tea-time. +Tante had asked her if she could sleep and she had said yes. She lay +with eyes closed, vaguely aware of the sounds that rose to her from the +room beneath, where Tante was engaged with the landlady in arranging the +new possessions in boxes, and of the fainter sounds from the road in +front of the house. Wheels rolled up and stopped. They often came, +during these last days; Tante's purchases were arriving by every post. +And the voices below seemed presently to alter in pitch and rhythm, +mounting to her in a sonorous murmur, dully rising and falling. Karen +listened in indifference.</p> + +<p>But suddenly there came another sound and this was sharp and near.</p> + +<p>There was only one window in the little room; it was open, and it looked +out at the back of the house over a straggling garden set round with +trees and shrubberies. The sound was outside the window, below it and +approaching it, the strangest sound, scratching, cautious, deliberate.</p> + +<p>Karen opened her eyes and fixed them on the window. The tree outside +hardly stirred against the blue spring sky. Someone was climbing up to +her window.</p> + +<p>She felt no fear and little surprise. She wondered, placidly, fixing her +eyes upon the patterned square of blue and green. And upon this +background, like that of some old Italian picture, there rose the head +and shoulders of Mrs. Talcott.</p> + +<p>Karen raised herself on her elbow and stared. The river stopped in its +gliding; the mists rolled away; the world rocked and swayed and settled +firmly into a solid, visible reality; Mrs. Talcott's face and her round +black straw hat and her black caped shoulders, hoisting themselves up to +the window-sill. Never in her life was she to forget the silhouette on +the sky and the branching tree, nor Mrs. Talcott's resolute, large, old, +face, nor the gaze that Mrs. Talcott's eyes fixed on her as she came.</p> + +<p>Mrs. Talcott put her knee on the window-sill and then struggled for a +moment, her foot engaged in the last rung of the ladder; then she turned +and stepped down backwards into the room.</p> + +<p>Karen, raised on her elbow, was trembling.</p> + +<p>"Lay down, honey," said Mrs. Talcott, gently and gravely, as they looked +at each other; and, as she came towards the bed, Karen obeyed her and +joined her hands together. "Oh, will you come with us?" she breathed. +"Will you stay with me? I can live if you stay with me, Mrs. +Talcott—dear Mrs. Talcott."</p> + +<p>She stretched out her hands to her, and Mrs. Talcott, sitting down on +the bed beside her, took her in her arms.</p> + +<p>"You're all right, now, honey. I'm not going to leave you," she said, +stroking back Karen's hair.</p> + +<p>Karen leaned her head against her breast, and closed her eyes.</p> + +<p>"Listen, honey," said Mrs. Talcott, who spoke in low, careful tones: "I +want to ask you something. Do you love Franz Lippheim? Just answer me +quiet and easy now. I'm right here, and you're as safe as safe can be."</p> + +<p>Karen, on Mrs. Talcott's breast, shook her head. "Oh, no, Mrs. Talcott; +you could not believe that. Why should I love dear Franz?"</p> + +<p>"Then it's only so as to set your husband free that you're marrying +Franz?" Mrs. Talcott went on in the same even voice.</p> + +<p>"But no, Mrs. Talcott," said Karen, "I am not going to marry Franz." And +now she lifted her head and looked at Mrs. Talcott. "Why do you ask me +that? Who has told you that I am to marry Franz?"</p> + +<p>Mrs. Talcott, keeping an arm around her, laid her back on the pillow.</p> + +<p>"But, Karen, if you run off like that with Franz and come here and stay +as his wife," she said, "and get your husband to divorce you by acting +so, it's natural that people should think that you're going to marry the +young man, ain't it?"</p> + +<p>A burning red had mounted to Karen's wasted cheeks. Her sunken eyes +dwelt on Mrs. Talcott with a sort of horror. "It is true," she said. "He +may think that; he must think that; because unless he does he cannot +divorce me and set himself free, and he must be free, Mrs. Talcott; he +has said that he wishes to be free. But I did not run away with Franz. I +met him, on the headland, that morning, and he was to take me to his +mother, and I was so ill that he brought me here. That was all."</p> + +<p>Mrs. Talcott smoothed back her hair. "Take it easy, honey," she said. +"There's nothing to worry over one mite. And now I've asked my questions +and had my answers, and I've got something to tell. Karen, child, it's +all been a pack of lies that Mercedes has told so as to get hold of you, +and so as he shouldn't—so as your husband shouldn't, Karen. Listen, +honey: your husband loves you just for all he's worth. I've seen him. I +went up to him. And he told me how you were all the world to him, and +how, if only you didn't love this young man and didn't want to be free, +he'd do anything to get you back, and how if you'd done the wicked thing +he'd been told and then gotten sorry, he'd want you back just the same +because you were his dear wife, and the one woman he loved. But he +couldn't force himself on you if you loved someone else and hated him. +So I just told him that I didn't believe you loved Franz; and I got him +to hope it, too, and we came down together, Karen, and Mercedes is like +a lion at bay downstairs, and she's in front of that door that leads up +here and swears it'll kill you to see us; and I'd seen the ladder +leaning on the wall and I just nipped out while she was talking, and +brought it round to what I calculated would be your window and climbed +up, and that's what I've come to tell you, Karen, that he loves you, and +that he's downstairs, and that he's waiting to know whether you'll see +him."</p> + +<p>Mrs. Talcott rose and stood by the bed looking down into Karen's eyes. +"Honey, I can bring him up, can't I?" she asked.</p> + +<p>Karen's eyes looked up at her with an intensity that had passed beyond +joy or appeal. Her life was concentrated in her gaze.</p> + +<p>"You would not lie to me?" she said. "It is not pity? He loves me?"</p> + +<p>"No, I wouldn't lie to you, dearie," said Mrs. Talcott, with infinite +tenderness; "lies ain't my line. It's not pity. He loves you, Karen."</p> + +<p>"Bring him," Karen whispered. "I have always loved him. Don't let me die +before he comes."</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XLVII" id="CHAPTER_XLVII"></a>CHAPTER XLVII</h2> + + +<p>Mrs. Talcott, as she descended the staircase, heard in the little +sitting-room a voice, the voice of Mercedes, speaking on and on, in a +deep-toned, continuous roll of vehement demonstration, passionate +protest, subtle threat and pleading. Gregory's voice she did not hear. +No doubt he stood where she had left him, at the other side of the +table, confronting his antagonist.</p> + +<p>Mrs. Talcott turned the knob of the door and slightly pushed it. A heavy +weight at once was flung against it.</p> + +<p>"You shall not come in! You shall not! I forbid it! I will not be +disturbed!" cried the voice of Mercedes, who must, in the moment, have +guessed that she had been foiled.</p> + +<p>"Quit that foolishness," said Mrs. Talcott sternly. She leaned against +the door and forced it open, and Mercedes, dishevelled, with eyes that +seemed to pant on her like eyes from some dangerous jungle, flung +herself once more upon the door and stood with her back against it.</p> + +<p>"Mr. Jardine," said Mrs. Talcott, not looking at her recovered captive, +"Karen is upstairs and wants to see you. She doesn't love Franz Lippheim +and she isn't going to marry him. She didn't run away with him; she met +him when she'd run away from her guardian and he was going to take her +to his mother, only she got sick and he had to bring her here. She was +told that you wanted to divorce her and wanted to be free. She loves +you, Mr. Jardine, and she's waiting up there; only be mighty gentle with +her, because she's been brought to death's door by all that she's been +through."</p> + +<p>"I forbid it! I forbid it!" shrieked Madame von Marwitz from her place +before the door, spreading her arms across it. "She is mad! She is +delirious! The doctor has said so! I have promised Franz that you shall +not come to her unless across my dead body. I have sworn it! I keep my +promise to Franz!"</p> + +<p>Gregory advanced to the door, eyeing her. "Let me pass," he said. "Let +me go to my wife."</p> + +<p>"No! no! and no!" screamed the desperate woman. "You shall not! It will +kill her! You shall be arrested! You wish to kill a woman who has fled +from you! Help! Help!" He had her by the wrists and her teeth seized his +hands. She fought him with incredible fury.</p> + +<p>"Hold on tight, Mr. Jardine," Mrs. Talcott's voice came to him from +below. "There; I've got hold of her ankles. Put her down."</p> + +<p>With a loud, clashing wail through clenched and grinding teeth, Madame +von Marwitz, like a pine-tree uprooted, was laid upon the floor. Mrs. +Talcott knelt at her feet, pinioning them. She looked along the large +white form to Gregory at the other end, who was holding down Madame von +Marwitz's shoulders. "Go on, Mr. Jardine," she said. "Right up those +stairs. She'll calm down now. I've had her like this before."</p> + +<p>Gregory rose, yet paused, torn by his longing, yet fearful of leaving +the old woman with the demoniac creature. But Madame von Marwitz lay as +if in a trance. Her lids were closed. Her breast rose and fell with +heavy, regular breaths.</p> + +<p>"Go on, Mr. Jardine," said Mrs. Talcott. So he left them there.</p> + +<p>He went up the little stairs, dark and warm, and smelling—he was never +to forget the smell—of apples and dust, and entered a small, light room +where a window made a square of blue and green. Beyond it in a narrow +bed lay Karen. She did not move or speak; her eyes were fixed on his; +she did not smile. And as he looked at her Mrs. Talcott's words flashed +in his mind: "Karen's that kind: rocky: she don't change."</p> + +<p>But she had changed. She was his as she had never been, never could have +been, if the sinister presence lying there downstairs had not finally +revealed itself. He knelt beside her and she was in his arms and his +head was laid in the old sacred way beside his darling's head. They did +not seem to speak to each other for a long time nor did they look into +each other's eyes. He held her hand and looked at that, and sometimes +kissed it gently. But after words had come and their eyes had dared to +meet in joy, Karen said to him: "And I must tell you of Franz, Gregory, +dear Franz. He is suffering, I know. He, too, was lied to, and he was +sent away without seeing me again. We will write to Franz at once. And +you will care for my Franz, Gregory?"</p> + +<p>"Yes; I will care for your Franz; bless your Franz," said Gregory, with +tears, his lips on her hand.</p> + +<p>"He came to me like an angel that morning," Karen said in her breath of +voice; "and he has been like a beautiful mother to me; he has taken care +of me like a mother. It was on the headland over Falmouth—that he came. +Oh, Gregory," she turned her face to her husband's breast, "the birds +were beginning to sing and I thought that I should never see you again."</p> + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> + +<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XLVIII" id="CHAPTER_XLVIII"></a>CHAPTER XLVIII</h2> + + +<p>When the door had shut behind Gregory, Madame von Marwitz spoke, her +eyes still closed:</p> + +<p>"Am I now permitted to rise?"</p> + +<p>Mrs. Talcott released her ankles and stood up.</p> + +<p>"You've made a pretty spectacle of yourself, Mercedes," she remarked as +Madame von Marwitz raised herself with extraordinary stateliness. "I've +seen you behave like you were a devil before, but I never saw you behave +like you were quite such a fool. What made you fight him and bite him +like that? What did you expect to gain by it I'd like to know? As if you +could keep that strong young man from his wife."</p> + +<p>Madame von Marwitz had walked to the small mirror over the mantelpiece +and was adjusting her hair. Her face, reflected between a blue and gold +shepherd and shepherdess holding cornucopias of dried honesty, was still +ashen, but she possessed all her faculties. "This is to kill Karen," she +now said. "And yours will be the responsibility."</p> + +<p>"Taken," Mrs. Talcott replied, but with no facetiousness.</p> + +<p>Several of the large tortoiseshell pins that held Madame von Marwitz's +abundant locks were scattered on the floor. She turned and looked for +them, stooped and picked them up. Then returning to the mirror she +continued, awkwardly, to twist up and fasten her hair. She was +unaccustomed to doing her own hair and even the few days without a maid +had given her no facility.</p> + +<p>Mrs. Talcott watched her for a moment and then remarked: "You're getting +it all screwed round to one side, Mercedes. You'd better let me do it +for you."</p> + +<p>Madame von Marwitz for a moment made no reply. Her eyes fixed upon her +own mirrored eyes, she continued to insert the pins with an air of +stubborn impassivity; but when a large loop fell to her neck she allowed +her arms to drop. She sank upon a chair and, still with unflawed +stateliness, presented the back of her head to Mrs. Talcott's skilful +manipulations. Mrs. Talcott, in silence, wreathed and coiled and pinned +and the beautiful head resumed its usual outlines.</p> + +<p>When this was accomplished Madame von Marwitz rose. "Thank you," she +uttered. She moved towards the door of her room.</p> + +<p>"What are you going to do now, Mercedes?" Mrs. Talcott inquired. Her +eyes, which deepened and darkened, as if all her years of silent +watchfulness opened long vistas in them, were fixed upon Mercedes.</p> + +<p>"I am going to pack and return to my home," Madame von Marwitz replied.</p> + +<p>"Well," said Mrs. Talcott, "you'll want me to pack for you, I expect."</p> + +<p>Madame von Marwitz had opened her door and her hand was on the +door-knob. She paused so and again, for a long moment, she made no +reply. "Thank you," she then repeated. But she turned and looked at Mrs. +Talcott. "You have been a traitor to me," she said after she had +contemplated her for some moments, "you, in whom I completely trusted. +You have ruined me in the eyes of those I love."</p> + +<p>"Yes, I've gone back on you, Mercedes, that's a fact," said Mrs. +Talcott.</p> + +<p>"You have handed Karen over to bondage," Madame von Marwitz went on. +"She and this man are utterly unsuited. I would have freed her and given +her to a more worthy mate." Her voice had the dignity of a disinterested +and deep regret.</p> + +<p>Mrs. Talcott made no reply. The long vistas of her eyes dwelt on +Mercedes. After another moment of this mutual contemplation Madame von +Marwitz closed the door, though she still kept her hand on the +door-knob.</p> + +<p>"May I ask what you have been saying of me to Mrs. Forrester, to Mr. +Jardine?"</p> + +<p>"Well, as to Mr. Jardine, Mercedes," said Mrs. Talcott, "there was no +need of saying anything, was there, if I turned out right in what I told +him I suspected. He sees I'm right. He'd been fed up, along with the +rest of them, on lies, and Karen can help him out with the details if he +wants to ask for them. As for the old lady, I gave her the truth of the +story about Karen running away. I made her see, and see straight, that +your one idea was to keep Karen's husband from getting her back because +you knew that if he did the truth about you would come out. I let you +down as easy as I could and put it that you weren't responsible exactly +for the things you said when you went off your head in a rage and that +you were awful sorry when you found Karen had taken you at your word and +made off. But that old lady feels mighty sick, Mercedes, and I allow +she'll feel sicker when she's seen Mr. Jardine. As for Miss Scrotton, I +saw her, too, and she's come out strong; you've got a friend there, +Mercedes, sure; she won't believe anything against her beloved +Mercedes," a dry smile touched Mrs. Talcott's grave face as she echoed +Miss Scrotton's phraseology, "until she hears from her own lips what she +has to say in explanation of the story. You'll be able to fix her up all +right, Mercedes, and most of the others, too, I expect. I'd advise you +to lie low for a while and let it blow over. People are mighty glad to +be given the chance for forgetting things against anyone like you. It'll +simmer down and work out, I expect, to a bad quarrel you had with Karen +that's parted you. And as for the outside world, why it won't mind a +mite what you do. Why you can murder your grandmother and eat her, I +expect, and the world'll manage to overlook it, if you're a genius."</p> + +<p>"I thank you," said Madame von Marwitz, her hand clasping and unclasping +the door-knob. "I thank you indeed for your reassurance. I have murdered +and eaten my grandmother, but I am to escape hanging because I am a +genius. That is a most gratifying piece of information. You, personally, +I infer, consider that the penalty should be paid, however gifted the +criminal."</p> + +<p>"I don't know, Mercedes, I don't know," said Mrs. Talcott in a voice of +profound sadness. "I don't know who deserves penalties and who don't, if +you begin to argue it out to yourself." Mrs. Talcott, who had seated +herself at the other side of the table, laid an arm upon it, looking +before her and not at Mercedes, as she spoke. "You're a bad woman; that +ain't to be denied. You're a bad, dangerous woman, and perhaps what +you've been trying to do now is the worst thing you've ever done. But I +guess I'm way past feeling angry at anything you do. I guess I'm way +past wanting you to get come up with. I can't make out how to think +about a person like you. Maybe you figured it all out to yourself +different from the way it looks. Maybe you persuaded yourself to believe +that Karen would be better off apart from her husband. I guess that's +the way with most criminals, don't you? They figure things out different +from the way other people do. I expect you can't help it. I expect you +were born so. And I guess you can't change. Some bad folks seem to +manage to get religion and that brings 'em round; but I expect you ain't +that kind."</p> + +<p>Madame von Marwitz, while Mrs. Talcott thus shared her psychological +musings with her, was not looking at the old woman: her eyes were fixed +on the floor and she seemed to consider.</p> + +<p>"No," she said presently. "I am not that kind."</p> + +<p>She raised her eyes and they met Mrs. Talcott's. "What are you going to +do now?" she asked.</p> + +<p>"Well," said Mrs. Talcott, drawing a long sigh of fatigue, "I've been +thinking that over and I guess I'll stay over here. There ain't any +place for me in America now; all my folks are dead. You know that money +my Uncle Adam left me a long time ago that I bought the annuity with. +Well, I've saved most of that annuity; I'd always intended that Karen +should have what I'd saved when I died. But Karen don't need it now. +It'll buy me a nice little cottage somewhere and I can settle down and +have a garden and chickens and live on what I've got."</p> + +<p>"How much was it, the annuity?" Madame von Marwitz asked after a moment.</p> + +<p>"A hundred and ten pounds a year," said Mrs. Talcott.</p> + +<p>"But you cannot live on that," Madame von Marwitz, after another moment, +said.</p> + +<p>"Why, gracious sakes, of course I can, Mercedes," Mrs. Talcott replied, +smiling dimly.</p> + +<p>Again there was silence and then Madame von Marwitz said, in a voice a +little forced: "You have not got much out of life, have you, Tallie?"</p> + +<p>"Well, no; I don't expect you would say as I had," Mrs. Talcott +acquiesced, showing a slight surprise.</p> + +<p>"You haven't even got me—now—have you," Madame von Marwitz went on, +looking down at her door-knob and running her hand slowly round it while +she spoke. "Not even the criminal. But that is a gain, you feel, no +doubt, rather than a loss."</p> + +<p>"No, Mercedes," said Mrs. Talcott mildly; "I don't feel that way. I feel +it's a loss, I guess. You see you're all the family I've got left."</p> + +<p>"And you," said Madame von Marwitz, still looking down at her knob, "are +all the family I have left."</p> + +<p>Mrs. Talcott now looked at her. Mercedes did not raise her eyes. Her +face was sad and very pale and it had not lost its stateliness. Mrs. +Talcott looked at her for what seemed to be a long time and the vistas +of her eyes deepened with a new acceptance.</p> + +<p>It was without any elation and yet without any regret that she said in +her mild voice: "Do you want me to come back with you, Mercedes?"</p> + +<p>"Will you?" Madame von Marwitz asked in a low voice.</p> + +<p>"Why, yes, of course I'll come if you want me, Mercedes," said Mrs. +Talcott.</p> + +<p>Madame von Marwitz now opened her door. "Thank you, Tallie," she said.</p> + +<p>"You look pretty tired," Mrs. Talcott, following her into the bedroom, +remarked. "You'd better lie down and take a rest while I do the packing. +Let's clear out as soon as we can."</p> + +<p> </p> +<p> </p> +<hr class="full" /> +<p>***END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK TANTE***</p> +<p>******* This file should be named 30115-h.txt or 30115-h.zip *******</p> +<p>This and all associated files of various formats will be found in:<br /> +<a href="http://www.gutenberg.org/dirs/3/0/1/1/30115">http://www.gutenberg.org/3/0/1/1/30115</a></p> +<p>Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions +will be renamed.</p> + +<p>Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no +one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation +(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without +permission and without paying copyright royalties. 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You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org + + + + + +Title: Tante + + +Author: Anne Douglas Sedgwick + + + +Release Date: September 27, 2009 [eBook #30115] +Most recently updated: July 13, 2012 + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ISO-646-US (US-ASCII) + + +***START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK TANTE*** + + +E-text prepared by David Garcia, Mary Meehan, and the Project Gutenberg +Online Distributed Proofreading Team (http://www.pgdp.net) + + + +TANTE + +by + +ANNE DOUGLAS SEDGWICK +(MRS. BASIL DE SELINCOURT) + +Author of "Franklin Winslow Kane," "A Fountain Sealed," "Amabel +Channice," "The Shadow of Life," Etc. + + + + + + + +New York +The Century Co. +1912 + +Copyright, 1911, by +The Century Co. + +Published, December, 1911. + + + + +TANTE + + + + +PART I + + + + +CHAPTER I + + +It was the evening of Madame Okraska's concert at the old St. James's +Hall. London was still the place of the muffled roar and the endearing +ugliness. Horse-'buses plied soberly in an unwidened Piccadilly. The +private motor was a curiosity. Berlin had not been emulated in an +altered Mall nor New York in the facades of giant hotels. The Saturday +and Monday pops were still an institution; and the bell of the +muffin-man, in such a wintry season, passed frequently along the foggy +streets and squares. Already the epoch seems remote. + +Madame Okraska was pausing on her way from St. Petersburg to New York +and this was the only concert she was to give in London that winter. For +many hours the enthusiasts who had come to secure unreserved seats had +been sitting on the stone stairs that led to the balcony or gallery, or +on the still narrower, darker and colder flight that led to the +orchestra from Piccadilly Place. From the adjacent hall they could hear +the strains of the Moore & Burgess Minstrels, blatant and innocuously +vulgar; and the determined mirth, anatomized by distance, sounded a +little melancholy. To those of an imaginative turn of mind it might have +seemed that they waited in a tunnel at one far end of which could be +perceived the tiny memory of tea at an Aerated Bread shop and at the +other the vision of the delights to which they would emerge. For there +was no one in the world like Madame Okraska, and to see and hear her was +worth cold and weariness and hunger. Not only was she the most famous of +living pianists but one of the most beautiful of women; and upon this +restoring fact many of the most weary stayed themselves, returning again +and again to gaze at the pictured face that adorned the outer cover of +the programme. + +Illuminated by chill gas-jets, armed with books and sandwiches, the +serried and devoted ranks were composed of typical concert-goers, of +types, in some cases, becoming as extinct as the muffin-man; young +art-students from the suburbs, dressed in Liberty serges and velveteens, +and reading ninepenny editions of Browning and Rossetti--though a few, +already, were reading Yeats; middle-aged spinsters from Bayswater or +South Kensington, who took their weekly concert as they took their daily +bath; many earnest young men, soft-hatted and long-haired, studying +scores; the usual contingent of the fashionable and economical lady; and +the pale-faced business man, bringing an air of duty to the pursuit of +pleasure. + +Some time before the doors opened a growing urgency began to make itself +felt. People got up from their insecurely balanced camp-stools or rose +stiffly from the stone steps to turn and stand shoulder to shoulder, +subtly transformed from comrades in discomfort to combatants for a +hazardous reward. The field for personal endeavour was small; the stairs +were narrow and their occupants packed like sardines; yet everybody +hoped to get a better seat than their positions entitled them to hope +for. Hope and fear increased in intensity with the distance from the +doors, those mute, mystic doors behind which had not yet been heard a +chink or a shuffle and against which leaned, now balefully visible, the +earliest comers of all, jaded, pallid, but insufferably assured. The +summons came at length in the sound of drawn bolts and chains and a +peremptory official voice, blood-tingling as a trumpet-call; and the +crowd, shoulder to shoulder and foot to foot, with rigid lips and eyes +uplifted, began to mount like one man. Step by step they went, steady +and wary, each pressing upon those who went before and presenting a +resistant back to those who followed after. The close, emulous contacts +bred stealthy strifes and hatreds. A small lady, with short grey hair +and thin red face and the conscienceless, smiling eye of a hypnotized +creature, drove her way along the wall and mounted with the agility of a +lizard to a place several steps above. Others were infected by the +successful outlawry and there were some moments of swaying and striving +before the crowd adjusted itself to its self-protective solidity. +Emerged upon the broader stairs they ascended panting and scurrying, in +a wild stampede, to the sudden quiet and chill and emptiness of the +familiar hall, with its high-ranged plaster cupids, whose cheeks and +breasts and thighs were thrown comically into relief by a thick coating +of dust. Here a permanent fog seemed to hang under the roof; only a few +lights twinkled frugally; and the querulous voice of the +programme-seller punctuated the monotonous torrent of feet. Row upon +row, the seats were filled as if by tumultuous waters entering appointed +channels, programmes rustled, sandwiches were drawn from clammy packets, +and the thin-faced lady, iniquitously ensconced in the middle of the +front row in the gallery, had taken out a strip of knitting and was +blandly ready for the evening. + +"I always come up here," said one of the ladies from Kensington to a +friend. "One hears her pianissimo more perfectly than anywhere else. +What a magnificent programme! I shall be glad to hear her give the +Schumann Fantaisie in C Major again." + +"I think I look forward more to the Bach Fantaisie than to anything," +said her companion. + +She exposed herself to a pained protest: "Oh surely not; not Bach; I do +not come for my Bach to Okraska. She belongs too definitely to the +romantics to grasp Bach. Beethoven, if you will; she may give us the +Appassionata superbly; but not Bach; she lacks self-effacement." + +"Liszt said that no one played Bach as she did." + +Authority did not serve her. "Liszt may have said it; Brahms would not +have;" was the rejoinder. + +Down in the orchestra chairs the audience was roughly to be divided into +the technical and the personal devotees; those who chose seats from +which they could dwell upon Madame Okraska's full face over the shining +surfaces of the piano or upon her profile from the side; and those who, +from behind her back, were dedicated to the study of her magical hands. + +"I do hope," said a girl in the centre of the front row of chairs, a +place of dizzy joy, for one might almost touch the goddess as she sat at +the piano, "I do hope she's not getting fat. Someone said they heard she +was. I never want to see her again if she gets fat. It would be too +awful." + +The girl with her conjectured sadly that Madame Okraska must be well +over forty. + +"I beg your pardon," a massive lady dressed in an embroidered sack-like +garment, and wearing many strings of iridescent shells around her +throat, leaned forward from behind to say: "She is forty-six; I happen +to know; a friend of mine has met Madame Okraska's secretary. Forty-six; +but she keeps her beauty wonderfully; her figure is quite beautiful." + +An element of personal excitement was evident in the people who sat in +these nearest chairs; it constituted a bond, though by no means a +friendly one. Emulation, the irrepressible desire to impart knowledge, +broke down normal barriers. The massive lady was slightly flushed and +her manner almost menacing. Her information was received with a vague, +half resentful murmur. + +"She looks younger," she continued, while her listeners gave her an +unwilling yet alert attention. "It is extraordinary how she retains her +youth. But it tells, it tells, the tragic life; one sees it in her eyes +and lips." + +The first girl now put forward with resolution her pawn of knowledge. + +"It has been tragic, hasn't it. The dreadful man she was married to by +her relations when she was hardly more than a child, and the death of +her second husband. He was the Baron von Marwitz; her real name is von +Marwitz; Okraska is her maiden name. He was drowned in saving her life, +you know." + +"The Baron von Marwitz was drowned no one knows how; he was found +drowned; she found his body. She went into a convent after his death." + +"A convent? I was reading a life of her in a magazine the other day and +nothing was said about a convent." + +The massive lady smiled tolerantly: "Nothing would be. She has a horror +of publicity. Yes, she is a mystic as well as an artist; she only +resigned the religious life because of what she felt to be her duty to +her adopted daughter. One sees the mystical side in her face and hears +it in her music." + +Madame Okraska was one of those about whose footsteps legends rise, and +legend could add little to the romantic facts of her life;--the poverty +of her youth; her _debut_ as a child prodigy at Warsaw and the sudden +fame that had followed it; the coronets that had been laid at her feet; +her private tragedies, cosmopolitan friendships, her scholarship, +caprices and generosities. She had been the Egeria, smiling in mystery, +of half a dozen famous men. And it was as satisfactory to the devotee to +hear that she always wore white and drank coffee for her breakfast, as +that Rubinstein and Liszt had blessed her and Leschetitsky said that she +had nothing to learn. Her very origin belonged to the realm of romantic +fiction. Her father, a Polish music-master in New Orleans, had run away +with his pupil, a beautiful Spanish girl of a good Creole family. Their +child had been born in Cracow while the Austrians were bombarding it in +1848. + +The lights were now all up and the stalls filling. Ladies and gentlemen +from the suburbs, over early, were the first comers; eager schoolgirls +marshalled by governesses; scrupulous students with music under their +arms, and, finally, the rustling, shining, chattering crowd of +fashionable London. + +The massive lady had by now her little audience, cowed, if still +slightly sulky, well in hand. She pointed out each notability to them, +and indirectly, to all her neighbours. The Duchess of Bannister and Lady +Champney, the famous beauty; the Prime Minister, whom the girls could +have recognized for themselves, and Sir Alliston Compton, the poet. Had +they read his sonnet to Madame Okraska, last year, in the "Fortnightly"? +They had not. "I wonder who that odd looking girl is with him and the +old lady?" one of them ventured. + +"A little grand-daughter, a little niece," said the massive lady, who +did not know. "Poor Sir Alliston's wife is in a lunatic asylum; isn't it +a melancholy head?" + +But now one of her listeners, a lady also in the front row, leaned +forward to say hurriedly and deprecatingly, her face suffused with +shyness: "That nice young girl is Madame Okraska's adopted daughter. The +old lady is Mrs. Forrester, Madame Okraska's great friend; my +sister-in-law was for many years a governess in her family, and that is +how I come to know." + +All those who had heard her turned their eyes upon the young girl, who, +in an old-fashioned white cloak, with a collar of swansdown turned up +round her fair hair, was taking her place with her companions in the +front row of the orchestra-stalls. Even the massive lady was rapt away +to silence. + +"But I thought the adopted daughter was an Italian," one girl at last +commented, having gazed her fill at the being so exalted by fortune. +"Her skin is rather dark, but that yellow hair doesn't look Italian." + +"She is a Norwegian," said the massive lady, keeping however an eye on +the relative of Mrs. Forrester's governess; "the child of Norwegian +peasants. Don't you know the story? Madame Okraska found the poor little +creature lost in a Norwegian forest, leaped from her carriage and took +her into her arms; the parents were destitute and she bought the child +from them. She is the very soul of generosity." + +"She doesn't look like a peasant," said the girl, with a flavour of +discontent, as though a more apparent rusticity would have lent special +magnanimity to Madame Okraska's benevolence. But the massive lady +assured her: "Oh yes, it is the true Norse type; their peasantry has its +patrician quality. I have been to Norway. Sir Alliston looks very much +moved, doesn't he? He has been in love with Madame Okraska for years." +And she added with a deep sigh of satisfaction: "There has never been a +word whispered against her reputation; never a word--'Pure as the foam +on midmost ocean tossed.'" + +Among the crowds thronging densely to their places, a young man of +soldierly aspect, with a dark, narrow face, black hair and square blue +eyes, was making his way to a seat in the third row of stalls. His name +was Gregory Jardine; he was not a soldier--though he looked one--but a +barrister, and he was content to count himself, not altogether +incorrectly, a Philistine in all matters aesthetic. Good music he +listened to with, as he put it, unintelligent and barbarous enjoyment; +and since he had, shamefully, never yet heard the great pianist, he had +bought the best stall procurable some weeks before, and now, after a +taxing day in the law courts, had foregone his after-dinner coffee in +order not to miss one note of the opening Appassionata; it was a sonata +he was very fond of. He sometimes picked out the air of the slow +movement on the piano with heavy deliberation; his musical equipment did +not carry him as far as the variations. + +When he reached his seat he found it to be by chance next that of his +sister-in-law, his brother Oliver's wife, a pretty, jewelled and +jewel-like young woman, an American of a complicatedly cosmopolitan +type. Gregory liked Betty Jardine, and always wondered how she had come +to marry Oliver, whom he rather scorned; but he was not altogether +pleased to find her near him. He preferred to take his music in +solitude; and Betty was very talkative. + +"Well, this is nice, Gregory!" she said. "You and Captain Ashton know +each other, don't you. No, I couldn't persuade Oliver to come; he +wouldn't give up his whist. Isn't Oliver dreadful; he moves from the +saddle to the whist-table, and back again; and that is all. Captain +Ashton and I have been comparing notes; we find that we have missed +hardly any of Madame Okraska's concerts in London. I was only ten when I +heard the first she ever gave here; my governess took me; and actually +Captain Ashton was here on that day, too. Wasn't she a miracle of +loveliness? It was twenty years ago; she had already her European +reputation. It was just after she had divorced that horrible first +husband of hers and married the Baron von Marwitz. This isn't your +initiation, of course, Gregory?" + +"Actually my initiation," said Gregory, examining the portrait of Madame +Okraska on the cover of the programme. + +"But you've seen her at Mrs. Forrester's? She always stays with Mrs. +Forrester." + +"I know; but I've always missed her, or, at all events, never been asked +to meet her." + +"I certainly never have been," said Betty Jardine. "But Mrs. Forrester +thinks of me as frivolity personified, I know, and doesn't care to admit +anything lower than a cabinet minister or a poet laureate when she has +her lion domiciled. She is an old darling; but, between ourselves, she +does take her lions a little too seriously, doesn't she. Well, prepare +for a _coup de foudre_, Gregory. You'll be sure to fall in love with +her. Everybody falls in love with her. Captain Ashton has been in love +with her for twenty years. She is extraordinary." + +"I'm ready to be subjugated," said Gregory. "Do people really hang on +her hands and kiss them? Shall I want to hang on her hands and kiss +them?" + +"There is no telling what she will do with us," said Lady Jardine. + +Gregory Jardine's face, however, was not framed to express enthusiasm. +It was caustic, cold and delicate. His eyes were as clear and as hard as +a sky of frosty morning, and his small, firm lips were hard. His chin +and lower lip advanced slightly, so that when he smiled his teeth met +edge to edge, and the little black moustache, to which he often gave an +absent upward twist, lent an ironic quality to this chill, gay smile, at +times almost Mephistophelian. He sat twisting the moustache now, leaning +his head to listen, amidst the babel of voices, to Betty Jardine's +chatter, and the thrills of infectious expectancy that passed over the +audience like breezes over a corn-field left him unaffected. His +observant, indifferent glance had in it something of the schoolboy's +barbarian calm and something of the disabused impersonality of worldly +experience. + +"Who is the young lady with Mrs. Forrester?" he asked presently. "In +white, with yellow hair. Just in front of us. Do you know?" + +Betty had leaned forward to look. "Don't you even know her by sight?" +she said. "That is Miss Woodruff, the girl who follows Madame Okraska +everywhere. She attached herself to her years ago, I believe, in Rome or +Paris;--some sort of little art-student she was. What a bore that sort +of devotion must be. Isn't she queer?" + +"I had heard that she's an adopted daughter," said Captain Ashton; "the +child of Norwegian peasants, and that Madame Okraska found her in a +Norwegian forest--by moonlight;--a most romantic story." + +"A fable, I think. Someone was telling me about her the other day. She +is only a camp-follower and _protegee_; and a compatriot of mine. She is +an orphan and Madame Okraska supports her." + +"She doesn't look like a _protegee_," said Gregory Jardine, his eyes on +the young person thus described; "she looks like a protector." + +"I should think she must be most of all a problem," said Betty. "What a +price to pay for celebrity--these hangers-on who make one ridiculous by +their infatuation. Madame Okraska is incapable of defending herself +against them, I hear. The child's clothes might have come from Norway!" + +The _protegee_, protector or problem, who turned to them now and then +her oddly blunted, oddly resolute young profile, had tawny hair, and a +sun-browned skin. She wore a little white silk frock with flat bows of +dull blue upon it. Her evening cloak was bordered with swansdown. Two +black bows, one at the crown of her head and one at the nape of her +neck, secured the thick plaits of her hair, which was parted and brushed +up from her forehead in a bygone school-girlish fashion. She made +Gregory think of a picture by Alfred Stevens he had seen somewhere and +of an archaic Greek statue, and her appearance and demeanour interested +him. He continued to look at her while the unrest and expectancy of the +audience rolled into billows of excitement. + +A staid, melancholy man, forerunner of the great artist, had appeared +and performed his customary and cryptic function. "Why do they always +screw up the piano-stool at the last moment!" Betty Jardine murmured. +"Is it to pepper our tongues with anguish before the claret?--Oh, she +must be coming now! She always keeps one waiting like this!" + +The billows had surged to a storm. Signs of frenzy were visible in the +faces on the platform. They had caught a glimpse of the approaching +divinity. + +"Here she is!" cried Betty Jardine. Like everybody else she was clapping +frantically, like everybody, that is, except Gregory Jardine; for +Gregory, his elbow in his hand, his fingers still neatly twisting the +end of his moustache, continued to observe the young girl in the front +row, whose face, illuminated and irradiated, was upturned to the figure +now mounting to the platform. + + + + +CHAPTER II + + +The hush that had fallen was like the hush that falls on Alpine watchers +in the moment before sunrise, and, with the great musician's slow +emerging from below, it was as if the sun had risen. + +She came, with her indolent step, the thunder of hands and voices +greeting her; and those who gazed at her from the platform saw the +pearl-wreathed hair and opulent white shoulders, and those who gazed at +her from beneath saw the strange and musing face. Then she stood before +them and her dark eyes dwelt, impassive and melancholy, upon the sea of +faces, tumultuous and blurred with clapping hands. The sound was like +the roaring of the sea and she stood as a goddess might have stood at +the brink of the ocean, indifferent and unaware, absorbed in dreams of +ancient sorrow. The ovation was so prolonged and she stood there for so +long--hardly less the indifferent goddess because, from time to time, +she bowed her own famous bow, stately, old-fashioned, formally and +sublimely submissive,--that every eye in the great audience could feast +upon her in a rapturous assurance of leisure. + +She was a woman of forty-eight, of an ample though still beautiful +figure. Her flowing dress of white brocade made no attempt to compress, +to sustain or to attenuate. No one could say that a woman who stood as +she did, with the port of a goddess--the small head majestically poised +over such shoulders and such a breast--was getting fat; yet no one could +deny that there was redundancy. She was not redundant as other women +were; she was not elegant as other women were; she seemed in nothing +like others. Her dress was strange; it had folds and amplitudes and dim +disks of silver broideries at breast and knee that made it like the +dress of some Venetian lady, drawn at random from an ancestral marriage +coffer and put on dreamily with no thought of aptness. Her hair was +strange; no other woman's hair was massed and folded as was hers, hair +dark as night and intertwined and looped with twisted strands of pearl +and diamond. Her face was strange, that crowning face, known to all the +world. Disparate racial elements mingled in the long Southern oval and +the Slavonic modelling of brow and cheek-bone. The lips, serene and +passionate, deeply sunken at the corners and shadowed with a pencilling +of down, were the lips of Spain; all the mystery of the South was in the +grave and tragic eyes. Yet the eyes were cold; and touches of wild +ancestral suffering, like the sudden clash of spurs in the languors of a +Polonaise, marked the wide nostrils and the heavy eyelids and the broad, +black crooked eyebrows that seemed to stammer a little in the perfect +sentence of her face. + +She subjugated and she appealed. Her adorers were divided between the +longing to lie down under her feet and to fold her protectingly in their +arms. Calf-love is an undying element in human-nature, a shame-faced +derogatory name for the romantic, self-immolating emotion woven from +fancy, yearning and the infection of other's ardour. Love of this foam +and flame quality, too tender to be mere aesthetic absorption in a +beautiful object, too selfless to be sensual, too intense to be only +absurd, rose up towards Madame Okraska and encompassed her from hundreds +of hearts and eyes. The whole audience was for her one vast heart of +adoration, one fixed face of half-hypnotized tenderness. And there she +stood before them;--Madame Okraska whom crowned heads delighted to +honour; Madame Okraska who got a thousand pounds a night; Madame Okraska +who played as no one in the world could play; looking down over them, +looking up and around at them, as if, now, a little troubled by the +prolonged adulation, patient yet weary, like a mistress assaulted, after +long absence, by the violent joy of a great Newfoundland dog; smiling a +little, though buffeted, and unwilling to chill the ardent heart by a +reprimand. And more than all she was like a great white rose that, +fading in the soft, thick, scented air of a hot-house, droops languidly +with loosened petals. + +They let her go at last and she took her place at the piano. Her hands +fell softly on a group of dreamy ascending chords. Her face, then, in a +long pause, took on a rapt expectancy and power. She was the priestess +waiting before her altar for the descent of the god, glorious and +dreadful. And it was as if with the chill and shudder of a possession +that, breathing deeply, drawing her shoulders a little together, she +lifted her hands and played. She became the possessed and articulate +priestess, her soul, her mind, her passion lent to the message spoken +through her. The tumult and insatiable outcry of the Appassionata spread +like a river over her listeners. And as she played her face grew more +rapt in its brooding concentration, the eyes half-closed, the nostrils +wide, the jaw dropping and giving to the mouth an expression at once +relaxed and vigilant. + +To criticize with the spell of Madame Okraska's personality upon one was +hardly possible. Emerged from the glamour, there were those, pretending +to professional discriminations, who suggested that she lacked the +masculine and classic disciplines of interpretation; that her rendering, +though breathed through with noble dignities, was coloured by a +capricious and passionate personality; that it was the feeling rather +than the thought of the music that she excelled in expressing, its +suffering rather than its serenity. Only a rare listener, here and there +among her world-wide audiences, was aware of deeper deficiencies and of +the slow changes that time had wrought in her art. For it was +inspiration no longer; it was the memory of inspiration. The Nemesis of +the artist who expresses, not what he feels, but what he is expected to +feel, what he has undertaken to feel, had fallen upon the great woman. +Her art, too, showed the fragrant taint of an artificial atmosphere. She +had played ten times when she should have played once. She lived on her +capital of experience, no longer renewing her life, and her renderings +had lost that quality of the greatest, the living communication with the +experience embodied in the music. It was on the stereotyped memories of +such communication that she depended, on the half hypnotic possession by +the past; filling in vacancies with temperamental caprice or an emotion +no longer the music's but her own. + +But to the enchanted ear of the multitude, professional and +unprofessional, the essential vitality was there, the vitality embodied +to the enchanted eye by the white figure with its drooping, +pearl-wreathed head and face sunken in sombre ecstasy. She gave them all +they craved:--passion, stormy struggle, the tears of hopeless love, the +chill smile of lassitude in accepted defeat, the unappeasable longing +for the past. They listened, and their hearts lapsed back from the +hallucinated unity of enthusiasm each to its own identity, an identity +isolated, intensified, tortured exquisitely by the expression of dim +yearnings. All that had been beautiful in the pain and joy that through +long ages had gone to the building up of each human consciousness, +re-entered and possessed it; the fragrance of blossoming trees, the +farewell gaze of dying eyes, the speechless smile of lovers, ancestral +memories of Spring-times, loves, and partings, evoked by this poignant +lure from dim realms of sub-consciousness, like subterranean rivers +rising through creaks and crannies towards the lifted wand of the +diviner. It seemed the quintessence of human experience, the ecstasy of +perfect and enfranchising sorrow, distilled from the shackling, +smirching half-sorrows of actual life. Some of the listening faces +smiled; some were sodden, stupefied rather than enlightened; some showed +a sensual rudimentary gratification; some, lapped in the tide, yet +unaware of its significance, were merely silly. But no Orpheus, wildly +harping through the woods, ever led more enthralled and subjugated +listeners. + +Gregory Jardine's face was neither sodden nor silly nor sensual; but it +did not wear the enchanted look of the true votary. Instinctively this +young man, though it was emotion that he found in music, resisted any +too obvious assault upon his feelings, taking refuge in irony from their +force when roused. For the form of music, and its intellectual content, +he had little appreciation, and he was thus the more exposed to its +emotional appeal; but his intuition of the source and significance of +the appeal remained singularly just and accurate. He could not now have +analysed his sense of protest and dissatisfaction; yet, while the charm +grasped and encircled him, making him, as he said to himself, +idiotically grovel or inanely soar, he repelled the poignant sweetness +and the thrills that went through him were thrills of a half-unwilling +joy. + +He sat straightly, his arms folded, his head bent as he twisted the end +of his moustache, his eye fixed on the great musician; and he wondered +what was the matter with him, or with her. It was as if he couldn't get +at the music. Something interfered, something exquisite yet ambiguous, +alluring yet never satisfying. + +His glance fell presently from the pianist's drooping head to the face +of the _protegee_, and the contrast between what was expressed by this +young person's gaze and attitude and what he was himself feeling again +drew his attention to her. No grovelling and no soaring was here, but an +elation almost stern, a brooding concentration almost maternal, a +dedicated power. Madame Okraska, he reflected, must be an extraordinary +person if she really deserved that gaze. He didn't believe that she +quite did. His dissatisfaction with the music extended itself to the +musician and, looking from her face to the girl's, he remembered with +scepticism Betty's account of their relation. + +A group of Chopin Preludes and a Brahms Rhapsodie Hongroise brought the +first half of the concert to a close, and Gregory watched with +amusement, during the ensuing scene, the vagaries of the intoxicated +crowd. People rose to their feet, clapping, shouting, bellowing, +screaming. He saw on the platform the face of the massive lady, haggard, +fierce, devouring; the face of the shy lady, suffused, the eyes half +dazed with adoration like those of a saint in rapture. Old Mrs. +Forrester, with her juvenile auburn head, laughed irrepressibly while +she clapped, like a happy child. The old poet was nearly moved to tears. +Only the _protegee_ remained, as it were, outside the infection. She +smiled slightly and steadily, as if in a proud contentment, and clapped +now and then quite softly, and she turned once and scanned the audience +with eyes accustomed to ovations and appraising the significance of this +one. + +Madame Okraska was recalled six times, but she could not be prevailed +upon to give an encore, though for a long time a voice bayed +intermittently:--"The Berceuse! Chopin's Berceuse!" The vast harmonies +of entreaty and delight died down to sporadic solos, taken up more and +more faint-heartedly by weary yet still hopeful hands. + +Still smiling slightly, with a preoccupied air, the young girl looked +about her, or leaned forward to listen to some kindly bantering +addressed to her by Sir Alliston. She hardly spoke, but Gregory +perceived that she was by no means shy. She so pleasantly engaged his +attention that when Sir Alliston got up from his seat next hers there +was another motive than the mere wish to speak to his old friend in his +intention of joining Mrs. Forrester for a few moments. The project was +not definite and he abandoned it when his relative, Miss Eleanor +Scrotton, tense, significant and wearing the sacramental expression +customary with her on such occasions, hurried to the empty seat and +dropped into it. Eleanor's enthusiasms oppressed him and Betty had told +him that Madame Okraska was become the most absorbing of them. His +mother and Eleanor's had been cousins. Her father, the late Sir Jonas +Scrotton, heavily distinguished in the world of literature and politics, +had died only the year before. Gregory remembered him as a vindictive +and portentous old man presiding at Miss Scrotton's tea-parties in a +black silk skull-cap, and one could but admire in Miss Scrotton the +reverence and devotion that had not only borne with but gloried in him. +If the amplitude of his mantle had not descended upon her one might +metaphorically say that the black skull-cap had. Gregory felt that he +might have liked Eleanor better if she hadn't been so unintermittently +and unilluminatingly intelligent. She wrote scholarly articles in the +graver reviews--articles that he invariably skipped--she was always +armed with an appreciation and she had the air of thinking the +intellectual reputation of London very much her responsibility. Above +all she was dowered with an overwhelming power of enthusiasm. Eleanor +dressed well and had a handsome, commanding profile with small, +compressed lips and large, prominent, melancholy eyes that wickedly +reminded Gregory of the eyes of a beetle. Beneath the black feather boa +that was thrown round her neck, her thin shoulder-blades, while she +talked to Mrs. Forrester and sketched with pouncing fingers the phrasing +of certain passages, jerked and vibrated oddly. Mrs. Forrester nodded, +smiled, acquiesced. She was rather fond of Eleanor. Their talk was for +each other. Miss Woodruff, unheeded, but with nothing of the air of one +consciously insignificant, sat looking before her. Beside Eleanor's +vehemence and Mrs. Forrester's vivacity she made Gregory think of a +tranquil landscape seen at dawn. + +He was thus thinking, and looking at her, when, as though +sub-consciously aware of his gaze, she suddenly turned her head and +looked round at him. + +Her eyes, in the long moment while their glances were interchanged, were +so clear and deliberate, so unmoved by anything but a certain surprise, +that he felt no impulse to pretend politely that he had not been caught +staring. They scrutinized each other, gravely, serenely, intently, until +a thunder of applause, like a tidal wave surging over the hall, seemed +to engulf their gaze. Madame Okraska was once more emerging. Miss +Scrotton, catching up her boa, her programme and her fan, scuttled back +to her seat with an air of desperate gravity; Sir Alliston returned to +his; Mrs. Forrester welcomed him with a smile and a finger at her lips; +and as the pianist seated herself and cast a long glance over the still +disarranged and cautiously rustling audience, Gregory saw that Miss +Woodruff had no further thought for him. + + + + +CHAPTER III + + +Mrs. Forrester was dispensing tea in her lofty drawing-room which, with +its illumined heights and dim recesses, gave to the ceremony an almost +ritualistic state. Mrs. Forrester's drawing-room and Mrs. Forrester +herself were long-established features of London, and not to have sat +beneath the Louis Quinze chandelier nor have drunk tea out of the blue +Worcester cups was to have missed something significant of the typical +London spectacle. + +The drawing-room seemed most characteristic when one came to it from a +fog outside, as people had done to-day, and when Mrs. Forrester was +found presiding over the blue cups. She was an old lady with auburn hair +elaborately dressed and singularly bound in snoods of velvet. She wore +flowing silken trains and loose ruffled sacques of a curious bygone cut, +and upon each wrist was clasped, mounted on a velvet band, a large +square emerald, set in heavily chased gold. The glance of her eyes was +as surprisingly youthful as the color of her hair, and her face, though +complicatedly wrinkled, had an almost girlish gaiety and vigour. Abrupt +and merry, Mrs. Forrester was arresting to the attention and rather +alarming. She swept aside bores; she selected the significant; socially +she could be rather merciless; but her kindness was without limits when +she attached herself, and in private life she suffered fools, if not +gladly at all events humorously, in the persons of her three heavy and +exemplary sons, who had married wives as unimpeachable and as +uninteresting as themselves and provided her with a multitude of +grandchildren. Mrs. Forrester fulfilled punctiliously all her duties +towards these young folk, and it never occurred to her sons and +daughters-in-law that they and their interests were not her chief +preoccupation. The energy and variety of her nature were, however, +given, to her social relations and to her personal friendships, which +were many and engrossing. These friendships were always highly +flavoured. Mrs. Forrester had a _flair_ for genius and needed no popular +accrediting to make it manifest to her. And it wasn't enough to be +merely a genius; there were many of the species, eminent and emblazoned, +who were never asked to come under the Louis Quinze chandelier. She +asked of her talented friends personal distinction, the power of being +interesting in more than their art. + +Such a genius, pre-eminently such a one, was Madame von Marwitz. She was +more than under the chandelier; Mrs. Forrester's house, when she was in +London, was her home. "I am safe with you," she had said to Mrs. +Forrester, "with you I am never pursued and never bored." Where Mrs. +Forrester evaded and relegated bores, Madame von Marwitz sombrely and +helplessly hated them. "What can I do?" she said. "If no one will +protect me I am delivered to them. It is a plague of locusts. They +devour me. Oh their letters! Oh their flowers! Oh their love and their +stupidity! No, the earth is black with them." + +Madame von Marwitz was protected from the swarms while she visited her +old friend. The habits of the house were altered to suit hers. She +stayed in her rooms or came down as she chose. She had complete liberty +in everything. + +To-day she had not as yet appeared, and everyone had come with the hope +of seeing her. There was Lady Campion, the most tactful and discreet of +admirers; and Sir Alliston, who would be perhaps asked to go up to her +if she did not come down; and Eleanor Scrotton who would certainly go up +unasked; and old Miss Harding, a former governess of Mrs. Forrester's +sons and a person privileged, who had come leading an evident yet +pathetic locust, her brother's widow, little Mrs. Harding, the shy lady +of the platform. Miss Harding had told Mrs. Forrester about this +sister-in-law and of how, since her husband's death, she had lived for +philanthropy, and music in the person of Madame Okraska. She had never +met her. She did not ask to meet her now. She would only sit in a corner +and gaze. Mrs. Forrester had been moved by the account of such humble +faith and had told Miss Harding to bring her sister-in-law. + +"I have sent for Karen," Mrs. Forrester said, greeting Gregory Jardine, +who came in after Miss and Mrs. Harding; "she will tell us if our +chances are good. It was your first time, last night, wasn't it, +Gregory? I do hope that she may come down." + +Gregory Jardine was not a bore, but Mrs. Forrester suspected him to be +one of the infatuated. He belonged, she imagined, seeing him appear so +promptly after his initiation, to the category of dazzled circlers who +fell into her drawing-room in their myriads while Mercedes was with her, +like frizzled moths into a candle. Mrs. Forrester had sympathy with +moths, and was fond of Gregory, whom she greeted with significant +kindliness. + +"I never ask her to come down," she went on now to explain to him and to +the Hardings. "Never, never. She could not bear that. But she often does +come; and she has heard to-day from Karen Woodruff that special friends +are hoping to see her. So your chances are good, I think. Ah, here is +Karen." + +Gregory did not trouble to undeceive his old friend. It was his habit to +have tea with her once or twice a month, and his motive in coming to-day +had hardly been distinguishable from his usual impulse. If he had come +hoping to see anybody, it had been to see the _protegee_, and he watched +her now as she advanced down the great room with her cheerful, +unembarrassed look, the look of a person serenely accustomed to a +publicity in which she had no part. + +Seen thus at full length and in full face he found her more than ever +like an Alfred Stevens and an archaic Greek statue. Long-limbed, +thick-waisted, spare and strong, she wore a straight, grey dress--the +dress of a little convent girl coming into the _parloir_ on a day of +visits--which emphasized the boyish aspect of her figure. Narrow frills +of white were at wrist and neck; her shoes were low heeled and square +toed; and around her neck a gold locket hung on a black velvet ribbon. + +Mrs. Forrester held out her hand to her with the undiscerning kindliness +that greets the mere emissary. "Well, my dear, what news of our Tante? +Is she coming, do you think?" she inquired. "This is Lady Campion; she +has never yet met Tante." The word was pronounced in German fashion. + +"I am not sure that she will come," said Miss Woodruff, looking around +the assembled circle, while Mrs. Forrester still held her hand. "She is +still very tired, so I cannot be sure; I hope so." She smiled calmly at +Sir Alliston and Miss Scrotton who were talking together and then lifted +her eyes to Gregory who stood near. + +"You know Mr. Jardine?" Mrs. Forrester asked, seeing the pleased +recognition on the girl's face. "It was his first time last night." + +"No, I do not know him," said Miss Woodruff, "but I saw him at the +concert. Was it his first time? Think of that." + +"Now sit here, child, and tell me about Tante," said Mrs. Forrester, +drawing the girl down to a chair beside her. "I saw that she was very +tired this morning. She had her massage?" Mrs. Forrester questioned in a +lower voice. + +"Yes; and fortunately she was able to sleep for two hours after that. +Then Mr. Schultz came and she had to see him, and that was tiring." + +Mr. Schultz was Madame Okraska's secretary. + +"Dear, dear, what a pity that he had to bother her. Did she drink the +egg-flip I had sent up to her? Mrs. Jenkins makes them excellently as a +rule." + +"I did my best to persuade her," said Miss Woodruff, "but she did not +seem to care for it." + +"Didn't care for it? Was it too sweet? I warned Mrs. Jenkins that her +tendency was to put in too much sugar." + +"That was it," Miss Woodruff smiled at the other's penetration. "She +tasted it and said: '_Trop sucre_,' and put it down. But it was really +very nice. I drank it!" said Miss Woodruff. + +"But I am so grieved. I shall speak severely to Mrs. Jenkins," Mrs. +Forrester murmured, preoccupied. "I am afraid our chances aren't good +to-day, Lady Campion," she turned from Miss Woodruff to say. "You must +come and dine one night while she is with me. I am always sure of her +for dinner." + +"She really isn't coming down?" Miss Scrotton leaned over the back of +Miss Woodruff's chair to ask with some asperity of manner. "Shall I wait +for a little before I go up to her?" + +"I can't tell," the young girl replied. "She said she did not know +whether she would come or not. She is lying down and reading." + +"She does not forget that she comes to me for tea to-morrow?" + +"I do not think so, Miss Scrotton." + +"Lady Campion wants to talk to you, Karen," Mrs. Forrester now said; +"come to this side of the table." And as Sir Alliston was engaged with +Miss and Mrs. Harding, Gregory was left to Eleanor Scrotton. + +Miss Scrotton felt irritation rather than affection for Gregory Jardine. +Yet he was not unimportant to her. Deeper than her pride in old Sir +Jonas was her pride in her connection with the Fanshawes, and Gregory's +mother had been a Fanshawe. Gregory's very indifference to her and to +the standards of the Scrottons had always given to intercourse with him +a savour at once acid yet interesting. Though she knew many men of more +significance, she remained far more aware of him and his opinions than +of theirs. She would have liked Gregory to show more consciousness of +her and his relationship, of the fact that she, too, had Fanshawe blood +in her veins. She would have liked to impress, or please or, at worst, +to displease him. She would very much have liked to secure him more +frequently for her dinners and her teas. He vexed and he allured her. + +"Do you really mean that last night was the first time you ever heard +Mercedes Okraska?" she said, moving to a sofa, to which, somewhat +unwillingly, Gregory followed her. "It makes me sorry for you. It's as +if a person were to tell you that they'd never before seen the mountains +or the sea. If I'd realised that you'd never met her I could have +arranged that you should. She often comes to me quite quietly and meets +a few friends. She was so devoted to dear father; she called him The +Hammer of the Gods. I have the most wonderful letter that she wrote me +when he died," Miss Scrotton said, lowering her voice to a reverent +pause. "Between ourselves," she went on, "I do sometimes think that our +dear Mrs. Forrester cherishes her a little too closely. I confess that I +love nothing more than to share my good things. I don't mean that dear +Mrs. Forrester doesn't; but I should ask more people, frequently and +definitely, to meet Mercedes, if I were in her place." + +"But if Madame Okraska won't come down and see them?" Gregory inquired. + +"Ah, but she will; she will," Miss Scrotton said earnestly; "if it is +thought out; arranged for carefully. She doesn't, naturally, care to +come down on chance, like to-day. She does want to know whom she's to +meet if she makes the effort. She knows of course that Sir Alliston and +I are here, and that may bring her; I do hope so for your sake; but of +course if she does not come I go up to her. With Mrs. Forrester I am, I +think, her nearest friend in England. She has stayed with me in the +country;--my tiny flat here would hardly accommodate her. I am going, +did you know it, to America with her next week." + +"No; really; for a tour?" + +"Yes; through the States. We shall be gone till next summer. I know +several very charming people in New York and Boston and can help to make +it pleasant for Mercedes. Of course for me it is the opportunity of a +life-time. Quite apart from her music, she is the most remarkable woman +I have ever known." + +"She's clever?" + +"Clever is too trivial a word. Her genius goes through everything. We +read a great deal together--Dante, Goethe, French essayists, our English +poets. To hear her read poetry is almost as wonderful an experience as +to hear her play. Isn't it an extraordinary face? One sees it all in her +face, I think." + +"She is very unusual looking." + +"Her face," Miss Scrotton pursued, ignoring her companion's trite +comments, "embodies the thoughts and dreams of many races. It makes me +always think of Pater's Mona Lisa--you remember: 'Hers is the head upon +which all the ends of the world are come and the eyelids are a little +weary.' She is, of course, a profoundly tragic person." + +"Has she been very unfortunate?" + +"Unfortunate indeed. Her youth was passed in bitter poverty; her first +marriage was disastrous, and when joy came at last in an ideal second +marriage it was shattered by her husband's mysterious death. Yes; he was +drowned; found drowned in the lake on their estate in Germany. Mercedes +has never been there since. She has never recovered. She is a +broken-hearted woman. She sees life as a dark riddle. She counts herself +as one of the entombed." + +"Dear me," Gregory murmured. + +Miss Scrotton glanced at him with some sharpness; but finding his blue +eyes fixed abstractedly on Karen Woodruff exonerated him from intending +to be disagreeable. "Her childlessness has been a final grief," she +added; "a child, as she has often told me, would be a resurrection from +the dead." + +"And the little girl?" Gregory inquired. "Is she any solace? What is the +exact relationship? I hear that she calls her Tante." + +"The right to call her Tante is one of Mercedes's gifts to her. She is +no relation at all. Mercedes picked her up, literally from the roadside. +She is twenty-four, you know; not a child." + +"So the story is true, about the Norwegian peasants and the forest?" + +"I have to contradict that story at least twice a day," said Miss +Scrotton with a smile half indulgent and half weary. "It is true that +Karen was found in a forest, but it was the forest of Fontainebleau, +_tout simplement_; and it is true that she has Norwegian blood; her +mother was a Norwegian; she was the wife of a Norwegian artist in Rome, +and there Karen's father, an American, a sculptor of some talent, I +believe, met her and ran away with her. They were never married. They +lived on chestnuts up among the mountains in Tuscany, I believe, and the +mother died when Karen was a little child and the father when she was +twelve. Some relatives of the father's put her in a convent school in +Paris and she ran away from it and Mercedes found her on the verge of +starvation in the forest of Fontainebleau. The Baron von Marwitz had +known Mr. Woodruff in Rome and Mercedes persuaded him to take the child +into their lives. She hadn't a friend or a penny in the world. The +father's relatives were delighted to be rid of her and Mercedes has had +her on her hands ever since. That is the true story." + +"Isn't she fond of her?" Gregory asked. + +"Yes, she is fond of her," Miss Scrotton with some impatience replied; +"but she is none the less a burden. For a woman like Mercedes, with a +life over-full and a strength continually overtaxed, the care and +responsibility is an additional weight and weariness." + +"Well, but if she misses children so much; this takes the place," +Gregory objected. + +"Takes the place," Miss Scrotton repeated, "of a child of her own? This +little nobody, and an uninteresting nobody, too? Oh, she is a good girl, +a very good girl; and she makes herself fairly useful in elementary +ways; but how can you imagine that such a tie can satisfy maternal +craving?" + +"How does she make herself useful?" Gregory asked, waiving the question +of maternal cravings. He had vexed Miss Scrotton a good deal, but the +theme was one upon which she could not resist enlarging; anything +connected with Madame von Marwitz was for her of absorbing interest. + +"Well, she is a great deal in Cornwall, at Mercedes's place there," she +informed him. "It's a wonderfully lovely place; Les Solitudes; Mercedes +built the house. Karen and old Mrs. Talcott look after the little farm +and keep things in order." + +"Old Mrs. Talcott? Where does she come in?" + +"Ah, that is another of Mercedes's romantic benevolences. Mrs. Talcott +is a sort of old pensioner; a distant family connection; the funniest +old American woman you can conceive of. She has been with Mercedes since +her childhood, and, like everybody else, she is so devotedly attached to +her that she regards it as a matter of course that she should be taken +care of by her for ever. The way Karen takes her advantages as a matter +of course has always vexed me just a little." + +"Is Mrs. Talcott interesting?" Gregory pursued his questions with a +placid persistence that seemed to indicate real curiosity. + +"Good heavens, no!" Miss Scrotton said. "The epitome of the commonplace. +She looks like some of the queer old American women one sees in the +National Gallery with Baedekers in their hands and bags at their belts; +fat, sallow, provincial, with defective grammar and horrible twangs; the +kind of American, you know," said Miss Scrotton, warming to her +description as she felt that she was amusing Gregory Jardine, "that the +other kind always tell you they never by any chance would meet at home." + +"And what kind of American is Miss Woodruff? The other kind or Mrs. +Talcott's kind?" + +"By the other kind I mean Lady Jardine's," said Miss Scrotton; "or--no; +she constitutes a further variety; the rarest of all; the kind who would +never think about Mrs. Talcott one way or the other. But surely Karen is +no kind at all. Could you call her an American? She has never been +there. She is a sort of racial waif. The only root, the only nationality +she seems to have is Mercedes; her very character is constituted by her +relation to Mercedes; her only charm is her devotion--for she is indeed +sincerely and wholeheartedly devoted. Mercedes is a sort of +fairy-godmother to her, a sun-goddess, who lifted her out of the dust +and whirled her away in her chariot. But she isn't interesting," Miss +Scrotton again assured him. "She is literal and unemotional, and, in +some ways, distinctly dull. I have seen the poor fairy-godmother sigh +and shrug sometimes over her inordinately long letters. She writes to +her with relentless regularity and I really believe that she imagines +that Mercedes quite depends on hearing from her. No; I don't mean that +she is conceited; it's not that exactly; she is only dull; very, very +dull; and I don't know how Mercedes endures having her so much with her. +She feels that the girl depends on her, of course, and she is helplessly +generous." + +Gregory Jardine listened to these elucidations, leaning back in the +sofa, a hand clasping his ankle, his eyes turning now on Miss Scrotton +and now on the subject of their conversation. Miss Scrotton had amused +him. She was entertainingly simple if at moments entertainingly +intelligent, and he had divined that she was jealous of the crumbs that +fell to Miss Woodruff's share from the table of Madame von Marwitz's +bounty. A slight malice that had gathered in him during his talk with +Eleanor Scrotton found expression in his next remark. "She is certainly +charming looking; anyone so charming looking has a right to be dull." +But Miss Scrotton did not heed him. She had risen to her feet. "Here she +is!" she exclaimed, looking towards the door in radiant satisfaction. +"You will meet her after all. I'll do my very best so that you shall +have a little talk with her." + +The door had been thrown open and Madame Okraska had appeared upon the +threshold. + + + + +CHAPTER IV + + +She stood for a moment, with her hand resting on the lintel, and she +surveyed an apparently unexpected audience with contemplative +melancholy. If she was not pleased to find them so many, she was, at all +events unresentful, and Gregory imagined, from Mrs. Forrester's bright +flutter in rising, that resentment from the sun-goddess was a peril to +be reckoned with. Smiling, though languidly smiling, she advanced up the +room, after her graceful and involuntary pause. White fringes rippled +softly round her; a white train trailed behind her; on her breast the +silken cloak that she wore over a transparent under-robe was clasped +with pearls and silver. She was very lovely, very stately, very simple; +but she struck her one hypercritical observer as somewhat prepared; +calculated and conscious, as well. + +"Thanks, dearest friend," she said to Mrs. Forrester, who, meeting her +halfway down the room and taking her hand, asked her solicitously how +she did; "I am now a little rested; but it has been a bad night and a +busy morning." She spoke with a slightly foreign accent in a voice at +once fatigued and sonorous. Her eyes, clear, penetrating and singularly +steady, passed over the assembled faces, turned, all of them, towards +herself. + +She greeted Sir Alliston with a welcoming smile and a lift of the +strange crooked eyebrows, and to Miss Scrotton, who, eager and +illuminated, was beside her: "_Ah, ma cherie_," she said, resting her +hand affectionately on her shoulder. Mrs. Forrester had her other hand, +and, so standing between her two friends, she bowed gravely and +graciously to Lady Campion, to Miss Harding, to Mrs. Harding--who, in +the stress of this fulfilment had become plum-coloured--and to Gregory +Jardine. Then she was seated. Mrs. Forrester poured out her tea, Miss +Harding passed her cake and bread-and-butter, Lady Campion bent to her +with frank and graceful compliments, Miss Scrotton sat at her feet on a +low settle, and Sir Alliston, leaning on the back of her chair, looked +down at her with eyes of antique devotion. Gregory was left on the +outskirts of the group and his attention was attracted by the face of +little Mrs. Harding, who, all unnoticed and unseated, gazed upon Madame +Okraska with the intent liquid eye of a pious dog; the wavering, +uncertain smile that played upon her lips was like the humble thudding +of the dog's tail. Gregory remembered her face now as one of those, rapt +and hypnotized, that he had seen on the platform the night before. In +the ovation that Madame Okraska had received at the end of the concert +he had noticed this same plum-coloured little lady seizing and kissing +the great woman's hand. Shy, by temperament, as he saw, to the point of +suffering, he felt sure that only the infection of the crowd had carried +her to the act of uncharacteristic daring. He watched her now, finding +her piteous and absurd. + +But someone beside himself was aware of Mrs. Harding. Miss Woodruff +approached her, smiling impersonally, with rather the air of a kindly +verger at a church. Yes, she seemed to say, she could find a seat for +her. She pointed to the one she had risen from. Mrs. Harding, almost +tearful in her gratitude, slid into it with the precaution of the +reverent sight-seer who fears to disturb a congregation at prayer, and +Miss Woodruff, moving away, went to a table and began to turn over the +illustrated papers that lay upon it. Her manner, retired and cheerful, +had no humility, none of the poor dependent's unobtrusiveness; rather, +Gregory felt, it showed a happy pride, as if, a fortunate priestess in +the temple, she had opportunities and felicities denied to mere +worshippers. She was interested in her papers. She examined the pictures +with something of a child's attentive pleasure. + +Gregory came up to her and raising her eyes she smiled at him as though, +on the basis of last night's encounter, she took him for granted as +potentially a friend. + +"What are you looking at?" he asked her, as he might have asked a +friendly child. + +She turned the paper to him. "The Great Wall of China. They are +wonderful pictures." + +Gregory stood beside her and looked. The photographs were indeed +impressive. The sombre landscape, the pallid sky, and, winding as if for +ever over hill and valley, the astonishing structure, like an infinite +lonely consciousness. "I should like to see that," said Miss Woodruff. + +"Well, you travel a great deal, don't you?" said Gregory. "No doubt +Madame Okraska will go to China some day." + +Miss Woodruff contemplated the desolate wall. "But this is thousands and +thousands of miles from the places where concerts could be given; and I +do not know that my guardian has ever thought of China; no, it is not +probable that she will ever go there. And then, unfortunately, I do not +always go with her. I travel a great deal; but I stop at home a great +deal, too. My guardian likes best to be called von Marwitz in private +life, by those who know her personally," Miss Woodruff added, smiling +again as she presented him with the authorized liturgy. + +Gregory was slightly taken aback. He couldn't have defined Miss +Woodruff's manner as assured, yet it was singularly competent; and no +one could have been in less need of benevolent attentions. + +"I see," he said. "She looks so much more Polish than German, doesn't +she? What do you call home?" he added. "Have you lived much in England?" + +"By home I mean Cornwall," said Miss Woodruff, who was evidently used to +being asked questions. "My guardian has a house there; but it has not +been for long. It used to be in Germany, and then for a little in Italy; +she has only had Les Solitudes for four years." She looked across at the +group under the chandelier. "There is still room for a chair." Her +glance indicated a gap in Madame von Marwitz's circle. + +This kindly solicitude amused Gregory very much. She had him on her mind +as a sight-seer, as she had had Mrs. Harding; and she was full of +sympathy for sight-seers. "Oh--thanks--no," he said, his eyes following +hers. "I won't go crowding in." + +"She won't mind. She will not even notice;" Miss Woodruff assured him. + +"Oh, well, I like to be noticed if I do crowd," Gregory returned +smiling. + +His slight irony was lost upon her; yet, he was sure of it, she was not +dull. Her smile showed him that she congratulated him on an ambitious +spirit. "Well, later, then, we will hope," she said. "You would of +course rather talk with her. And here is Mr. Drew, so that this chance +is gone." + +"Who is that singular young man?" Gregory inquired watching with Miss +Woodruff the newcomer, who found a place at once in the gap near Madame +von Marwitz and was greeted by her with a brighter interest than she had +yet shown. + +"Mr. Claude Drew?" Miss Woodruff replied with some surprise. "Do you not +know? I thought that everybody in London knew him. He is quite a famous +writer. He has written poetry and essays. 'Artemis Wedded' is by +him--that is poetry; and 'The Bow of Ulysses'--the essay on my guardian +comes in that. Oh, he is quite well known." + +Mr. Claude Drew was suave and elegant, and his high, stock-like collar +and folded satin neck-gear gave him a somewhat recondite appearance. +With his dark eyes, pale skin, full, smooth, golden hair, and the vivid +red of an advancing Hapsburgian lip, he had the look of a young French +dandy drawn by Ingres. + +"My guardian is very much interested in him," Miss Woodruff went on. +"She believes that he has a great future. She is always interested in +promising young men." This, no doubt, was why Miss Woodruff had so +kindly encouraged him to take his chances. + +"He looks a clever fellow," said Gregory. + +"Do you like his face?" Miss Woodruff inquired. Mr. Drew, as if aware of +their scrutiny, had turned his eyes upon them for a moment. They were +large, jaded eyes, lustrous, yet with the lustre of a surface rather +than of depth; dense, velvety and impenetrable. + +"Well, no, I don't," said Gregory, genially decisive. "He looks +unwholesome, I think." + +"Oh! Unwholesome?" Miss Woodruff repeated the word thoughtfully rather +than interrogatively. "Yes; perhaps it is that. It is a danger of +talented modern young men, isn't it. They are not strong enough to be so +intelligent; one must be very strong--in character, I mean--if one is to +be so intelligent. Perhaps he is not strong in character. Perhaps that +is what one feels. Because I do not like his face, either; and I go +greatly by faces." + +"So do I," said Gregory. After a moment, in which they both continued to +look at Mr. Drew, he went on. "I wondered last night what nationality +you belonged to. I had been wondering about you for a long while before +you looked round at me." + +"You had heard about me?" she asked. + +He was pleased to be able to say: "Oh, I wondered about you before I +heard." + +"People are so often interested in me because of my guardian," said Miss +Woodruff; "everything about her interests them. But I am an American--if +you were not told; that is to say my father was an American--and my +mother was a Norwegian; but though I have never been to America I count +myself as an American, and with right, I think," she added. "We always +spoke English when I was a child, and I remember so many of my father's +friends. Some day I hope I may go to America. Have you been there? Do +you know New England? My father came from New England." + +"No; I've never been there. I'm very insular and untravelled." + +"Are you? It is a pity not to travel, isn't it," Miss Woodruff remarked. + +"But you like it here in England?" + +"Yes, I like it here, with Mrs. Forrester; and in Cornwall. But here +with Mrs. Forrester always seems to me more like the life of Europe. +English life, as a rule, is, I think, rather like boxes one inside the +other." She was perfectly sweet and undogmatic, but her air of +cosmopolitan competence amused Gregory, serenely of opinion, for his +part, that English was the only life. + +"Well, the great thing is that the boxes should fit comfortably into one +another, isn't it," he observed; "and I think that on the whole we've +come to fit pretty well in England. And we all come out of our boxes, +don't we," he added, pleased with his application of her simile, "for a +Madame von Marwitz." + +"Yes, I know," said Miss Woodruff, also, evidently, pleased. "That is +quite true; you all come out of your boxes for her. But, as a nation, +they are not artists, the English, are they? They are kind to the +beautiful things; they like to see them; they will take great trouble to +see them; but they do not make them. Beauty does not grow here--that is +what I mean. It is in its box, too, and it is taken out and passed round +from time to time. You do not mind my saying this? You, perhaps, are +yourself an artist?" + +"Dear me, no; I'm only a lawyer. I'm shut up in the tightest of the +boxes," said Gregory. + +Miss Woodruff scrutinized him with a smile. "I should not think that of +you," she said. "You do not look like an artist, it is true; few of us +can be artists; but you do not look shut into a box, either. Beauty, to +you, is something real; not a pastime, a fashion; no, I cannot think it. +When I saw your face last night I thought: Here is one who cares. One +counts those faces on one's fingers--even at a great concert. So many +think they care who only want to care. To you art is a serious thing and +an artist the greatest thing a country can produce. Is not that so?" + +Gregory continued to be amused by what he felt to be Miss Woodruff's +_naivete_. He was inclined to think that artists, however admirable in +their functions, were undesirable in their persons, and the reverent +enthusiasm that Miss Woodruff imagined in him was singularly +uncharacteristic. He didn't quite know how to tell her so without +seeming rude, so he contented himself with confessing that beauty, in +his life, was kept, he feared, very much in its box. + +They, went on talking, going to an adjacent sofa where Miss Woodruff, +while they talked, stroked the deep fur of an immense Persian cat, +Hieronimus by name, who established himself between them. Gregory found +her very easy to talk to, though they had so few themes in common, and +her face he discovered to be even more charming than he had thought it +the night before. She was not at all beautiful and he imagined that in +her world of artists she would not be particularly appreciated; nor +would she be appreciated in his own world of convention--a girl with +such a thick waist, such queer clothes, a face so broad, so brown, so +abruptly modelled. She was, he felt, a grave and responsible young +person, and something in her face suggested that she might have been +through a great deal; but she was very cheerful and she laughed with +facility at things he said and that she herself said; and when she +laughed her eyes nearly closed and the tip of her tongue was caught, +with an effect of child-like gaiety, between her teeth. The darkness of +her skin made her lips, by contrast, of a pale rose, and her hair, where +it grew thickly around her brows and neck, of an almost infantile +fairness. Her broad, brown eyebrows lay far apart and her grey eyes were +direct, deliberate and limpid. + +From where Gregory sat he had Madame von Marwitz in profile and he +observed that once or twice, when they laughed, she turned her head and +looked at them. Presently she leaned a little to question Mrs. Forrester +and then, rather vexed at a sequence, natural but unforeseen, he saw +that Mrs. Forrester got up to fetch him. + +"Tante has sent for you!" Miss Woodruff exclaimed. "I am so glad." + +It really vexed him a little that he should still be supposed to be +pining for an introduction; he would so much rather have stayed talking +to her. On the sofa she continued to stroke Hieronimus and to keep a +congratulatory gaze upon him while he was conducted to a seat beside the +great woman. + +Madame von Marwitz was very lovely. She was the type of woman with whom, +as a boy, he would have fallen desperately in love, seeing her as poetry +personified. And she was the type of woman, all indolent and indifferent +as she was, who took it for granted that people would fall desperately +in love with her. Her long gaze, now, told him that. It seemed to give +him time, as it were, to take her in and to arrange with himself how +best to adjust himself to a changed life. It was not the glance of a +flirt; it held no petty consciousness; it was the gaze of an enchantress +aware of her own inevitable power. Gregory met the cold, sweet, +melancholy eyes. But as she gazed, as she slowly smiled, he was aware, +with a perverse pleasure, that his present seasoned self was completely +immune from her magic. He opposed commonplace to enchantment, and in him +Madame von Marwitz would find no victim. + +"I have never seen you here before, I think," she said. She spoke with a +beautiful precision; that of the foreigner perfectly at ease in an alien +tongue, yet not loving it sufficiently to take liberties with it. + +Gregory said, no, she had never seen him there before. + +"Mrs. Forrester is, it seems, a mutual friend," said Madame von Marwitz. +"She has known you since boyhood. You have been very fortunate." + +Gregory assented. + +"She tells me that you are in the law," Madame von Marwitz pursued; "a +barrister. I should not have thought that. A diplomat; a soldier, it +should have been. Is it not so?" + +Gregory had not wanted to be a barrister. It did not please him that +Madame von Marwitz should guess so accurately at a disappointment that +had made his youth bitter. "I'm a younger son, you see," he said. "And I +had to make my living." + +When Madame von Marwitz's gaze grew more intent she did not narrow her +eyes, but opened them more widely. She opened them more widely now, +putting back her head a little. "Ah," she said. "That was hard. That +meant suffering. You are caged in a calling you do not care for." + +"Oh, no," said Gregory, smiling; "I'm very well off; I'm quite +contented." + +"Contented?" she raised her crooked eyebrow. "Are you indeed so +fortunate?--or so unfortunate?" + +To this large question Gregory made no reply, continuing to offer her +the non-committal coolness of his smile. He was not liking Madame von +Marwitz, and he was becoming aware that if one didn't like her one did +not appear to advantage in talking with her. He cast about in his mind +for an excuse to get away. + +"The law," Madame von Marwitz mused, her eyes dwelling on him. "It is +stony; yet with stone one builds. You would not be content, I think, +with the journeyman's work of the average lawyer. You shape; you create; +you have before you the vision of the strong fortress to be built where +the weak may find refuge. You are an architect, not a mason. Only so +could you find contentment in your calling." + +"I'm afraid that I don't think about it like that," said Gregory. "I +should say that the fortress is built already." + +There was now a change in her cold sweetness; her smile became a little +ambiguous. "You remind me," she said, "that I was speaking in somewhat +pretentious similes. I was not asking you what had been done, but what +you hoped to do. I was asking--it was that that interested me in you, as +it does in all the young men I meet--what was the ideal you brought to +your calling." + +It was as though, with all her sweetness, she had seen through his +critical complacency and were correcting the manners of a conceited boy. +Gregory was a good deal taken aback. And it was with a touch of boyish +sulkiness that he replied: "I don't think, really, that I can claim +ideals." + +Definitely, now, the light of mockery shone in her eye. In evading her, +in refusing to be drawn within her magic circle, he had aroused an irony +that matched his own. She was not the mere phrase-making woman; by no +means the mere siren. "How afraid you English are of your ideals," she +said. "You live by them, but you will not look at them. I could say to +you--as Statius to Virgil in the Purgatorio--that you carry your light +behind you so that you light those who follow, but walk yourselves in +darkness. You will not claim them; no, and above all, you will not talk +about them. Do not be afraid, my young friend; I shall not tamper with +your soul." So she spoke, sweetly, deliberately, yet tersely, too, as +though to make him feel that she had done all she could for him and that +he had proved himself not worth her trouble. Mr. Claude Drew was still +on her other hand, carrying on an obviously desultory conversation with +Miss Scrotton, and to him Madame von Marwitz turned, saying: "And what +is it you wished to tell me of your Carducci? You will send me the +proofs? Good. Oh, I shall not be too tired to read what you have +written." + +Here was a young man, evidently, who was worth her trouble. Gregory sat +disposed of and a good deal discomposed, the more so since he had to own +that he had opened himself to the rebuff. He rose and moved away, +looking about and seeing that Miss Woodruff had left the room; but Mrs. +Forrester came to him, her brilliant little face somewhat clouded. + +"What is it, my dear Gregory?" she questioned. "She asked to have you +brought. Haven't you pleased her?" + +Mrs. Forrester, who had known not only himself, but his father in +boyhood, was fond of him, but was not disposed to think of him as +important. And she expected the unimportant to know, in a sense, their +place and to show the important that they did know it. There was a hint, +now, of severity, in her countenance. + +It would sound, he knew, merely boyish and sulky to say: "She hasn't +pleased me." But he couldn't resist: "I wasn't _a la hauteur_." + +Mrs. Forrester, at this, looked at him hard for a moment. She then +diagnosed his case as one of bad temper rather than of malice, and +could forgive it in one who had failed to interest the great woman and +been discarded in consequence; Mercedes, she knew, could discard with +decision. + +"Well, when you talk to a woman like Madame von Marwitz, you must try to +be worthy of your opportunities," she commented, tempering her severity +with understanding. "You really had an opportunity. Your face interested +her, and your kindness to little Karen. She always likes people who are +kind to little Karen." + +It was pleasantly open to him now to say: "Little Karen has been kind to +me." + +"A dear, good child," said Mrs. Forrester. "I am glad that you talked to +her. You pleased Mercedes in that." + +"She is a delightful girl," said Gregory. + +He now took his departure. But he was again to encounter Miss Woodruff. +She was in the hall, talking French to a sallow little woman in black, +evidently a ladies' maid, who had the oppressed, anxious countenance and +bright, melancholy eyes of a monkey. + +"_Allons_," Miss Woodruff was saying in encouraging tones, while she +paused on the first step of the stairs, her hand on the banister; "_ce +n'est pas une cause perdue, Louise; nous arrangerons la chose_." + +"_Ah, Mademoiselle, c'est que Madame ne sera pas contente, pas contente +du tout quand elle verra la robe_," was Louise's mournful reply as +Gregory came up. + +"I hoped we might go on with our talk," he said. He still addressed her +somewhat as one addresses a friendly child; "I wanted to hear the end of +that story about the Hungarian student." + +"He died, in Davos, poor boy," said Miss Woodruff, looking down at him +from her slightly higher place, while Louise stood by dejectedly. "He +wrote to my guardian and we went to him there and she played to him. It +made him so happy. We were with him till he died." + +"Shall I see you again?" Gregory asked. "Will you be here for any time? +Are you staying in London?" + +"My guardian goes to America next week--did you not know?--with Miss +Scrotton." + +"Oh yes, Eleanor told me. And you're not going too? You're not to see +America yet?" + +"No; not this time. I go to Cornwall." + +"You are to be alone with Mrs. Talcott all the winter?" + +"You know Mrs. Talcott?" Miss Woodruff exclaimed in pleased +astonishment. + +"No; I don't know her; Eleanor told me about her, too." + +"It is not being alone," said Miss Woodruff. "She and I have a most +happy time together. I thought it strange that you should know Mrs. +Talcott. I never met anyone who knew her unless they knew my guardian +very well." + +"And when are you coming back?" + +"From Cornwall? I do not know. I am afraid we shall not see each +other--oh, for a very long time," said Miss Woodruff. She smiled. She +gave him her hand, leaning down to him from behind the banister. Gregory +said that he had friends in Cornwall and that he might run down and see +them one day--and then he might see her and Les Solitudes, too. And Miss +Woodruff said that that would be very nice. + +He heard the last words of the colloquy with Louise as his coat was put +on in the hall. "_Alors il ne faut pas renvoyer la robe, Mademoiselle?_" + +"_Mais non, mais non; nous nous tirerons d'affaire_," Miss Woodruff +replied, springing gaily up the stairs, her arm, with a sort of +dignified familiarity, in which was encouragement and protection, cast +round Louise's shoulders. + + + + +CHAPTER V + + +Gregory walked at a brisk pace from Mrs. Forrester's house in Wilton +Crescent to Hyde Park Corner, and from there, through St. James's Park, +to Queen Anne's Mansions where he had a flat. He had moved into it from +dismal rooms when prosperity had first come to him, five or six years +ago, and was much attached to it. It was high up in the large block of +buildings and its windows looked over the greys and greens and silvers +of the park, the water shining in the midst, and the dim silhouettes of +Whitehall rising in stately significance on the evening sky. Gregory +went to the balcony and overhung his view contemplatively for a while. +The fog had lifted, and all London was alight. + +The drawing-room behind him expressed an accepted convention rather than +a personal predilection. It was not the room of a young man of conscious +tastes. It was solid, cheerful and somewhat _naif_. There was a great +deal of very clean white paint and a great deal of bright wall-paper. +There were deep chairs covered with brighter chintz. There were blue and +white tiles around the fireplace and heavy, polished brass before. On +the tables lay buff and blue reviews and folded evening papers, massive +paper-cutters and large silver boxes. Photographs in silver frames also +stood there, of female relatives in court dress and of male relatives in +uniform. Behind the photographs were pots of growing flowers; and on the +walls etchings and engravings after well-known landscapes. It was the +room of a young man uninfluenced by Whistler, unaware of Chinese screens +and indifferent to the rival claims of Jacobean and Chippendale +furniture. It was civilised, not cultivated; and it was thoroughly +commonplace. + +Gregory thought of himself as the most commonplace of types;--the +younger son whose father hadn't been able to do anything for him beyond +educating him; the younger son who, after years of uncongenial drudgery +had emerged, tough, stringy, professional, his boyish dreams dead and +his boyish tastes atrophied; a useful hard-working, clear-sighted member +of society. And there was truth in this conception of himself. There was +truth, too, in Madame von Marwitz's probe. He had more than the normal +English sensitiveness where ideals were concerned and more than the +normal English instinct for a protective literalness. He didn't intend +that anybody should lay their hand on his heart and tell him of lofty +aims that it would have made him feel awkward to look at by himself; his +fastidiousness was far from commonplace, and so were his disdains; they +made cheap successes and cheap ambitions impossible to him. He would +never make a fortune out of the law; yet already he was distinguished +among the younger men at the bar. With nothing of the air of a paladin +he brought into the courts a flavour of classic calm and courtesy. He +was punctiliously fair. He never frightened or bullied or confused. His +impartiality could become alarming at times to his own clients, and +shady cases passed him by. Everybody respected Gregory Jardine and a +good many people disliked him. A few old friends, comrades at Eton and +Oxford, were devoted to him and looked upon him, in spite of his +reputation for almost merciless common-sense, as still potentially +Quixotic. As a boy he had been exceptionally tender-hearted; but now he +was hard, or thought himself so. He had no vanity and looked upon his +own resolution and dignity as the heritage of all men worth their salt; +in consequence he was inclined to theoretic severity towards the +worsted. The sensitiveness of youth had steeled itself in irony; he was +impatient of delusions and exaltations, and scornful of the shambling, +shame-faced motives that moved so many of the people who came under his +observation. + +Yet, leaning on the iron railing, his gaze softening to a grave, +peaceful smile as he looked over the vast, vaporous scene, laced with +its moving and motionless lines of light, it was this, and its +mysteries, its delicacies, its reticent radiance, that expressed him +more truly than the commonplaces of the room behind him, accurately as +these symbolized the activities of his life. The boy and youth, +emotional and poetic, dreamy if also shrewdly humorous, still survived +in a sub-conscious region of his nature, an Atlantis sunken beneath the +traffic of the surface; and, when he leaned and gazed, as now, at the +lovely evocations of the evening, it was like hearing dimly, from far +depths, the bells of the buried city ringing. + +He was thinking of nothing as he leaned there, though memories, linked +in their associated loveliness, floated across his mind--larch-boughs +brushed exquisitely against a frosty sky on a winter morning in +Northumberland, when, a boy, with gun and dogs, he had paused on the +wooded slopes near his home to look round him; or the little well of +chill, clear water that he had found one summer day gushing from a mossy +source under a canopy of leaves; or the silver sky, and hills folded in +greys and purples, that had surrounded him on a day in late autumn when +he had walked for miles in loneliness and, again, had paused to look, +receiving the scene ineffaceably, so that certain moods always made it +rise before him. And linked by some thread of affinity with these +pictures, the face of the young girl he had met that afternoon rose +before him. Not as he had just seen her, but as he had seen her, for the +first time, the night before at the concert. Her face came back to him +with the larch-boughs and the spring of water and the lonely hills, +while he looked at London beneath him. She touched and interested him, +and appealed to something sub-conscious, as music did. But when he +passed from picturing her to thinking about her, about her origin and +environment and future, it was with much the same lucid and unmoved +insight with which he would have examined some unfortunate creature in +the witness-box. + +Miss Woodruff seemed to him very unfortunate. For her irregular birth he +had contempt and for her haphazard upbringing only pity. He saw no place +in a well-ordered society for sculptors who ran away with other men's +wives and lived on chestnuts and left their illegitimate children to be +picked up at the roadside. He was the type of young man who, +theoretically, admitted of and indeed admired all independences in +women; practically he preferred them to be sheltered by their male +relatives and to read no French novels until they married--if then. Miss +Woodruff struck him as at once sheltered and exposed. Her niche under +the extended wing of the great woman seemed to him precarious. He saw no +real foothold for her in her present _milieu_. She only entered Mrs. +Forrester's orbit, that was evident, as a tiny satellite in attendance +on the streaming comet. In the wake of the comet she touched, it was +true, larger orbits than the artistic; but it was in this accidental and +transitory fashion, and his accurate knowledge of the world saw in the +nameless and penniless girl the probable bride of some second-rate +artist, some wandering, dishevelled musician, or ill-educated, +ill-regulated poet. Girls like that, who had the aristocrat's assurance +and simplicity and unconsciousness of worldly lore, without the +aristocrat's secure standing in the world, were peculiarly in danger of +sinking below the level of their own type. + +He went in to dress. He was dining with the Armytages and after thinking +of Miss Woodruff it was indeed like passing from memories of larch-woods +into the chintzes and metals and potted flowers of the drawing-room to +think of Constance Armytage. Yet Gregory thought of her very contentedly +while he dressed. She was well-dowered, well-educated, well-bred; an +extremely nice and extremely pretty young woman with whom he had danced, +dined and boated frequently during her first two seasons. The Armytages +had a house at Pangbourne and he spent several week-ends with them every +summer. Constance liked him and he liked her. He was not in love with +her; but he wondered if he might not be. To get married to somebody like +Constance seemed the next step in his sensible career. He could see her +established most appropriately in the flat. He could see her beautifully +burnished chestnut hair, her pretty profile and bright blue eyes above +the tea-table; he could see her at the end of the dinner-table presiding +charmingly at a dinner. She would be a charming mother, too; the +children, when babies, would wear blue sashes and would grow up doing +all the proper things at the proper times, from the French _bonne_ and +the German _Fraeulein_ to Eton and Oxford and dances and happy marriages. +She would continue all the traditions of his outer life, would fulfil it +and carry it on peacefully and honourably into the future. + +The Armytages lived in a large house in Queen's Gate Gardens. They were +not interesting people, but Gregory liked them none the less for that. +He approved of the Armytage type--the kind, courageous, intolerant old +General who managed to find Gladstone responsible for every misfortune +that befell the Empire--blithe, easy-going Lady Armytage, the two sons +in the army and the son in the navy and the two unmarried girls, of whom +Constance was one and the other still in the school-room. It was a small +dinner-party that night; most of the family were there and they had +music after it, Constance singing very prettily--she was taking +lessons--the last two songs she had learned, one by Widor and one by +Tosti. + +Yet as he drove home late Gregory was aware that Constance still +remained a pleasant possibility to contemplate and that he had come no +nearer to being in love with her. It might be easier, he mused, if only +she could offer some trivial trick or imperfection, if she had been +freckled, say, or had had a stammer, or prominent teeth. He could +imagine being married to her so much more easily than being in love with +her, and he was a little vexed with himself for his own +insusceptibility. + +Constance was the last thing that he thought of before going to sleep; +yet it was not of her he dreamed. He dreamed, very strangely, of the +little cosmopolitan waif whom he had met that afternoon. He was walking +down a road in a forest. The sky above was blue, with white clouds +heaving above the dark tree-tops, and it was a still, clear day. His +mood was the boyish mood of romance and expectancy, touched with a +little fear. At a turning of the road he came suddenly upon Karen +Woodruff. She was standing at the edge of the forest as if waiting for +him, and she held a basket of berries, not wild-strawberry and not +bramble, but a fairy-tale fruit that a Hans Andersen heroine might have +gathered, and she looked like such a heroine herself, young, and +strange, and kind, and wearing the funny little dress of the concert, +the white dress with the flat blue bows. She held out the basket to him +as he approached, and, smiling at each other in silence, they ate the +fruit with its wild, sweet savour. Then, as if he had spoken and she +were answering him, she said: "And I love you." + +Gregory woke with this. He lay for some moments still half dreaming, +with no surprise, conscious only of a peaceful wonder. He had forgotten +the dream in the morning; but it returned to him later in the day, and +often afterwards. It persisted in his memory like a cluster of +unforgettable sensations. The taste of the berries, the scent of the +pine-trees, the sweetness of the girl's smile, these things, rather than +any significance that they embodied, remained with him like one of the +deep impressions of his boyhood. + + + + +CHAPTER VI + + +On the morning that Gregory Jardine had waked from his dream, Madame von +Marwitz sat at her writing-table tearing open, with an air of impatient +melancholy, note after note and letter after letter, and dropping the +envelopes into a waste-paper basket beside her. A cigarette was between +her lips; her hair, not dressed, was coiled loosely upon her head; she +wore a white silk _peignoir_ bordered with white fur and girdled with a +sash of silver tissue. She had just come from her bath and her face, +though weary, had the freshness of a prolonged toilet. + +The room where she sat, with its grand piano and its deep chairs, its +sofa and its capacious writing-table, was accurately adjusted to her +needs. It, too, was all in white, carpet, curtains and dimity coverings. +Madame von Marwitz laughed at her own vagary; but it had had only once +to be clearly expressed, and the greens and pinks that had adorned her +sitting-room at Mrs. Forrester's were banished as well as the +rose-sprigged toilet set and hangings of the bedroom. "I cannot breathe +among colours," she had said. "They seem to press upon me. White is like +the air; to live among colours, with all their beauty, is like swimming +under the water; I can only do it with comfort for a little while." + +Madame von Marwitz looked up presently at a wonderful little clock of +gold and enamel that stood before her and then struck, not impatiently, +but with an intensification of the air of melancholy, an antique silver +bell that stood beside the clock. Louise entered. + +"Where is Mademoiselle?" Madame von Marwitz asked, speaking in French. +Louise answered that Mademoiselle had gone out to take Victor for his +walk, Victor being Madame von Marwitz's St. Bernard who remained in +England during his mistress's absences. + +"You should have taken Victor yourself, Louise," said Madame von +Marwitz, not at all unkindly, but with decisive condemnation. "You know +that I like Mademoiselle to help me with my letters in the morning." + +Louise, her permanent plaintiveness enhanced, murmured that she had a +bad headache and that Mademoiselle had kindly offered to take Victor, +had said that she would enjoy taking him. + +"Moreover," Madame von Marwitz pursued, as though these excuses were not +worthy of reply, "I do not care for Mademoiselle to be out alone in such +a fog. You should have known that, too. As for the dress, don't fail to +send it back this morning--as you should have done last night." + +"Mademoiselle thought we might arrange it to please Madame." + +"You should have known better, if Mademoiselle did not. Mademoiselle has +very little taste in such matters, as you are well aware. Do my feet +now; I think that the nails need a little polishing; but very little; I +do not wish you to make them look as though they had been varnished; it +is a trick of yours." + +Madame von Marwitz then resumed her cigarette and her letters while +Louise, fetching files and scissors, powders and polishers, mournfully +knelt before her mistress, and, drawing the _mule_ from a beautifully +undeformed white foot, began to bring each nail to a state of perfected +art. In the midst of this ceremony Karen Woodruff appeared. She led the +great dog by a leash and was still wearing her cap and coat. + +"I hope I am not late, Tante," she said, speaking in English and going +to kiss her guardian's cheek, while Victor stood by, majestically +benignant. + +"You are late, my Karen, and you had no business to take out Victor at +this hour. If you want to walk with him let it be in the afternoon. +_Aie! aie!_ Louise! what are you doing? Have mercy I beg of you!" Louise +had used the file awkwardly. "What is that you have, Karen?" Madame von +Marwitz went on. Miss Woodruff held in her hand a large bouquet +enveloped in white paper. + +"An offering, Tante; they just arrived as I came in. Roses, I think." + +"I have already sent half a dozen boxes downstairs for Mrs. Forrester to +dispose of in the drawing-room. You will take off your things now, +child, and help me, please, with all these weary people. _Bon Dieu!_ do +they really imagine that I am going to answer their inept effusions?" + +Miss Woodruff had unwrapped a magnificent bunch of pink roses and laid +them beside her guardian. "From that good little dark-faced lady of +yesterday, Tante." + +Madame von Marwitz, pausing meditatively over a note, glanced at them. +"The dark-faced lady?" + +"Don't you remember? Mrs. Harding. Here is her card. She sat and gazed +at you, so devoutly, while you talked to Mr. Drew and Lady Campion. And +she looked very poor. It must mean a great deal for her to buy roses in +January--_un supreme effort_," Miss Woodruff quoted, she and her +guardian having a host of such playful allusions. + +"I see her now," said Madame von Marwitz. "I see her face; +_congestionnee d'emotion, n'est-ce-pas_." She read the card that Karen +presented. + +"Silly woman. Take them away, child." + +"But no, Tante, it is not silly; it is very touching, I think; and you +have liked pink roses sometimes. It makes me sorry for that good little +lady that you shouldn't even look at her roses." + +"No. I see her. Dark red and very foolish. I do not like her or her +flowers. They look stupid flowers--thick and pink, like fat, smiling +cheeks. Take them away." + +"You have read what she says, Tante, here on the back? I call that very +pretty." + +"I see it. I see it too often. No. Go now, and take your hat off. Good +heavens, child, why did you wear that ancient sealskin cap?" + +Karen paused at the door, the rejected roses in her arms. "Why, Tante, +it was snowing a little; I didn't want to wear my best hat for a morning +walk." + +"Have you no other hat beside the best?" + +"No, Tante. And I like my little cap. You gave it to me--years +ago--don't you remember; the first time that we went to Russia +together." + +"Years ago, indeed, I should imagine from its appearance. Well; it makes +no difference; you will soon be leaving town and it will do for Cornwall +and Tallie." + +When Karen returned, Madame von Marwitz, whose feet were now finished, +took her place in an easy chair and said: "Now to work. Leave the +accounts for Schultz. I've glanced at some of them this morning and, as +usual, I seem to be spending twice as much as I make. How the money runs +away I cannot imagine. And Tallie sends me a great batch of bills from +Cornwall, _bon Dieu_!" _Bon Dieu_ was a frequent ejaculation with Madame +von Marwitz, often half sighed, and with the stress laid on the first +word. + +"Never mind, you will soon be making a great deal more money," said +Karen. + +"It would be more to the point if I could manage to keep a little of +what I make. Schultz tells me that my investments in the Chinese +railroads are going badly, too. Put aside the bills. We will go through +the rest of the letters." + +For some time they worked at the pile of correspondence. Karen would +open each letter and read the signature; letters from those known to +Madame von Marwitz, or from her friends, were handed to her; the letters +signed by unknown names Karen read aloud:--begging letters; letters +requesting an autograph; letters recommending to the great woman's +kindly notice some budding genius, and letters of sheer adulation, +listened to, these last, sometimes with a dreamy indifference to the +end, interrupted sometimes with a sudden "_Assez_." + +There were a dozen such letters this morning and when Karen read the +signature of the last: "Your two little adorers Gladys and Ethel +Bocock," Madame von Marwitz remarked: "We need not have that. Put it +into the basket." + +"But, Tante," Karen protested, looking round at her with a smile, "you +must hear it; it is so funny and so nice." + +"So stupid I call it, my dear. They should not be encouraged." + +"But you must be kind, you will be kind, even to the stupid. See, here +are two of your photographs, they ask you to sign them. There is a +stamped and addressed envelope to return them in. Such love, Tante! such +torrents of love! You must listen." + +Madame von Marwitz resigned herself, her eyes fixed absently on the +smoke curling from her cigarette as if, in its fluctuating evanescence, +she saw a symbol of human folly. Gladys and Ethel lived in Clapham and +told her that they came in to all her concerts and sat for hours waiting +on the stairs. Their letter ended: "Everyone adores you, but no one can +adore you like we do. Oh, would you tell us the colour of your eyes? +Gladys thinks deep, dark grey, but I think velvety brown; we talk and +talk about it and can't decide. We mustn't take up any more of your +precious time.--Your two little adorers, Gladys and Ethel Bocock." + +"Bocock," Madame von Marwitz commented. "No one can adore me like they +do. Let us hope not. _Petites sottes._" + +"You will sign the photographs, Tante--and you will say, yes, you +must--'To my kind little admirers.' Now be merciful." + +"Bocock," Madame von Marwitz mused, holding out an indulgent hand for +the pen that Karen gave her and allowing the blotter with the +photographs upon it to be placed upon her knee. "And they care for +music, _parbleu_! How many of such appreciators are there, do you think, +among my adorers? I do this to please you, Karen. It is against my +principles to encourage the _schwaermerei_ of schoolgirls. There," she +signed quickly across each picture in a large, graceful and illegible +hand, adding, with a smile up at Karen,--"To my kind little admirers." + +Karen, satisfied, examined the signatures, held them to the fire for a +moment to preserve their vivid black in bold relief, and then put them +into their envelope, dropping in a small slip of paper upon which she +had written: "Her eyes are grey, flecked with black, and are not +velvety." + +They had now reached the end of the letters. + +"A very good, helpful child it is," said Madame von Marwitz. "You are +methodical, Karen. You will make a good housewife. That has never been +my talent." + +"And it is my only one," said Karen. + +"Ah, well, no; it is a good, solid little head in other directions, too. +And it is no mean musician that the child has become. Yes; there are +many well-known artists to whom I would listen less willingly than to my +Karen. It is only in the direction of _la toilette_," Madame von Marwitz +smiled with a touch of roguishness, "only in the direction of _la +toilette_ that the taste is rather rudimentary as yet. I was very cross +last night, _hein_?" + +"It was disappointing not to have pleased you," said Karen, smiling. + +"And I was cross. Louise has her _souffre-douleur_ expression this +morning to an exasperating degree." + +"We thought we were going to make the dress quite right," said Karen. +"It seemed very simple to arrange the lace around the shoulders; I stood +and Louise draped me; and Louise is clever, you know." + +"Not clever enough for that. It was all because with your solicitude +about Louise you wanted her to escape a scolding. She took the lace to +Mrs. Rolley too late and did not explain as I told her to do. And you +did not save her, you see. Put those two letters of Mr. Drew's in the +portfolio; so. And now come and sit, there. I want to have a serious +talk with you, Karen." + +Karen obeyed. Madame von Marwitz sat in her deep chair, the window +behind her. The fog had lifted and the pale morning sunlight struck +softly on the coils of her hair and fell on the face of the young girl +sitting before her. With her grey dress and folded hands and serene gaze +Karen looked very like the little convent _pensionnaire_. Madame von +Marwitz scrutinized her thoughtfully for some moments. + +"You are--how old is it, Karen?" she said at last. + +"I shall be twenty-four in March," said Karen. + +"_Bon Dieu!_ I had not realised that it was so much; you are singularly +young for your years." + +"Am I, Tante? I don't know," Karen reflected, genially. "I often feel, +oh far older than the people I talk with." + +"Do you, _mon enfant_. Some children, it is true, are far wiser than +their elders. You are a wise child; but you are young, Karen, very young +for your years, in appearance, in demeanour, in candour of outlook. Tell +me; have you ever contemplated your future? asked yourself about it?" + +Karen, looking gravely at her, shook her head. "Hardly at all, Tante. Is +that very stupid?" + +"Not stupid, perhaps; but, again, very child-like. You live in the +present." + +"The past was so sad, Tante, and since I have been with you I have been +so happy. There has seemed no reason for thinking of anything but the +present." + +"Well, that is right. It is my wish to have you happy. As far as +material things go, too, your future shall be assured; I see to that. +But, you are twenty-three years old, Karen; you are a woman, and a child +no longer. Do you never dream dreams of _un prince charmant_; of a home +of your own, and children, and a life to build with one who loves you? +If I were to die--and one can count on nothing in life--you would be +very desolate." + +Karen, for some silent moments, looked at her guardian, intently and +with a touch of alarm. "No; I don't dream," she said then. "And perhaps +that is because you fill my life so, Tante. If someone came who loved me +very much and whom I loved, I should of course be glad to marry;--only +not if it would take me from you; I mean that I should want to be often +with you. And when I look forward at all I always take it for granted +that that will come in time--a husband and children, and a home of my +own. But there seems no reason to think of it now. I am quite contented +as I am." + +The kindly melancholy of Madame von Marwitz's gaze continued to fix her. +"But I am not contented for you," she observed. "I wish to see you +established. Youth passes, all too quickly, and its opportunities pass, +too. I should blame myself if our tie were to cut you off from a wider +life. Good husbands are by no means picked up on every bush. One cannot +take these things for granted. It is of a possible marriage I wish to +speak to you this morning, my Karen. We will talk of it quietly." Madame +von Marwitz raised herself in her chair to stretch her hand and take +from the mantelpiece a letter lying there. "This came this morning, my +Karen," she said. "From our good Lise Lippheim." + + +Frau Lippheim was a warm-hearted, talented, exuberant Jewess who had +been a fellow student of Madame von Marwitz's in girlhood. The +eagle-flights of genius had always been beyond her, yet her pinions were +wide and, unburdened by domestic solicitudes, she might have gone far. +As it was, married to a German musician much her inferior, and immersed +in the care and support of a huge family, she ranked only as second or +third rate. She gave music-lessons in Leipsig and from time to time, +playing in a quintet made up of herself, her eldest son and three eldest +girls, gave recitals in Germany, France and England. The Lippheim +quintet, in its sober way, held a small but dignified position. + +Karen had been deposited by her guardian more than once under the +Lippheim's overflowing roof in Leipsig, and it was a vision of Frau +Lippheim that came to her as her guardian unfolded the letter--of the +near-sighted, pale blue eyes, heavy, benignant features, and crinkled, +red-brown hair. So very ugly, almost repulsively so; yet so kind, so +valiant, so untiring. The thought of her was touching, and affectionate +solicitude almost effaced Karen's personal anxiety; for she could not +connect Frau Lippheim with any matrimonial project. + +Madame von Marwitz, glancing through her letter, looked up from the last +sheet. "I have talked with the good Lise more than once, Karen," she +said, "about a hope of hers. She first spoke of it some two years ago; +but I told her then that I would say nothing to you till you were older. +Now, hearing that I am going away, to leave you for so long, she writes +of it again. Did you know that Franz was very much attached to you, +Karen?" Franz was Frau Lippheim's eldest son. + +The vision that now flashed, luridly, for Karen, was that of an immense +Germanic face with bright, blinking eyes behind glasses; huge lips; a +flattened nose, modelled thickly at the corners, and an enormous laugh +that rolled back the lips and revealed suddenly the Semitic element and +a boundless energy and kindliness. She had always felt fond of Franz +until this moment. Now, amazed, appalled, a violent repulsion went +through her. She became pale. "No. I had not guessed that," she said. + +Her eyes were averted. Madame von Marwitz glanced at her and vexation +clouded her countenance. She knew that flinty, unresponsive look. In +moments of deep emotion Karen could almost disconcert her. Her face +expressed no hostility; but a sternness, blind and resisting, like that +of a rock. At such moments she did not look young. + +Madame von Marwitz, after her glance, also averted her eyes, sighing +impatiently. "I see that you do not care for the poor boy. He had hoped, +with his mother to back him, that he might have some chance of winning +you;--though it is not Franz who writes." + +She paused; but Karen said nothing. "You know that Franz has talent and +is beginning, now, to make money steadily. Lise tells me that. And I +would give you a little _dot_; enough to assure your future, and his. I +only speak of the material things because it is part of your +childishness never to consider them. Of him I would not have spoken at +all, had I not believed that you felt friendship and affection for him. +He is so good, so strong, so loyal that I did not think it impossible." + +After another silence Karen found something to say. "I have friendship +for him. That is quite different." + +"Why so, Karen?" Madame von Marwitz inquired. "Since you are not a +romantic school-girl, let us speak soberly. Friendship, true friendship, +for a man whose tastes are yours, whose pursuits you understand, is the +soundest basis upon which to build a marriage." + +"No. Only as a friend, a friend not too near, do I feel affection for +Franz. It is repulsive to me--the thought of anything else. It makes me +hate him," said Karen. + +"_Tiens!_" Madame von Marwitz opened her eyes in genuine surprise. "I +could not have imagined such, decisive feeling. I could not have +imagined that you despised the good Franz. I need not tell you that I do +not agree with you there." + +"I do not despise him." + +"Ah, there is more than mere negation in your look, your voice, my +child. It is pride, wounded pride, that speaks; and it is as if you told +me that I had less care for your pride than you had, and thought less of +your claims." + +"I do not think of my claims." + +"You feel them. You feel Franz your inferior." + +"I did not think of such things. I thought of his face, near me, and it +made me hate him." + +Karen continued to look aside with a sombre gaze. And, after examining +her for another moment, Madame von Marwitz held out her hand. "Come," +she said, "come here, child. I have blundered. I see that I have +blundered. Franz shall be sent about his business. Have I hurt you? Do +not think of it again." + +The girl got up slowly, as if her stress of feeling made her awkward. +Stumbling, she knelt down beside her guardian and, taking the hand and +holding it against her eyes, she said in a voice heavy with unshed +tears: "Am I a burden? Am I an anxiety? Let me go away, then. I can +teach. I can teach music and languages. I can do translations, so many +things. You have educated me so well. You will always be my dear friend +and I shall see you from time to time. But it is as you say, I am a +woman now. I would rather go away than have you troubled by me." + +Madame von Marwitz's face, as she listened to the heavy voice, that +trembled a little over its careful words, darkened. "It is not well what +you say, Karen," she replied. "No. You speak to me as you have no right +to speak, as though you had a grievance against me. What have I ever +done that you should ask me whether you are a burden to me?" + +"Only--" said Karen, her voice more noticeably trembling--"only that it +seemed to me that I must be in the way if you could think of Franz as a +husband for me. I do not know why I feel that. But it hurt me so much +that it seemed to me to be true." + +"It has always been my joy to care for you," said Madame von Marwitz. "I +have always loved you like my own child. I do not admit that to think of +Franz as a husband for you was to do you a wrong. I would not listen to +an unfitting suitor for my child. It is you who have hurt me--deeply +hurt me--by so misunderstanding me." Sorrow and reproach grew in her +voice. + +"Forgive me," said Karen, who still held the hand before her eyes. + +Madame von Marwitz drew her hand gently away and raising Karen's head so +that she could look at her, "I forgive you, indeed, Karen," she said. +"How could I not forgive you? But, child, do not hurt me so again. Never +speak of leaving me again. You must never leave me except to go where a +fuller happiness beckons. You do not know how they stabbed--those words +of yours. That you could think them, believe them! No, Karen, it was not +well. Not only are you dear to me for yourself; there is another bond. +You were dear to him. You were beside me in the hour of my supreme +agony. You desecrate our sacred memories when you allow small suspicions +and fears to enter your thoughts of me. So much has failed me in my +life. May I not trust that my child will never fail me?" + +Tragic grief gazed from her eyes and Karen's eyes echoed it. + +"Forgive me, Tante, I have hurt you. I have been stupid," she spoke +almost dully; but Madame von Marwitz was looking into the eyes, deep +wells of pain and self-reproach. + +"Yes, you have hurt me, _ma cherie_," she replied, leaning now her cheek +against Karen's head. "And it is not loving to forget that when a cup of +suffering brims, a drop the more makes it overflow. You are harsh +sometimes, Karen, strangely harsh." + +"Forgive me," Karen repeated. + +Madame von Marwitz put her arms around her, still leaning her head +against hers. "With all my heart, my child, with all my heart," she +said. "But do not hurt me so again. Do not forget that I live at the +edge of a precipice; an inadvertent footstep, and I crash down to the +bottom, to lie mangled. Ah, my child, may life never tear you, burn you, +freeze you, as it has torn and burned and frozen me. Ah, the memories, +the cruel memories!" Great sighs lifted her breast. She murmured, while +Karen knelt enfolding her, "His dead face rises before me. The face that +we saw, Karen. And I know to the full again my unutterable woe." It was +rare with Madame von Marwitz to allude thus explicitly to the tragedy of +her life, the ambiguous, the dreadful death of her husband. Karen knelt +holding her, pale with the shared memory. They were so for a long time. +Then, sighing softly, "_Bon Dieu! bon Dieu!_" Madame von Marwitz rose +and, gently putting the girl aside, she went into her bedroom and closed +the door. + + + + +CHAPTER VII + + +It was a hard, chill morning and Gregory, sauntering up and down the +platform at Euston beside the open doors of the long steamer-train, felt +that the taste and smell of London was, as nowhere else, concentrated, +compressed, and presented to one in tabloid form, as it were, at a +London station on a winter morning. It was a taste and smell that he, +personally, rather liked, singularly compounded as it was, to his fancy, +of cold metals and warm sooty surfaces; of the savour of kippers cooking +over innumerable London grates and the aroma of mugs of beer served out +over innumerable London bars; something at once acrid yet genial, +suggesting sordidness and unlimited possibility. The vibration of +adventure was in it and the sentiment, oddly intermingled, of human +solidarity and personal detachment. + +Gregory, as he strolled and waited for his old friend and whilom Oxford +tutor, Professor Blackburn, whom he had promised to see off, had often +to pause or to deviate in his course; for, though it was still early, +and the season not a favourite one for crossing, the platform was quite +sufficiently crowded, and crowded, evidently, with homeward-bound +Americans, mostly women. Gregory tended to think of America and its +people with the kindly lightness common to his type. Their samenesses +didn't interest him, and their differences were sometimes vexatious. He +had a vague feeling that they'd really better have been Colonials and be +done with it. Professor Blackburn last night had reproved this insular +levity. He was going over with an array of discriminations that Gregory +had likened to an explorer's charts and instruments. He intended to +investigate the most minute and measure the most immense, to lecture +continually, to dine out every evening and to write a book of some real +appropriateness when he came home. Gregory said that all that he asked +of America was that it should keep its institutions to itself and share +its pretty girls, and the professor told him that he knew more about the +latter than the former. There were not many pretty girls on the platform +this morning, though he remarked one rather pleasing young person who +sat idly on a pile of luggage and fixed large, speculative, innocently +assured eyes upon him when he went by, while near her her mother and a +tawny sister disputed bitterly with a porter. Most of the ladies who +hastened to and fro seemed, while very energetic, also very jaded. They +were packed as tightly with experiences as their boxes with contraband +clothing, and they had both, perhaps, rather heavily on their minds, +wondering, it was probable, how they were to get them through. Some of +them, strenuous, eye-glassed and scholastic, looked, however, as they +marshalled their pathetically lean luggage, quite innocent of material +trophies. + +Among these alien and unfamiliar visages, Gregory caught sight suddenly +of one that was alien yet recognizable. He had seen the melancholy, +simian features before, and after a moment he placed the neat, black +person, walking beside a truck piled high with enormous boxes, as +Louise, Madame von Marwitz's maid. To recognise Louise was to think of +Miss Woodruff. Gregory looked around the platform with a new interest. + +Miss Woodruff was nowhere to be seen, but a new element pervaded the +dingy place, and it hardly needed the presence of four or five richly +dressed ladies bearing sheaves of flowers, or that of two silk-hatted +impresario-looking gentlemen with Jewish noses, to lead Gregory to infer +that the element was Madame von Marwitz's, and that he had, +inadvertently, fallen upon the very morning of her departure. Already an +awareness and an expectancy was abroad that reminded him of that in the +concert hall. The contagion of celebrity had made itself felt even +before the celebrity herself was visible; but, in another moment, Madame +von Marwitz had appeared upon the platform, surrounded by cohorts of +friends. Dressed in a long white cloak and flowing in sables, a white +lace veil drooping about her shoulders, a sumptuous white feather +curving from her brow to her back, she moved amidst the scene like a +splendid, dreamy ship entering some grimy Northern harbour. + +Mrs. Forrester, on heels as high as a fairy-godmother's and wearing a +strange velvet cloak and a stranger velvet bonnet, trotted beside her; +Sir Alliston was on the other hand, his delicate Vandyke features nipped +with the cold; Mr. Claude Drew walked behind and before went Eleanor +Scrotton, smiling a tight, stricken smile of triumph and responsibility. +As the group passed Gregory, Miss Scrotton caught sight of him. + +"We are in plenty of time, I see," she said. "Dear me! it has been a +morning! Mercedes is always late. Could you, I wonder, induce these +people to move away. She so detests being stared at." + +Eleanor, as usual, roused a mischievous spirit in Gregory. "I'm afraid +I'm helpless," he replied. "We're in a public place, and a cat may look +at a king. Besides, who could help looking at those marvellous clothes." + +"It isn't a question of cats but of impertinent human beings," Miss +Scrotton returned with displeasure. "Allow me, Madam," she forged a +majestic way through a gazing group. + +"Where is Miss Woodruff?" Gregory inquired. He was wondering. + +"Tiresome girl," Miss Scrotton said, watching the ladies with the +flowers who gathered around her idol. "She will be late, I'm afraid. She +had forgotten Victor." + +"Victor? Is Victor the courier? Why does Miss Woodruff have to remember +him?" + +"No, no. Victor is Mercedes's dog, her dearly loved dog," said Miss +Scrotton, her impatience with an ignorance that she suspected of +wilfulness tempered, as usual, by the satisfaction of giving any and +every information about Madame von Marwitz. "It is a sort of +superstition with her that he should always be on the platform to see +her off. It will be serious, really serious, if Karen doesn't get him +here in time. It may depress Mercedes for the whole of the voyage." + +"And where has she gone to get him?" + +"Oh, she turned back nearly at once. She was with us in the carriage and +we passed Louise in the omnibus with the boxes and fortunately Karen +noticed that Victor wasn't with her. It turned out, when we stopped and +asked Louise about him, that she had given him to the footman to take +for a walk and she thought he had been brought back to Karen. Karen took +a hansom at once and went back. She really ought to have seen to it +before starting. I do hope she will get him here in time. Madam, if you +please; we really can't get by." + +A little woman, stout but sprightly, in whom Gregory recognized the +agitated mother of the pretty girl, evaded Miss Scrotton's extended hand +and darted past her to place herself in front of Madame von Marwitz. She +wore a large, box-like hat from which a blue veil hung. Her small +features, indeterminate in form and incoherent in assemblage, expressed +to an extraordinary degree determination and strategy. She faced the +great woman. + +"Baroness," she said, in swift yet deliberate tones; "allow me to +present myself; Mrs. Hamilton K. Slifer. We have mutual friends; Mrs. +Tollman, Mrs. General Tollman of St. Louis, Missouri. She had the +pleasure of meeting you in Paris some years ago. An old family friend of +ours. My girls, Baroness; Maude and Beatrice. They won't forget this +day. We're simply wild about you, Baroness. We were at your concert the +other night." Maude, the lean and tawny, and Beatrice, the dark and +pretty, had followed deftly in their mother's wake and were smiling, +Maude with steely brightness, Beatrice with nonchalant assurance, at +Madame von Marwitz. + +"_Bon Dieu!_" the great woman muttered. She gazed away from the Slifers +and about her with helpless consternation. Then, slightly bowing her +head and murmuring: "I thank you, Madam," she moved on, her friends +closing round her. Miss Scrotton, pale with wrath, put the Slifers aside +as she passed them. + +"Well, girls, I knew I could do it!" Mrs. Slifer ejaculated, drawing a +deep breath. They stood near Gregory, and Beatrice, who had adjusted her +camera, was taking a series of snaps of the retreating celebrity. "We've +met her, anyway, and perhaps if she ever comes on deck we'll get another +chance. That's a real impertinent woman she's got with her. Did you see +her try and shove me back?" + +"Never mind, mother," said Beatrice, who was evidently easy-going; "I +snapped her as she did it and she looked ugly enough to turn milk sour. +My! do look at that girl with the queer cap and the big dog. She's a +freak and no mistake! Stand back, Maude, and let me have a shot at her." + +"Why, I believe it's the adopted daughter!" Maude exclaimed. "Don't you +remember. She was in the front row and we heard those people talking +about her. I think she's _distinguee_ myself. She looks like a Russian +countess." + +It was indeed Miss Woodruff who had arrived and Gregory, whose eyes +followed the Slifers', was aware of a sudden emotion on seeing her. It +was the emotion of his dream, touched and startled and sweet, and even +more than in his dream she made him think of a Hans Andersen heroine +with the little sealskin cap on her fair hair, and a long furred coat +reaching to her ankles. She stood holding Victor by a leash, looking +about her with a certain anxiety. + +Gregory made his way to her and when she saw him she started to meet +him, gladly, but without surprise. "Where is Tante?" she said, "Is she +already in the train? Did she send you for me?" + +"You are in very good time," he reassured her. "She is over there--you +see her feather now, don't you. I'll take you to her." + +"Thank you so much. It has been a great rush. You have heard of the +misfortunes? By good chance I found the quickest cab." + +She was walking beside him, her eyes fixed before them on the group +where she saw her guardian's plume and veil. "I don't know what Tante +would have done if Victor had not been here in time to say good-bye to +her." + +Madame von Marwitz was holding a parting reception before the open door +of her saloon carriage. Flowers and fruits lay on the tables. Louise and +Miss Scrotton's maid piled rugs and cushions on the chairs and divans. +One of the Jewish gentlemen stood with his hat pushed off his forehead +talking in low, important tones to a pallid young newspaper man who made +rapid notes. + +Madame von Marwitz at once caught sight of Karen and Victor. Past the +intervening heads she beckoned Karen to come to her and she and Gregory +exchanged salutes. In her swift smile on seeing him he read a mild +amusement; she could only think that, like everybody else, he had come +to see her off. + +The cohorts opened to receive Miss Woodruff and Madame von Marwitz +enfolded her and stooped to kiss Victor's head. + +Gregory watched the little scene, which was evidently touching to all +who witnessed it, and then turned to find Professor Blackburn at his +elbow. He, too, it appeared, had been watching Madame von Marwitz. "Yes; +I heard her two years ago in Oxford," he said; "and even my antique +blood was stirred, as much by her personality as by her music. A most +romantic, most pathetic woman. What eyes and what a smile!" + +"I see that you are one of the stricken," said Gregory. "Shall I +introduce you to my old friend, Mrs. Forrester? She'll no doubt be able +to get you a word with Madame Okraska, if you want to hear her speak." + +No, the professor said, he preferred to keep his idols remote and +vaguely blurred with incense. "Who is the young Norse maiden?" he +inquired; "the one you were with. Those singular ladies are accosting +her now." + +Karen Woodruff, on the outskirts of the group, had been gazing at her +guardian with a constrained smile in which Gregory detected +self-mastery, and turned her eyes upon the Slifers as the professor +asked his question. Mrs. Slifer, marshalling her girls, and stooping to +pat Victor, was introducing herself, and while Gregory told the +professor that that was Miss Woodruff, Madame Okraska's ward, she bent +to expound to the Slifers the inscription on Victor's collar, speaking, +it was evident, with kindness. Gregory was touched by the tolerance with +which, in the midst of her own sad thoughts, she satisfied the Slifers' +curiosity. + +"Then she really is Norse," said the professor. + +"Really half Norse." + +"I like her geniality and her reticence," said the professor, watching +the humours of the little scene. "Those enterprising ladies won't get +much out of her. Ah, they must relinquish her now; her guardian is +asking for her. I suppose it's time that I got into my compartment." + +The groups were breaking up and the travellers, detaching themselves +from their friends, were taking their places. Madame von Marwitz, poised +above a sea of upturned faces on the steps of her carriage, bent to +enfold Karen Woodruff once more. Doors then slammed, whistles blew, +green flags fluttered, and the long train moved slowly out of the +station. + +Standing at a little distance from the crowd, and holding Victor by his +leash, Miss Woodruff looked after the train with a fixed and stiffened +smile. She was near tears. The moment was not a propitious one for +speaking to her; yet Gregory felt that he could not go without saying +good-bye. He approached her and she turned grave eyes upon him. + +"And you are going to Cornwall, now?" said Gregory, patting Victor's +head. + +"Yes; I go to-morrow," said Miss Woodruff in a gentle voice. + +"Have you friends there?" Gregory asked, "and books? Things to amuse +you?" + +"We see the rector and his wife and one or two old ladies now and then. +But it is very remote, you know. That is why my guardian loves it so +much. She needs the solitude after her rushing life. But books; oh yes; +my guardian has an excellent library there; she is a great reader; I +could read all day, in every language, if I wanted to. As for amusement, +Mrs. Talcott and I are very busy; we see after the garden and the little +farm; I practice and take Victor out for walks." + +She had quite mastered her emotion and Gregory could look up at her +frankly. "Isn't there something I could send you," he said, "to help to +pass the time? Magazines? Do you have them? And sweets? Do you like +sweets?" His manner was half playful and he smiled at her as he might +have smiled at a young school-girl. If only those wide braids under the +little cap had been hanging over her shoulders the manner would have +been justified. As it was, Gregory felt with some bewilderment that his +behaviour was hardly normal. He was not in the habit of offering +magazines and sweets to young women. But his solicitude expressed itself +in these unconventional forms and luckily she found nothing amiss with +them. She was accustomed, no doubt, to a world where such offerings +passed freely. + +"It is very kind of you," said Miss Woodruff. "I should indeed like to +see a review now and then. Mr. Drew is writing another little article on +my guardian, in one of this month's reviews, I did not hear which one; +and I would like to see that very much. But sweets? No; when I like them +I like them too much and eat too many and then I am sorry. Please don't +send me sweets." She was smiling. + +"What do you like to eat, then, that doesn't make you sorry--even when +you eat a great deal?" + +"Roast-beef!" she said, laughing, and the tip of her tongue was caught +between her teeth. He was charmed to feel that, for the moment, at +least, he had won her from her sadness. + +"But you get roast-beef in Cornwall." + +"Oh, excellent. I will not have roast-beef, please." + +"Fruit, then? You like fruit?" + +"Yes; indeed." + +"And you don't get much fruit in Cornwall in winter." + +"Only apples," she confessed, "and dried apricots." + +He elicited from her that nectarines and grapes were her favourite +fruits. But in the midst of their talk she became suddenly grave again. + +"I do not believe that you had a single word with her after I came!" + +His face betrayed his bewilderment. + +"Tante," she enlightened him. "But before then? You did speak with her? +She had sent you to look for me?" The depths of her misconception as to +his presence were apparent. + +"No; it was by chance I saw you," he said. "And I didn't have any talk +with Madame von Marwitz." He had no time to undeceive her further if it +had been worth while to undeceive her, for Mrs. Forrester, detaching +herself from the larger group of bereaved ones, joined them. + +"I can't give you a lift, Gregory?" she asked. "You are going citywards? +We are all feeling very bleak and despoiled, aren't we? What an awful +place a station is when someone has gone away from it." + +"Mrs. Forrester," said Karen Woodruff, with wide eyes, "he did not have +one single word with her; Mr. Jardine did not get any talk at all with +Tante. Oh, that should have been managed." + +But Mrs. Forrester, though granting to his supposed plight a glance of +sympathetic concern, was in a hurry to get home and he was, again, +spared the necessity of a graceless confession. He piloted them through +the crowd, saw them--Miss Woodruff, Mrs. Forrester and Victor,--fitted +into Mrs. Forrester's brougham, and then himself got into a hansom. It +was still the atmosphere of the dream that hovered about him as he +decided at what big fruit-shop he should stop to order a box of +nectarines. He wanted her to find them waiting for her in Cornwall. And +the very box of nectarines, the globes of sombre red fruit nested in +cotton-wool, seemed part of the dream. He knew that he was behaving +curiously; but she was, after all, the little Hans Andersen heroine and +one needn't think of ordinary customs where she was concerned. + + + + +CHAPTER VIII + + + "Les Solitudes, + "February 2nd. + + "Dear Mr. Jardine,--How very, very kind of you. I could hardly + believe it when Mrs. Talcott told me that a box was here for me. I + could think of nothing to explain it. Then when we opened it and + saw, row upon row, those beautiful things like pearls in a + casket--it made me feel quite dazed. Nectarines are not things that + you expect to have, in rows, all to yourself. Mrs. Talcott and I + ate two at once, standing there in the hall where we opened them; + we couldn't wait for chairs and plates and silver knives; things + taste best of all when eaten greedily, I think, and I think that + these will all be eaten greedily. It is so kind of you. I thank you + very much.--Yours sincerely, + + "Karen Woodruff." + + * * * * * + + "Les Solitudes, + "February 9th. + + "Dear Mr. Jardine,--It is most kind of you to write me this nice + note and to send me these reviews. I often have to miss the things + that come out in the reviews about my guardian, for the + press-cuttings go to her. Mr. Drew says many clever things, does he + not; he understands music and he understands--at least almost--what + my guardian is to music; but he does not, of course, understand + her. He only sees the greatness and sees it made out of great + things. When one knows a great person intimately one sees all the + little things that make them great; often such very little things; + things that Mr. Drew could not know. That is why his article is, to + me, rather pretentious; nor will you like it, I think. He fills up + with subtleties the gaps in his knowledge, and that makes it all so + artificial. But I am most glad to have, it.--Sincerely yours, + + "Karen Woodruff." + + * * * * * + + "Les Solitudes, + "February 18th. + + "Dear Mr. Jardine,--The beautiful great box of fruit arrived + to-day. It is too good and kind of you. I am wondering now whether + muscatel grapes are not even more my favourites than nectarines! + This is a day of rain and wind, soft rain blowing in gusts and the + wind almost warm. Victor and I have come in very wet and now we are + both before the large wood fire. London seems so far away that New + York hardly seems further. You heard of the great ovation that my + guardian had. I had a note from her yesterday and two of the New + York papers. If you care to read them I will gladly send them; they + tell in full about the first great concert she has given and the + criticism is good. I will ask you to let me have them back when you + have read them.--With many, many thanks.--Sincerely yours, + + "Karen Woodruff." + + * * * * * + + "Les Solitudes, + "February 28th. + + "Dear Mr. Jardine,--I am glad that you liked the box of snowdrops + and that they reached you safely, packed in their moss. I got them + in a little copse a few miles from here. The primroses will soon be + coming now and, if you like, I will send you some of them. I know + one gets them early in London; but don't you like best to open + yourself a box from the country and see them lying in bunches with + their leaves. I like even the slight flatness they have; but mine + are very little flattened; I am good at packing flowers! My + guardian always tells me so! You are probably right in not caring + to see the papers; they are always much alike in what they say. It + was only the glimpse of the great enthusiasm they gave that I + thought might have interested you. Next week she goes to Chicago. I + am afraid she will be very tired. But Miss Scrotton will take care + of her.--Sincerely yours, + + "Karen Woodruff." + + * * * * * + + "Les Solitudes, + "March 17th. + + "Dear Mr. Jardine,--I have taken up my pen for only two purposes + since I left London--to write my weekly letter to my guardian--and + to thank you over and over again. Only now you have quite spoiled + Mrs. Talcott and me for our stewed dried fruit that we used to + think so nice before we lived on grapes and nectarines. Indeed I + have not forgotten the primroses and I shall be so delighted to + pick them for you when the time comes, though I suspect it is sheer + kindness in you that gives me the pleasure of sending you + something. Your nice letter interested me very much. Yes, we have + 'Dominique' in the library here, and I will perhaps soon read it; I + say perhaps, because I am reading 'Wilhelm Meister'--my guardian + was quite horrified with me when she found I had never read it--and + must finish that first, and it is very long. Is 'Dominique' indeed + your favourite French novel? My guardian places Stendahl and + Flaubert first. For myself I do not care much for French novels. I + like the Russians best.--Sincerely yours, + + "Karen Woodruff." + + * * * * * + + "Les Solitudes, + "April 2nd. + + "Dear Mr. Jardine,--You make a charming picture of the primroses in + the blue and white bowls for me. And of your view over the park. + London can be so beautiful; I, too, care for it very much. It is + beautiful here now; the hedges all white with blackthorn and the + woods full of primroses. My guardian must now be in San Francisco! + She is back in New York in May, and is to give three more great + concerts there. I am impatiently waiting for my next letter from + her. I am so glad you like the primroses. Many, many thanks for the + fruit.--Yours sincerely, + + "Karen Woodruff." + + * * * * * + + "Les Solitudes, + "April 5th. + + "Dear Mr. Jardine,--What you say makes me feel quite troubled. I + know you write playfully, yet sometimes one can _dire la verite en + riant_, and it is as if you had found my letters very empty and + unresponsive. I did not mean them to be that of course; but I am + not at all in the habit of writing letters except to people I am + very intimate with. Indeed, I am in the habit only of writing to my + guardian, and it is difficult for me to think that other people + will be interested in the things I am doing. And in one way I do so + little here. Nothing that I could believe interesting to you; + nothing really but have walks and practise my music and read; and + talk sometimes with Mrs. Talcott. About once in two months the + vicar's wife has tea with us, and about once in two months we have + tea with her; that is all. And I am sure you cannot like + descriptions of landscapes. I love to look at landscapes and + dislike reading what other people have to say about them; and is + not that the same with you? It is quite different that you should + write to me of things and people; for you see so many and you do so + much and you know that to someone in the depths of the country all + this must be very interesting. So do not punish me for my dullness + by ceasing to write to me.--Sincerely yours, + + "Karen Woodruff." + + * * * * * + + "Les Solitudes, + "April 10th. + + "Dear Mr. Jardine,--Of course I will write you descriptions of + landscapes!--and of all my daily routine, if you really care to + hear. No; I am not lonely, though of course I miss my guardian very + much. I have the long, long walks with Victor, in wet weather over + the inland moors along the roads, and in fine weather along the + high cliff paths; sometimes we walk ten miles in an afternoon and + come back very tired for tea. In the evenings I sit with Mrs. + Talcott over the fire. You ask me to describe Mrs. Talcott to you, + and to tell you all about her. She is with me now, and we are in + the morning room, where we always sit; for the great music-room + that opens on the verandah and fronts the sea is shut when my + guardian is not here. This room looks over the sea, too, but from + the side of the house and through an arabesque of trees. The walls + are filled with books and flowering bulbs stand in the windows. We + have had our tea and the sunlight slants in over the white freesia + and white hyacinths. There are primroses everywhere, too, and they + make the room seem more full of sunlight. You could hardly see a + more beautiful room. Mrs. Talcott sits before the fire with her + skirt turned up and her feet in square-toed shoes on the fender and + looks into the fire. She is short and thick and very old, but she + does not seem old; she is hard; not soft and withered. She has a + large, calm face with very yellow skin, and very light blue eyes + set deeply under white eyebrows. Her hair is white and drawn up + tightly to a knot at the top of her head. She wears no cap and + dresses always in black; very plain, with, in the daytime, a collar + of white lawn turning over a black silk stock and bow, such as + young girls wear, and, in the evening, a little fichu of white net, + very often washed, and thin and starchy. And since her skirts are + always very short, and her figure so square, she makes one think of + a funny little girl as well as of an old woman. She comes from the + State of Maine, and she remembers a striving, rough existence in a + little town on the edge of wildernesses. She is a very distant + relation of my guardian's. My guardian's maternal grandparents were + Spanish and lived in New Orleans, and a sister of Senor Bastida's + (Bastida was the name of my guardian's grandfather)--married a New + Englander, from Vermont--and that New Englander was an uncle of + Mrs. Talcott's--do you follow!--her uncle married my guardian's + aunt, you see. Mrs. Talcott, in her youth, stayed sometimes in New + Orleans, and dearly loved the beautiful Dolores Bastida who left + her home to follow Pavelek Okraska. Poor Dolores Okraska had many + sorrows. Her husband was not a good husband and her parents died. + She was very unhappy and before her baby came--she was in Poland + then,--she sent for Mrs. Talcott. Mrs. Talcott had been married, + too, and had lost her husband and was very poor. But she left + everything and crossed to Europe in the steerage--and what it must + have been in those days!--imagine!--to join her unfortunate + relative. My guardian has told me of it; she calls Mrs. Talcott: + '_Un coeur d'or dans un corps de bois._' She stayed with Dolores + Okraska until she died a little time after. She brought up her + child. They were in great want; my guardian remembers that she had + sometimes not enough to eat. When she was older and had already + become famous, some relatives of the Bastidas heard of her and + helped; but those were years of great struggle for Mrs. Talcott; + and it is so strange to think of that provincial, simple American + woman with her rustic ways and accent, living in Cracow and Warsaw, + and Vienna, and steadily doing what she had set herself to do. She + speaks French with a most funny accent even yet, though she spent + so many years abroad, so many in Paris. I do not know what would + have become of my guardian if it had not been for her. Her father + loved her, but was very erratic and undisciplined. Mrs. Talcott has + been with my guardian for almost all the time ever since. It is a + great and silent devotion. She is very reticent. She never speaks + of herself. She talks to me sometimes in the evenings about her + youth in Maine, and the long white winters and the sleigh-rides; + and the tapping of the maple-trees in Spring; and the nutting + parties in the fall of the year. I think that she likes to remember + all this; and I love to hear her, for it reminds me of what my + father used to tell me of his youth; and I love especially to hear + of the trailing arbutus, that lovely little flower that grows + beneath the snow; how one brushes back the snow in early Spring and + finds the waxen, sweet, pink flowers and dark, shining leaves under + it. And I always imagine that it is a doubled nostalgia that I feel + and that my mother's Norway in Spring was like it, with snow and + wet woods. There is a line that brings it all over me: 'In May, + when sea-winds pierced our solitudes.' It is by Emerson. The Spring + here is very lovely, too, but it has not the sweetness that arises + from snow and a long winter. Through the whole winter the fuchsias + keep their green against the white walls of the little village, + huddled in between the headlands at the edge of the sea beneath us. + You know this country, don't you? The cliffs are so beautiful. I + love best the great headlands towards the Lizard, black rock or + grey, all spotted with rosettes of orange lichen with sweeps of + grey-green sward sloping to them. Victor becomes quite intoxicated + with the wind on these heights and goes in circles round and round, + like a puppy. Later on, all the slopes are veiled in the delicate + little pink thrift, and the stone walls are festooned with white + campion. + + "Then Mrs. Talcott and I have a great deal to do about the little + farm. Mrs. Talcott is so clever at this. She makes it pay besides + giving my guardian all the milk and eggs and bacon, too, she needs. + There is a farmer and his wife, and a gardener and a boy; but with + the beautiful garden we have here it takes most of the day to see + to everything. The farmer's wife is a stern looking woman, but + really very gentle, and she sings hymns all the day long while she + works. She has a very good voice, so that it is sweet to hear her. + Yes; I do play. I have a piano here in the morning-room, and I am + very fond of my music. And, as I have told you, I read a good deal, + too. So there you have all the descriptions and the details. I + liked so much what you told me of the home of your boyhood. When I + saw you, I knew that you were a person who cared for all these + things, even if you were not an artist. What you tell me, too, of + the law-courts and the strange people you see there, and the ugly, + funny side of human life amused me, though it seems to me more + sorrowful than you perhaps feel it. People amuse me very much + sometimes, too; but I have not your eye for their foibles. You draw + them rather as Forain does; I should do it, I suspect, with more + sentimentality. The fruit comes regularly once a week, and punctual + thanks seem inappropriate for what has become an institution. But + you know how grateful I am. And for the weekly _Punch_;--so + _gemuetlich_ and _bien pensant_ and, often, very, very funny, with a + funniness that the Continental papers never give one; their jests + are never the jests of the _bien pensant_. It is the acrid + atmosphere of the cafe they bring, not that of the dinner party, + or, better still, for _Punch_, the picnic. The reviews, too, are + very interesting. Mrs. Talcott reads them a good deal, she who + seldom reads. She says sometimes very acute and amusing things + about politics. My guardian has a horror of politics; but they + rather interest Mrs. Talcott. I know nothing of them; but I do not + think that my guardian would agree with what you say; I think that + she would belong more to your party of freedom and progress. What a + long letter I have written to you! I have never written such a long + one in my life before, except to my guardian.--Sincerely yours, + + "Karen Woodruff." + + * * * * * + + "Les Solitudes, + "April 15th. + + "Dear Mr. Jardine,--How very nice to hear that you are coming to + Cornwall for Easter and will be near us--at least Falmouth is quite + near with a motor. It is beautiful country there, too; I have + driven there with my guardian, and it is a beautiful town to see, + lying in a wide curve around its blue bay. It is softer and milder + than here. A bend of the coast makes so much difference. But why am + I telling you all this, when of course you know it! I forget that + anyone knows Cornwall but Mrs. Talcott and my guardian and me. But + you have not seen this bit of the coast, and it excites me to think + that I shall introduce you to our cliffs and to Les Solitudes. If + only my guardian were here! It is not itself, this place, without + her. It is not to see Les Solitudes if you do not see the great + music-room opening its four long windows on the sea and sky; and my + guardian sitting in the shade of the verandah looking over the sea. + But Mrs. Talcott and I will do the honours as best we may and tell + you everything about my guardian that you will wish to know. Let us + hear beforehand the day you are coming; for the cook makes + excellent cakes, and we will have some baked specially for you. How + very nice to see you again.--Sincerely yours, + + "Karen Woodruff." + + + + +CHAPTER IX + + +On a chill, sunny morning in April, Gregory Jardine went out on to his +balcony before breakfast and stood leaning there as was his wont, +looking down over his view. The purpling tree-tops in the park emerged +from a light morning mist. The sky, of the palest blue, seemed very high +and was streaked with white. Spring was in the air and he could see +daffodils shining here and there on the slopes of green. + +He had just read Karen Woodruff's last letter, and he was in the mood, +charmed, amused and touched, that her letters always brought. Never, he +thought, had there been such sweet and such funny letters; so frank and +so impersonal; so simple and so mature. During these months of their +correspondence the thought of her had been constantly in his mind, +mingling now not only with his own deep and distant memories, but, it +seemed, with hers, so that while she still walked with him over the +hills of his boyhood and stooped to look with him at the spring gushing +from under the bracken, they also brushed together the dry, soft snow +from the trailing arbutus, or stood above the sea on the Cornish +headlands. Never in his life had he so possessed the past and been so +aware of it. His youth was with him, even though he still thought of his +relation to Karen Woodruff as a paternal and unequal one; imagining a +crisis in which his wisdom and knowledge of the world might serve her; a +foolish love-affair, perhaps, that he would disentangle; or a disaster +connected with the great woman under whose protection she lived; he +could so easily imagine disasters befalling Madame von Marwitz and +involving everyone around her. And now in a week's time he would be in +Cornwall and seeing again the little Hans Andersen heroine. This was the +thought that emerged from the sweet vagrancy of his mood; and, as it +came, he was pierced suddenly with a strange rapture and fear that had +in it the very essence of the spring-time. + +Gregory had continued to think of the girl he was to marry in the guise +of a Constance Armytage, and although Constance Armytage's engagement to +another man found him unmoved, except with relief for the solution of +what had really ceased to be a perplexity--since, apparently, he could +not manage to fall in love with her--this fact had not been revealing, +since he still continued to think of Constance as the type, if she had +ceased to be the person. Karen Woodruff was almost the last type he +could have fixed upon. She fitted nowhere into his actual life. She only +fitted into the life of dreams and memories. + +So now, still looking down at the trees and daffodils, he drew a long +breath and tried to smile over what had been a trick of the imagination +and to relegate Karen to the place of half-humorous dreams. He tried to +think calmly of her. He visualized her in her oddity and child-likeness; +seeing the flat blue bows of the concert; the old-fashioned gold locket +of the tea; the sealskin cap of the station. But still, it was apparent, +the infection of the season was working in him; for these trivial bits +of her personality had become overwhelmingly sweet and wonderful. The +essential Karen infused them. Her limpid grey eyes looked into his. She +said, so ridiculously, so adorably: "My guardian likes best to be called +von Marwitz by those who know her personally." She laughed, the tip of +her tongue caught between her teeth. From the place of dream and memory, +the living longing for her actual self emerged indomitably. + +Gregory turned from the balcony and went inside. He was dazed. Her +primroses stood about the room in the white and blue bowls. He wanted to +kiss them. Controlling the impulse, which seemed to him almost insane, +he looked at them instead and argued with himself. In love? But one +didn't fall in love like that between shaving and breakfast. What +possessed him was a transient form of _idee fixe_, and he had behaved +very foolishly in playing fairy-godfather to a dear little girl. But at +this relegating phrase his sense of humour rose to mock him. He could +not relegate Karen Woodruff as a dear little girl. It was he who had +behaved like a boy, while she had maintained the calm simplicities of +the mature. He hadn't the faintest right to hope that she saw anything +in his correspondence but what she had herself brought to it. Fear fell +more strongly upon him. He sat down to his breakfast, his thoughts in +inextricable confusion. And while he drank his coffee and glanced +nervously down the columns of his newspaper, a hundred little filaments +of memory ran back and linked the beginning to the present. It had not +been so sudden. It had been there beside him, in him; and he had not +seen it. The meeting of their eyes in the long, grave interchange at the +concert had been full of presage. And why had he gone to tea at Mrs. +Forrester's? And why, above all why, had he dreamed that dream? It was +his real self who had felt no surprise when, at the edge of the forest, +she had said: "And I love you." The words had been spoken in answer to +his love. + +Gregory laid down his paper and stared before him. He was in love. +Should he get over it? Did he want to get over it? Was it possible to +get over it if he did want to? And, this was the culmination, would she +have him? These questions drove him forth. + +When Barker, his man, came to clear away the breakfast things he found +that the bacon and eggs had not been eaten. Barker was a stone-grey +personage who looked like a mid-Victorian Liberal statesman. His gravity +often passed into an air of despondent responsibility. "Mr. Jardine +hasn't eaten his breakfast," he said to his wife, who was Gregory's +cook. "It's this engagement of Miss Armytage's. He was more taken with +her than we'd thought." + +Gregory had intended to motor down to Cornwall, still a rare opportunity +in those days; a friend who was going abroad had placed his car at his +disposal. But he sent the car ahead of him and, on the first day of his +freedom, started by train. Next day he motored over to the little +village near the Lizard. + +It was a pale, crystalline Spring day. From heights, where the car +seemed to poise like a bird in mid-air, one saw the tranquil blue of the +sea. The woods were veiled in young green and the hedges thickly starred +with blackthorn. Over the great Goonhilly Downs a silvery sheen trembled +with impalpable colour and the gorse everywhere was breaking into gold. +It was a day of azure, illimitable distances; of exultation and delight. +Even if one were not in love one would feel oneself a lover on such a +day. + +Gregory had told himself that he would be wise; that he would go +discreetly and make sure not only that he was really in love, but that +there was in his love a basis for life. Marriage must assure and secure +his life, not disturb and disintegrate it; and a love resisted and put +aside unspoken may soon be relegated to the place of fond and transient +dream. Perhaps the little Hans Andersen heroine would settle happily +into such a dream. How little he had seen of her. But while he thus +schooled himself, while the white roads curved and beckoned and unrolled +their long ribbons, the certainties he needed of himself merged more and +more into the certainties he needed of her. And he felt his heart, in +the singing speed, lift and fly towards the beloved. + +He had written to her and told her the hour of his arrival, and at a +turning he suddenly saw her standing above the road on one of the stone +stiles of the country. Dressed in white and poised against the blue, +while she kept watch for his coming, she was like a calm, far-gazing +figure-head on a ship, and the ship that bore her seemed to have soared +into sight. + +She was new, yet unchanged. Her attitude, her smile, as she held up an +arresting hand to the chauffeur, filled him with delight and anxiety. It +disconcerted him to find how new she was. He felt that he spoke +confusedly to her when she came to shake his hand. + +"People often lose their way in coming to see Tante," she said, and it +struck him, even in the midst of his preoccupation with her, as too +sweetly absurd that the first sentence she spoke to him should sound the +familiar chime. "They have gone mistakenly down the lane that leads to +the cliff path, that one there, or the road that leads out to the moors. +And one poor man was quite lost and never found his way to us at all. It +meant, for he had only a day or two to spend in England, that he did not +see her for another year. Tante has had signs put up since then; but +even now people can go wrong." + +She mounted beside the chauffeur so that she could guide him down the +last bit of road, sitting sideways, her arm laid along the back of the +seat. From time to time she smiled at Gregory. + +She was a person who accepted the unusual easily and with no personal +conjecture. She was so accustomed, no doubt, to the sudden appearance of +all sorts of people, that she had no discriminations to apply to his +case. There was no shyness and no surmise in her manner. She smiled at +him as composedly as she had smiled over the Great Wall of China in Mrs. +Forrester's drawing-room, and her pleasure in seeing him was neither +less frank nor more intimate. + +She wore a broad hat of sun-burnt straw and a white serge coat and skirt +that looked as if they had shrunk in frequent washings. Her white blouse +had the little frills at neck and wrists and around her throat was the +gold locket on its black ribbon. Her eyes, when she turned them on him +and smiled, seemed to open distances like the limitlessness of the +moorland. Her tawny skin and shining golden hair were like the gorse and +primroses and she in her serenity and gladness like the day personified. + +They did not attempt to talk through the loudly purring monotones of the +car, which picked its way swiftly and delicately down the turning road +and then skimmed lightly on the level ground between hedges of fuchsia +and veronica. As the prospect opened Karen pointed to the golden +shoulder of a headland bathed in sunlight and the horizon line of the +sea beyond. They turned among wind-bitten Cornish elms, leaning inland, +and Gregory saw among them the glimmer of Les Solitudes. + +It was a white-walled house with a high-pitched roof of grey shingles, +delicately rippling; a house almost rustic, yet more nearly noble, very +beautiful; simple, yet unobtrusively adapted to luxury. Simplicity +reigned within, though one felt luxury there in a chrysalis condition, +folded exquisitely and elaborately away and waiting the return of the +enchantress. + +Karen led him across the shining spaces of the hall and into the +morning-room. Books, flowers and sunlight seemed to furnish it, and, +with something austere and primitive, to make it the most fitting +background for herself. But while her presence perfected it for him, it +was her guardian's absence that preoccupied Karen. Again, and comically, +she reminded Gregory of the sacristan explaining to the sight-seer that +the famous altar-piece had been temporarily removed and that he could +not really judge the chapel without its culminating and consecrating +object. "If only Tante were here!" she said. "It seems so strange that +anyone should see Les Solitudes who has not seen her in it. I do not +remember that it has ever happened before. This is the dining-room--yes, +I like to show it all to you--she planned it all herself, you know--is +it not a beautiful room? You see, though we are Les Solitudes, we can +seat a large dinner-party and Tante has sometimes many guests; not often +though; this is her place of peace and rest. She collected all this +Jacobean furniture; connoisseurs say that it is very beautiful. The +music-room, alas, is closed; but I will show you the garden--and Mrs. +Talcott in it. I am eager for you and Mrs. Talcott to meet." + +He would rather have stayed and talked to her in the morning-room; but +she compelled him, rather as a sacristan compels the slightly bewildered +sight-seer, to pass on to the next point of interest. She led him out to +the upper terrace of the garden, which dropped, ledge by ledge, with low +walls and winding hedges, down the cliff-side. She pointed out to him +the sea-front of the house, with its wide verandah and clustered trees +and the beautiful dip of the roof over the upper windows, far gazing +little dormer windows above these. Tante, she told him, had designed the +house. "That is her room, the corner one," she said. "She can see the +sunrise from her bed." + +Gregory was interested neither in Madame von Marwitz's advantages nor in +her achievements. He asked Karen where her own room was. It was at the +back of the house, she said; a dear little room, far up. She, too, had a +glimpse of the Eastern headland and of the sunrise. + +They were walking along the paths, their borders starred as yet frugally +with hints of later glories; but already the aubrietia and arabis made +bosses of white or purple on the walls, and in a little copse daffodils +grew thickly. + +"There is Mrs. Talcott," said Karen, quickening her pace. Evidently she +considered Mrs. Talcott, in her relation to Tante, as an important +feature of Les Solitudes. + +It was her relation to Karen that caused Gregory to look with interest +at the stout old lady, dressed in black alpaca, who was stooping over a +flower-border at a little distance from them. He had often wondered what +this sole companion of Karen's cloistered life was like. Mrs. Talcott's +skirts were short; her shoes thick-soled and square-toed, fastening with +a strap and button over white stockings at the ankle. She wore a round +straw hat, like a child's, and had a basket of gardening implements +beside her. + +"Mrs. Talcott, here is Mr. Jardine," Karen announced, as they approached +her. + +Mrs. Talcott raised herself slowly and turned to them, drawing off her +gardening gloves. She was a funny looking old woman, funnier than Karen +had prepared him for finding her, and uglier. Her large face, +wallet-shaped and sallow, was scattered over with white moles, or +rather, warts, one of which, on her eyelid, caused it to droop over her +eye and to blink sometimes, suddenly. She had a short, indefinite nose +and long, large lips firmly folded. With its updrawn hair and +impassivity her face recalled that of a Chinese image; but more than of +anything else she gave Gregory the impression, vaguely and incongruously +tragic, of an old shipwrecked piece of oaken timber, washed up, finally, +out of reach of the waves, on some high, lonely beach; battered, though +still so solid; salted through and through; crusted with brine, and with +odd, bleached excrescences, like barnacles, adhering to it. Her look of +almost inhuman cleanliness added force to the simile. + +"Mr. Jardine heard Tante last winter, you know," said Karen, "and met +her at Mrs. Forrester's." + +"I'm very happy to make your acquaintance, Sir," said Mrs. Talcott, +giving Gregory her hand. + +"Mrs. Talcott is a great gardener," Karen went on. "Tante has the ideas +and Mrs. Talcott carries them out. And sometimes they aren't easy to +carry out, are they, Mrs. Talcott!" + +Mrs. Talcott, her hands folded at her waist, contemplated her work. + +"Mitchell made a mistake about the campanulas, Karen," she remarked. +"He's put the clump of blue over yonder, instead of the white." + +"Oh, Mrs. Talcott!" Karen turned to look. "And Tante specially wanted +the white there so that they should be against the sea. How very stupid +of Mitchell." + +"They'll have to come out, I presume," said Mrs. Talcott, but without +emotion. + +"And where is the _pyramidalis alba_?" + +"Well, he's got that up in the flagged garden where she wanted the +blue," said Mrs. Talcott. + +"And it will be so bad for them to move them again! What a pity! They +have been sent for specially," Karen explained to Gregory. "My guardian +heard of a particularly beautiful kind, and the white were to be for +this corner of the wall, you see that they would look very lovely +against the sea, and the blue were to be among the white veronica and +white lupins in the flagged garden. And now they are all planted wrong, +and so accurately and solidly wrong," she walked ahead of Mrs. Talcott +examining the offending plants. "Are you quite sure they're wrong, Mrs. +Talcott?" + +"Dead sure," Mrs. Talcott made reply. "He did it this morning when I was +in the dairy. He didn't understand, or got muddled, or something. I'll +commence changing them round as soon as I've done this weeding. It'll be +a good two hours' work." + +"No, you must not do it till I can help you," said Karen. "To-morrow +morning." She had a manner at once deferential and masterful of +addressing the old lady. They were friendly without being intimate. "Now +promise me that you will wait till I can help you." + +"Well, I guess I won't promise. I like to get things off my mind right +away," said Mrs. Talcott. If Karen was masterful, she was not yielding. +"I'll see how the time goes after tea. Don't you bother about it." + +They left her bending again over her beds. "She is very strong, but I +think sometimes she works too hard," said Karen. + +By a winding way she led him to the high flagged garden with its +encompassing trees and far blue prospect, and here they sat for a little +while in the sunlight and talked. "How different all this must be from +your home in Northumberland," said Karen. "I have never been to +Northumberland. Is your brother much there? Is he like you? Have you +brothers and sisters?" + +She questioned him with the frank interest with which he wished to +question her. He told her about Oliver and said that he wasn't like +himself. A faint flavour of irony came into his voice in speaking of his +elder brother and finding Karen's calm eyes dwelling on him he wondered +if she thought him unfair. "We always get on well enough," he said, "but +we haven't much in common. He is a good, dull fellow, half alive." + +"And you are very much alive." + +"Yes, on the whole, I think so," he answered, smiling, but sensitively +aware of a possible hint of irony in her. But she had intended none. She +continued to look at him calmly. "You are making use of all of yourself; +that is to be alive, Tante always says; and I feel that it is true of +you. And his wife? the wife of the dull hunting brother? Does she hunt +too and think of foxes most?" + +He could assure her that Betty quite made up in the variety of her +activities for Oliver's deficiencies. Karen was interested in the +American Betty and especially in hearing that she had been at the +concert from which their own acquaintance dated. She asked him, walking +back to the house, if he had seen Mrs. Forrester. "She is an old friend +of yours, isn't she?" she said. + +"That must be nice. She was so kind to me that last day in London. Tante +is very fond of her; very, very fond. I hardly think there is anyone of +all her friends she has more feeling for. Here is Victor, come to greet +you. You remember Victor, and how he nearly missed the train." + +The great, benignant dog came down the path to them and as they walked +Karen laid her hand upon his head, telling Gregory that Sir Alliston had +given him to Tante when he was quite a tiny puppy. "You saw Sir +Alliston, that sad, gentle poet? There is another person that Tante +loves." It was with a slight stir of discomfort that Gregory realised +more fully from these assessments how final for Karen was the question +of Tante's likes and dislikes. + +They were on the verandah when she paused. "But I think, though the +music-room is closed, that you must see the portrait." + +"The portrait? Of you?" Actually, and sincerely, he was off the track. + +"Of me? Oh no," said Karen, laughing a little. "Why should it be of me? +Of my guardian, of course. Perhaps you know it. It is by Sargent and was +in the Royal Academy some years ago." + +"I must have missed it. Am I to see it now?" + +"Yes. I will ask Mrs. Talcott for the key and we will draw all the +blinds and you shall see it." They walked back to the garden in search +of Mrs. Talcott. + +"Do you like it?" Gregory asked. + +Karen reflected for a moment and then said; "He understands her better +than Mr. Drew does, or, at all events, does not try to make up for what +he does not understand by elaborations. But there are blanks!--oh +blanks!--However, it is a very magnificent picture and you shall see. +Mrs. Talcott, may I have the key of the music-room? I want to show the +Sargent to Mr. Jardine." + +They had come to the old woman again, and again she slowly righted +herself from her stooping posture. "It's in my room, I'll come and get +it," said Mrs. Talcott, and on Karen's protesting against this, she +observed that it was about tea-time, anyway. She preceded them to the +house. + +"But I do beg," Karen stopped her in the hall. "Let me get it. You shall +tell me where it is." + +Mrs. Talcott yielded. "In my left top drawer on the right hand side +under the pile of handkerchiefs," she recited. "Thanks, Karen." + +While Karen was gone, Mrs. Talcott in the hall stood in front of Gregory +and looked past him in silence into the morning-room. She did not seem +to feel it in any sense incumbent upon her to entertain him, though +there was nothing forbidding in her manner. But happening presently, +while they waited, to glance at the droll old woman, he found her eyes +fixed on him in a singularly piercing, if singularly impassive, gaze. +She looked away again with no change of expression, shifting her weight +from one hip to the other, and something in the attitude suggested to +Gregory that she had spent a great part of her life in waiting. She had +a capacity, he inferred, for indefinite waiting. Karen came happily +running down the stairs, holding the key. + +They went into the dim, white room where swathed presences stood as if +austerely welcoming them. Karen drew up the blind and Mrs. Talcott, +going to the end of the room, mounted a chair and dexterously twitched +from its place the sheet that covered the great portrait. Then, standing +beside it, and still holding its covering, she looked, not at it, but, +meditatively, out at the sea that crossed with its horizon line the four +long windows. Karen, also in silence, came and stood beside Gregory. + +It was indeed a remarkable picture; white and black; silver and green. +To a painter's eye the arresting balance of these colours would have +first appealed and the defiant charm with which the angular surfaces +of the grand piano and the soft curves of the woman seated at it +were combined. The almost impalpable white of an azalea with its +flame-green foliage, and a silver statuette, poised high on a +slender column of white chalcedony, were the only accessories. But +after the first delighted draught of wonder it was the face of Madame +Okraska--pre-eminently Madame Okraska in this portrait--that compelled +one to concentration. She sat, turning from the piano, her knees +crossed, one arm cast over them, the other resting along the edge of the +key-board. The head drooped slightly and the eyes looked out just below +the spectator's eyes, so that in poise and glance it recalled somewhat +Michael Angelo's Lorenzo da Medici. And something that Gregory had felt +in her from the first, and that had roused in him dim hostilities and +ironies, was now more fully revealed. The artist seemed to have looked +through the soft mask of the woman's flesh, through the disturbing and +compelling forces of her own consciousness, to the very structure and +anatomy of her character. Atavistic, sub-conscious revelations were in +the face. It was to see, in terms of art, a scientific demonstration of +race, temperament, and the results of their interplay with environment. +The languors, the feverish indolences, the caprice of generations of +Spanish exiles were there, and the ambiguity, the fierceness of Slav +ancestry. And, subtly interwoven, were the marks of her public life upon +her. The face, so moulded to indifference, was yet so aware of +observation, so adjusted to it, so insatiable of it, that, sitting +there, absorbed and brooding, lovely with her looped pearls and +diamonds, her silver broideries and silken fringes, she was a product of +the public, a creature reared on adulation, breathing it in softly, +peacefully, as the white flowers beside her breathed in light and air. +Her craftsmanship, her genius, though indicated, were submerged in this +pervasive quality of an indifference based securely on the ever present +consciousness that none could be indifferent to her. And more than the +passive acceptance and security was indicated. Strange, sleeping +potentialities lurked in the face; as at the turn of a kaleidoscope, +Gregory could fancy it suddenly transformed, by some hostile touch, some +menace, to a savage violence and rapacity. He was aware, standing +between the girl who worshipped her and the devoted old woman, of the +pang of a curious anxiety. + +"Well," said Karen at last, and she looked from the picture to him. +"What do you think of it?" + +"It's splendid," said Gregory. "It's very fine. And beautiful." + +"But does it altogether satisfy you?" Her eyes were again on the +portrait. "What is lacking, I cannot say; but it seems to me that it is +painted with intelligence only, not with love. It is Madame Okraska, the +great genius; but it is not Tante; it is not even Madame von Marwitz." + +The portrait seemed to Gregory to go so much further and so much deeper +than what he had himself seen that it was difficult to believe that hers +might be the deepest vision, but he was glad to take refuge in the +possibility. "It does seem to me wonderfully like," he said. "But then I +don't know 'Tante.'" + +Karen now glanced at Mrs. Talcott. "It is a great bone of contention +between us," she said, smiling at the old lady, yet smiling, Gregory +observed, with a touch of challenge. "She feels it quite complete. That, +in someone who does know Tante, I cannot understand." + +Mrs. Talcott, making no reply, glanced up at the portrait and then, +again, out at the sea. + +Gregory looked at her with awakened curiosity. This agreement was an +unexpected prop for him. "You, too, think it a perfect likeness?" he +asked her. Her old blue eyes, old in the antique tranquillity of their +regard, yet still of such a vivid, unfaded turquoise, turned on him and +again he had that impression of an impassive piercing. + +"It seems to me about as good a picture as anyone's likely to get," said +Mrs. Talcott. + +"Yes, but, oh Mrs. Talcott"--with controlled impatience Karen took her +up--"surely you see,--it isn't Tante. It is a genius, a great woman, a +beautiful woman, a beautiful and poetic creature, of course;--he has +seen all that--who wouldn't? but it is almost a woman without a heart. +There is something heartless there. I always feel it. And when one +thinks of Tante!" And Mrs. Talcott remaining silent, she insisted: "Can +you really say you don't see what I mean?" + +"Well, I never cared much about pictures anyway," Mrs. Talcott now +remarked. + +"Well, but you care for this one more than I do!" Karen returned, with a +laugh of vexation. "It isn't a question of pictures; it's a question of +a likeness. You really think that this does Tante justice? It's that I +can't understand." + +Mrs. Talcott, thus pursued, again looked up at the portrait, and +continued, now, to look at it for several moments. And as she stood +there, looking up, she suddenly and comically reminded Gregory of the +Frog gardener before the door in "Alice," with his stubborn and +deliberate misunderstanding. He could almost have expected to see Mrs. +Talcott advance her thumb and rub the portrait, as if to probe the cause +of her questioner's persistence. When she finally spoke it was only to +vary her former judgment: "It seems to me about as good a picture as +Mercedes is likely to get taken," she said. She pronounced the Spanish +name: "Mursadees." + +Karen, after this, abandoned her attempt to convince Mrs. Talcott. Tea +was ready, and they went into the morning-room. Here Mrs. Talcott +presided at the tea-table, and for all his dominating preoccupation she +continued to engage a large part of Gregory's attention. She sat, +leaning back in her chair, slowly eating, her eyes, like tiny, blue +stones, immeasurably remote, immeasurably sad, fixed on the sea. + +"Is it long since you were in America?" he asked her. He felt drawn to +Mrs. Talcott. + +"Why, I guess it's getting on for twenty-five years now," she replied, +after considering for a moment; "since I've lived there. I've been over +three or four times with Mercedes; on tours." + +"Twenty-five years since you came over here? That is a long time." + +"Oh, it's more than that since I came," said Mrs. Talcott. "Twenty-five +years since I lived at home. I came over first nearly fifty years ago. +Yes; it's a long time." + +"Dear me; you have lived most of your life here, then." + +"Yes; you may say I have." + +"And don't you ever want to go back to America to stay?" + +"I don't know as I do," said Mrs. Talcott. + +"You're fonder of it over here, like so many of your compatriots?" + +"Well, I don't know as I am," Mrs. Talcott, who had a genius it seemed +for non-committal statements, varied; and then, as though aware that her +answers might seem ungracious, she added: "All my folks are dead. +There's no reason for my wanting to go home that I can think of." + +"Besides, Mrs. Talcott," Karen now helped her on, "home to you is where +Tante is, isn't it. Mrs. Talcott has lived with Tante ever since Tante +was born. No one in the world knows her as well as she does. It is +rather wonderful to think about." She had the air, finding Mrs. Talcott +appreciated, of putting forward for her her great claim to distinction. + +"Yes; I know Mercedes pretty well," Mrs. Talcott conceded. + +"How I love to hear about it," said Karen; "about her first concert, you +know, Mrs. Talcott, when you curled her hair--such long, bright brown +hair, she had, and so thick, falling below her waist, didn't it?" Mrs. +Talcott nodded with a certain complacency. "And she wore a little white +muslin frock and white shoes and a blue sash; she was only nine years +old; it was a great concert in Warsaw. And she didn't want her hair +curled, and combed it all out with her fingers just before going on to +the platform--didn't she?" + +Mrs. Talcott was slightly smiling over these reminiscences. "Smart +little thing," she commented. "She did it the last minute so as it was +too late for me to fix it again. It made me feel dreadful her going on +to the platform with her head all mussed up like that. She looked mighty +pretty all the same." + +"And she was right, too, wasn't she?" said Karen, elated, evidently, at +having so successfully drawn Mrs. Talcott out. "Her hair was never +curly, was it. It looked better straight, I'm sure." + +"Well, I don't know about that," said Mrs. Talcott. "I always like it +curled best, when she was little. But I had to own to myself she looked +mighty pretty, though I was so mad at her." + +"Tante has always had her own way, I imagine," said Karen, "about +anything she set her mind on. She had her way about being an infant +prodigy; though you were so right about that--she has often said so, +hasn't she, and how thankful she is that you were able to stop it before +it did her harm. I must show you our photographs of Tante, Mr. Jardine. +We have volumes and volumes, and boxes and boxes of them. They are far +more like her, I think, many of them, than the portrait. Some of them +too dear and quaint--when she was quite tiny." + +Tea was over and Karen, rising, looked towards the shelves where, +evidently, the volumes and boxes were kept. + +"I really think I'd rather see some more of this lovely place, first," +said Gregory. "Do take me further along the cliff. I could see the +photographs, you know, the next time I come." + +He, too, had risen and was smiling at her with a little constraint. + +Karen, arrested on her way to the photographs, looked at him in +surprise. "Will you come again? You are to be in Cornwall so long?" + +"I'm to be here about a fortnight and I should like to come often, if I +may." She was unaware, disconcertingly unaware; yet her surprise showed +the frankest pleasure. + +"How very nice," she said. "I did not think that you could come all that +way more than once." + +While they spoke, Mrs. Talcott's ancient, turquoise eyes were upon them, +and in her presence Gregory found it easier to say things than it would +have been to say them to Karen alone. Already, he felt sure, Mrs. +Talcott understood, and if it was easy to say things in her presence +might that not be because he guessed that she sympathised? "But I came +down to Cornwall to see you," he said, leaning on his chair back and +tilting it a little while he smiled at Karen. + +Her pleasure rose in a flush to her cheek. "To see me?" + +"Yes; I felt from our letters that we ought to become great friends." + +She looked at him, pondering the unlooked-for possibility he put before +her. "Great friends?" she repeated. "I have never had a great friend of +my own. Friends, of course; the Lippheims and the Belots; and Strepoff; +and you, of course, Mrs. Talcott; but never, really, a great friend +quite of my own, for they are Tante's friends first and come through +Tante. Of course you have come through Tante, too," said Karen, with +evident satisfaction; "only not quite in the same way." + +"Not at all in the same way," said Gregory. "Don't forget. We met at the +concert, and without any introduction! It has nothing to do with Madame +von Marwitz this time. It's quite on our own." + +"Oh, but I would so much rather have it come through her, if we are to +be great friends," Karen returned, smiling, though reflectively. "I +think we are to be, for I felt you to be my friend from that first +moment. But it was at the concert that we met and it was Tante's +concert. So that it was not quite on our own. I want it to be through +Tante," she went on, "because it pleases me very much to think that we +may be great friends, and my happy things have come to me through Tante, +always." + + + + +CHAPTER X + + +He came next day and every day. They were favoured with the rarely given +gift of a perfect spring. They walked along the cliffs and headlands. +They sat and talked in the garden. He took her with Mrs. Talcott for +long drives to distant parts of the coast which he and Karen would +explore, while Mrs. Talcott in the car sat, with apparently interminable +patience, waiting for them. + +Karen played to him in the morning-room; and this was a new revelation +of her. She was not a finished performer and her music was limited by +her incapacity; but she had the gift for imparting, with transparent +sincerity and unfailing sensitiveness, the very heart of what she +played. There were Arias from Schubert Sonatas, and Bach Preludes, and +loving little pieces of Schumann, that Gregory thought he had never +heard so beautifully played before. Everything they had to say was said, +though, it might be, said very softly. He told her that he cared more +for her music than for any he had listened to, and Karen laughed, not at +all taking him seriously. "But you do care for music, though you are no +musician," she said. "I like to play to you; and to someone who does not +care it is impossible." + +Her acceptances of their bond might give ground for all hope or for +none. As for himself there had been, from the moment of seeing her +again, of knowing in her presence that fear and that delight, no further +doubt as to his own state and its finality. Yet his first perplexities +lingered and could at moments become painful. + +He felt the beloved creature to be at once inappropriate and inevitable. +With all that was deepest and most instinctive in him her nature chimed; +the surfaces, the prejudices, the principles of his life she +contradicted and confused. She talked to him a great deal, in answer to +his questions, about her past life, and what she told him was often +disconcerting. The protective tenderness he had felt for her from the +first was troubled by his realisation of the books she had placidly +read--under Tante's guidance--the people whose queer relationships she +placidly took for granted as in no need of condonation. When he +intimated to her that he disapproved of such contacts and customs, she +looked at him, puzzled, and then said, with an air of kindly maturity at +once touching and vexatious: "But that is the morality of the +Philistines." + +It was, of course, and Gregory considered it the very best of +moralities; but remembering her mother he could not emphasize to her how +decisively he held by it. + +It was in no vulgar or vicious world that her life, as the child of the +unconventional sculptor, as the _protegee_ of the great pianist, had +been passed. But it was a world without religion, without institutions, +without order. Gregory, though his was not the religious temperament, +had his reasoned beliefs in the spiritual realities expressed in +institutions and he had his inherited instincts of reverence for the +rituals that embodied the spiritual life of his race. He was impatient +with dissent and with facile scepticisms. He did not expect a woman to +have reasoned beliefs, nor did he ask a credulous, uncritical orthodoxy; +but he did want the Christian colouring of mind, the Christian outlook; +he did want his wife to be a woman who would teach her children to say +their prayers at her knees. It was with something like dismay that he +gathered from Karen that her conception of life was as untouched by any +consciousness of creed as that of a noble young pagan. He was angry at +himself for feeling it and when he found himself applying his rules and +measures to her; for what had it been from the first but her spiritual +strength and loveliness that had drawn him to her? Yet he longed to make +her accept the implications of the formulated faiths that she lived by. +"Oh, no, you're not," he said to her when, turning unperturbed eyes upon +him, she assured him: "Oh yes, I am quite, quite a pagan." "I don't +think you know what you mean when you say you're a pagan," Gregory +continued. + +"But, yes," she returned. "I have no creed. I was brought up to think of +beauty as the only religion. That is my guardian's religion. It is the +religion, she says, of all free souls. And my father thought so, too." +It was again the assurance of a wisdom, not her own, yet possessed by +her, a wisdom that she did not dream of anybody challenging. Was it not +Tante's? + +"Well," he remarked, "beauty is a large term. Perhaps it includes more +than you think." + +Karen looked at him with approbation. "That is what Tante says; that it +includes everything." And she went on, pleased to reveal to him still +more of Tante's treasure, since he had proved himself thus +understanding; "Tante, you know, belongs to the Catholic Church; it is +the only church of beauty, she says. But she is not _pratiquante_; not +_croyante_ in any sense. Art is her refuge." + +"I see," said Gregory. "And what is your refuge?" + +Karen, at this, kept silence for a moment, and then said: "It is not +that; not art. I do not feel, perhaps, that I need refuges. And I am +happier than my dear guardian. I believe in immortality; oh yes, +indeed." She looked round gravely at him--they were sitting on the turf +of a headland above the sea. "I believe, that is, in everything that is +beautiful and loving going on for ever." + +He felt abashed before her. The most dependent and child-like of +creatures where her trust and love were engaged, she was, as well, the +most serenely independent. Even Tante, he felt, could not touch her +faiths. + +"You mustn't say that you are a pagan, you see," he said. + +"But Plato believed in immortality," Karen returned, smiling. "And you +will not tell me that Plato was _pratiquant_ or _croyant_." + +He could not claim Plato as a member of the Church of England, though he +felt quite ready to demonstrate, before a competent body of listeners, +that, as a nineteenth century Englishman, Plato would have been. Karen +was not likely to follow such an argument. She would smile at his +seeming sophistries. + +No; he must accept it, and as a very part of her lovableness, that she +could not be made to fit into the plan of his life as he had imagined +it. She would not carry on its traditions, for she would not understand +them. To win her would be, in a sense, to relinquish something of that +orderly progression as a professional and social creature that he had +mapped out for himself, though he knew himself to be, through his +experience of her, already a creature more human, a creature enriched. +Karen, if she came to love him, would be, through love, infinitely +malleable, but in the many adjustments that would lie before them it +would be his part to foresee complications and to do the adjusting. +Change in her would be a gradual growth, and never towards mere +conformity. + +He felt it to be the first step towards adjustments when he motored +Karen and Mrs. Talcott to Guillian House to lunch with his friends the +Lavingtons. The occasion must mark for him the subtle altering of an old +tie. Karen and the Lavingtons could never be to each other what he and +the Lavingtons had been. It was part of her breadth that congeniality +could never for her be based on the half automatic affinities of caste +and occupation; and it was part of her narrowness, or, rather, of her +inexperience, that she could see people only as individuals and would +not recognize the real charm of the Lavingtons, which consisted in their +being, like their house and park, part of the landscape and of an +established order of things. Yet, once he had her there, he watched the +metamorphosis that her presence worked in his old associations with +pleasure rather than pain. It pleased him, intimately, that the +Lavingtons should see in him a lover as yet uncertain of his chances. It +pleased him that they should not find in Karen the type that they must +have expected the future Mrs. Jardine to be, the type of Constance +Armytage and the type of Evelyn Lavington, Colonel and Mrs. Lavington's +unmarried daughter, who, but for Karen, might well have become Mrs. +Jardine one day. He observed, with a lover's fond pride, that Karen, in +her shrunken white serge and white straw hat, Karen, with her pleasant +imperturbability, her mingled simplicity and sophistication, did, most +decisively, make the Lavingtons seem flavourless. Among them, while Mrs. +Lavington walked her round the garden and Evelyn elicited with kindly +concern that she played neither golf, hockey nor tennis, and had never +ridden to hounds, her demeanour was that of a little rustic princess +benignly doing her social duty. The only reason why she did not appear +like this to the Lavingtons was that, immutably unimaginative as they +were, they knew that she wasn't a princess, was, indeed, only the odd +appendage of an odd celebrity with whom their friend had chosen, oddly, +to fall in love. They weren't perplexed, because, since he had fallen in +love with her, she was placed. But they, in the complete contrast they +offered, had little recognition of individual values and judged a dish +by the platter it was served on. A princess was a princess, and an +appendage an appendage, and a future Mrs. Jardine a very recognizable +person; just as, had a subtle _charlotte russe_ been brought up to lunch +in company with the stewed rhubarb they would have eaten it without +comment and hardly been aware that it wasn't an everyday milk-pudding. + +"Did you and Mrs. Lavington and Evelyn and Mrs. Haverfield find much to +talk of after lunch?" Gregory asked, as he motored Mrs. Talcott and +Karen back to Les Solitudes. + +"Yes; we talked of a good many things," said Karen. "But I know about so +few of their things and they about so few of mine. Miss Lavington was +very much surprised to think that I had never been to a fox-hunt; and +I," Karen smiled, "was very much surprised to think that they had never +heard Tante play." + +"They hardly ever get up to town, you see," said Gregory. "But surely +they knew about her?" + +"Not much," said Karen. "Mrs. Lavington asked me about her--for +something pleasant to say--and they were such strange questions; as +though one should be asked whether Mr. Arthur Balfour were a Russian +nihilist or Metchnikoff an Italian poet." Karen spoke quite without +grievance or irony. + +"And after your Sargent," said Gregory, "you must have been pained by +that portrait of Mrs. Haverfield in the drawing-room." + +"Mrs. Lavington pointed it out to me specially," said Karen, laughing, +"and told me that it had been in the Academy. What a sad thing; with all +those eyelashes! And yet opposite to it hung the beautiful Gainsborough +of a great-grandmother. Mrs. Lavington saw no difference, I think." + +"They haven't been trained to see differences," said Gregory, and he +summed up the Lavingtons in the aphorism to himself as well as to Karen; +"only to accept samenesses." He hoped indeed, by sacrificing the +aesthetic quality of the Lavingtons, to win some approbation of their +virtues; but Karen, though not inclined to proffer unasked criticism, +found, evidently, no occasion for commendation. Later on, when they were +back at Les Solitudes and walking in the garden, she returned to the +subject of his friends and said: "I was a little disturbed about Mrs. +Talcott; did you notice? no one talked to her at all, hardly. It was as +if they thought her my _dame de compagnie_. She isn't my _dame de +compagnie_; and if she were, I think that she should have been talked +to." + +Gregory had observed this fact and had hoped that it might have escaped +Karen's notice. To the Lavingtons Mrs. Talcott's platter had been +unrecognizable and they had tended to let its contents alone. + +"It's as I said, you know," he put forward a mitigation; "they've not +been trained to see differences; she is very different, isn't she?" + +"Well, but so am I," said Karen, "and they talked to me. I don't mean to +complain of your friends; that would be very rude when they were so nice +and kind; and, besides, are your friends. But people's thoughtlessness +displeases me, not that I am not often very thoughtless myself." + +Gregory was anxious to exonerate himself. "I hope she didn't feel left +out;" he said. "I did notice that she wasn't talking. I found her in the +garden, alone--she seemed to be enjoying that, too--and she and I went +about for quite a long time together." + +"I know you did," said Karen. "You are not thoughtless. As for her, one +never knows what she feels. I don't think that she does feel things of +that sort at all; she has been used to it all her life, one may say; but +there's very little she doesn't notice and understand. She +understands--oh, perfectly well--that she is a queer old piece of +furniture standing in the background, and one has to remember not to +treat her like a piece of furniture. It's a part of grace and tact, +isn't it, not to take such obvious things for granted. You didn't take +them for granted with her, or with me," said Karen, smiling her +recognition at him. "For, of course, to most people I am furniture, too; +and if Tante is about, there is, of course, nothing to blame in that; +everybody becomes furniture when Tante is there." + +"Oh no; I can't agree to that," said Gregory. "Not everybody." + +"You know what I mean," Karen rejoined. "If you will not agree to it for +me, it is because from the first you felt me to be your friend; that is +different." They were walking in the flagged garden where the blue +campanulas were now safely established in their places and the low +afternoon sun slanted in among the trees. Karen still wore her hat and +motoring veil and the smoky grey substance flowed softly back about her +shoulders. Her face seemed to emerge from a cloud. It had always to +Gregory's eyes the air of steadfast advance; the way in which her hair +swept back and up from her brows gave it a wind-blown, lifted look. He +glanced at her now from time to time, while, in a meditative and +communicative mood, she continued to share her reflections with him. +Gregory was very happy. + +"Even Tante doesn't always remember enough about Mrs. Talcott," she went +on. "That is of course because Mrs. Talcott is so much a part of her +life that she sometimes hardly sees her. She _is_, for her, the dear old +restful chair that she sinks back into and forgets about. Besides, some +people have a right not to see things. One doesn't ask from giants the +same sort of perception that one does from pygmies." + +This was indeed hard on the Lavingtons; but Gregory was not thinking of +the Lavingtons, who could take care of themselves. He was wondering, as +he more and more wondered, about Madame von Marwitz, and what she saw +and what she permitted herself not to see. + +"You aren't invisible to her sometimes?" he inquired. + +Her innocence before his ironies made him ashamed always of having +spoken them. "It is just that that makes me feel sometimes so badly +about Mrs. Talcott," she answered now; "just because she is, in a sense, +sometimes invisible, and I'm not. Mrs. Talcott, of course, counts for a +great deal more in the way of comfort and confidence than I do; I don't +believe that Tante really is as intimate with anybody in the world as +with Mrs. Talcott; but she doesn't count as much as I do, I am nearly +sure, in the way of tenderness. I really think that in the way of +tenderness I am nearer than anybody." + +They left the flagged garden now, and came down to a lower terrace. Here +the sun shone fully; they walked to and fro in the radiance. "Of +course," Karen continued to define and confide, "as far as interest goes +any one of her real friends counts for more than I do, and you mustn't +think that I mean to say that I believe myself the most loved; not at +all. But I am the tender, home thing in her life; the thing to pet and +care for and find waiting. It is that that is so beautiful for me and so +tragic for her." + +"Why tragic?" + +"Oh, but you do not feel it? A woman like that, such a heart, and such a +spirit--and no one nearer than I am? That she should have no husband and +no child? I am a makeshift for all that she has lost, or never had." + +"And Mrs. Talcott?" said Gregory after a moment. "Is it Mrs. Talcott's +tragedy to have missed even a makeshift?" + +Karen now turned her eyes on him, and her face, as she scrutinized him, +showed a slight severity. "Hardly that. She has Tante." + +"Has her as the chair has her, you mean?" He couldn't for the life of +him control the question. It seemed indeed due to their friendship that +he should not conceal from her the fact that he found disproportionate +elements in her devotion. Yet it was not the right way in which to be +frank, and Karen showed him so in her reply. "I mean that Tante is +everything to her and that, in the nature of things, she cannot be so +much to Tante. You mustn't take quite literally what I said of the +chair, you know. It can hardly be a makeshift to have somebody like +Tante to love and care for. I don't quite know what you mean by speaking +like that," Karen said. Her gaze, in meeting his, had become almost +stern. She seemed to scan him from a distance. + +Gregory, though he felt a pang of disquietude, felt no disposition to +retreat. He intended that she should be made to understand what he +meant. "I think that what it comes to is that it is you I am thinking +of, rather than of Mrs. Talcott," he said. "I don't know your guardian, +and I do know you, and it is what she gets rather than what she gives +that is most apparent to me." + +"Gets? From me? What may that be?" Karen continued to return his gaze +almost with haughtiness. + +"The most precious thing I can imagine," said Gregory. "Your love. I +hope that she is properly grateful for it." + +She looked at him and the slow colour mounted to her cheeks; but it was +as if in unconscious response to his feeling; it hardly, even yet, +signified self-consciousness. She had stood still in asking her last +question and she still did not move as she said: "I do not like to hear +you speak so. It shows me that you understand nothing." + +"Does it? I want to understand everything." + +"You care for me," said Karen, standing still, her eyes on his, "and I +care for you; but what I most wish in such a friend is that he should +see and understand. May I tell you something? Will you wait while I +tell you about my life?" + +"Please tell me." + +"I want you to see and understand Tante," said Karen. "And how much I +love her; and why." + +They walked on, from the terrace to the cliff-path. Karen stopped when +they had gone a little way and leaned her elbows on the stone wall +looking out at the sea. "She has been everything to me," she said. +"Everything." + +He was aware, as he leaned beside her in the mellow evening light, of a +great uneasiness mingling with the beautiful gravity of the moment. She +was near him as she had never yet been near. She had almost recognized +his love. It was there between them, and it was as if, not turning from +it, she yet pointed to something beyond and above it, something that it +was his deep instinct to evade and hers to show him. He must not take a +step towards her, she seemed to tell him, until he had proved to her +that he had seen what she did. And nothing she could say would, he felt +sure of it, alter his fundamental distrust of Madame von Marwitz. + +"I want to tell you about my life," said Karen, looking out at the sea +from between her hands. "You have heard my story, of course; people are +always told it; but you have never heard it from my side. You have heard +no doubt about my father and mother, and how she left the man she did +not love for him. My mother died when I was quite little; so, though I +remember her well she does not come into the part of my story that I +want to tell you. But I was thirteen years old when my father died, and +that begins the part that leads to Tante. It was in Rome, in winter when +he died; and I was alone with him; and there was no money, and I had +more to bear than a child's mind and heart should have. He died. And +then there were dreadful days. Cold, coarse people came and took me and +put me in a convent in Paris. That convent was like hell to me. I was so +miserable. And I had never known restraint or unkindness, and the French +girls, so sly and so small in their thoughts, were hateful to me. And I +did not like the nuns. I was punished and punished--rightly no doubt. I +was fierce and sullen, I remember, and would not obey. Then I heard, by +chance, from a girl whose family had been to her concert in Paris, that +Madame Okraska was with her husband at Fontainebleau. Of her I knew +nothing but the lovely face in the shop-windows. But her husband's name +brought back distant days to me. He had known my father; I remembered +him--the fair, large, kindly smiling, very sad man--in my father's +studio among the clay and marble. He bought once a little head my father +had done of me when I was a child. So I ran away from the convent--oh, +it was very bad; I knocked down a nun and escaped the portress, and hid +for a long time in the streets. And I made my way through Paris and +walked for a day and night to Fontainebleau; and there in the forest, in +the evening, I was lost, and almost dead with hunger and fatigue. And as +I stood by the road I saw the carriage approaching from very far away +and saw sitting in it, as it came nearer, the beautiful woman. Shall I +ever forget it? The dark forest and the evening sky above and her face +looking at me--looking, looking, full of pity and wonder. She has told +me that I was the most unhappy thing that she had ever seen. My father's +friend was with her; but though I saw him and knew that I was safe, I +had eyes only for her. Her face was like heaven opening. When the +carriage stopped and she leaned to me, I sprang to her and she put her +arms around me. They have been round me ever since," said Karen, joining +her fingers over her eyes and leaning her forehead upon them so that her +face was hidden; and for a moment she did not speak. "Ever since," she +went on presently, "she has been joy and splendour and beauty. What she +has given me is nothing. It is what she is herself that lifts the lives +of other people. Those who do not know her seem to me to have lives so +sad and colourless compared to mine. You cannot imagine it, anyone so +great, yet at the same time so little and so sweet. She is merry like no +one else, and witty, and full of cajoleries, like a child. One cannot be +dull with her, not for one moment. And there is through it all her +genius, the great flood of wonderful music; can you think what it is +like to live with that? And under-lying everything is the great +irremediable sorrow. I was with her when it came; the terrible thing. I +did not live with them while he was alive, you know, my Onkel Ernst; he +was so good and kind--always the kindest of friends to me; but he loved +her too deeply to be able to share their life, and how well one +understands that in her husband. He had me put at a school in Dresden. I +did not like that much, either. But, even if I were lonely, I knew that +my wonderful friends--my Tante and my Onkel--were there, like the sun +behind the grey day, and I tried to study and be dutiful to please them. +And in my holidays I was always with them, twice it was, at their +beautiful estate in Germany. And it was there that the horror came that +wrecked her life; her husband's death, his death that cannot be +explained or understood. He drowned himself. We never say it, but we +know it. That is the fear, the mystery. All his joy with her, his love +and happiness--to leave them;--it was madness; he had always been a sad +man; one saw that in his face; the doctors said it was madness. He +disappeared without a word one day. For three weeks--nothing. Tante was +like a creature crying out on the rack. And it was I who found him by +the lake-edge one morning. She was walking in the park, I knew; she used +to walk and walk fast, fast, quite silent; and with horrible fear I +thought: If I can keep her from seeing. I turned--and she was beside me. +I could not save her. Ah--poor woman!" Karen closed her hands over her +face. + +They stood for a long time in silence, Gregory leaning beside her and +looking down at the sea. His thought was not with the stricken figure +she put before him; it dwelt on the girl facing horror, on the child +bearing more than a child should bear. Yet he was glad to feel, as a +background to his thoughts, that Madame von Marwitz was indeed very +pitiful. + +"You understand," said Karen, straightening herself at last and laying +her hands on the wall. "You see how it is." + +"Yes," said Gregory. + +"It is kind of you, and beautiful, to feel me, as your friend, a person +of value," said Karen. "But it does not please me to have the great fact +of my life belittled." + +"I haven't meant to do that, really. I see why it means so much, to you. +But I see you before I see the facts of your life; they interest me +because of you," said Gregory. "You come first to me. It's that I want +you to understand." + +Karen had at last turned her eyes upon his and they met them in a long +encounter that recalled to Gregory their first. It was not the moment +for explicit recognitions or avowals; the shadow of the past lay too +darkly upon her. But that their relation had changed her deepened gaze +accepted. She took his hand, she had a fashion almost boyish of taking +his rather than giving her hand, and said: "We shall both understand +more and more; that is so, is it not? And some day you will know her. +Until you know her you cannot really understand." + + + + +CHAPTER XI + + +Karen and he had walked back to the house in silence, and at the door, +where she stood to see him off, it had been arranged that he was to +lunch at Les Solitudes next day and that she was to show him a favourite +headland, one not far away, but that he had never yet been shown. From +the sweetness, yet gravity, of her look and voice he could infer nothing +but that she recognized change and a new significance. Her manner had +neither the confusion nor the pretended unconsciousness of ordinary +girlhood. She was calm, but with a new thoughtfulness. He arrived a +little early next day and found Mrs. Talcott alone in the morning-room +writing letters. He noticed, as she rose from the bureau, her large, +immature, considered writing. "Karen'll be down in a minute or two, I +guess," she said. "Take a chair." + +"Don't let me interrupt you," said Gregory, as Mrs. Talcott seated +herself before him, her hands folded at her waist. But Mrs. Talcott, +remarking briefly, "Don't mention it," did not move back to her former +place. She examined him and he examined her and he felt that she probed +through his composure to his unrest. "I wanted a little talk," she +observed presently. "You've gotten pretty fond of Karen, haven't you, +Mr. Jardine?" + +This was to come at once to the point. "Very fond," said Gregory, +wondering if she had been diagnosing his fondness in a letter to Madame +von Marwitz. + +"She hasn't got many friends," Mrs. Talcott, after another moment of +contemplation, went on. "She's always been a lonesome sort of child." + +"That's what has struck me, too," said Gregory. + +"Sometimes Mercedes takes her along; but sometimes she don't," Mrs. +Talcott pursued. "It ain't a particularly lively sort of life for a +young girl, going on in an out-of-the-way place like this with an old +woman like me. She's spent most of her time with me, when you come to +reckon it up." There was no air of criticism or confidence in Mrs. +Talcott. She put forward these remarks with unbiassed placidity. + +"I suppose Madame von Marwitz couldn't arrange always to take her?" +Gregory asked after a pause. + +"It ain't always convenient toting a young girl round with you," said +Mrs. Talcott. "Sometimes Mercedes feels like it and sometimes she don't. +Karen and I stay at home, now that I'm too old to go about with her, and +we see her when she's home. That's the idea. But she ain't much at home. +She's mostly travelling and staying around with folks." + +"It isn't a particularly lively time, it seems to me, for either of +you," said Gregory. It was his instinct to blame Madame von Marwitz for +the featureless lives led by her dependents, though he could but own +that it might, perhaps, be difficult to fit them into the vagabondage of +a great pianist's existence. + +"Well, it's good enough for me," said Mrs. Talcott. "I'm very contented +if it comes to that; and so is Karen. She's known so much that's worse, +the same as I have. But she's known what's better, too; she was a pretty +big girl when her Poppa died and she was a companion to him and I reckon +that without figuring it up much to herself she's lonesome a good deal." + +Gregory for a moment was silent. Then he found it quite natural to say +to Mrs. Talcott: "What I hope is that she will marry me." + +"I hope so, too," said Mrs. Talcott with no alteration of tone. "I hoped +so the moment I set eyes on you. I saw that you were a good young man +and that you'd make her a good kind husband." + +"Thanks, very much," said Gregory, smiling yet deeply touched. "I hope I +may be. I intend to be if she will have me." + +"The child is mighty fond of you," said Mrs. Talcott. "And it's not as +if she took easy to people. She don't. She's never seemed to need folks. +But I can see that she's mighty fond of you, and what I want to say is, +even if it don't seem to work out like you want it to right away, you +hang on, Mr. Jardine; that's my advice; an old woman like me understands +young girls better than they understand themselves. Karen is so wrapped +up in Mercedes and thinks such a sight of her that perhaps she'll feel +she don't want to leave her and that sort of thing; but just you hang +on." + +"I intend to," said Gregory. "I can't say how much I thank you for being +on my side." + +"Yes; I'm on your side, and I'm on Karen's side; and I want to see this +thing put through," said Mrs. Talcott. + +Something seemed to hover between them now, a fourth figure that must be +added to the trio they made. He wondered, if he did hang on successfully +and if it did work out as he intended that it should, how that fourth +figure would work in. He couldn't see a shared life with Karen from +which it could be eliminated, nor did he, of course, wish to see it +eliminated; but he did not see himself, either, as forming one of a band +of satellites, and the main fact about the fourth figure seemed to be +that any relation to it involved one, apparently, in discipleship. There +seemed even some disloyalty to Mrs. Talcott in accepting her sympathy +while anxieties and repudiations such as these were passing through his +mind; for she, no doubt, saw in Karen's relation to Madame von Marwitz +the chief asset with which she could present a husband; and he expected +Mrs. Talcott, now, to make some reference to this asset; but none came; +and if she expected from him some recognition of it, no expectancy was +visible in the old blue eyes fixed on his face. A silence fell between +them, and as it grew longer it grew the more consoling. Into their +compact of understanding she let him see, he could almost fancy, that +the question of Madame von Marwitz was not to enter. + +Karen, when she appeared, was looking preoccupied, and after shaking his +hand and giving him, for a moment, the sweet, grave smile with which +they had parted, she glanced at the writing-table. "You are writing to +Tante, Mrs. Talcott?" she said. "You heard from her this morning?" + +"Yes; I heard from her," said Mrs. Talcott. Gregory at once inferred +that Madame von Marwitz had been writing for information concerning +himself. + +She must by now have become aware of his correspondence with Karen and +its significant continuity. + +"Are there any messages?--any news?" asked Karen, and she could not keep +dejection from her voice. She had had no letter. + +"It's only a business note," said Mrs. Talcott. "Hasn't Miss Scrotton +written?" + +"Does my cousin keep you posted as a rule?" Gregory asked, as Karen +shook her head. + +"No; but Tante asks her to write sometimes, when she is too tired or +rushed; and I had a letter from her, giving me their plans, only a few +days ago; so that I know that all is well. It is only that I am always +greedy for Tante's letters, and this is the day on which they often +come." + +They went in to lunch. Karen spoke little during the meal. Gregory and +Mrs. Talcott carried on a desultory conversation about hotels and the +different merits of different countries in this respect. Mrs. Talcott +had a vast experience of hotels. From Germany to Australia, from New +York to St. Petersburg, they were known to her. + +After lunch he and Karen started on their walk. It had been a morning of +white fog and the mist still lay thickly over the sea, so that from the +high cliff-path, a clear, pale sky above them, they looked down into +milky gulfs of space. Then, as the sun shone softly and a gentle breeze +arose, a rift of dark, still blue appeared below, as the sky appears +behind dissolving clouds, and fold upon fold, slumbrously, the mist +rolled back upon itself. The sea lay like a floor of polished sapphire +beneath the thick, soft webs. Far below, in a cavern, the sound of +lapping water clucked, and a sea-gull, indolently intent, drifted by +slowly on dazzling wings. + +Karen and Gregory reached their headland and, seating themselves on the +short, warm turf, looked out over the sea. During the walk they had +hardly spoken, and he had wondered whether her thoughts were with him +and with their last words yesterday, or dwelling still on her +disappointment. But presently, as if her preoccupation had drifted from +her as the fog had drifted from the sea, Karen turned tranquil eyes upon +him and said: "I suddenly thought, and the stillness made me think it, +and Mrs. Talcott's hotels, too, perhaps, of all that is going on in the +world while we sit here so lonely and so peaceful. Frenchmen with fat +cheeks and flat-brimmed silk hats sitting at little tin tables in +boulevards; isn't it difficult to realize that they exist? and Arabs on +camels crossing deserts; they are quite imaginable; and nuns praying in +convent cells; and stokers, all stripped and sweating, under the engines +of great steamers; and a little Japanese artist carving so carefully the +soles of the feet of some tiny image; there they are, all going on; as +real to themselves as we are, at the very moment that we sit here and +feel that only we, in all the world, are real." She might almost have +been confiding her fancies to a husband whose sympathy had been tested +by years of fond companionship. + +Gregory, wondering at her, loving her, pulled at the short turf as he +lay, propped on an elbow, beside her, and said: "What nice thoughts you +have." + +"You have them, too, I think," said Karen, smiling down at him. "And +nicer ones. Mine are usually only amusing, like those; but yours are +often beautiful. I see that in your face, you know. It is a face that +makes me think always of a cold, clear, steely pool;--that is what it +looks like if one does not look down into it but only across it, as it +were; but if one bends over and looks down, deep down, one sees the sky +and passing white clouds and boughs of trees. I saw deep down at once. +That is why," her eyes rested upon him, "we were friends from the +first." + +"It's what you bring that you see," said Gregory; "you make me think of +all those things." + +"Ah, but you think them for yourself, too; when you are alone you think +them." + +"But when I am alone and think them, without you in the thought of them, +it's always with sadness, for something I've lost. You bring them back, +with happiness. The thought of you is always happy. I have never known +anyone who seemed to me so peacefully happy as you do. You are very +happy, aren't you?" Gregory looked down at his little tufts of turf as +he asked this question. + +"I am glad I seem to you like that," said Karen. "I think I am usually +quiet and gay and full of confidence; I sometimes wonder at my +confidence. But it is not always so. No, I am not always happy. +Sometimes, when I think and remember, it is like feeling a great hole +being dug in my heart--as if the iron went down and turned up dark +forgotten things. I have that feeling sometimes; and then I wonder that +I can ever be happy." + +"What things, dear Karen?" + +"You know, I think." Karen looked out at the sea. "Tante's face when I +found her husband's body. And my father's face when he was dying; he did +not know what was to become of me; he was quite weak, like a little +child, and he cried on my breast. And my mother's face when she died. I +have not told you anything of my mother." + +"Will you? I want to hear everything about you; everything," said +Gregory. + +"This is her locket," Karen said, putting her hand over it. "Her face is +in it; would you like to see it?" + +He held out his hand, and slipping the ribbon over her head she pressed +the little spring and laid the open locket in it. + +He saw the tinted photograph of a young girl's head, a girl younger than +Karen and with her fair hair and straight brows and square chin; but it +was a gentler face and a clumsier, and strange with its alien +nationality. + +"I always feel as if she were my child and I her mother when I look at +that," said Karen. "It was taken before I was born. She had a happy +life, and yet my memory of her breaks my heart. She was so very young +and it frightened her so much to die; she could not bear to leave us." + +Gregory, holding the little locket, looked at it silently. Then he put +it to his lips. "You care for me, don't you, Karen?" he said. + +"You know, I think," said Karen, repeating her former words. + +He laid the locket in her hand, and the moment had for him a sacramental +holiness so that the locket was like a wedding-ring; holding it and her +hand together he said, lifting his eyes to hers, "I love you. Do you +love me?" + +Her eyes had filled with tears when he had kissed her mother's face, and +there was young awe in her gaze; but no shadow, no surprise. + +"Yes," she said, unhesitatingly. "Yes, I love you, dear Gregory." + +The simplicity, the inevitableness of his bliss overwhelmed him. He held +her hand and looked down at it. All about them was the blue. All her +past, its beauty, its dark, forgotten things, she had given to him. She +was his for ever. "Oh, my darling Karen," he murmured. + +She bent down to look at him now, smiling and unclosing her hand from +his gently, so that she could look at her mother's face. "How glad she +would be if she could know," she said. "Perhaps she does know. Do you +not think so?" + +"Dear--I don't know what I think about those hopes. I hope." + +"Oh, it is more than hope, my belief that she is there; that she is not +lost. Only one cannot tell how or when or where it all may be. For that, +yes, it can be only hope. She, too, would love you, I am sure," Karen +continued. + +"Would she? I'm glad you think so, darling." + +"We are so much alike, you see, that it is natural to feel sure that we +should think alike. Do you not think that her face is much like mine? +What happiness! I am glad it is not a day of rain for our happiness." +And she then added, "I hope we may be married." + +"Why, we are to be married, dear child," Gregory said, smiling at her. +"There is no 'may' about it, since you love me." + +"Only one," said Karen, who still looked at her mother's face. "And +perhaps it will be well not to speak much of our love till we can know. +But I feel sure that she will say this happiness is for me." + +"She?" Gregory repeated. For a moment he imagined that she meant some +superstition connected with her mother. + +Karen, slipping the ribbon over her head, had returned the locket to its +place. "Yes; Tante," she said, still with the locket in her hand. + +"Tante?" Gregory repeated. + +At his tone, its change, she lifted startled eyes to his. + +"What has she to do with it?" Gregory asked after a moment in which she +continued to gaze at him. + +"What has Tante to do with it?" said Karen in a wondering voice. "Do you +think I could marry without Tante's consent?" + +"But you love me?" + +"I do not understand you. Was it wrong of me to have said so before I +had her consent? Was that not right? Not fair to you?" + +"Since you love me you ought to be willing to marry me whether you have +your guardian's consent or not." His voice strove to control its +bitterness; but the day had darkened; all his happiness was blurred. He +felt as if a great injury had been done him. + +Karen continued to gaze at him in astonishment. "Would you have expected +me to marry you without my mother's consent? She is in my mother's +place." + +"If you loved me I should certainly expect you to say that you would +marry me whether your mother consented or not. You are of age. There is +nothing against me. Those aren't English ideas at all, Karen." + +"But I am not English," said Karen, "my guardian is not English. They +are our ideas." + +"You mean, you seriously mean, that, loving me, you would give me up if +she told you to?" + +"Yes," said Karen, now with the heaviness of their recognized division. +"She would not refuse her consent unless it were right that I should +give you up." + +For some moments after this Gregory, in silence, looked down at the +grass between them, clasping his knees; for he now sat upright. Then, +controlling his anger to argumentative rationality, he said, while again +wrenching away at the strongly rooted tufts: "If she did refuse, what +reason could she give for refusing? As I say, there's absolutely nothing +against me." + +Karen had kept her troubled eyes on his downcast face. "There might be +things she did not like; things she would not believe for my happiness +in married life," she replied. + +"And you would take her word against mine?" + +"You forget, I think," he had lifted his eyes to hers and she looked +back at him, steadily, with no entreaty, but with all the perplexity of +her deep pain. "She has known me for eleven years. I have only known you +for three months." + +He could not now control the bitterness or the dismay; for, coldly, +cuttingly he knew it, it was quite possible that Madame von Marwitz +would not "like things" in him. Their one encounter had not been of a +nature to endear him to her. "It simply means," he said, looking into +her eyes, "that you haven't any conception of what love is. It means +that you don't love me." + +They looked at each other for a moment and then Karen said, "That is +hard." And after another moment she rose to her feet. Gregory got up and +they went down the cliff-path towards Les Solitudes. + +He had not spoken recklessly. His words expressed his sense of her +remoteness. He could not imagine what sort of love it was that could so +composedly be put aside. And making no feminine appeal or protest, she +walked steadily, in silence, before him. Only at a turning of the way +did he see that her lips were compressed and tears upon her cheeks. + +"Karen," he said, looking into her face as he now walked beside her; +"won't you talk it over? You astonish me so unspeakably. Can she destroy +our friendship, too? Would you give me up as a friend if she didn't like +things in me?" + +The tears expressed no yielding, for she answered "Yes." + +"And how far do you push submission? If she told you to marry someone +she chose for you, would you consent, whether you loved him or not?" + +"It is not submission," said Karen. "It is our love, hers and mine. She +would not wish me to marry a man I did not love. The contrary is true. +My guardian before she went away spoke to me of a young man she had +chosen for me, someone for whom she had the highest regard and +affection; and I, too, am very fond of him. She felt that it would be +for my happiness to marry him, and she hoped that I would consent. But I +did not love him. I told her that I could never love him; and so it +ended immediately. You do her injustice in your thoughts of her; and you +do me injustice, too, if you think of me as a person who would marry +where I did not love." + +He walked beside her, bitterly revolving the sorry comfort of this last +speech. "Who was the young man?" he asked. Not that he really cared to +know. + +"His name is Herr Franz Lippheim," said Karen, gravely. "He is a young +musician." + +"Herr Franz Lippheim," Gregory repeated, with an irritation glad to +wreak itself on this sudden object presented opportunely. "How could you +have been imagined as marrying someone called Lippheim?" + +"Why not, pray?" + +"Is he a German Jew?" Gregory inquired after a moment. + +"He is, indeed, of Joachim's nationality," Karen answered, in a voice +from which the tears were gone. + +They walked on, side by side, the estrangement cutting deep between +their new-won nearness. Yet in the estrangement was an intimacy deeper +than that of the merely blissful state. They seemed in the last +miserable half hour to have advanced by years their knowledge of each +other. Mrs. Talcott and tea were waiting for them in the morning-room. +The old woman fixed her eyes upon each face in turn and then gave her +attention to her tea-pot. + +"I am sorry, Mrs. Talcott, that we are so late," Karen said. Her +composure was kept only by an effort that gave to her tones a stately +conventionality. + +"Don't mention it," said Mrs. Talcott. "I'm only just in myself." + +"Has it not been a beautiful afternoon?" Karen continued. "What have you +been doing in the garden, Mrs. Talcott?" + +"I sowed a big bed of mignonette down by the arbour, and Mitchell and I +set out a good lot of plants." + +Mrs. Talcott made her replies to the questions that Karen continued to +ask, in an even voice in which Gregory, who kept his dismal eyes upon +her, detected a melancholy patience. Mrs. Talcott must perceive his +state to be already one of "hanging on." Of her sympathy he was, at all +events, assured. She showed it by rising as soon as he and Karen had +drunk their tea. "I've got some more things to do," she said. "Good-bye, +Mr. Jardine. Are you coming over to-morrow?" + +"No," said Gregory taking Mrs. Talcott's hand. "My holiday is over. I +shall be going back to town to-morrow." + +Mrs. Talcott looked into his eyes. "Well, that's too bad," she observed. + +"Isn't it? I'd far rather stay here, I can assure you," said Gregory. + +"We'll miss you, I guess," said Mrs. Talcott. "I'm very glad to have had +the pleasure of making your acquaintance." + +"And I of making yours." + +Mrs. Talcott departed and Gregory turned to Karen. She was standing near +the window, looking at him. + +"We must say good-bye, too, I suppose," said Gregory, mastering his +grief. "You will give me your guardian's address so that I can write to +her at once?" + +Her face had worn the aspect of a grey, passive sheet of water; a +radiant pallor now seemed struck from its dulled surface. + +"You are going to write to Tante?" she said. + +"Isn't that the next step?" Gregory asked. "You will write, too, won't +you? Or is it part of my ordeal that I'm to plead my cause alone?" + +Karen had clasped her hands together on her breast and, in the eyes +fixed on his, tears gathered. "Do not speak harshly," she said. "I am so +sorry there must be the ordeal. But so happy, too--so suddenly. Because +I believed that you were going to leave me since you thought me so wrong +and so unloving." + +"Going to leave you, Karen?" Gregory repeated in amazement. Desperate +amusement struggled in his face with self-reproach. "My darling child, +what must you think of me? And, actually, you'd have let me go?" He had +come to her and taken her hands in his. + +"What else could I do?" + +"Such an idiot would have deserved it? Could you believe me such an +idiot? Darling, you so astonish me. What a strange, indomitable creature +you are." + +"What else could I do, Gregory?" she repeated, looking into his face and +not smiling in answer to his smiling, frowning gaze. + +"Love me more; that's what you could have done--a great deal more," said +Gregory. "That's what you must do, Karen. I can't bear to think that you +wouldn't marry me without her consent. I can't bear to think that you +don't love me enough. But leave you because you don't love me as much as +I want you to love me! My darling, how little you understand." + +"You seemed very angry," said Karen. "I was so unhappy. I don't know how +I should have borne it if you had gone away and left me like this. But +love should not make one weak, Gregory. There you are wrong, to think it +is because I do not love you." + +"Ah, you'll find out if I'm wrong!" Gregory exclaimed with tender +conviction. "You'll find out how much more you are to love me. Oh, yes, +I will kiss you good-bye, Karen. I don't care if all the Tantes in the +world forbid it!" + +In thinking afterwards of these last moments that they had had together, +the discomfitures and dismays of the afternoon tended to resolve +themselves for Gregory into the memory of the final yielding. She had +let him take her into his arms, and with the joy was the added sweetness +of knowing that in permitting and reciprocating his unauthorized kiss +she sacrificed some principles, at all events, for his sake. + + + + +CHAPTER XII + + +Madame von Marwitz was sitting on the great terrace of a country-house +in Massachusetts, opening and reading her post, as we have already seen +her do. Impatient and weary as the occupation often made her, she yet +depended upon the morning waves of adulation that lapped in upon her +from every quarter of the earth. To miss the fullness of the tide gave +her, when by chance there was deficiency, the feeling that badly made +_cafe au lait_ gave her at the beginning of the day; something was +wrong; the expected stimulant lacked in force or in flavour, and coffee +that was not strong and sweet and aromatic was a mishap so unusual that, +when it occurred, it became an offence almost gross and unnatural, as +did a post that brought few letters of homage and appreciation. To-day +the mental coffee was as strong and as perfumed as that of which she had +shortly before partaken in her lovely little _Louis Quinze_ boudoir, +after she had come in from her bath. The bath-room was like that of a +Roman Empress, all white marble, with a square of emerald water into +which one descended down shallow marble steps. Madame von Marwitz was +amused by the complexities of luxury among which she found herself, some +of which, even to her, were novel. "_Eh, eh, ma chere_," she had said to +Miss Scrotton, "beautiful if you will, and very beautiful; but its nails +are too much polished, its hair too much _ondule_. I prefer a porcelain +to a marble bath-tub." But the ingenuities of hospitality which the +Aspreys--earnest and accomplished millionaires--lavished upon their +guests made one, she owned, balmily comfortable. And as she sat now in +her soft white draperies under a great silken sunshade, raised on a +stand above her and looking in the sunlight like a silver bell, the +beauty of her surroundings--the splendid Italian gardens, a miracle of +achievement even if lacking, as the miraculous may, an obvious relation +with its surroundings; the landscape with its inlaid lake and wood and +hill and great arch of bluest sky; the tall, transparent, Turneresque +trees in the middle distance;--all this stately serenity seemed to have +wrought in her an answering suavity and gladness. There was almost a +latent gaiety in her glance, as, with her large, white, securely moving +hands, which seemed to express their potential genius in every deft and +delicate gesture, she took up and cut open and unfolded her letters, +pausing between them now and then to tweak off and eat a grape as large +as a plum from the bunch lying on its leaves in a Veronese-like silver +platter beside her. + +This suavity, this gladness and even gaiety of demeanour were apparent +to Miss Eleanor Scrotton when she presently emerged from the house and +advanced slowly along the terrace, pausing at intervals beside its +balustrade to gaze with a somewhat melancholy eye over the prospect. + +Miss Scrotton was struggling with a half formulated sense of grievance. +It was she who had brought Madame von Marwitz and the Aspreys together. +Madame von Marwitz already knew, of course, most of the people in +America who were worth knowing; if she hadn't met them there she had met +them in Europe; but the Aspreys she had, till then, never met, and they +had been, indisputably, Miss Scrotton's possession. Miss Scrotton had +known them slightly for several years; her father and Mr. Asprey had +corresponded on some sociological theme and the Aspreys had called on +him in London in a mood of proper deference and awe. She had written to +the Aspreys before sailing with Mercedes, had found that they were +wintering in Egypt, but would be back in America in Spring, ready to +receive Madame von Marwitz and herself with open arms; and within those +arms she had, a week ago, placed her treasure. No doubt someone else +would have done it if she hadn't; and perhaps she had been too eager in +her determination that no one else should do it. Perhaps she was +altogether a little too eager. Madame von Marwitz liked people to care +for her and showed a pretty gratitude for pains endured on her behalf; +at least she usually did so; but it may well have been that the great +woman, at once vaguely aloof and ironically observant, had become a +little irked, or bored, or merely amused at hearing so continually, as +it were, her good Scrotton panting beside her, tense, determined and +watchful of opportunity. However that may have been, Miss Scrotton, as +Madame von Marwitz's glance now lifted and rested upon herself, detected +the sharper gaiety defined by the French as "_malice_," lighting, though +ever so mildly, her friend's eyes and lips. Like most devotees Miss +Scrotton had something of the valet in her composition, and with the +valet's capacity for obsequiousness went a valet-like shrewdness of +perception. She hadn't spent four months travelling about America with +Madame von Marwitz without seeing her in undress. She had long since +become uncomfortably aware that when Madame von Marwitz found one a +little ridiculous she could be unkind, and that when one added +plaintiveness to folly she often amused herself by giving one, to speak +metaphorically, soft yet sharp little pinches that left one nervously +uncertain of whether a caress or an aggression had been intended. + +Miss Scrotton was plaintive, and she could not conceal it. Glory as she +might in the _role_ of second fiddle, she was very tenaciously aware of +what was due to that subservient but by no means insignificant +performer; and the Aspreys had not shown themselves enough aware, +Mercedes had not shown herself aware at all, of what they all owed to +her sustaining, discreet and harmonious accompaniment. In the carefully +selected party assembled at Belle Vue for Madame von Marwitz's +delectation, she had been made a little to feel that she was but one of +the indistinguishable orchestra that plucked out from accommodating +strings a mellow bass to the one thrilling solo. Not for one moment did +she grudge any of the recognitions that were her great friend's due; but +she did expect to bask beside her; she did expect to find transmitted to +her an important satellite's share of beams; and, it wasn't to be +denied, Mercedes had been too much occupied with other people--and with +one other in particular--to shine upon her in any distinguishing degree. +Mercedes had the faculty, chafe against it as one might--and her very +fondness, her very familiarity were a part of the effect--of making one +show as an unimportant satellite, as something that would revolve when +wanted and be contentedly invisible when that was fitting. "I might +almost as well be a paid _dame de compagnie_," Miss Scrotton had more +than once murmured to herself with a lip that trembled; and, obscurely, +she realised that close association with the great might reveal one as +insignificant rather than as glorified. It was therefore with her air of +melancholy that she paused in her advance along the terrace to gaze out +at the prospect, and with an air of emphasized calm and dignity that she +finally came towards her friend; and, as she came, thus armed, the +blitheness deepened in the great woman's eyes. + +"Well, _ma cherie_," she remarked, "How goes it?" She spoke in French. + +"Very well, _ma bien aimee_," Miss Scrotton replied in the same +language. Her French was correct, but Mercedes often made playful +sallies at the expense of her accent. She preferred not to talk in +French. And when Madame von Marwitz went on to ask her where her fellow +_convives_ were, it was in English that she answered, "I don't know +where they all are--I have been busy writing letters; Mrs. Asprey and +Lady Rose are driving, I know, and Mr. Asprey and Mr. Drew I saw in the +smoking-room as I passed. The Marquis I don't think is down yet, nor +Mrs. Furnivall; the young people are playing tennis, I suppose." + +Miss Scrotton looked about the terrace with its rhythmic tubs of +flowering trees, its groups of chairs, its white silk parasols, and then +wandered to the parapet to turn and glance up at the splendid copy of an +Italian villa that rose above it. "It is really very beautiful, +Mercedes," she observed. "It becomes the more significant from being so +isolated, so divorced from what we are accustomed to find in Europe as a +setting for such a place, doesn't it? Just as, I always think, the +people of the Asprey type, the best this country has to offer, are more +significant, too, for being picked out from so much that is +indistinguishable. I do flatter myself, darling, that in this visit, at +least, I've been able to offer you something really worth your while, +something that adds to your experience of people and places. You _are_ +enjoying yourself," said Miss Scrotton with a manner of sad +satisfaction. + +"Yes; truly," Madame von Marwitz made genial reply. "The more so for +finding myself surrounded by so many old acquaintances. It is a +particular pleasure to see again Lady Rose and the vivacious and +intelligent Mrs. Furnivall; it was in Venice that we last met; her +Palazzo there you must one day see. Monsieur de Hautefeuille and Mr. +Drew I counted already as friends in Europe." + +"And Mrs. Asprey you will soon count as one, I hope. She is really a +somewhat remarkable woman. She comes, you know, of one of their best and +oldest families." + +"Oh, for that, no; not remarkable. Good, if you will--_bon comme du +pain_; it strikes me much, that goodness, among these American rich whom +we are accustomed to hear so crudely caricatured in Europe;--and it is +quite a respectable little aristocracy. They ally themselves, as we see +here in our excellent host and hostess, with what there is of old blood +in the country and win tradition to guide their power. They are not the +flaunting, vulgar rich, of whom we hear so much from those who do not +know them, but the anxious, thoughtful, virtuous rich, oppressed by +their responsibilities and all studying so hard, poor dears, at stiff, +deep books, in order to fulfil them worthily. They all go to +_conferences_, these ladies, it seems, and study sociology. They take +life with a seriousness that I have never seen equalled. Mrs. Asprey is +like them all; good, oh, but yes. And I am pleased to know her, too. +Mrs. Furnivall had promised her long since, she tells me, that it should +be. She and Mrs. Furnivall are old school-mates." + +Miss Scrotton, all her merit thus mildly withdrawn from her, stood +silent for some moments looking away at the lake and the Turneresque +trees. + +"It was so very kind of you, Mercedes, to have had Mr. Drew asked here," +she observed at last, very casually. "It is a real opportunity for a +young bohemian of that type; you are a true fairy-godmother to him; +first Mrs. Forrester and now the Aspreys. Curious, wasn't it, his +appearing over here so suddenly?" + +"Curious? It did not strike me so," said Madame von Marwitz, showing no +consciousness of the thrust her friend had ventured to essay. "People +come to America a great deal, do they not; and often suddenly. It is the +country of suddenness. His books are much read here, it seems, and he +had business with his publishers. He knew, too, that I was here; and +that to him was also an attraction. Why curious, my Scrotton?" + +Miss Scrotton disliked intensely being called "my Scrotton;" but she had +never yet found the necessary courage to protest against the +appellation. "Oh, only because I had had no hint of it until he +appeared," she returned. "And I wondered if you had had. Yes; I suppose +he would be a good deal read over here. It is a very derivative and +artificial talent, don't you think, darling?" + +"Rather derivative; rather artificial," Madame von Marwitz replied +serenely. + +"He doesn't look well, does he?" Miss Scrotton pursued, after a little +pause. "I don't like that puffiness about the eyelids and chin. It will +be fatal for him to become fat." + +"No," said Madame von Marwitz, as serenely as before, her eyes now on a +letter that she held. "Ah, no; he could rise above fat, that young man. +I can see him fat with impunity. Would it become, then, somewhat the +Talleyrand type? How many distinguished men have been fat. Napoleon, +Renan, Gibbon, Dr. Johnson--" she turned her sheet as she mildly brought +out the desultory list. "And all seem to end in n, do they not? I am +glad that I asked Mr. Drew. He flavours the dish like an aromatic herb; +and what a success he has been; _hein_? But he is the type of personal +success. He is independent, indifferent, individual." + +"Ah, my dear, you are too generous to that young man," Miss Scrotton +mused. "It's beautiful, it's wonderful to watch; but you are, indeed, +too kind to him." She mused, she was absent, yet she knew, and knew that +Mercedes knew, that never before in all their intercourse had she +ventured on such a speech. It implied watchfulness; it implied +criticism; it implied, even, anxiety; it implied all manner of things +that it was not permitted for a satellite to say. + +The Baroness's eyes were on her letter, and though she did not raise +them her dark brows lifted. "_Tiens_," she continued, "you find that I +am too kind to him?" + +Miss Scrotton, to keep up the appearance of ingenuousness, was forced to +further definition. "I don't think, darling, that in your sympathy, your +solicitude, where young talent is concerned, you quite realize how much +you give, how much you can be made use of. The man admires you, of +course, and has, of course, talent of a sort. Yet, when I see you +together, I confess that I receive sometimes the impression of a +scattering of pearls." + +Madame von Marwitz laid down her letter. "Ah! ah!--oh! oh!--_ma bonne_," +she said. She laughed out. Her eyes were lit with dancing sparks. "Do +you know you speak as if you were very, very jealous of this young man +who is found so charming?" + +"Jealous, my dear Mercedes?" Miss Scrotton's emotion showed itself in a +dark flush. + +"_Mais oui; mais oui_; you tell me that my friend is a swine. Does +that not mean that you, of late, have received too few pearls?" + +"My dear Mercedes! Who called him a swine?" + +"One doesn't speak of scattered pearls without rousing these +associations." Her tone was beaming. + +Was it possible to swallow such an affront? Was it possible not to? And +she had brought it upon herself. There was comfort and a certain +restoration of dignity in this thought. Miss Scrotton, struggling +inwardly, feigned lightness. "So few of us are worthy of your pearls, +dear. Unworthiness doesn't, I hope, consign us to the porcine category. +Perhaps it is that being, like him, a little person, I'm able to see Mr. +Drew's merits and demerits more impartially than you do. That is all. I +really ought to know a good deal about Mr. Drew," Miss Scrotton pursued, +regaining more self-control, now that she had steered her way out of the +dreadful shoals where her friend's words had threatened to sink her; +"I've known him since the days when he was at Oxford and I used to stay +there with my uncle the Dean. He was sitting, then, at the feet of +Pater. It's a derivative, a _parvenu_ talent, and, I do feel it, I +confess I do, a derivative personality altogether, like that of so many +of these clever young men nowadays. He is, you know, of anything but +distinguished antecedents, and his reaction from his own _milieu_ has +been, perhaps, from the first, a little marked. Unfortunately his +marriage is there to remind people of it, and I never see Mr. Drew _dans +le monde_ without, irrepressibly, thinking of the dismal little wife in +Surbiton whom I once called upon, and his swarms--but swarms, my +dear--of large-mouthed children." + +Miss Scrotton wondered, as she proceeded, whether she had again too far +abandoned discretion. + +The Baroness examined her next letter for a moment before opening it and +if she, too, had received her sting, she abandoned nothing. + +She answered with complete, though perhaps ominous, mildness: "He is +rather like Shelley, I always think, a sophisticated Shelley who had sat +at the feet of Pater. Shelley, too, had swarms of children, and it is +possible that they were large-mouthed. The plebeian origin that you tell +me of rather attracts me. I care, especially, for the fine flame that +mounts from darkness; and I, too, on one side, as you will remember, _ma +bonne_, am _du peuple_." + +"My dear Mercedes! Your father was an artist, a man of genius; and if +your parents had risen from the gutter, you, by your own genius, +transcend the question of rank as completely as a Shakespeare." + +The continued mildness was alarming Miss Scrotton; an eagerness to make +amends was in her eye. + +"Ah--but did he, poor man!" Madame von Marwitz mused, rather +irrelevantly, her eyes on her letter. "One hears now, not. But thank +you, my Scrotton, you mean to be consoling. I have, however, no dread of +the gutter. _Tiens_," she turned a page, "here is news indeed." + +Miss Scrotton had now taken a chair beside her and her fingers tapped a +little impatiently as the Baroness's eye--far from the thought of pearls +and swine--went over the letter. + +"_Tiens, tiens_," Madame von Marwitz repeated; "the little Karen is +sought in marriage." + +"Really," said Miss Scrotton, "how very fortunate for the poor little +thing. Who is the young man, and how, in heaven's name, has she secured +a young man in the wilds of Cornwall?" + +Madame von Marwitz made no reply. She was absorbed in another letter. +And Miss Scrotton now perceived, with amazement and indignation, that +the one laid down was written in the hand of Gregory Jardine. + +"You don't mean to tell me," Miss Scrotton said, after some moments of +hardly held patience, "that it's Gregory?" + +Madame von Marwitz, having finished her second letter, was gazing before +her with a somewhat ambiguous expression. + +"Tallie speaks well of him," she remarked at last. "He has made a very +good impression on Tallie." + +"Are you speaking of Gregory Jardine, Mercedes?" Miss Scrotton repeated. + +Madame von Marwitz now looked at her and as she looked the tricksy light +of malice again grew in her eye. "_Mais oui; mais oui._ You have guessed +correctly, my Scrotton," she said. "And you may read his letter. It is +pleasant to me to see that stiff, self-satisfied young man brought to +his knees. Read it, _ma chere_, read it. It is an excellent letter." + +Miss Scrotton read, and, while she read, Madame von Marwitz's cold, deep +eyes rested on her, still vaguely smiling. + +"How very extraordinary," said Miss Scrotton. She handed back the +letter. + +"Extraordinary? Now, why, _ma bonne_?" her friend inquired, all limpid +frankness. "He looked indeed, a stockish, chill young man, of the +cold-nosed type--_ah, que je n'aime pas ca!_--but he is a good young +man; a most unimpeachable young man; and our little Karen has melted +him; how much his letter shows." + +"Gregory Jardine is a very able and a very distinguished person," said +Miss Scrotton, "and of an excellent county family. His mother and mine +were cousins, as you know, and I have always taken the greatest interest +in him. One can't but wonder how the child managed it." Mercedes, she +knew, was drawing a peculiar satisfaction from her displeasure; but she +couldn't control it. + +"Ah, the child is not a manager. She is so far from managing it, you +see, that she leaves it to me to manage. It touches and surprises me, I +confess, to find that her devotion to me rules her even at a moment like +this. Yes; Karen has pleased me very much." + +"Of course that old-fashioned formality would in itself charm Gregory. +He is very conventional. But I do hope, my dear Mercedes, that you will +think it over a little before giving your consent. It is really a most +unsuitable match. Karen's feelings are, evidently, not at all deeply +engaged and with Gregory it must be a momentary infatuation. He will get +over it in time and thank you for saving him; and Karen will marry Herr +Lippheim, as you hoped she would." + +"Now upon my word, my Scrotton," said Madame von Marwitz in a manner as +near insolence as its grace permitted, "I do not follow you. A +barrister, a dingy little London barrister, to marry my ward? You call +that an unsuitable marriage? I protest that I do not follow you and I +assert, to the contrary, that he has played his cards well. Who is he? A +nobody. You speak of your county families; what do they signify outside +their county? Karen in herself is, I grant you, also a nobody; but she +stands to me in a relation almost filial--if I chose to call it so; and +I signify more than the families of many counties put together. Let us +be frank. He opens no doors to Karen. She opens doors to him." + +Miss Scrotton, addressed in these measured and determined tones, changed +colour. "My dear Mercedes, of course you are right there. Of course in +one sense, if you take Gregory in as you have taken Karen in, you open +doors to him. I only meant that a young man in his position, with his +way to make in the world, ought to marry some well-born woman with a +little money. He must have money if he is to get on. He ought to be in +parliament one day; and Karen is without a penny, you have often told me +so, as well as illegitimate. Of course if you intend to make her a large +allowance, that is a different matter; but can you really afford to do +that, darling?" + +"I consider your young man very fortunate to get Karen without one +penny," Madame von Marwitz pursued, in the same measured tones, "and I +shall certainly make him no present of my hard-earned money. Let him +earn the money for Karen, now, as I have done for so many years. Had she +married my good Franz, it would have been a very different thing. This +young man is well able to support her in comfort. No; it all comes most +opportunely. I wanted Karen to settle and to settle soon. I shall cable +my consent and my blessings to them at once. Will you kindly find me a +servant, _ma chere_." + +Miss Scrotton, as she rose automatically to carry out this request, was +feeling that it is possible almost to hate one's idols. She had +transgressed, and she knew it, and Mercedes had been aware of what she +had done and had punished her for it. She even wondered if the quick +determination to accept Gregory as Karen's suitor hadn't been part of +the punishment. Mercedes knew that she had a pride in her cousin and had +determined to humble it. She had perhaps herself to thank for having +riveted this most disastrous match upon him. It was with a bitter heart +that she walked on into the house. + +As she went in Mr. Claude Drew came out and Miss Scrotton gave him a +chill greeting. She certainly hated Mr. Claude Drew. + +Claude Drew blinked a little in the bright sunlight and had somewhat the +air of a graceful, nocturnal bird emerging into the day. He was dressed +with an appropriateness to the circumstances of stately _villegiature_ +so exquisite as to have a touch of the fantastic. + +Madame von Marwitz sat with her back to him in the limpid shadow of the +great white parasol and was again looking, not at Karen's, but at +Gregory Jardine's, letter. One hand hung over the arm of her chair. + +Mr. Drew approached with quiet paces and, taking this hand, before +Madame von Marwitz could see him, he bowed over it and kissed it. The +manner of the salutation made of it at once a formality and a caress. + +Madame von Marwitz looked up quickly and withdrew her hand. "You +startled me, my young friend," she said. In her gaze was a mingled +severity and softness and she smiled as if irrepressibly. + +Mr. Drew smiled back. "I've been wearying to escape from our host and +come to you," he said. "He will talk to me about the reform of American +politics. Why reform them? They are much more amusing unreformed, aren't +they? And why talk to me about them. I think he wants me to write about +them. If I were to write a book for the Americans, I would tell them +that it is their mission to be amusing. Democracies must be either +absurd or uninteresting. America began by being uninteresting; and now +it has quite taken its place as absurd. I love to hear about their fat, +bribed, clean-shaven senators; just as I love to read the advertisements +of tooth-brushes and breakfast foods and underwear in their magazines, +written in the language of persuasive, familiar fraternity. It was +difficult not to confess this to Mr. Asprey; but I do not think he would +have understood me." Mr. Drew spoke in a soft, slightly sibilant voice, +with little smiling pauses between sentences that all seemed vaguely +shuffled together. He paused now, smiling, and looking down at Madame +von Marwitz. + +"You speak foolishly," said Madame von Marwitz. "But he would have +thought you wicked." + +"Because I like beauty and don't like democracy. I suppose so." Still +smiling at her he added, "One forgets democracies when one looks at you. +You are very beautiful this morning." + +"I am not, this morning, in a mood for unconventionalities," Madame von +Marwitz returned, meeting his gaze with her mingled severity and +softness. + +And again, with composure, he ignored her severity and returned her +smile. It would have been unfair to say that there was effrontery in Mr. +Drew's gaze; it merely had its way with you and, if you didn't like its +way, passed from you unperturbed. With all his rather sickly grace and +ambiguous placidity, Mr. Drew was not lacking in character. He had risen +superior to a good many things, the dismal wife at Surbiton and the +large-mouthed children perhaps among them, and he had won his +detachment. The homage he offered was not unalloyed by humour. To a +person of Madame von Marwitz's calibre, he seemed to say, he would not +pretend to raptures or reverences they had both long since seen through. +It would bore him to be rapturous or reverent, and if you didn't like +him, so his whole demeanour mildly demonstrated, you could leave him, +or, rather, he could leave you. So that when Madame von Marwitz sought +to quell him she found herself met with a gentle unawareness, even a +gentle indifference. Cogitation and a certain disquiet were often in her +eye when it rested on this devotee. + +"Does one make conventional speeches to the moon?" he now remarked, +taking a chair beside her and turning the brim of his white hat over his +eyes so that of his face only the sensual, delicate mouth and chin were +in sunlight. "I shouldn't want to make speeches to you if you were +conventional. You are done with your letters? I may talk to you?" + +"Yes, I have done. You may talk, as foolishly as you please, but not +unconventionally; whether I am or am not conventional is not a matter +that concerns you. I have had good news to-day. My little Karen is to +marry." + +"Your little Karen? Which of all the myriads is this adorer?" + +"The child you saw with me in London. The one who stays in Cornwall." + +"You mean the fair, square girl who calls you Tante? I only remember of +her that she was fair and square and called you Tante." + +"That is she. She is to marry an excellent young man, a young man," said +Madame von Marwitz, slightly smiling at him, "who would never wish to +make speeches to the moon, who is, indeed, not aware of the moon. But he +is very much aware of Karen; so much so," and she continued to smile, as +if over an amusing if still slightly perplexing memory, "that when she +is there he is not aware of me. What do you say to that?" + +"I say," Mr. Drew replied, "that the barbarians will always be many and +the civilized few. Who is this barbarian?" + +"A Mr. Gregory Jardine." + +"Jardine? _Connais-pas_," said Mr. Drew. + +"He is a cousin of our Scrotton's," said Madame von Marwitz, "and a man +of law. Very stiff and clean like a roll of expensive paper. He has +asked me very nicely if he may inscribe the name of Mrs. Jardine upon a +page of it. He is the sort of young man of law, I think I distinguish," +Madame von Marwitz mused, her eyes on the landscape, "who does not smoke +a briar wood pipe and ride on an omnibus, but who keeps good cigars in a +silver box and always takes a hansom. He will make Karen comfortable +and, I gather from her letter, happy. It will be a strange change of +_milieu_ for the child, but I have, I think, made her independent of +_milieus_. She will write more than Mrs. Jardine on his scroll. It is a +child of character." + +"And she will no longer be in Cornwall," Mr. Drew observed. "I am glad +of that." + +"Why, pray? I am not glad of it. I shall miss my Karen at Les +Solitudes." + +"But I, you see, don't want to have other worshippers there when I go to +stay with you," said Mr. Drew; "for, you know, you are going to let me +stay a great deal with you in Cornwall. You will play to me, and I will +write something that you will, perhaps, care to read. And the moon will +be very kind and listen to many speeches. You know," he added, with a +change of tone, "that I am in love with you. I must be alone with you at +Les Solitudes." + +"Let us have none of that, if you please," said Madame von Marwitz. She +looked away from him along the sunny stretches of the terrace and she +frowned slightly, though smiling on, as if with tolerant affection. And +in her look was something half dazed and half resentful like the look of +a fierce wild bird, subdued by the warmth and firmness of an enclosing +hand. + + + + +CHAPTER XIII + + +Gregory went down to Cornwall again only nine days after he had left it. +He and Karen met as if under an arch of infinite blessings. He had his +cable to show her and she hers to show him, and, although Gregory did +not see them as the exquisite documents that Karen felt them to be, they +did for him all that he asked Madame von Marwitz to do. + +"I give her to you. Be worthy of my trust. Mercedes von Marwitz"--his +read. And Karen's: "I could only yield you to a greater joy than you can +find with me--but it could not be to a greater love. Do not forget me in +your happiness. You are mine, my beloved child, not less but more than +ever.--Tante." + +Karen's joy was unshadowed. It made him think of primroses and crystal +springs. She was not shy; he was shyer than she, made a little dumb, a +little helpless, by his man's reverence, his man's awed sense of the +beloved's dawn-like wonder. She was not changed; any change in Karen +would come as quiet growth, not as transformation. Gregory's gladness +had not this simplicity. It revealed to him a new world, a world newly +beautiful but newly perilous, and a changed self,--the self of boyhood, +renewed yet transformed, through whose joy ran the reactionary +melancholy that, in a happiness attained, glances at fear, and at a +climax of life, is aware of gulfs of sorrow as yet unsounded. More than +his lover's passion was a tenderness for her and for her unquestioning +acceptances that seemed near tears. Karen was in character so wrought +and in nature so simple. Her subtleties were all objective, subtleties +of sympathy, of recognition, of adaptation to the requirements of +devoted action; her simplicity was that of a whole-heartedness unaware +at high moments of all but the essential. + +She had to tell him fully, holding his hand and looking into his eyes, +all about her side of it; what she had thought when she saw him at the +concert--certain assumptions there gave Gregory his stir of +uneasiness--"You were caring just as much as I was--in the same way--for +her music"; what she had thought at Mrs. Forrester's, and at the railway +station, and when the letters went on and on. She had of course seen +what was coming that evening after they had been to the Lavington's; +"When you didn't understand about me and Tante, you know; and I made you +understand." And then he had made her understand how much he cared for +her and she for him; only it had all come so quietly; "I did not think a +great deal about it, or wonder; it sank into me--like stars one sees in +a still lake, so that next day it was no surprise at all, when you told +me; it was like looking up and seeing all the real stars in the sky. +Afterwards it was dreadful for a little while, wasn't it?" Karen held +his hand for a moment to her cheek. + +When all the past had been looked at together, Gregory asked her if she +would not marry him quite soon; he hoped, indeed, that it might be +within the month. "You see, why not?" he said. "I miss you so dreadfully +and I can't be here; and why should you be? Let me come down and marry +you in that nice little church on the other side of the village as soon +as our banns can be called." + +But, for the first time, a slight anxiety showed in her eyes. "I miss +you dreadfully, too," she said. "But you forget, Tante will not be back +till July. We must wait for Tante, Gregory. We are in May now, it is not +so far to July. You will not mind too much?" + +He felt, sitting under the arch of blessings as he was, that it would be +most ungrateful and inappropriate to mind. But then, he said, if they +must put it off like that, Karen would have to come to London. She must +come and stay with Betty. "And get your trousseau"; this was a brilliant +idea. "You'll have to get your trousseau, you know, and Betty is an +authority on clothes." + +"Oh, but clothes. I never have clothes in that sense," said Karen. "A +little seamstress down here makes most of them and Louise helps her +sometimes if she has time. Tante gave me twenty pounds before she went +away; would twenty pounds do for a trousseau?" + +"Betty would think twenty pounds just about enough for your gloves and +stockings, I imagine," said Gregory. + +"And will you expect me to be so luxurious? You are not rich? We shall +not live richly?" + +"I'm not at all rich; but I want you to have pretty things--layers and +layers of the nice, white, soft things brides always have, and a great +many new hats and dresses. Couldn't I give you a little tip--to begin +the trousseau?" + +"Ah, it can wait, can't it?" said Karen easily. "No; you can't give me a +tip. Tante, I am sure, will see that I have a nice trousseau. She may +even give me a little _dot_ when I marry. I have no money at all; not +one penny, you know. Do you mind?" + +"I'd far rather have you without a penny because I want to give you +everything. If Tante doesn't give you the little _dot_, I shall." + +Karen was pondering a little seriously. "I don't know what Tante will +feel since you have enough for us both. It was when she wished me to +marry Franz that she spoke of a _dot_. And Franz is of course very poor +and has a great family of brothers and sisters to help support. You will +know Franz one day. You did not speak very nicely of Franz that time, +you know; that was another reason why I thought you were so angry. And +it made me angry, too," said Karen, smiling at him. + +"Wasn't I nice? I am sure Franz is." + +"Oh, so good and kind and true. And very talented. And his mother would +be a wonderful musician if she had not so many children to take care of; +that has harmed her music. And she, too, is a golden-hearted person; she +used often to help me with my dresses. Do you remember that little white +silk dress of mine? perhaps so; I wore it at the concert, such a pretty +dress, I think. Frau Lippheim helped me with that--she and a little +German seamstress in Leipsig. I see us now, all bending over the +rustling silk, round the table with the lamp on it. We had to make it so +quickly. Tante had sent for me to come to her in Vienna and I had +nothing to wear at the great concert she was to give. We sat up till +twelve to finish it. Franz and Lotta cooked our supper for us and we +only stopped long enough to eat. Dear Frau Lippheim. Some day you will +know all the Lippheims." + +He listened to her with dreamy, amused delight, seeing her bending in +the ugly German room over the little white silk dress and only vaguely +aware of the queer figures she put before him. He had no inclination to +know Franz and his mother, and no curiosity about them. But Karen +continued. "That is the one, the only thing I can give you," she said, +reflecting. "You know so few artists, don't you; so few people of +talent. As to people, your life is narrow, isn't it so? I have met so +many great people in my life, first through my father and then through +Tante. Painters, poets, musicians. You will probably know them now, too; +some of them certainly, for some are also friends of mine. Strepoff, for +example; oh--how I shall like you to meet him. You have read him, of +course, and about his escape from Siberia and his long exile." + +"Strepoff? Yes, I think so. A dismal sort of fellow, isn't he?" + +Gregory's delight was merging now in a more definite amusement, tinged, +it may be confessed, with alarm. He remembered to have seen a photograph +of this celebrity, very turbulently haired and very fixed and fiery of +eye. He remembered a large bare throat and a defiant neck-tie. He had no +wish to make Strepoff's acquaintance. It was quite enough to read about +him in the magazines and admire his exploits from a distance. + +"Dismal?" Karen had repeated, with a touch of severity. "Who would not +be after such a life? Yes, he is a sad man, and the thought of Russia +never leaves him. But he is full of gaiety, too. He spent some months +with us two years ago at the Italian lakes and I grew so fond of him. We +had great jokes together, he and I. And he sometimes writes to me now, +such teasing, funny letters. The last was from San Francisco. He is +giving lectures out there, raising money; for he never ceases the +struggle. He calls me Liebchen. He is very fond of me." + +"What do you call him?" Gregory inquired. + +"Just Strepoff; everybody calls him that. Dear Belot, too," Karen +pursued. "He could not fail to interest you. Perhaps you have already +met him. He has been in London." + +"Belot? Does he write poetry?" + +"Poetry? No. Belot is a painter; a great painter. Surely you have heard +of Belot?" + +"Well, I'm afraid that if I have I've forgotten. You see, as you say, I +live so out of the world of art." + +"Did you not see his portrait of Susanne Mauret--the great French +actress? It has been exhibited through all the world." + +"Of course I have. Belot of course. The impressionist painter. It looked +to me, I confess, awfully queer; but I could see that it was very +clever." + +"Impressionist? No; Belot would not rank himself among the +impressionists. And he would not like to hear his work called clever; I +warn you of that. He has a horror of cleverness. It was not a clever +picture, but sober, strange, beautiful. Well, I know Belot and his wife +quite intimately. They are great friends of the Lippheims, too, and call +themselves the Franco-Prussian alliance. Madame Belot is a dear little +woman. You must have often seen his pictures of her and the children. He +has numbers of children and adores them. _La petite_ Margot is my +special pet and she always sends me a little present on my birthday. +Madame Belot was once his model," Karen added, "and is quite _du +peuple_, and I believe that some of his friends were sorry that he +married her; but she makes him very happy. That beautiful nude in the +Luxembourg by Chantefoy is of her--long before she married, of course. +She does not sit for the _ensemble_ now, and indeed I fear it has lost +all its beauty, for she is very fat. It would be nice to go to Paris on +our wedding-tour and see the Belots," said Karen. + +Gregory made an evasive answer. He reflected that once he had married +her it would probably be easy to detach Karen from these most +undesirable associates. He hoped that she would take to Betty. Betty +would be an excellent antidote. "And you think your sister-in-law will +want me?" said Karen, when he brought her from the Belots back to Betty. +"She doesn't know me." + +"She must begin to know you as soon as possible. You will have Mrs. +Forrester at hand, you see, if my family should oppress you too much. +Barring Betty, who hardly counts as one of them, they aren't +interesting, I warn you." + +"I may oppress them," said Karen, with the shrewdness that often +surprised him. "Who will they take refuge with?" + +"Oh, they have all London to fall back upon. They do nothing when +they're up but go out. That's my plan; that they should leave you a good +deal when they go out, and leave you to me." + +"That will be nice," said Karen. "But Mrs. Forrester, you know," she +went on, "is not exactly an intimate of mine that I could fall back +upon. I am, in her eyes, only a little appendage of Tante's." + +"Ah, but you have ceased, now, to be an appendage of Tante's. And Mrs. +Forrester is an intimate, an old one, of mine." + +"She'll take me in as your appendage," Karen smiled. + +"Not at all. It's you, now, who are the person to whom the appendage +belongs. I'm your appendage. That quite alters the situation. You will +have to stand in the foreground and do all the conventional things." + +"Shall I?" smiled Karen, unperturbed. She was, as he knew, not to be +disconcerted by any novel social situation. She had witnessed so many +situations and such complicated ones that the merely conventional were, +in her eyes, relatively insignificant and irrevelant. There would be for +her none of the debutante's sense of awkwardness or insufficiency. Again +she reminded him of the rustic little princess, unaware of alien +customs, and ready to learn and to laugh at her own blunders. + +It was arranged, Mrs. Talcott's appearance helping to decisions, that as +soon as Karen heard from her guardian, who might have plans to suggest, +she should come up to London and stay with Lady Jardine. + +Mrs. Talcott, on entering, had grasped Gregory's hand and shaken it +vigorously, remarking: "I'm very pleased to see you back again." + +"I didn't tell Mrs. Talcott anything, Gregory," said Karen. "But I am +sure she guessed." + +"Mrs. Talcott and I had our understandings," said Gregory, "but I'm sure +she guessed from the moment she saw me down here. She was much quicker +than you, Karen." + +"I've seen a good many young folks in my time," Mrs. Talcott conceded. + +Gregory's sense of the deepened significance in all things lent a +special pathos to his conjectures to-day about Mrs. Talcott. He did not +know how far her affection for Karen went and whether it were more than +the mere kindly solicitude of the aged for the young; but the girl's +presence in her life must give at least interest and colour, and after +Mrs. Talcott had spoken her congratulations and declared that she +believed they'd be real happy together, he said, the idea striking him +as an apt one, "And Mrs. Talcott, you must come up and stay with us in +London sometimes, won't you?" + +"Oh, Mrs. Talcott--yes, yes;" said Karen, delighted. He had never seen +her kiss Mrs. Talcott, but she now clasped her arm, standing beside her. +Mrs. Talcott did not smile; but, after a moment, the aspect of her face +changed; it always took some moments for Mrs. Talcott's expression to +change. Now it was like seeing the briny old piece of shipwrecked oak +mildly illuminated with sunlight on its lonely beach. + +"That's real kind of you; real kind," said Mrs. Talcott reflectively. "I +don't expect I'll get up there. I'm not much of a traveller these days. +But it's real kind of you to have thought of it." + +"But it must be," Karen declared. "Only think; I should pour out your +coffee for you in the morning, after all these years when you've poured +out mine; and we would walk in the park--Gregory's flat overlooks the +park you know--and we would drive in hansoms--don't you like +hansoms--and go to the play in the evening. But yes, indeed, you shall +come." + +Mrs. Talcott listened to these projects, still with her mild +illumination, remarking when Karen had done, "I guess not, Karen; I +guess I'll stay here. I've been moving round considerable all my life +long and now I expect I'll just stay put. There's no one to look after +things here but me and they'd get pretty muddled if I was away, I +expect. Mitchell isn't a very bright man." + +"The real difficulty is," said Karen, holding Mrs. Talcott's arm and +looking at her with affectionate exasperation, "that she doesn't like to +leave Les Solitudes lest she should miss a moment of Tante. Tante +sometimes turns up almost at a moment's notice. We shall have to get +Tante safely away to Russia, or America again, before we can ask you; +isn't that the truth, Mrs. Talcott?" + +"Well, I don't know. Perhaps there's something in it," Mrs. Talcott +admitted. "Mercedes likes to know I'm here seeing to things. She +mightn't feel easy in her mind if I was away." + +"We'll lay it before her, then," said Karen. "I know she will say that +you must come." + + + + +CHAPTER XIV + + +It was not until some three weeks after that Karen paid her visit to +London. Tante had not written at once and Gregory had to control his +discontent and impatience as best he might. He and Karen wrote to each +other every day and he was aware of a fretful anxiety in his letters +which contrasted strangely with the serenity of hers. Once more she made +him feel that she was the more mature. In his brooding imaginativeness +he was like the most youthful of lovers, seeing his treasure menaced on +every hand by the hazards of life. He warned Karen against cliff-edges; +he warned her, now that motors were every day becoming more common, +against their sudden eruption in "cornery" lanes; he begged her +repeatedly to keep safe and sound until he could himself take care of +her. Karen replied with sober reassurances and promises and showed no +corresponding alarms on his behalf. She had, evidently, more confidence +in the law of probability. + +She wired at last to say that she had heard from Tante and would come up +next day if Lady Jardine could have her at such short notice. Gregory +had made his arrangements with Betty, who showed a most charming +sympathy for his situation, and when, at the station, he saw Karen's +face smiling at him from a window, when he seized her arm and drew her +forth, it was with a sense of relief and triumph as great as though she +were restored to him after actual perils. + +"Darling, it has seemed such ages," he said. + +He was conscious, delightedly, absorbedly, of everything about her. She +wore her little straw hat with the black bow and a long hooded cape of +thin grey cloth. In her hand she held a small basket containing her +knitting--she was knitting him a pair of golf stockings--and a book. + +He piloted her to the cab he had in waiting. Her one small shabby box +was put on the top and a very large dressing-case, curiously contrasting +in its battered and discoloured magnificence with the box, placed +inside; it was a discarded one of Madame von Marwitz's, as its tarnished +initials told him. It was only as the cab rolled out of the station, +after he had kissed Karen and was holding her hand, that he realized +that she was far less aware of him than he of her. Not that she was not +glad; she sighed deeply with content, smiling at him, holding his hand +closely; but there was a shadow of preoccupation on her. + +"Tell me, darling, is everything all right?" he asked. "You have had +good news from your guardian?" + +She said nothing for a moment, looking out of the window, and then back +at him. Then she said: "She is beautiful to me. But I have made her +sad." + +"Made her sad? Why have you made her sad?" Gregory suppressed--only just +suppressed--an indignant note. + +"I did not think of it myself," said Karen. "I didn't think of her side +at all, I'm afraid, because I did not realise how much I was to her. But +you remember what I told you I was, the little home thing; I am that +even more deeply than I had thought; and she feels--dear, dear one--that +that is gone from her, that it can never be the same again." She turned +her eyes from him and the tears gathered thickly in them. + +"But, dearest," said Gregory, "she can't want to make you sad, can she? +She must really be glad to have you happy. She herself wanted you to get +married, and had found Franz Lippheim for you, you know." Instinct +warned him to go carefully. + +Karen shook her head with a little impatience. "One may be glad to have +someone happy, yet sad for oneself. She is sad. Very, very sad." + +"May I see her letter?" Gregory asked after a moment, and Karen, +hesitating, then drew it from the pocket of her cloak, saying, as she +handed it to him, and as if to atone for the impatience, "It doesn't +make me love you any less--you understand that, dear Gregory--because +she is sad. It only makes me feel, in my own happiness, how much I love +her." + +Gregory read. The address was "Belle Vue." + + "My Darling Child,--A week has passed since I had your letter and + now the second has come and I must write to you. My Karen knows + that when in pain it is my instinct to shut myself away, to be + quite still, quite silent, and so to let the waves go over me. That + is why, she will understand, I have not written yet. I have waited + for the strength and courage to come back to me so that I might + look my sorrow in the face. For though it is joy for you, and I + rejoice in it, it is sorrow, could it be otherwise, for me. So the + years go on and so our cherished flowers drop from us; so we feel + our roots of life chilling and growing old; and the marriage-veil + that we wrap round a beloved child becomes the symbol of the shroud + that is to fold us from her. I knew that I should one day have to + give up my Karen; I wished it; she knows that; but now that it has + come and that the torch is in her hand, I can only feel the + darkness in which her going leaves me. Not to find my little Karen + there, in my life, part of my life;--that is the thought that + pierces me. In how many places have I found her, for years and + years; do you remember them all, Karen? I know that in heart we are + not to be severed; I know that, as I cabled to you, you are not + less but more mine than ever; but the body cries out for the dear + presence; for the warm little hand in my tired hand, the loving + eyes in my sad eyes, the loving heart to lean my stricken heart + upon. How shall I bear the loneliness and the silence of my life + without you? + + "Do not forget me, my Karen. Ah, I know you will not, yet the cry + arises. Do not let this new love that has come to you in your youth + and gladness shut me out more than it must. Do not forget the old, + the lonely Tante. Ah, these poor tears, they fall and fall. I am + sad, sad to death, my Karen. Great darknesses are behind me, and + before me I see the darkness to which I go. + + "Farewell, my darling.--_Lebewohl._--Tell Mr. Jardine that he must + make my child happy indeed if I am to forgive him for my loss. + + "Yes; it shall be in July, when I return. I send you a little gift + that my Karen may make herself the fine lady, ready for all the + gaieties of the new life. He will wish it to be a joyful one, I + know; he will wish her to drink deep of all that the world has to + offer of splendid, and rare, and noble. My child is worthy of a + great life, I have equipped her for it. Go forward, my Karen, with + your husband, into the light. My heart is with you always. + + "Tante." + +Gregory read, and instinctively, while he read, he glanced at Karen, +steadying his face lest she should guess from its tremor of contempt how +latent antagonisms hardened to a more ironic dislike. But Karen gazed +from the window--grave, preoccupied. Such suspicions were far indeed +from her. Gregory could give himself to the letter and its intimations +undiscovered. Suffering? Perhaps Madame von Marwitz was suffering; but +she had no business to say it. Forgive him indeed; well, if those were +the terms of forgiveness, he promised himself that he should deserve it. +Meanwhile he must conceal his resentment. + +"I'm so sorry, darling," he said, giving the letter back to Karen. "We +shall have to cheer her up, shan't we? When she sees how very happy you +are with me I am sure she'll feel happier." He wasn't at all sure. + +"I don't know, Gregory. I am afraid that my happiness cannot make her +less lonely." + +Karen's griefs were not to be lightly dispersed. But she was not a +person to enlarge upon them. After another moment she pointed out +something from the window and laughed; but the unshadowed gladness that +he had imagined for their meeting was overcast. + +Betty awaited them with tea in her Pont Street drawing-room, a room of +polished, glittering, softly lustrous surfaces. Precious objects stood +grouped on little Empire tables or ranged in Empire cabinets. Flat, firm +cushions of rose-coloured satin stood against the backs of Empire chairs +and sofas. On the walls were French engravings and a delicate portrait +of Betty done at the time of her marriage by Boutet de Monvel. The room, +like Betty herself, combined elegance and cordiality. + +"I was there, you know, at the very beginning," she said, taking Karen's +hands and scanning her with her jewel-like eyes. "It was love at first +sight. He asked who you were at once and I'm pleased to think that it +was I who gave him his first information. Now that I look back upon it," +said Betty, taking her place at the tea-table and holding Karen still +with her bright and friendly gaze, "I remember that he was far more +interested in you than in anything else that evening. I don't believe +that Madame Okraska existed for him." Betty was drawing on her +imagination in a manner that she took for granted to be pleasing. + +"I should be sorry to think that," Karen observed and Gregory was +relieved to see that she did not take Betty's supposition seriously. She +watched her pretty hands move among the teacups with an air of pleased +interest. + +"Would you really? You would want him to retain all his aesthetic +faculties even while he was falling in love? Do you think one could?" +Betty asked her questions smiling. "Or perhaps you think that one would +fall in love the more securely from listening to Madame Okraska at the +same time. I think perhaps I should. I do admire her so much. I hope now +that some day I shall know her. She must be, I am sure, as lovely as she +looks." + +"Yes, indeed," said Karen. "And you will meet her very soon, you see, +for she comes back in July." + +Gregory sat and listened to their talk, satisfied that they were to get +on, yet with a slight discomfort. Betty questioned and Karen replied, +unaware that she revealed aspects of her past that Betty might not +interpret as she would feel it natural that they should be interpreted, +supremely unaware that any criticism could attach itself to her guardian +as a result of these revelations. Yes; she had met so-and-so and this +and that, in Rome, in Paris, in London or St. Petersburg; but no, +evidently, she could hardly say that she knew any of these people, +friends of Tante's though they were. The ambiguity of her status as +little camp-follower became defined for Betty's penetrating and +appraising eyes and the inappropriateness of the letter, with its +broken-hearted maternal tone, returned to Gregory with renewed irony. He +didn't want to share with Betty his hidden animosities and once or +twice, when her eye glanced past Karen and rested reflectively upon +himself, he knew that Betty was wondering how much he saw and how he +liked it. The Lippheims again made their socially unillustrious +appearance; Karen had so often stayed with them before Les Solitudes had +been built and while Tante travelled with Mrs. Talcott; she had never +stayed--Gregory was thankful for small mercies--with the Belots; Tante, +after all, had her own definite discriminations; she would not have +placed Karen in the charge of Chantefoy's lady of the Luxembourg, +however reputable her present position; but Gregory was uneasy lest +Karen should disclose how simply she took Madame Belot's past. The fact +that Karen's opportunities in regard to dress were so obviously +haphazard, coming up with the question of the trousseau, was somewhat +atoned for by the sum that Madame von Marwitz now sent--Gregory had +forgotten to ask the amount. "A hundred pounds," said Betty cheerfully; +"Oh, yes; we can get you very nicely started on that." + +"Tante seems to think," said Karen, "that I shall have to be very gay +and have a great many dresses; but I hope it will not have to be so very +much. I am fond of quiet things." + +"Well, especially at first, I suppose you will have a good many dinners +and dances; Gregory is fond of dancing, you know. But I don't think you +lead such a taxing social life, do you, Gregory? You are a rather sober +person, aren't you?" + +"That is what I thought," said Karen. "For I am sober, too, and I want +to read so many things, in the evening, you know, Gregory. I want to +read Political Economy and understand about politics; Tante does not +care for politics, but she always finds me too ignorant of the large +social questions. You will teach me all that, won't you? And we must +hear so much music; and travel, too, in your holidays; I do not see how +we can have much time for many dinners. As for dances, I do not know how +to dance; would that make any difference, when you went? I could sit and +look on, couldn't I?" + +"No, indeed; you can't sit and look on; you'll have to dance with me," +said Gregory. "I will teach you dancing as well as Political Economy. +She must have lessons, mustn't she, Betty? Of course you must learn to +dance." + +"I do not think I shall learn easily," Karen said, smiling from him to +Betty. "I do not think I should do you credit in a ballroom. But I will +try, of course." + +Gregory was quite prepared for Betty's probes when Karen went upstairs +to her room. "What a dear she is, Gregory," she said; "and how clever it +was of you to find her, hidden away as she has been. I suppose the life +of a great musician doesn't admit of formalities. She never had time to +introduce, as it were, her adopted daughter." + +"Well, no; a great musician could hardly take an adopted or a real +daughter around to dances; and Karen isn't exactly adopted." + +"No, I see." Betty's eyes sounded him. "She is really very nice I +suppose, Madame von Marwitz? You like her very much? Mrs. Forrester +dotes upon her, of course; but Mrs. Forrester is an enthusiast." + +"And I'm not, as you know," Gregory returned, he flattered himself, with +skill. "I don't think that I shall ever dote on Madame von Marwitz. When +I know her I hope to like her very much. At present I hardly know her +better than you do." + +"Ah--but you must know a great deal about her from Karen," said Betty, +who could combine tact with pertinacity; "but she, too, in that respect, +is an enthusiast, I suppose." + +"Well, naturally. It's been a wonderful relationship. You remember you +felt that so much in telling me about Karen at the very first." + +"Of course; and it's all true, isn't it; the forest and all the rest of +it. Only, not having met Karen, one didn't realize how much Madame von +Marwitz was in luck." Betty, it was evident, had already begun to wonder +whether Tante was as lovely as she looked. + + + + +CHAPTER XV + + +"Dear Mrs. Forrester, you know that I worship the ground she treads on," +said Miss Scrotton; "but it can't be denied--can you deny it?--that +Mercedes is capricious." + +It was one day only after Miss Scrotton's return from America and she +had returned alone, and it was to this fact that she alluded rather than +to the more general results of Madame von Marwitz's sudden postponement. +Owing to the postponement, Karen to-day was being married in Cornwall +without her guardian's presence. Miss Scrotton had touched on that. She +had said that she didn't think Mercedes would like it, she had added +that she couldn't herself, however inconvenient delay might have been, +understand how Karen and Gregory could have done it. But she had not at +first much conjecture to give to the bridal pair. It was upon the fact +that Mercedes, at the last moment, had thrown all plans overboard, that +she dwelt, with a nipped and tightened utterance and a gaze, fixed on +the wall above the tea-table, almost tragic. Mrs. Forrester was the one +person in whom she could confide. It was through Mrs. Forrester that she +had met Mercedes; her devotion to Mercedes constituted to Mrs. +Forrester, as she was aware, her chief merit. Not that Mrs. Forrester +wasn't fond of her; she had been fond of her ever since, as a relative +of the Jardines' and a precociously intelligent little girl who had +published a book on Port-Royal at the age of eighteen, she had first +attracted her attention at a literary tea-party. But Mrs. Forrester +would not have sat so long or listened so patiently to any other theme +than the one that so absorbed them both and that so united them in their +absorption. Miss Scrotton even suspected that a tinge of bland and +kindly pity coloured Mrs. Forrester's readiness to sympathize. She must +know Mercedes well enough to know that she could give her devotees bad +half hours, though the galling thing was to suspect that Mrs. Forrester +was one of the few people to whom she wouldn't give them. Mrs. Forrester +might worship as devoutly as anybody, yet her devotion never let her in +for so much forbearance and sacrifice. Perhaps, poor Miss Scrotton +worked it out, the reason was that to Mrs. Forrester Mercedes was but +one among many, whereas to herself Mercedes was the central prize and +treasure. Mrs. Forrester was incapable of a pang of jealousy or +emulation; she was always delighted yet never eager. When, in the first +flow of intimacy with Mercedes, Miss Scrotton had actually imagined, for +an ecstatic and solemn fortnight, that she stood first with her, Mrs. +Forrester had met her air of irrepressible triumph with a geniality in +which was no trace of grievance or humiliation. The downfall had been +swift; Mercedes had snubbed her one day, delicately and accurately, in +Mrs. Forrester's presence, and Miss Scrotton's cheek still burned when +she remembered it. There were thus all sorts of unspoken things between +her and Mrs. Forrester, and not the least of them was that her folly +should have endeared her. Miss Scrotton at once chafed against and +relied upon her old friend's magnanimity. Her intercourse with her was +largely made up of a gloomy demand for sympathy and a stately evasion of +it. + +Mrs. Forrester now poured her out a second cup of tea, answering, +soothingly, "Yes, she is capricious. But what do you expect, my dear +Eleanor? She is a force of nature, above our little solidarities and +laws. What do you expect? When one worships a force of nature, _il faut +subir son sort_." It was kind of Mrs. Forrester to include herself in +these submissions. + +"I had really built all my summer about the plans that we had made," +Miss Scrotton said. "Mercedes was to have come back with me, I was to +have stopped in Cornwall for Karen's marriage and after my month here in +London I was to have joined her at Les Solitudes for August. Now August +is empty and I had refused more than one very pleasant invitation in +order to go to Mercedes. She isn't coming back for another three +months." + +"You didn't care to go with the Aspreys to the Adirondacks?" + +"How could I go, dear Mrs. Forrester, when I was full of engagements +here in London for July? And, moreover, they didn't ask me. It is rather +curious when one comes to think of it. I brought the Aspreys and +Mercedes together, I gave her to them, one may say, but, I am afraid I +must own it, they seized her and looked upon me as a useful rung in the +ladder that reached her. It has been a disillusionizing experience, I +can't deny it; but _passons_ for the Aspreys and their kind. The fact +is," said Miss Scrotton, dropping her voice a little, "the real fact is, +dear Mrs. Forrester, that the Aspreys aren't responsible. It wasn't for +them she'd have stayed, and I think they must realize it. No, it is all +Claude Drew. He is at the bottom of everything that I feel as strange +and altered in Mercedes. He has an unholy influence over her, oh, yes, I +mean it, Mrs. Forrester. I have never seen Mercedes so swayed before." + +"Swayed?" Mrs. Forrester questioned. + +"Oh, but yes, indeed. He managed the whole thing--and when I think that +he would in all probability never have seen the Aspreys if it had not +been for me!--Mercedes had him asked there, you know; they are very, but +very, very fashionable people, they know everybody worth knowing all +over the world. I needn't tell you that, of course. But it was all +arranged, he and Mercedes, and Lady Rose and the Marquis de +Hautefeuille, and a young American couple--with the Aspreys in the +background as universal providers--it made a little group where I was +plainly _de trop_. Mr. Drew planned everything with her. She is to have +her piano and he is to write a book under her aegis. And they are to +live in the pinewoods with the most elaborate simplicity. However, I am +sure the Adirondacks will soon bore her." + +"And how soon will Mr. Drew bore her?" asked Mrs. Forrester, who had +listened to these rather pitiful revelations with, now and then, a +slight elevation of her intelligent eyebrows. + +The question gave Miss Scrotton an opportunity for almost ominous +emphasis; she paused over it, holding Mrs. Forrester with a brooding +eye. + +"He won't bore her," she then brought out. + +"What, never? never?" Mrs. Forrester questioned gaily. + +"Never, never," Miss Scrotton repeated. "He is too clever. He will keep +her interested--and uncertain." + +"Well," Mrs. Forrester returned, as if this were all to the good, "it is +a comfort to think that the poor darling has found a distraction." + +"You feel it that? I wish I could. I wish I could feel it anything but +an infatuation. If only he weren't so much the type of a great woman's +folly; if only he weren't so of the region of whispers. It isn't like +our wonderful Sir Alliston; one sees her there standing high on a +mountain peak with the winds of heaven about her. To see her with Mr. +Drew is like seeing her through some ambiguous, sticky fog. Oh, I can't +deny that it has all made me very, very unhappy." Tears blinked in Miss +Scrotton's eyes. + +Mrs. Forrester was kind, she leaned forward and patted Miss Scrotton's +hand, she smiled reassuringly, and she refused, for a moment, to share +her anxiety. "No, no, no," she said, "you are troubling yourself quite +needlessly, my dear Eleanor. Mercedes is amusing herself and the young +man is an interesting young man; she has talked to me and written to me +about him. And I think she needed distraction just now, I think this +marriage of little Karen's has affected her a good deal. The child is of +course connected in her mind with so much that is dear and tragic in the +past." + +"Oh, Karen!" said Miss Scrotton, who, drying her eyes, had accepted Mrs. +Forrester's consolations with a slight sulkiness, "she hasn't given a +thought to Karen, I can assure you." + +"No; you can't assure me, Eleanor," Mrs. Forrester returned, now with a +touch of severity. "I don't think you quite understand how deep a bond +of that sort can be for Mercedes--even if she seldom speaks of it. She +has written to me very affectingly about it. I only hope she will not +take it to heart that they could not wait for her. I could not blame +them. Everything was arranged; a house in the Highlands lent to them for +the honeymoon." + +"Take it to heart? Dear me no; she won't like it, probably; but that is +a different matter." + +"Gregory is radiant, you know." + +"Is he?" said Miss Scrotton gloomily. "I wish I could feel radiant about +that match; but I can't. I did hope that Gregory would marry well." + +"It isn't perhaps quite what one would have expected for him," Mrs. +Forrester conceded; "but she is a dear girl. She behaved very prettily +while she was here with Lady Jardine." + +"Did she? It is a very different marriage, isn't it, from the one that +Mercedes had thought suitable. She told you, I suppose, about Franz +Lippheim." + +"Yes; I heard about that. Mercedes was a good deal disappointed. She is +very much attached to the young man and thought that Karen was, too. I +have never seen him." + +"From what I've heard he seemed to me as eminently suitable a husband +for Karen as my poor Gregory is unsuitable. What he can have discovered +in the girl, I can't imagine. But I remember now how much interested in +her he was on that day that he met her here at tea. She is such a dull +girl," said Miss Scrotton sadly. "Such a heavy, clumsy person. And +Gregory has so much wit and irony. It is very curious." + +"These things always are. Well, they are married now, and I wish them +joy." + +"No one is at the wedding, I suppose, but old Mrs. Talcott. The next +thing we shall hear will be that Sir Alliston has fallen in love with +Mrs. Talcott," said Miss Scrotton, indulging her gloomy humour. + +"Oh, yes; the Jardines went down, and Mrs. Morton;"--Mrs. Morton was a +married sister of Gregory's. "Lady Jardine has very much taken to the +child you know. They have given her a lovely little tiara." + +"Dear me," said Miss Scrotton; "it is a case of Cinderella. No; I can't +rejoice over it, though, of course I wish them joy; I wired to them this +morning and I'm sending them a very handsome paper-cutter of dear +father's. Gregory will appreciate that, I think. But no; I shall always +be sorry that she didn't marry Franz Lippheim." + + + + +CHAPTER XVI + + +The Jardines did not come back to London till October. They had spent a +month in Scotland and a month in Italy and two weeks in France, +returning by way of Paris, where Gregory passed through the ordeal of +the Belots. He saw Madame Belot clasp Karen to her breast and the long +line of little Belots swarm up to be kissed successively, Monsieur +Belot, a short, stout, ruddy man, with outstanding grey hair and a +square grey beard, watching the scene benignantly, his palette on his +thumb. Madame Belot didn't any longer suggest Chantefoy's picture; she +suggested nothing artistic and everything domestic. From a wistful +Burne-Jones type with large eyes and a drooping mouth she had relapsed +to her plebeian origins and now, fat, kind, cheerful, she was nothing +but wife and mother, with a figure like a sack and cheap tortoiseshell +combs stuck, apparently at random, in the untidy _bandeaux_ of her hair. + +Following Karen and Monsieur Belot about the big studio, among canvases +on easels and canvases leaned against the walls, Gregory felt himself +rather bewildered, and not quite as he had expected to be bewildered. +They might be impossible, Madame Belot of course was impossible; but +they were not vulgar and they were extremely intelligent, and their +intelligence displayed itself in realms to which he was almost +disconcertingly a stranger. Even Madame Belot, holding a stalwart, +brown-fisted baby on her arm, could comment on her husband's work with a +discerning aptness of phrase which made his own appreciation seem very +trite and tentative. He might be putting up with the Belots, but it was +quite as likely, he perceived, that they might be putting up with him. +He realized, in this world of the Belots, the significance, the +laboriousness, the high level of vitality, and he realized that to the +Belots his own world was probably seen as a dull, half useful, half +obstructive fact, significant mainly for its purchasing power. For its +power of appreciation they had no respect at all. "_Il radote, ma +cherie_," Monsieur Belot said to Karen of a famous person, now, after +years of neglect, loudly acclaimed in London at the moment when, by +fellow-artists, he was seen as defunct. "He no longer lives; he repeats +himself. Ah, it is the peril," Monsieur Belot turned kindly including +eyes on Gregory; "if one is not born anew, continually, the artist dies; +it becomes machinery." + +Karen was at home among the Belot's standards. She talked with Belot, of +processes, methods, technique, the talk of artists, not artistic talk. +"_Et la grande Tante?_" he asked her, when they were all seated at a +nondescript meal about a long table of uncovered oak, the children +unpleasantly clamorous and Madame Belot dispensing, from one end, +strange, tepid tea, but excellent chocolate, while Belot, from the +other, sent round plates of fruit and buttered rolls. Karen was laughing +with _la petite Margot_, whom she held in her lap. + +"She is coming," said Karen. "At last. In three weeks I shall see her +now. She has been spending the summer in America, you know; among the +mountains." + +One of the boys inquired whether there were not danger to Madame von +Marwitz from _les Peaux-Rouges_, and when he was reassured and the +question of buffaloes disposed of Madame Belot was able to make herself +heard, informing Karen that the Lippheims, Franz, Frau Lippheim, Lotta, +Minna and Elizabeth, were to give three concerts in Paris that winter. +"You have not seen them yet, Karen?" she asked. "They have not yet met +Monsieur Jardine?" And when Karen said no, not yet; but that she had +heard from Frau Lippheim that they were to come to London after Paris, +Madame Belot suggested that the young couple might have time now to +travel up to Leipsig and take the Lippheims by surprise. "_Voila de +braves gens et de bons artistes_," said Monsieur Belot. + +"You did like my dear Belots," Karen said, as she and Gregory drove +away. She had, since her marriage, grown in perception; Gregory would +have found it difficult, now, to hide ironies and antipathies from her. +Even retrospectively she saw things which at the time she had not seen, +saw, for instance, that the idea of the Belots had not been alluring to +him. He knew, too, that she would have considered dislike of the Belots +as showing defect in him not in them, but cheerfully, if with a touch of +her severity. She had an infinite tolerance for the defects and foibles +of those she loved. He was glad to be able to reply with full sincerity: +"_Ils sont de braves gens et de bons artistes._" + +"But," Karen said, looking closely at him, and with a smile, "you would +not care to pass your life with them. And you were quite disturbed lest +I should say that I wanted to go and take the Lippheims by surprise at +Leipsig. You like _les gens du monde_ better than artists, Gregory." + +"What are you?" Gregory smiled back at her. "I like you better." + +"I? I am _gens du monde manque_ and _artiste manque_. I am neither fish, +flesh nor fowl," said Karen. "I'm only--positively--my husband's wife +and Tante's ward. And that quite satisfies me." + +He knew that it did. Their happiness was flawless; flawless as far as +her husband's wife was concerned. It was in regard to Tante's ward that +Gregory was more and more conscious of keeping something from Karen, +while more and more it grew difficult to keep anything from her. +Already, if sub-consciously, she must have become aware that her +guardian's unabated mournfulness did not affect her husband as it did +herself. She had showed him no more of Tante's letters, and they had +been quite frequent. She had told him while they were in Scotland that +it had hurt Tante very much that they should not have waited till her +return; but she did not enlarge on the theme; and Gregory knew why; to +enlarge would have been to reproach him. Karen had yielded, against her +own wishes, to his entreaties. She had agreed that their marriage should +not be so postponed at the last minute. In his vehemence Gregory had +been skilful; he had said not one word of reproach against Madame von +Marwitz for her disconcerting change of plan. It was not surprising to +him; it was what he had expected of Madame von Marwitz, that she would +put Karen aside for a whim. Karen would not see her guardian's action in +this light; yet she must know that her beloved was vulnerable to the +charge, at all events, of inconsiderateness, and she had been grateful +to him, no doubt, for showing no consciousness of it. She had consented, +perhaps, partly through gratitude, though she had felt her pledged word, +too, as binding. Once she had consented, whatever the results, Gregory +knew that she would not visit them on him. It was of her own +responsibility that she was thinking when, with a grave face, she had +told him of Tante's hurt. "After all, dearest," Gregory had ventured, +"we did want her, didn't we? It was really she who chose not to come, +wasn't it?" + +"I am sure that Tante wanted to see me married," said Karen, touching on +her own hidden wound. + +He helped her there, knowing, in his guile, that to exonerate Tante was +to help not only Karen but himself. "Of course; but she doesn't think +things out, does she? She is accustomed to having things arranged for +her. I suppose she didn't a bit realise all that had been settled over +here, nor what an impatient lover it was who held you to your word." + +Her face cleared as he showed her that he recognised Tante's case as so +explicable. "I'm so glad that you see it all," she said. "For you do. +She is oh! so unpractical, poor darling; she would forget everything, +you know, unless I or Mrs. Talcott were there to keep reminding +her--except her music, of course; but that is like breathing to her. And +I am so sorry, so dreadfully sorry; because, of course, to know that she +hurt me by not coming must hurt her more. But we will make it up to her. +And oh! Gregory, only think, she says she may come and stay with us." + +One of her first exclamations on going over his flat with him was that +they could put up Tante, if she would come. The drawing-room could be +devoted to her music; for there was ample room for the grand +piano--which accompanied Madame von Marwitz as invariably as her +tooth-brush; and the spare-bedroom had a dressing-room attached that +would do nicely for Louise. Now there seemed hope of this dream being +realised. + +Karen had not yet received a wedding-present from her guardian, but in +Paris, on the homeward way, she heard that it had been dispatched from +New York and would be awaiting her in London, and it was of this gift +that she had been talking as she and Gregory drove from the station to +St. James's on a warm October evening. Tante had not told her what the +present was, but had written that Karen would care for it very much. "To +find her present waiting for us is like having Tante to welcome us," +Karen said. After her surmise about the present she relapsed into happy +musings and Gregory, too, was silent, able only to give a side-glance of +gratitude, as it were, at the thought that Tante was to welcome them by +proxy. + +His mood was one of almost tremulous elation. He was bringing her home +after bridal wanderings that had never lost their element of dream-like +unreality. There had always been the feeling that he might wake any day +to find Italy and Karen both equally illusory. But to see Karen in his +home, taking her place in his accustomed life, would be to feel his joy +linking itself securely with reality. + +The look of London at this sunny hour of late afternoon and at this +autumnal season matched his consciousness of a tranquil metamorphosis. +Idle still and empty of its more vivid significance, one yet felt in it +the soft stirrings of a re-entering tide of life. Cabs passed, piled +with brightly badged luggage; the drowsily reminiscent shop-windows +showed here and there an adventurous forecast, and a house or two, among +the rows of dumb, sleeping faces, opened wide eyes at the leisurely +streets. The pale, high pinks of the sky drooped and melted into the +greys and whites and buffs below, and blurred the heavy greens of the +park with falling veils of rose. The scene seemed drawn in flat delicate +tones of pastel. + +Karen sat beside him in the cab and, while she gazed before her, she had +slipped her hand into his. She had preserved much of the look of the +unmarried Karen in her dress. The difference was in the achievement of +an ideal rather than in a change. The line of her little grey travelling +hat above her brows was still unusual; with her grey gloves and long +grey silken coat she had an air, cool, competent, prepared for any +emergency of travel. She would have looked equally appropriate dozing +under the hooded light in a railway carriage, taking her place at a +_table d'hote_ in a provincial French town, or walking in the wind and +sun along a foreign _plage_. After looking at the London to which he +brought her, Gregory looked at her. Marriage had worked none of its even +superficial disenchantments in him. After three months of intimacy, +Karen still constantly arrested him with a sense of the undiscovered, +the unforeseen. What it consisted in he could not have defined; she was +simple, even guileless, still; she had no reticences; yet she seemed to +express so much of which she was unaware that he felt himself to be +continually making her acquaintance. That quiet slipping now of her hand +into his, while her gaze maintained its calm detachment, the charm of +her mingled tenderness and independence, had its vague sting for +Gregory. She accepted him and whatever he might mean with something of +the happy matter-of-fact with which she accepted all that was hers. She +loved him with a completeness and selflessness that had made the world +suddenly close round him with gentle arms; but Gregory often wondered if +she were in love with him. Rapture, restlessness and fear all seemed +alien to her, and to turn from thoughts of her and of their love to +Karen herself was like passing from dreams of poignant, starry ecstasy +to a clear, white dawn, with dew on the grass and a lark rising and the +waking sweetness of a world at once poetical and practical about one. +She strengthened and stilled his passion for her. And she seemed unaware +of passion. + +They arrived at the great, hive-like mansion and in the lift, which took +them almost to the top, Karen, standing near him, again put her hand in +his and smiled at him. She was not feeling his tremor, but she was +limpidly happy and as conscious as he of an epoch-making moment. + +Barker opened the door to them, murmuring a decorous welcome and they +went down the passage towards the drawing-room. They must at once +inaugurate their home-coming, Gregory said, by going out on the balcony +and looking at the view together. + +"I beg your pardon, sir," said Barker, who followed after them, "but I +hope you and Mrs. Jardine will think it best what I've done with the +large case, sir, that has come. I didn't know where you'd like it put, +and it was a job getting it in anywhere. There wasn't room to leave it +standing here." + +"Tante's present!" Karen exclaimed. "Oh, where is it?" + +"I had it put in the drawing-room, Ma'am," said Barker. "It made a hole +in the wall and knocked down two prints, sir; I'm very sorry, but there +was no handling it conveniently." + +They turned down the next passage; the drawing-room was at the end. +Gregory threw open the door and he and Karen paused upon the threshold. +Standing in the middle of the room, high and dark against the +half-obliterated windows, was a huge packing-case, an incredibly huge +packing-case. At a first glance it had blotted out the room. The +furniture, huddled in the corners, seemed to have drawn back from the +apparition, scared and startled, and Gregory, in confronting it, felt an +actual twinge of fear. The vast, unexpected form loomed to his +imagination, for a moment, like a tidal-wave rising terrifically in +familiar surroundings and poised in menace above him and his wife. He +controlled an exclamation of dismay, and the ominous simile receded +before a familiar indignation; that, too, he controlled; he could not +say: "How stupid!" + +"Is it a piano?" Karen, after their long pause, asked in a hushed, +tentative voice. + +"It's too high for a piano, darling," said Gregory, who had her arm in +his--"and I have my little upright, you see. I can't imagine." + +"Shall I get the porter, sir, to help open it while you and Mrs. Jardine +have tea?" Barker asked. "I laid tea in the dining-room, Ma'am." + +"Yes; let us have it opened at once," said Karen. "But I must be here +when it is opened." She drew her arm from Gregory's and made the tour of +the case. "It is probably something very fragile and that is why it is +packed in such a great box; it cannot itself be so big." + +"Barker will begin peeling off the outer husks while we get ready for +tea; we shall have plenty of time," said Gregory. "Get the porter up at +once, Barker. I'm afraid your guardian has an exaggerated idea of the +size of our domain, darling. The present looks as if only baronial halls +could accommodate it." + +She glanced up at him while he led her to their room and he knew that +something in his voice struck her; he hadn't been able to control it and +it sounded like ill-temper. Perhaps it was ill-temper. It was with a +feeling of relief, and almost of escape, that he shut the door of the +room upon tidal-waves and put his arms around his wife. "Darling," he +said, "this is really it--at last--our home-coming." + +She returned his clasp and kiss with her frank, sweet fervour, though he +saw in her eyes a slight bewilderment. He insisted--he had often during +their travels been her maid--on taking off her hat and shoes for her +before going into his adjoining dressing-room. Karen always protested. +"It is so dear and foolish; I am so used to waiting on myself; I am so +unused to being the fine idle lady." And she protested now, adding, as +he knelt before her, and putting her hand on his head: "And besides, I +believe that in some ways I am stronger than you. It should not be you +to take care of me." + +"Stronger? In what ways? Upon my word, Madam!" Gregory exclaimed smiling +up at her, "Do you know that I was one of the best men of my time at +Oxford?" + +"I don't mean in body, I mean in feelings, in nerves," said Karen. "It +is more like Tante." + +He wondered, while in his little dressing-room he splashed restoringly +in hot water, what she quite did mean. Did she guess at the queer, +morbid moment that had struck at his blissful mood? It was indeed +disconcerting to have her find him like Tante. + +"Do you mind," said Karen, when he joined her again, smiling at him and +clasping her hands in playful entreaty, "seeing at once what the present +is before we have tea? I do not know how I could eat tea while I had not +seen it." + +"Mind? I'm eager to see it, too," said Gregory, with a pang of +self-reproach. "Of course we must wait tea." + +The porter, in the passage, was carrying away the outer boards of the +packing-case and in the drawing-room they found Barker, knee deep in +straw, ripping the heavy sacking covering that enveloped a much +diminished but still enormous parcel. + +Gregory came to his aid. They drew forth fine shavings and unwrapped +layers of paper, neatly secured; slowly the core of the mystery +disclosed itself in a temple-like form with a roof of dull black lacquer +and dimly gilded inner walls, a thickly swathed figure wedged between +them. The gift was, they now perceived, a Chinese Bouddha in his shrine, +and, as Gregory and Barker disengaged the figure and laid it upon the +ground, amusement, though still of an acrid sort, overcame Gregory's +vexation. "A Bouddha, upon my word!" he said. "This is a gorgeous gift." + +Karen stooped to help unroll as if from a mummy, the multitudinous +bandages of fine paper; the passive bronze visage of the idol was +revealed, and by degrees, the seated figure, ludicrously prone. They +moved the temple to the end of the room, where two pictures were taken +down and a sofa pushed away to make room for it; the Bouddha was +hoisted, with difficulty, on to its lotus, and there, dark on its +glimmering background of gold, it sat and ambiguously blessed them. + +Karen had worked with them neatly and expeditionary, and in silence, and +Gregory, glancing at her face from time to time, felt sure that she was +adjusting herself to a mingled bewilderment and disappointment; to the +wish also, that she might be worthy of her new possession. She stood now +before the Bouddha and gazed at it. + +They had turned up the electric lights, but the curtains were not drawn +and the scent, and light, and vague, diffused roar of London at this +evening hour came in at the open windows. Barker, the porter and the +housemaid were carrying away the litter of paper and straw. The bright +cheerful room with its lovable banality and familiar comfort smiled its +welcome; and there, in the midst, the majestic and alien presence sat, +overpowering, and grotesque in its inappropriateness. + +Karen now turned her eyes on her husband and slightly smiled. "It is +very wonderful," she said, "but I feel as if Tante expected a great deal +of me in giving it to me--a great deal more than is in me. It ought to +be a very deep and mystic person to have that Bouddha." + +"Yes, it's a wonderful thing; quite awesome. Perhaps she expects you to +become deep and mystic," said Gregory. "Please don't." + +"There is no danger of that," said Karen. "Of course it is the beauty of +it and the strangeness, that made Tante care for it. It is the sort of +thing she would love to have herself." + +"Where on earth is he to go?" Gregory surmised. "Yes, he might look well +in that big music-room at Les Solitudes, or in some vast hall where he +would be more of an episode and less of a white elephant. I hardly think +he'll fit anywhere into the passage," he ventured. + +Karen had been looking from him to the Bouddha. "But Gregory, of course +he must stay here," she said, "in the room we live in. Tante, I am sure, +meant that." Her voice had a tremor. "I am sure it would hurt her +dreadfully if we put him out of the way." + +Barker was now gone and Gregory put his arm around her. "But it makes +all the room wrong, doesn't it? It will make us all wrong--that's what I +rather feel. We aren't _a la hauteur_." He remembered, after speaking +them, that these were the words he had used of his one colloquy with +Madame von Marwitz. + +"I don't think," said Karen after a moment, "that you are quite kind." + +"Darling--I'm only teasing you," said Gregory. "I'll like the thing if +you want me to, and make offerings to him every morning--he looks in +need of sacrifices and offerings, doesn't he? And what a queer Oriental +scent is in the air. Rather nice, that." + +"Please don't call it the 'thing,'" said Karen. He saw into her divided +loyalty. And his comfort was to know that she didn't like the Bouddha +either. + +"I won't," he promised. "It isn't a thing, but a duty, a privilege, a +responsibility. He shall stay here, where he is. He really won't crowd +us too impossibly, and that sofa can go." + +"You see," said Karen, and tears now came to her eyes, "it would hurt +her so dreadfully if she could dream that we did not love it very, very +much." + +"I know," said Gregory, kissing her. "I perfectly understand. We will +love it very, very much. Come now, you must be hungry; let us have our +tea." + + + + +CHAPTER XVII + + +Madame von Marwitz sat in the deep chintz sofa with Karen beside her, +and while she talked to the young couple, Karen's hand in hers, her eyes +continually went about the room with an expression that did not seem to +match her alert, if rather mechanical, conversation. Karen had already +seen her, the day before, when she had gone to the station to meet her +and had driven with her to Mrs. Forrester's. But Miss Scrotton had been +there, too, almost tearful in her welcoming back of her great friend, +and there had been little opportunity for talk in the carriage. Tante +had smiled upon her, deeply, had held her hand, closely, and had asked, +with the playful air which forestalls gratitude, how she liked her +present. "You will see it, my Scrotton; a Bouddha in his shrine--of the +best period; a thing really rare and beautiful. Mr. Asprey told me of +it, at a sale in New York; and I was able to secure it. _Hein, ma +petite_; you were pleased?" + +"Oh, Tante, my letter told you that," said Karen. + +"And your husband? He was pleased?" + +"He thought that it was gorgeous," said Karen, but after a momentary +hesitation not lost upon her guardian. + +"I was sorely tempted to keep it myself," said Madame von Marwitz. "I +could see it in the music-room at Les Solitudes. But at once I felt--it +is Karen's. My only anxiety was for its background. I have never seen +Mr. Jardine's flat. But I knew that I could trust the man my child had +chosen to have beauty about him." + +"It isn't exactly a beautiful room," Karen confessed, smiling. "It isn't +like the music-room; you won't expect that from a London flat--or from +us. But it is very bright and comfortable and, yes, pretty. I hope that +you will like my home." + +Miss Scrotton, Karen felt, while she made these preparatory statements, +had eyed her in a somewhat gaunt manner; but she was accustomed to a +gaunt manner from Miss Scrotton, and Miss Scrotton's drawing-room, +certainly, was not as nice as Gregory's. Karen had not cared at all for +its quality of earnest effort. Miss Scrotton, not many years ago, had +been surrounded with art-tinted hangings and photographs from Rossetti, +and the austerity of her eighteenth-century reaction was now almost +defiant. Her drawing-room, in its arid chastity, challenged you, as it +were, to dare remember the aesthetics of South Kensington. + +Karen did not feel that Gregory's drawing-room required apologies and +Tante had been so mild and sweet, if also a little absent, that she +trusted her to show leniency. + +She had, as yet, to-day, said nothing about the Bouddha or the +background on which she found him. She talked to Gregory, while they +waited for tea, asking him a great many questions, not seeming, always, +to listen to his answers. "Ah, yes. Well done. Bravo," she said at +intervals, as he told her about their wedding-trip and how he and Karen +had enjoyed this or that. When Barker brought in the tea-tray and set it +on a little table before Karen, she took up one of the cups--they were +of an old English ware with a wreath of roses inside and lines of half +obliterated gilt--and said--it was her first comment on the +background--"_Tiens, c'est joli._ Is this one of your presents, Karen?" + +Karen told her that the tea-set was not a present; it had belonged to a +great-grandmother of Gregory's. + +Madame von Marwitz continued to examine the cup and, as she set it down +among the others, with the deliberate nicety of gesture that gave at +once power and grace to her slightest movement, she said: "You were +fortunate in your great-grandmother, Mr. Jardine." + +Her voice, her glance, her gestures, were already affecting Gregory +unpleasantly. There was in them a quality of considered control, as +though she recognised difficulty and were gently and warily evading it. +Seated on his chintz sofa in the bright, burnished room, all in white, +with a white lace head-dress, half veil, half turban, binding her hair +and falling on her shoulders, she made him think, in her +inappropriateness and splendour, of her own Bouddha, who, in his +glimmering shrine, lifted his hand as if in a gesture of bland exorcism +before which the mirage of a vulgar and trivial age must presently fade +away. The Bouddha looked permanent and the room looked transient; the +only thing in it that could stand up against him, as it were, was Karen. +To her husband's eye, newly aware of aesthetic discriminations, Karen +seemed to interpret and justify her surroundings, to show their +commonplace as part of their charm and to make the Bouddha and Madame +von Marwitz herself, in all their portentous distinction, look like +incidental ornaments. + +Madame von Marwitz's silence in regard to the Bouddha had already become +a blight, but it was, perhaps, the growing crisp decision in Gregory's +manner that made Karen first aware of constraint. Her eyes then turned +from Tante to the shrine at the end of the room, and she said: "You +don't care for the way it looks here, Tante, do you--your present?" + +Madame von Marwitz had finished her tea and she turned in the sofa so +that she could consider the Bouddha no longer incidentally but +decisively. "I am glad that it is yours, _ma cherie_," she said, after +the pause of her contemplation. "Some day you must place it more +happily. You don't intend, do you, Mr. Jardine, to live for any length +of time in these rooms?" + +"Oh, but I like it here so much, Tante," Karen took upon herself the +reply. "I want to go on living where Gregory has lived for so long. We +have such a view, you see; and such air." + +Madame von Marwitz mused upon her for a moment and then giving her chin +a little pinch, half meditative, half caressing, she inquired, with +Continental frankness: "A very pretty sentiment, _ma petite_, but what +will you do when the babies come?" + +Karen was not disconcerted. "I rather hope we may not have babies for a +year or two, Tante; and when they do come there will be room, quite +happily, for several. You don't know how big the flat is; you will see. +Gregory has always been able to put up his married sister and her +husband; that gives us one quite big room over and a small one." + +"But then you can have no friends if your rooms are full of babies," +Madame von Marwitz objected, still with mild playfulness. + +"No," Karen had to admit it; "but while they were very small I do not +think I should have much time for friends in the house, should I. And we +think, Gregory and I, of soon taking a tiny cottage in the country, +too." + +"Then, while you remain here, and unless my Bouddha is to look very +foolish," said Madame von Marwitz, "you must, I think, change your +drawing-room. It can be changed," she gazed about her with a touch of +wildness. "Something could be done. It could be darkened; quieted; it +talks too much and too loudly now, does it not? But you could move these +so large chairs and couches away and have sober furniture, of a good +period; one can still pick up good things if one is clever; a Chinese +screen here and there; a fine old mirror; a touch of splendour; a +flavour of dignity. The shape of the room is not impossible; the +outlook, as you say, gives space and breathing; something could be +done." + +Karen's gaze followed hers, cogitating but not acquiescent. "But you +see, Tante," she remarked, "these are things that Gregory has lived +with. And I like them so, too. I should not like them changed." + +"But they are not things that you have lived with, _parbleu_!" said +Madame von Marwitz laughing gently. "It is a pretty sentiment, _ma +petite_, it does you honour; you are--but oh! so deeply--the wife, +already, are you not, my Karen? but I am sure that your husband will not +wish you to sacrifice your taste to your devotion. Young men, many of +them do not care for these domestic matters; do not see them. My Karen +must not pretend to me that she does not care and see. I am right, am I +not, Mr. Jardine? you would not wish to deprive Karen of the bride's +distinctive pleasure--the furnishing of her own nest." + +Gregory's eyes met hers;--it seemed to be their second long +encounter;--eyes like jewels, these of Madame von Marwitz; full of +intense life, intense colour, still, bright and cold, tragically cold. +He seemed to see suddenly that all the face--the long eyebrows, with the +plaintive ripple of irregularity bending their line, the languid lips, +the mournful eyelids, the soft contours of cheek and throat,--were a +veil for the coldness of her eyes. To look into them was like coming +suddenly through dusky woods to a lonely mountain tarn, lying fathomless +and icy beneath a moonlit sky. Gregory was aware, as if newly and more +strongly than before, of how ambiguous was her beauty, how sinister her +coldness. + +Above the depths where these impressions were received was his +consciousness that he must be careful if Karen were not to guess how +much he was disliking her guardian. It was not difficult for him to +smile at a person he disliked, but it was difficult not to smile +sardonically. This was an apparently trivial occasion on which to feel +that it was a contest that she had inaugurated between them; but he did +feel it. "Karen knows that she can burn everything in the room as far as +I'm concerned," he said. "Even your Bouddha," he added, smiling a little +more nonchalantly, "I'd gladly sacrifice if it gave her pleasure." + +Nothing was lost upon Madame von Marwitz, of that he was convinced. She +saw, perhaps, further than he did; for he did not see, nor wish to, +beyond the moment of guarded hostility. And it was with the utmost +gentleness and precaution, with, indeed, the air of one who draws softly +aside from a sleeping viper found upon the path, that she answered: "I +trust, indeed, that it may never be my Karen's pleasure, or yours, Mr. +Jardine, to destroy what is precious; that would hurt me very much. And +now, child, may I not see the rest of this beloved domain?" She turned +from him to Karen. + +Gregory rose; he had told Karen that he would leave them alone after +tea; he had letters to write and he would see Madame von Marwitz before +she went. He had the sense, as he closed the door, of flying before +temptation. What might he not say to Madame von Marwitz if he saw too +much of her? + +When she and Karen were left alone, Madame von Marwitz's expression +changed. The veils of lightness fell away; her face became profoundly +melancholy; she gazed in silence at Karen and then held out her arms to +her; Karen came closer and was enfolded in their embrace. + +"My child, my child," said Madame von Marwitz, leaning, as was her wont +at these moments, her forehead against Karen's cheek. + +"Dear Tante," said Karen. "You are not sad?" she murmured. + +"Sad?" her guardian repeated after a moment. "Am I ever anything but +sad? But it is not of my sadness that I wish to speak. It is of you. Are +you happy, my dear one?" + +"Oh, Tante--so happy, so very happy; more than I can say." + +"Is it so?" Madame von Marwitz lifted her head and stroked back the +girl's hair. "Is it so indeed? He loves you very much, Karen?" + +"Oh, yes, Tante." + +"It is a great love? selfless? passionate? It is a love worthy of my +child?" + +"Yes, indeed." A slight austerity was now apparent in Karen's tone. +Silence fell between them for a moment, and then, stroking again the +golden head, Madame von Marwitz continued, with great tenderness; "It is +well. It is what I have prayed for--for my child. And let me not cast +one shadow, even of memory, upon your happiness. Yet ah--ah Karen--if +you could have let me share in the sunshine a little. If you could have +remembered how dark was my way, how lonely. That my child should have +married without me. It hurts. It hurts--" + +She did not wish to cast a shadow, yet she was weeping, the silent, +undisfigured weeping that Karen knew so well, showing only in the slow +welling of tears from darkened eyes. + +"Oh, Tante," Karen now leaned her head to her guardian's shoulder, "I +did not dream you would mind so much. It was so difficult to know what +to do." + +"Have I shown myself so indifferent to you in the past, my Karen, that +you should have thought I would not mind?" + +"I do not mean that, Tante. I thought that you would feel that it was +what it was best for me to do. I had given my word. All the plans were +made." + +"You had given your word? Would he not have let you put me before your +word? For once? For that one time in all our lives?" + +"It was not that, Tante. Gregory would have done what I wished. You must +not think that I was forced in any way." Karen now had raised her head. +"But we had waited for you. We thought that you were coming. It was only +at the last moment that you let us know, Tante, and you did not even say +when you were coming back." + +Madame von Marwitz kept silence for some moments after this, savouring +perhaps in the words--though Karen's eyes, in speaking them, had also +filled with tears--some hint of resistance. She looked away from the +girl, keeping her hand in hers, as she said: "I could not come. I could +not tell you when I was to come. There were reasons that bound me; ties; +claims; a tangle of troubled human lives--the threads passing through my +fingers. No; I was not free; and there I would have had you trust me. +No, no, my Karen, we will speak of it no farther. I understand young +hearts--they are forgetful; they cannot dwell on the shadowed places. +Let us put it aside, the great grief. What surprises me is to find that +the littlest, littlest ones cling so closely. I am foolish, Karen. I +have had much to bear lately, and I cannot shake off the little griefs. +That others than myself should have chosen my child's trousseau; oh, it +is small--so very small a thing; yet it hurts; it hurts. That the joy of +seeking all the pretty clothes together--that, that, too, should have +been taken from me. Do not weep, child." + +"Tante, you could not come, and the things had to be made ready. They +all--Mrs. Forrester--Betty--seemed to feel there was no time to lose. +And I have always chosen my own clothes; I did not know that you would +feel this so." + +"Betty? Who is Betty?" Madame von Marwitz mournfully yet alertly +inquired. + +"Lady Jardine, Gregory's sister-in-law. You remember, Tante, I have +written of her. She has been so kind." + +"Betty," Madame von Marwitz repeated, sadly. "Yes, I remember; she was +at your wedding, I think. There, dry your eyes, child. I understand. It +is a loving heart, but it forgot. The sad old Tante was crowded out by +new friends--new joys." + +"No, you must not say that, Tante. It is not true." + +The hardness that Madame von Marwitz knew how to interpret was showing +itself on Karen's face, despite the tears. Her guardian rose, passing +her arm around her shoulders. "It is not true, then, _cherie_. When one +is very sad one is foolish. Ah, I know it; one imagines too quickly +things that are not true. They float and then they cling, like the tiny +barbed down of the thistle, and then, behold, one's brain is choked with +thorny weeds. That is how it comes, my Karen. Forgive me. There; kiss +me." + +"Darling Tante," Karen murmured, clasping her closely. "Nothing, nothing +crowded you out. Nothing could ever crowd you out. Say that you believe +me. Say that all the thistles are rooted up and thrown away." + +"Rooted up and burned--burned root and branch, my child. I promise it. I +trust my child; she is mine; my loving one. _Ainsi soit-il._ And now," +Madame von Marwitz spoke with sudden gaiety, "and now show me your home, +my Karen, show me all over this home of yours to which already you are +so attached. Ah--it is a child in love!" + +They went from room to room, their arms around each other's waists. +Madame von Marwitz cast her spell over Mrs. Barker in the kitchen, and +smiled a long smile upon Rose, the housemaid. "Yes, yes, very nice, very +pretty," she said, in the spare-room, the little dressing-room, the +dining-room and kitchen. In Karen's room, with its rose-budded chintz +and many photographs of herself, of Gregory, she paused and looked +about. "Very, very pretty," she repeated. "You like bedsteads of brass, +my Karen?" + +"Yes, Tante. They look so clean and bright." + +"So clean and bright. I do not think that I could sleep in brass," +Madame von Marwitz mused. "But it is a simple child." + +"Yes, that is just it, Tante," said Karen, smiling. "And I wanted to +explain to you about the drawing-room. You see it is that; I am simple; +not a sea-anemone of taste, like you. I quite well see things. I see +that Les Solitudes is beautiful, and that this is not like Les +Solitudes. Yet I like it here just as it is." + +"Because it is his, is it not so, my child-in-love? Ah, she must not be +teased. You can be happy, then, among so much brass?--so many things +that glitter and are highly coloured?" + +"Yes, indeed. And it is a pretty bedroom, Tante. You must say that it is +a pretty bedroom?" + +"Is it? Must I? Pretty? Yes, no doubt it is pretty. Yet I could have +wished that my Karen's nest had more distinction, expressed a finer +sense of personality. I imagine that every young woman in this vast +beehive of homes has just such a bedroom." + +"You think so, Tante? I am afraid that if you think this like +everybody's room you will find Gregory's library even worse. You must +see that now; it is all that you have not seen." Karen took her last +bull by the horns, leading her out. + +"Has it red wall-paper, sealing-wax red; with racing prints on the walls +and a very large photograph over the mantelpiece of a rowing-crew at +Oxford?" Madame von Marwitz questioned with a mixture of roguishness and +resignation. + +"Yes, yes, you wicked Tante. How did you know?" + +"I know; I see it," said Madame von Marwitz. "But a man's room expresses +a man's past. One cannot complain of that." + +They went to the library. Madame von Marwitz had described it with +singular accuracy. Gregory rose from his letters and his eyes went from +her face to Karen's, both showing their traces of tears. + +"It is _au revoir_, then," said Madame von Marwitz, standing before him, +her arm round Karen's shoulders. "I am happy in my child's happiness, +Mr. Jardine. You have made her happy, and I thank you. You will lend her +to me, sometimes? You will be generous with me and let me see her?" + +"Of course; whenever you want to; whenever she wants to," said Gregory, +leaning his hands on the back of his chair and tilting it a little while +he smiled the fullest acquiescence. + +Madame von Marwitz's eyes brooded on him. "That is kind," she said +gently. + +"Oh no, it isn't," Gregory returned. + +"I think," said Madame von Marwitz, becoming even more gentle, "that you +misunderstand my meaning. When people love, it is hard sometimes not to +be selfish in the joy of love, and the lesser claims tend to be +forgotten. I only ask that you should make it easy for Karen to come to +me." + +To this Gregory did not reply. He continued to tilt his chair and to +smile at Madame von Marwitz. + +"This husband of yours, Karen," said Madame von Marwitz, "does not +understand me yet. You must interpret me to him. Adieu, Mr. Jardine. +Will you come with me alone to the door, Karen. It is our first farewell +in a home I do not give you." + +She gave Gregory her hand. They left him and went down the passage +together. Madame von Marwitz kept her arm round the girl's shoulders, +but its grasp had tightened. + +"My child! my own child!" she murmured, as, at the door, she turned and +clasped her. Her voice strove with deep emotion. + +"Dear, dear Tante," said Karen, also with a faltering voice. + +Madame von Marwitz achieved an uncertain smile. "Farewell, my dear one. +I bless you. My blessing be upon you." Then, on the threshold she +paused. "Try to make your husband like me a little, my Karen," she said. + +Karen did not come back to him in the smoking-room and Gregory presently +got up and went to look for her. He found her in the drawing-room, +sitting in the twilight, her elbow on her knee, her chin in her hand. He +did not know what she could be feeling; the fact that dominated in his +own mind was that her guardian had made her weep. + +"Well, darling," he said. He stooped over her and put his hand on her +shoulder. + +The face she lifted to him was ambiguous. She had not wept again; on the +contrary, he felt sure that she had been intently thinking. The result +of her thought, now, was a look of resolute serenity. But he was sure +that she did not feel serene. For the first time, Karen was hiding her +feeling from him. "Well, darling," she replied. + +She got up and put her arms around his neck; she looked at him, smiling +calmly; then, as if struck by a sudden memory, she said: "It is the +night of the dance, Gregory." + +They were to dine at Edith Morton's and go on to Karen's first dance. +Under Betty's supervision she had already made progress through +half-a-dozen lessons, though she had not, she confessed to Gregory, +greatly distinguished herself at them. "_I'll_ get you round all right," +he had promised her. They looked forward to the dance. + +"So it is," said Gregory. "It's not time to dress yet, is it?" + +"It's only half-past six. Shall I wear my white silk, Gregory, with the +little white rose wreath?" + +"Yes, and the nice little square-toed white silk shoes--like a Reynolds +lady's--and like nobody else's. I do so like your square toes." + +"I cannot bear pinched toes," said Karen. "My father gave me a horror of +that; and Tante. Her feet are as perfect as her hands. She has all her +shoes made for her by a wonderful old man in Vienna who is an artist in +shoes. She was looking well, wasn't she, Tante?" Karen added, in even +tones. Gregory and she were sitting now on the sofa together, their arms +linked and hand-in-hand. + +"Beautiful," said Gregory with sincerity. "How well that odd head-dress +became her." + +"Didn't it? It was nice that she liked those pretty teacups, wasn't it. +And appreciated our view; even though," Karen smiled, taking now another +bull by the horns, "she was so hard on our flat. I'm afraid she feels +her Bouddha _en travestie_ here." + +"Well, he is, of course. I do hope," said Gregory, also seizing his +bull, "that she didn't think me rude in my joke about being willing to +burn him. And you will change everything--burn anything--barring the +Bouddha and the teacups--that you want to, won't you, dear?" + +"No; I wouldn't, even if I wanted to; and I don't want to. Perhaps Tante +did not quite understand. I think it may take a little time for her to +understand your jokes or you her outspokenness. She is like a child in +her candour about the things she likes or dislikes." A fuller ease had +come to her voice. By her brave pretence that all was well she was +persuading herself that all could be made well. + +Perhaps it might be, thought Gregory, if only he could go on keeping his +temper with Madame von Marwitz and if Karen, wise and courageous +darling, could accept the unspoken between them, and spare him +definitions and declarations. A situation undefined is so often a +situation saved. Life grows over and around it. It becomes a mere +mummied fly, preserved in amber; unsightly perhaps; but unpernicious. +After all, he told himself--and he went on thinking over the incidents +of the afternoon while he dressed--after all, Madame von Marwitz might +not be much in London; she was a comet and her course would lead her +streaming all over the world for the greater part of her time. And above +all and mercifully, Madame von Marwitz was not a person upon whose +affections one would have to count. He seemed to have found out all +sorts of things about her this afternoon: he could have given Sargent +points. The main strength of her feeling for anyone, deep instinct told +him, was an insatiable demand that they should feel sufficiently for +her. And the chief difficulty--he refused to dignify it by the name of +danger--was that Madame von Marwitz had her deep instincts, too, and +had, no doubt, found out all sorts of things about him. He did not like +her; he had not liked her from the first; and she could hardly fail to +feel that he liked her less and less. He was able to do Madame von +Marwitz justice. Even a selflessly devoted mother could hardly rejoice +wholeheartedly in the marriage of a daughter to a man who disliked +herself; and how much less could Madame von Marwitz, who was not a +mother and not selflessly devoted to anybody, rejoice in Karen's +marriage. She was right in feeling that it menaced her own position. He +did her justice; he made every allowance for her; he intended to be +straight with her; but the fact that stood out for Gregory was that, +already, she was not straight with him. Already she was picking +surreptitiously, craftily, at his life; and this was to pick at Karen's. + +He would give her a long string and make every allowance for the +vexations of her situation; but if she began seriously to tarnish +Karen's happiness he would have to pull the string smartly. The +difficulty--he refused to see this as danger either--was that he could +not pull the string upon Madame von Marwitz without, by the same +gesture, upsetting himself as well. + + + + +CHAPTER XVIII + + +The unspoken, for the first month or so of Madame von Marwitz's return, +remained accepted. There were no declarations and no definitions, and +Gregory's immunity was founded on something more reassuring than the +mere fact that Madame von Marwitz frequently went away. When she was in +London, it became apparent, he was to see very little of her, and as +long as they did not meet too often he felt that he was, in so far, +safe. Madame von Marwitz was tremendously busy. She paid many week-end +visits; she sat to Belot--who had come to London to paint it--for a +great portrait; she was to give three concerts in London during the +winter and two in Paris, and it was natural enough that she had not +found time to come to the flat again. + +But although Gregory saw so little of her, although she was not in his +life as a presence, he felt her in it as an influence. She might have +been the invisible but portentous comet moving majestically on the far +confines of his solar system; and one accounted for oddities of +behaviour in the visible planets by inferring that the comet was the +cause of them. If he saw very little of Madame von Marwitz, he saw, too, +much less of his twin planet, Karen. It was not so much that Karen's +course was odd as that it was altered. If Madame von Marwitz sent for +her very intermittently, she had, all the same, in all her life, as she +told Gregory, never seen so much of her guardian. She frankly displayed +to him the radiance of her state, wishing him, as he guessed, to share +to the full every detail of her privileges, and to realise to the full +her gratitude to him for proving so conclusively to Tante that there was +none of the selfishness of love in him. Tante must see that he made it +very easy for her to go to her, and Gregory derived his own secret +satisfaction from the thought that Karen's radiance was the best of +retorts to Madame von Marwitz's veiled intimations. As long as she made +Karen happy and let him alone, he seemed to himself to tell her, he +would get on very well; and he suspected that her clutch of Karen would +soon loosen when she found it unchallenged. In the meantime there was +not much satisfaction for him elsewhere. Karen's altered course left him +often lonely. Not only had the readings of Political Economy, begun with +so much ardour in their spare evenings, almost lapsed for lack of +consecutiveness; but he frequently found on coming home tired for his +tea, and eager for the sight of his wife, a little note from her telling +him that she had been summoned to Mrs. Forrester's as Tante was "with +Fafner in his cave" and wanted her. + +Fafner was the name that Madame von Marwitz gave to her moods of +sometimes tragic and sometimes petulant melancholy. Karen had told him +all about Fafner and how, in the cave, Tante would lie sometimes for +long hours, silent, her eyes closed, holding her hand; sometimes asking +her to read to her, English, French, German or Italian poetry; their +range of reading always astonished Gregory. + +He gathered, too, from Karen's confidences, how little, until now, he +had gauged the variety of the great woman's resources, how little done +justice to her capacity for being merely delightful. She could be +whimsically gay in the midst of melancholy, and her jests and merriment +were the more touching, the more exquisite, from the fact that they +flowered upon the dark background of the cave. It was, he saw, with a +richer flavour that Karen tasted again the charm of old days, when, +after some great musical or social event, in which the girl had played +her part of contented observer, they had laughed together over follies +and appreciated qualities, in the familiar language of allusion evolved +from long community in experience. + +Karen repeated to him Tante's sallies at the expense of this or that +person and the phrase with which she introduced these transformations of +human foolishness to the service of comedy. "Come, let us make +_meringues_ of them." + +The dull or ludicrous creatures, so to be whipped up and baked crisp, +revealed, in the light of the analogy, the tempting vacuity of a bowl of +white of egg. When Tante introduced her wit into the colourless +substance she frothed it to a sparkling work of art. + +Gregory was aware sometimes of a pang as he listened. He and Karen had, +indeed, their many little jokes, and their stock of common association +was growing; but there was nothing like the range of reference, nothing +like the variety of experience, that her life with Madame von Marwitz +had given her to draw upon. It was to her companionship, intermittent as +it had been, with the world-wandering genius that she owed the security +of judgment that often amused yet often disconcerted him, the +catholicity of taste beside which, though he would not acknowledge its +final validity, he felt his own taste to be sometimes narrow and +sometimes guileless. He saw that Karen had every ground for feeling her +own point of view a larger one than his. It was no personal complacency +that her assurance expressed, but the modest recognition of privilege. +Beyond their personal tie, so her whole demeanour showed him, he had +nothing to add to her highly dowered life. + +Gregory had known that his world would mean nothing to Karen; yet when, +under Betty's guidance, she fulfilled her social duties, dined out, gave +dinners, received and returned visits, the very compliance of her +indifference, while always amusing, vexed him a little, and a little +alarmed him, too. He had known that he would have to make all the +adjustments, but how adjust oneself to a permanent separation between +one's private and one's social life? Old ties, lacking new elements of +growth, tended to become formalities. When Karen was not there, he did +not care to go without her to see people, and when she was with him the +very charm of her personality was a barrier between him and them. His +life became narrower as well as lonelier. There was nothing much to be +done with people to whom one's wife was indifferent. + +It was very obvious to him that she found the sober, conventional people +who were his friends very flavourless, especially when she came to them +from Fafner's cave. He had always taken his friends for granted, as part +of the pleasant routine of life, like one's breakfast or one's bath; but +now, seeing them anew, through Karen's eyes, he was inclined more and +more to believe that they weren't as dull as she found them. She lacked +the fundamental experience of a rooted life. She was yet to learn--he +hoped, he determined, she should learn--that a social system of +harmonious people, significant perhaps more because of their places in +the system than as units, and bound together by a highly evolved code, +was, when all was said and done, a more satisfactory place in which to +spend one's life than an anarchic world of erratic, undisciplined, +independent individuals. Karen, however, did not understand the use of +the system and she saw its members with eyes as clear to their defects +as were Gregory's to the defects of Madame von Marwitz. + +Gregory's friends belonged to that orderly and efficient section of the +nation that moves contentedly between the simply professional and the +ultra fashionable. They had a great many duties, social, political and +domestic, which they took with a pleasant seriousness, and a great many +pleasures which they took seriously, too. They "came up" from the quiet +responsibilities of the country-side for a season and "did" the concerts +and exhibitions as they "did" their shopping and their balls. Art, to +most of them, was a thing accepted on authority, like the latest cut for +sleeves or the latest fashion for dressing the hair. A few of them, like +the Cornish Lavingtons, had never heard Madame Okraska; a great many of +them had never heard of Belot. The Madame Okraskas and the Belots of the +world were to them a queer, alien people, regarded with only a mild, +derivative interest. They recognized the artist as a decorative +appurtenance of civilized life, very much as they recognized the dentist +or the undertaker as its convenient appurtenances. It still struck them +as rather strange that one should meet artists socially and, perhaps, as +rather regrettable, their traditional standard of good faith requiring +that the people one met socially should, on the whole, be people whom +one wouldn't mind one's sons and daughters marrying; and they didn't +conceive of artists as entering that category. + +Gregory, with all his acuteness, did not gauge the astonishment with +which Karen came to realize these standards of his world. Her cheerful +evenness of demeanour was a cloak, sometimes for indignation and +sometimes for mirth. She could only face the fact that this world must, +in a sense, be hers, by relegating it and all that it meant to the +merest background in their lives. Her real life consisted in Gregory; in +Tante. All that she had to do with these people--oh, so nice and kind +they were, she saw that well, but oh so stupid, most of them, so +inconceivably blind to everything of value in life--all that she had to +do was, from time to time, to open their box, their well-padded, +well-provendered box, and look at them pleasantly. She felt sure that +for Gregory's sake, if not for theirs, she should always be able to look +pleasantly; unless--she had been afraid of this sometimes--they should +say or do things that in their blindness struck at Tante and at the +realities that Tante stood for. But all had gone so well, so Karen +believed, that she felt no misgivings when Tante expressed a wish to +look into the box with her and said, "You must give a little +dinner-party for me, my Karen, so that I may see your new _milieu_." + +Gregory controlled a dry little grimace when Karen reported this speech +to him. He couldn't but suspect Tante's motives in wanting them to give +a little dinner-party for her. But he feigned the most genial interest +in the plan and agreed with Karen that they must ask their very nicest +to meet Tante. + +Betty had helped Karen with all her dinners; she had seen as yet very +little of the great woman, and entered fully into Karen's eagerness that +everything should be very nice. + +"Gregory will take her in," said Betty; "and we'll put Bertram Fraser on +her other side. He's always delightful. And we'll have the +Canning-Thompsons and the Overtons and the Byngs; the Byngs are so +decorative!" Constance Armytage was now Mrs. Byng. + +"And my dear old General," said Karen, sitting at her desk with a paper +on her knee and an obedient pencil in her hand; "I forget his name, but +we met him at the dinner that you gave after we married; you know, +Betty, with the thin russet face and the little blue eyes. May he take +me in?" + +"General Montgomery. Yes; that is a good idea; glorious old man. Though +Lady Montgomery is rather a stodge," said Betty; "but Oliver can have +her." + +"I remember, a sleek, small head--like a turtle--with salmon-pink +feathers on it. Poor Oliver. Will he mind?" + +"Not a bit. He never minds anything but the dinner; and with Mrs. Barker +we can trust to that." + +"Tante often likes soldiers," said Karen, pleased with her good idea. +"Our flags, she says, they are, and that the world would be +drab-coloured without them." + +So it was arranged. Bertram Fraser was an old family friend of the +Jardines'. His father was still the rector of their Northumberland +parish, and he and Gregory and Oliver had hunted and fished and shot and +gone to Oxford together. Bertram had been a traveller in strange +countries since those days, had written one or two clever books and was +now in Parliament. The Overtons, also country neighbours, were fond of +music as well as of hunting, and Mr. Canning-Thompson was an eminent, if +rather ponderous, Q.C., for whose wife, the gentle and emaciated Lady +Mary, Gregory had a special affection. She was a great philanthropist +and a patient student of early Italian art, and he and she talked +gardens and pictures together. + +Betty and Oliver were the first to arrive on the festal night, Betty's +efficiency, expressed by all her diamonds and a dress of rose-coloured +velvet, making up for whatever there might be of inefficiency in Karen's +appearance and deportment. Karen was still, touchingly so to her +husband's eyes, the little Hans Andersen heroine in appearance. She wore +to-night the white silk dress and the wreath of little white roses. + +Oliver and Gregory chatted desultorily until the Byngs arrived. Oliver +was fair and ruddy and his air of dozing contentment was always +vexatious to his younger brother. He had every reason for contentment. +Betty's money had securely buttressed the family fortunes and he had +three delightful little boys to buttress Betty's money. Gregory grew a +little out of temper after talking for five minutes to Oliver and this +was not a fortunate mood in which to realise, as the Montgomerys, the +Overtons and the Canning-Thompsons followed the Byngs, at eight-fifteen, +that Madame von Marwitz was probably going to be late. At eight-thirty, +Karen, looking at him with some anxiety expressed in her raised brows, +silently conveyed to him her fear that the soup, at the very least, +would be spoiled. At eight-forty Betty murmured to Karen that they had +perhaps better begin without Madame von Marwitz--hadn't they? She must, +for some reason, be unable to come. Dinner was for eight. "Oh, but we +must wait longer," said Karen. "She would have telephoned--or Mrs. +Forrester would--if she had not been coming. Tante is always late; but +always, always," she added, without condemnation if with anxiety. "And +there is the bell now. Yes, I heard it." + +It was a quarter to nine when Madame von Marwitz, with Karen, who had +hastened out to meet her, following behind, appeared at last, benign and +unperturbed as a moon sliding from clouds. In the doorway she made her +accustomed pause, the pause of one not surveying her audience but +indulgently allowing her audience to survey her. It was the attitude in +which Belot was painting his great portrait of her. But it was not met +to-night by the eyes to which she was accustomed. The hungry guests +looked at Madame von Marwitz with austere relief and looked only long +enough to satisfy themselves that her appearance really meant dinner. + +Gregory led the way with her into the dining-room and suspected in her +air of absent musing a certain discomfiture. + +She was, as usual, strangely and beautifully attired, as though for the +operatic stage rather than for a dinner-party. Strings of pearls fell +from either side of her head to her shoulders and a wide tiara of pearls +banded her forehead in a manner recalling a Russian head-dress. She +looked, though so lovely, also so conspicuous that there was a certain +ludicrousness in her appearance. It apparently displeased or surprised +Lady Montgomery, who, on Gregory's other hand, her head adorned with the +salmon-pink, ostrich feathers, raised a long tortoiseshell lorgnette and +fixed Madame von Marwitz through it for a mute, resentful moment. Madame +von Marwitz, erect and sublime as a goddess in a shrine, looked back. It +was a look lifted far above the region of Lady Montgomery's formal, and +after all only tentative, disapprobations; divine impertinence, +sovereign disdain informed it. Lady Montgomery dropped her lorgnette +with a little clatter and, adjusting her heavy diamond bracelets, turned +her sleek mid-Victorian head to her neighbour. Gregory did not know +whether to be amused or vexed. + +It was now his part to carry on a conversation with the great woman: and +he found the task difficult. She was not silent, nor unresponsive. She +listened to his remarks with the almost disconcerting closeness of +attention that he had observed in her on their meeting of the other day, +seeming to seek in them some savour that still escaped her good-will. +She answered him alertly, swiftly, and often at random, as though by her +intelligence and competence to cover his ineptitude. Her smile was +brightly mechanical; her voice at once insistent and monotonous. She had +an air, which Gregory felt more and more to be almost insolent, of doing +her duty. + +Bertram Fraser's turn came and he rose to it with his usual buoyancy. He +was interested in meeting Madame von Marwitz; but he was a young man who +had made his way in the world and perhaps exaggerated his achievement. +He expected people to be interested also in meeting him. He expected +from the great genius a reciprocal buoyancy. Madame von Marwitz bent her +brows upon him. Irony grew in her smile, a staccato crispness in her +utterance. Cool and competent as he was, Bertram presently looked +disconcerted; he did not easily forgive those who disconcerted him, and, +making no further effort to carry on the conversation, he sat silent, +smiling a little, and waited for his partner to turn to him again. Had +Gregory not taken up his talk, lamely and coldly, with Madame von +Marwitz, she would have been left in an awkward isolation. + +She answered him now in a voice of lassitude and melancholy. Leaning +back in her chair, strange and almost stupefying object that she was, +her eyes moved slowly round the table with a wintry desolation of +glance, until, meeting Karen's eyes, they beamed forth a brave warmth of +cherishing, encouraging sweetness. "Yes, _ma cherie_," they seemed to +say; "Bear up, I am bearing up. I will make _meringues_ of them for +you." + +She could make _meringues_ of them; Gregory didn't doubt it. Yet, and +here was the glow of malicious satisfaction that atoned to him for the +discomforts he endured, they were, every one of them, making _meringues_ +of her. + +In their narrowness, in their defects, ran an instinct, as shrewd as it +was unconscious, that was a match for Madame von Marwitz's intelligence. +They were so unperceiving that no one of them, except perhaps Betty and +Karen--who of course didn't count among them at all--was aware of the +wintry wind of Madame von Marwitz's boredom; yet if it had been +recognised it would have been felt as insignificant. They knew that she +was a genius, and that she was very odd looking and that, as Mrs. +Jardine's guardian, she had not come in a professional capacity and +might therefore not play to them after dinner. So defined, she was seen, +with all her splendour of association, as incidental. + +Only perhaps in this particular section of the British people could this +particular effect of cheerful imperviousness have been achieved. They +were not of the voracious, cultured hordes who make their way by their +well-trained appreciations, nor of the fashionable lion-collecting tribe +who do not need to make their way but who need to have their way made +amusing. Well-bred, securely stationed, untouched by boredom or anxiety, +they were at once too dull and too intelligent to be fluttered by the +presence of a celebrity. They wanted nothing of her, except, perhaps, +that after their coffee she should give them some music, and they did +not want this at all eagerly. + +If Madame von Marwitz had come to crush, to subjugate or to enchant, she +had failed in every respect and Gregory saw that her failure was not +lost upon her. Her manner, as the consciousness grew, became more +frankly that of the vain, ill-tempered child, ignored. She ceased to +speak; her eyes, fixed on the wall over Sir Oliver's head, enlarged in a +sullen despondency. + +Lady Montgomery was making her way through a bunch of grapes and Lady +Mary had only peeled her peach, when, suddenly, taking upon herself the +prerogative of a hostess, Madame von Marwitz caught up her fan and +gloves with a gesture of open impatience, and swept to the door almost +before Gregory had time to reach it or the startled guests to rise from +their places. + + + + +CHAPTER XIX + + +When the time came for going to the drawing-room, Gregory found Betty +entertaining the company there, while Karen, on a distant sofa, was +apparently engaged in showing her guardian a book of photographs. He +took in the situation at a glance, and, as he took it in, he was aware +that part of its significance lay in the fact that it obliged him to a +swift interchange with Betty, an interchange that irked him, defining as +it did a community of understanding from which Karen, in her simplicity, +was shut out. + +He went across to the couple on the sofa. Only sudden illness could have +excused Madame von Marwitz's departure from the dining-room, yet he +determined to ask no questions, and to leave any explanations to her. + +Karen's eyes, in looking at him, were grave and a little anxious; but +the anxiety, he saw, was not on his account. "Tante wanted to see our +kodaks," she said. "Do sit here with us, Gregory. Betty is talking to +everybody so beautifully." + +"But you must go and talk to everybody beautifully, too, now, darling," +said Gregory. He put his hand on her shoulder and looked down at her +smiling. The gesture, with its marital assurance, the smile that was +almost a caress, were involuntary; yet they expressed more than his +tender pride and solicitude, they defined his possession of her, and +they excluded Tante. "It's been a nice little dinner, hasn't it," he +went on, continuing to look at her and not at Madame von Marwitz. "I saw +that the General was enjoying you immensely. There he is, looking over +at you now; he wants to go on talking about Garibaldi with you. He said +he'd never met a young woman so well up in modern history." + +Madame von Marwitz's brooding eyes were on him while he thus spoke. He +ignored them. + +Karen looked a little perplexed. "Did you think it went so well, then, +Gregory?" + +"Why, didn't you?" + +"I am not sure. I don't think I shall ever much like dinners, when I +give them," she addressed herself to her guardian as well as to her +husband. "They make one feel so responsible." + +"Well, as far as you were responsible for this one you were responsible +for its being very nice. Everybody enjoyed themselves. Now go and talk +to the General." + +"I did enjoy him," said Karen, half closing her book. "But Tante has +rather a headache--I am afraid she is tired. You saw at dinner that she +was tired." + +"Yes, oh yes, indeed, I thought that you must be feeling a little ill, +perhaps," Gregory observed blandly, turning his eyes now on Madame von +Marwitz. "Well, you see, Karen, I will take your place here, and it will +give me a chance for a quiet talk with your guardian." + +"People must not bother her," Karen rose, pleased, he could see, with +this arrangement, and hoping, he knew, that the opportunity was a +propitious one, and that in it her dear ones might draw together. "You +will see that they don't bother her, Gregory, and go on showing her +these." + +"They won't bother a bit, I promise," said Gregory, taking her place as +she rose. "They are all very happily engaged, and Madame von Marwitz and +I will look at the photographs in perfect peace." + +Something in these words and in the manner with which her guardian +received them, with a deepening of her long, steady glance, arrested +Karen's departure. She stood above them, half confident, yet half +hesitating. + +"Go, _mon enfant_," said Madame von Marwitz, turning the steady glance +on her. "Go. Nobody here, as your husband truly says, is thinking of me. +I shall be quite untroubled." + +Still with her look of preoccupation Karen moved away. + +Cheerfully and deliberately Gregory now proceeded to turn the pages of +the kodak album, and to point out with painstaking geniality the charms +and associations of each view, "_Tu l'as voulu, Georges Dandin_," +expressed his thought, for he didn't believe that Madame von Marwitz, +more than any person not completely self-abnegating, could tolerate +looking at other people's kodaks. But since it was her chosen +occupation, the best she could find to do with their dinner-party, she +should be gratified; should be shown Karen standing on a peak in the +Tyrol; Karen feeding the pigeons before St. Mark's; Karen, again--wasn't +it rather nice of her?--in a gondola. Madame von Marwitz bent her head +with its swinging pearls above the pictures, proffering now and then a +low murmur of assent. + +But in the midst of the Paris pictures she lifted her head and looked at +him. It was again the steady, penetrating look, and now it seemed, with +the smile that veiled it, to claim some common understanding rather than +seek it. "Enough," she said. She dismissed the kodaks with a tap of her +fan. "I wish to talk with you. I wish to talk with you of our Karen." + +Gregory closed the volume. Madame von Marwitz's attitude as she leaned +back, her arms lightly folded, affected him in its deliberate grace and +power as newly significant. Keeping his frosty, observant eyes upon her, +Gregory waited for what she had to say. "I am glad, very glad, that you +have given me this opportunity for a quiet conversation," so she took up +the threads of her intention. "I have wanted, for long, to consult with +you about various matters concerning Karen, and, in especial, about her +future life. Tell me--this is what I wish in particular to ask you--you +are going, are you not, in time, when she has learned more skill in +social arts, to take my Karen into the world--_dans le monde_," Madame +von Marwitz repeated, as though to make her meaning genially clear. +"Skill she is as yet too young to have mastered--or cared to master. But +she had always been at ease on the largest stage, and she will do you +credit, I assure you." + +It was rather, to Gregory's imagination--always quick at similes--as +though she had struck a well-aimed blow right in the centre of a huge +gong hanging between them. There she was, the blow said. It was this she +meant. No open avowal of hostility could have been more reverberating or +purposeful, and no open avowal of hostility would have been so sinister. +But Gregory, though his ears seemed to ring with the clang of it, was +ready for her. He, too, with folded arms, sat leaning back and he, too, +smiled genially. "That's rather crushing, you know," he made reply, "or +didn't you? Karen is in my world. This is my world." + +Madame von Marwitz gazed at him for a moment as if to gauge his +seriousness. And then she turned her eyes on his world and gazed at +that. It was mildly chatting. It was placid, cheerful, unaware of +deficiency. It thought that it was enjoying itself. It was, indeed, +enjoying itself, if with the slightest of materials. Betty and Bertram +Fraser laughed together; Lady Mary and Oliver ever so slowly conversed. +Constance Byng and Mr. Overton discussed the latest opera, young Byng +had joined Karen and the General, and a comfortable drone of politics +came from Mrs. Overton and Mr. Canning-Thompson. Removed a little from +these groups Lady Montgomery, very much like a turtle, sat with her head +erect and her eyes half closed, evidently sleepy. It was upon Lady +Montgomery that Madame von Marwitz's gaze dwelt longest. + +"You are contented," she then said to Gregory, "with these good people; +for yourself and for your wife?" + +"Perfectly," said Gregory. "You see, Karen has married a commonplace +person." + +Madame von Marwitz paused again, and again her eyes dwelt on Lady +Montgomery, whose pink feathers had given a sudden nod and then serenely +righted themselves. "I see," she then remarked. "But she is not +contented." + +"Ah, come," said Gregory. "You can't shatter the conceit of a happy +husband so easily, Madame von Marwitz. You ask too much of me if you ask +me to believe that Karen makes confidences to you that she doesn't to +me. I can't take it on, you know," he continued to smile. + +He had already felt that the loveliness of Madame von Marwitz's face was +a veil for its coldness, and hints had come to him that it masked, also, +some more sinister quality. And now, for a moment, as if a primeval +creature peeped at him from among delicate woodlands, a racial savagery +crossed her face with a strange, distorting tremor. The blood mounted to +her brow; her skin darkened curiously, and her eyes became hot and heavy +as though the very irises felt the glow. + +"You do not accept my word, Mr. Jardine?" she said. Her voice was +controlled, but he had a disagreeable sensation of scorching, as though +a hot iron had been passed slowly before his face. + +Gregory shook his foot a little, clasping his ankle. "I don't say that, +of course. But I'm glad to think you're mistaken." + +"Let me tell you, Mr. Jardine," she returned, still with the curbed +elemental fury colouring her face and voice, "that even a happy +husband's conceit is no match for a mother's intuition. Karen is like my +child to me; and to its mother a child makes confidences that it is +unaware of making. Karen finds your world narrow; _borne_; it does not +afford her the wide life she has known." + +"You mean," said Gregory, "the life she led with Mrs. Talcott?" + +He had not meant to say it. If he had paused to think it over he would +have seen that it exposed him to her as consciously hostile and also as +almost feminine in his malice. And, as if this recognition of his false +move restored to her her full self-mastery, she met his irony with a +masculine sincerity, putting him, as on the occasion of their first +encounter, lamentably in the wrong. "Ah," she commented, her eyes +dwelling on him. "Ah, I see. You have wondered. You have criticized. You +have, I think, Mr. Jardine, misunderstood my life and its capacities. +Allow me to explain. Your wife is the creature dearest to me in the +world, and if you misread my devotion to her you endanger our relation. +You would not, I am sure, wish to do that; is it not so? Allow me +therefore to exculpate myself. I am a woman who, since childhood, +has had to labour for my livelihood and for that of those I love. +You can know nothing of what that labour of the artist's life +entails,--interminable journeys, suffocating ennui, the unwholesome +monotony and publicity of a life passed in hotels and trains. It was not +fit that a young and growing girl should share that life. As much as has +been possible I have guarded Karen from its dust and weariness. I have +had, of necessity, to leave her much alone, and she has needed +protection, stability, peace. I could have placed her in no lovelier +spot than my Cornish home, nor in safer hands than those of the guardian +and companion of my own youth. Do you not feel it a little unworthy, Mr. +Jardine, when you have all the present and all the future, to grudge me +even my past with my child?" + +She spoke slowly, with a noble dignity, all hint of sultry menace +passed; willing, for Karen's sake, to stoop to this self-justification +before Karen's husband. And, for Karen's sake, she had the air of +holding in steady hands their relation, hers and his, assailed so +gracelessly by his taunting words. Gregory, for the first time in his +knowledge of her, felt a little bewildered. It was she who had opened +hostilities, yet she almost made him forget it; she almost made him feel +that he alone had been graceless. "I do beg your pardon," he said. "Yes; +I had wondered a little about it; and I understand better now." But he +gathered his wits together sufficiently to add, on a fairer foothold: "I +am sure you gave Karen all you could. What I meant was, I think, that +you should be generous enough to believe that I am giving her all I +can." + +Madame von Marwitz rose as he said this and he also got up. It was not +so much, Gregory was aware, that they had fought to a truce as that they +had openly crossed swords. Her eyes still dwelt on him, and now as if in +a sad wonder. "But you are young. You are a man. You have ambition. You +wish to give more to the loved woman." + +"I don't really quite know what you mean by more, Madame von Marwitz," +said Gregory. "If it applies to my world, I don't expect, or wish, to +give Karen a better one." + +They stood and confronted each other for a moment of silence. + +"_Bien_," Madame von Marwitz then said, unemphatically, mildly. "_Bien._ +I must see what I can do." She turned her eyes on Karen, who, +immediately aware of her glance, hastened to her. Madame von Marwitz +laid an arm about her neck. "I must bid you good-night, _ma cherie_. I +am very tired." + +"Tante, dear, I saw that you were so tired, I am so sorry. It has all +been a weariness to you," Karen murmured. + +"No, my child; no," Madame von Marwitz smiled down into her eyes, +passing her hand lightly over the little white-rose wreath. "I have seen +you, and seen you happy; that is happiness enough for me. Good-night, +Mr. Jardine. Karen will come with me." + +Pausing for no further farewells, Madame von Marwitz passed from the +room with a majestic, generalized bending of the head. + +Betty joined her brother-in-law. "Dear me, Gregory," she said. "We've +had the tragic muse to supper, haven't we. What is the matter, what has +been the matter with Madame von Marwitz? Is she ill?" + +"She says she's tired," said Gregory. + +"It was disconcerting, wasn't it, her trailing suddenly out of the +dining-room in that singular fashion," said Betty. "Do you know, +Gregory, that I'm getting quite vexed with Madame von Marwitz." + +"Really? Why, Betty?" + +"Well, it has been accumulating. I'm a very easy-going person, you know; +but I've been noticing that whenever I want Karen, Madame von Marwitz +always nips in and cuts me out, so that I have hardly seen her at all +since her guardian came to London. And then it did rather rile me, I +confess, to find that the one hat in Karen's trousseau that I specially +chose for her is the one--the only one--that Madame von Marwitz objects +to. Karen never wears it now. She certainly behaved very absurdly +to-night, Gregory. I suppose she expected us to sit round in a circle +and stare." + +"Perhaps she did," Gregory acquiesced. "Perhaps we should have." + +He was anxious to maintain the appearance of bland lightness before +Betty. Karen had re-entered as they spoke and Betty called her to them. +"Tell me, Karen dear, is Madame von Marwitz ill? She didn't give me a +chance to say good-night to her." Betty had the air of wishing to +exonerate herself. + +"She isn't ill," said Karen, whose face was grave. "But very tired." + +"Now what made her tired, I wonder?" Betty mused. "She looks such a +robust person." + +It was bad of Betty, and as Karen stood before them, looking from one to +the other, Gregory saw that she suspected them. Her face hardened. "A +great artist needs to be robust," she said. "My guardian works every day +at her piano for five or six hours." + +"Dear me," Betty murmured. "How splendid. I'd no idea the big ones had +to keep it up like that." + +"There is great ignorance about an artist's life," Karen continued +coldly to inform her. "Do you not know what von Bulow said: If I miss my +practising for one day I notice it; if for two days my friends notice +it; if I miss it for three days the public notices it. The artist is +like an acrobat, juggling always, intent always on his three golden +balls kept flying in the air. That is what it is like. Every atom of +their strength is used. People, like my guardian, literally give their +lives for the world." + +"Oh, yes, it is wonderful, of course," Betty assented. "But of course +they must enjoy it; it can hardly be called a sacrifice." + +"Enjoy is a very small word to apply to such a great thing," said Karen. +"You may say also, if you like, that the saint enjoys his life of +suffering for others. It is his life to give himself to goodness; it is +the artist's life to give himself to beauty. But it is beauty and +goodness they seek, not enjoyment; we must not try to measure these +great people by our standards." + +Before this arraignment Betty showed a tact for which Gregory was +grateful to her. He, as so often, found Karen, in her innocent +sententiousness, at once absurd and adorable, but he could grant that to +Betty she might seem absurd only. + +"Don't be cross with me, Karen," she said. "I suppose I am feeling sore +at being snubbed by Madame von Marwitz." + +"But indeed she did not mean to snub you, Betty," said Karen earnestly. +"And I am not cross; please do not think that. Only I cannot bear to +hear some of the things that are said of artists." + +"Well, prove that you're not cross," said Betty, smiling, "by at last +giving me an afternoon when we can do something together. Will you come +and see the pictures at Burlington House with me to-morrow and have tea +with me afterwards? I've really seen nothing of you for so long." + +"To-morrow is promised to Tante, Betty. I'm so sorry. Her great concert +is to be on Friday, you know; and till then, and on the Saturday, I have +said that I will be with her. She gets so very tired. And I know how to +take care of her when she is tired like that." + +"Oh, dear!" Betty sighed. "There is no hope for us poor little people, +is there, while Madame von Marwitz is in London. Well, on Monday, then, +Karen. Will you promise me Monday afternoon?" + +"Monday is free, and I shall like so very much to come, Betty," Karen +replied. + +When Gregory and his wife were left alone together, they stood for some +moments without speaking on either side of the fire, and, as Karen's +eyes were on the flames, Gregory, looking at her carefully, read on her +face the signs of stress and self-command. The irony, the irritation and +the oppression that Madame von Marwitz had aroused in him this evening +merged suddenly, as he looked at Karen into intense anger. What had she +not done to them already, sinister woman? It was because of her that +constraint, reticence and uncertainty were rising again between him and +Karen. + +"Darling," he said, putting out his hand and drawing her to him; "you +look very tired." + +She came, he fancied, with at first a little reluctance, but, as he put +his arm around her, she leaned her head against his shoulder with a +sigh. "I am tired, Gregory." + +They stood thus for some moments and then, as if the confident +tenderness their attitude expressed forced her to face with him their +difficulty, she said carefully: "Gregory, dear, did you say anything to +depress Tante this evening?" + +"Why do you ask, darling?" Gregory, after a slight pause, also carefully +inquired. + +"Only that she seemed depressed, very much depressed. I thought, I hoped +that you and she were talking so nicely, so happily." + +There was another little pause and then Gregory said: "She rather +depressed me, I think." + +"Depressed you? But how, Gregory?" + +He must indeed be very careful. It was far too late, now, for simple +frankness; simple frankness had, perhaps, from the beginning been +impossible and in that fact lay the insecurity of his position, and the +immense advantage of Madame von Marwitz's. And as he paused and sought +his words it was as if, in the image of the Bouddha, looking down upon +him and Karen, Madame von Marwitz were with them now, a tranquil and +ironic witness of his discomfiture. "Well," he said, "she made me feel +that I had only a very dingy sort of life to offer you and that my +friends were all very tiresome--_borne_ was the word she used. That did +rather--well--dash my spirits." + +Standing there within his arm, of her face, seen from above, only the +brow, the eyelashes, the cheek visible, she was very still for a long +moment. Then, gently, she said--and in the gentleness he felt that she +put aside the too natural suspicion that he was complaining of Tante +behind her back: "She doesn't realise that I don't care at all about +people. And they are rather _bornes_, aren't they, Gregory." + +"I don't find them so," said Gregory, reasonably. "They aren't geniuses, +of course, or acrobats, or saints, or anything of that sort; but they +seem to me, on the whole, a very nice lot of people." + +"Very nice indeed, Gregory. But I don't think it is saints and geniuses +that Tante misses here; she misses minds that are able to recognise +genius." Her quick ear had caught the involuntary irony of his +quotation. + +"Ah, but, dear, you mustn't expect to find the average nice person able +to pay homage at a dinner-party. There is a time and a place for +everything, isn't there." + +"It was not that I meant, Gregory, or that Tante meant. There is always +a place for intelligence. It wasn't an interesting dinner, you must have +felt that as well as I, not the sort of dinner Tante would naturally +expect. They were only interested in their own things, weren't they? And +quite apart from homage, there is such a thing as realisation. Mr. +Fraser talked to Tante--I saw it all quite well--as he might have talked +to the next dowager he met. Tante isn't used to being talked to as if +she were _toute comme une autre_; she isn't _toute comme une autre_." + +"But one must pretend to be, at a dinner-party," Gregory returned. To +have to defend his friends when it was Tante who stood so lamentably in +need of defence had begun to work upon his nerves. "And some dowagers +are as interesting as anybody. There are all sorts of ways of being +interesting. Dowagers are as intelligent as geniuses sometimes." His +lightness was not unprovocative. + +"It isn't funny, Gregory, to see Tante put into a false position." + +"But, my dear, we did the best we could for her." + +"I know that we did; and our best isn't good enough for her. That is all +that I ask you to realise," said Karen. + +She was angry, and from the depths of his anger against Madame von +Marwitz Gregory felt a little gush of anger against Karen rise. "You are +telling me what she told me," he said; "that my best isn't good enough +for her. You may say it and think it, of course; but it's a thing that +Madame von Marwitz has no right to say." + +Karen moved away from his arm. Something more than the old girlish +sternness was in the look with which she faced him, though that flashed +at him, a shield rather than a weapon. He recognised the hidden pain and +astonishment and his anger faded in tenderness. How could she but resent +and repell any hint that belittled Tante's claims and justifications? +how could she hear but with dismay the half threat of his last words, +the intimation that from her he would accept what he would not accept +from Tante? The sudden compunction of his comprehension almost brought +the tears to his eyes. Karen saw that his resistance melted and the +sternness fell from her look. "But Gregory," she said, her voice a +little trembling, "Tante did not say that. Please don't make mistakes. +It is so dreadful to misunderstand; nothing frightens me so much. I say +it; that our best isn't good enough, and I am thinking of Tante; only of +Tante; but she--too sweetly and mistakenly--was thinking of me. Tante +doesn't care, for herself, about our world; why should she? And she is +mistaken to care about it for me; because it makes no difference, none +at all, to me, if it is _borne_. All that I care about, you know that, +Gregory, is you and Tante." + +Gregory had his arms around her. "Do forgive me, darling," he said. + +"But was I horrid?" Karen asked. + +"No. It was I who was stupid," he said. "Do you know, I believe we were +almost quarrelling, Karen." + +"And we can quarrel safely--you and I, Gregory, can't we?" Karen said, +her voice still trembling. + +He leaned his head against her hair. "Of course we can. Only--don't let +us quarrel--ever. It is so dreadful." + +"Isn't it dreadful, Gregory. But we must not let it frighten us, ever, +because of course we must quarrel now and then. And we often have +already, haven't we," she went on, reassuring him, and herself. "Do you +remember, in the Tyrol, about the black bread!--And I was right that +time.--And the terrible conflict in Paris, about _La Gaine d'Or_; when I +said you were a Philistine." + +"Well, you owned afterwards, after you read about the beastly thing, +that you were glad we hadn't gone." + +"Yes; I was glad. You were right there. Sometimes it is you and +sometimes I," Karen declared, as if that were the happy solution. + +So, in their mutual love, they put aside the menacing difference. +Something had happened, they could but be aware of that; but their love +tided them over. They did not argue further as to who was right and who +wrong that evening. + + + + +CHAPTER XX + + +The first of Madame von Marwitz's great concerts was given on Friday, +and Karen spent the whole of that day and of Saturday with her, summoned +by an urgent telephone message early in the morning. On Sunday she was +still secluded in her rooms, and Miss Scrotton, breaking in determinedly +upon her, found her lying prone upon the sofa, Karen beside her. + +"I cannot see you, my Scrotton," said Madame von Marwitz, with kindly +yet listless decision. "Did they not tell you below that I was seeing +nobody? Karen is with me to watch over my ill-temper. She is a soothing +little milk-poultice and I can bear nothing else. I am worn out." + +Before poor Miss Scrotton's brow of gloom Karen suggested that she +should herself go down to Mrs. Forrester for tea and leave her place to +Miss Scrotton, but, with a weary shake of the head, Madame von Marwitz +rejected the proposal. "No; Scrotton is too intelligent for me to-day," +she said. "You will go down to Mrs. Forrester for your tea, my Scrotton, +and wait for another day to see me." + +Miss Scrotton went down nearly in tears. + +"She refused to see Sir Alliston," Mrs. Forrester said, soothingly. "She +really is fit for nothing. I have never seen her so exhausted." + +"Yet Karen Jardine always manages to force her way in," said Miss +Scrotton, controlling the tears with difficulty. "She has absolutely +taken possession of Mercedes. It really is almost absurd, such devotion, +and in a married woman. Gregory doesn't like it at all. Oh, I know it. +Betty Jardine gave me a hint only yesterday of how matters stand." + +"Lady Jardine has always seemed to me a rather trivial little person. I +should not accept her impression of a situation," said Mrs. Forrester. +"Mercedes sends for Karen constantly. And I am sure that Gregory is glad +to think that she can be of use to Mercedes." + +"Oh, Betty Jardine thinks, too, that it is Mercedes who takes Karen from +her husband. But I really can't agree with her, or with you, dear Mrs. +Forrester, there. Mercedes is simply too indolent and kind-hearted to +defend herself from the sort of habit the girl has imposed upon her. As +for Gregory being grateful I can only assure you that you are entirely +mistaken. My own impression is that he is beginning to dislike Mercedes. +Oh, he is a very jealous temperament; I have always felt it in him. He +is one of those cold, passionate men who become the most infatuated and +tyrannical of husbands." + +"My dear Eleanor," Mrs. Forrester raised her eyebrows. "I see no sign of +tyranny. He allows Karen to come here constantly." + +"Yes; because he knows that to refuse would be to endanger his relation +to her. Mercedes is angelic to him of course, and doesn't give him a +chance for making things difficult for Karen. But it is quite obvious to +me that he hates the whole situation." + +"I hope not," said Mrs. Forrester, gravely now. "I hope not. It would be +tragical indeed if this last close relation in Mercedes's life were to +be spoiled for her. I could not forgive Gregory if he made it difficult +in any way for Karen to be with her guardian." + +"Well, as long as he can conceal his jealousy, Mercedes will manage, I +suppose, to keep things smooth. But I can't see it as you do, Mrs. +Forrester. I can't believe for a moment that Mercedes needs Karen or +that the tie is such a close one. She only likes to see her now because +she is bored and impatient and unhappy, and Karen is--she said it just +now, before the girl--a poultice for her nerves. And the reason for her +nerves isn't far to seek. I must be frank with you, dear Mrs. Forrester; +you know I always have been, and I'm distressed, deeply distressed about +Mercedes. She expected Claude Drew to be back from America by now and I +heard yesterday from that horrid young friend of his, Algernon Bently, +that he has again postponed his return. It's that that agonizes and +infuriates Mercedes, it's that that makes her unwilling to be alone with +me. I've seen too much; I know too much; she fears me, Mrs. Forrester. +She knows that I know that Claude Drew is punishing her now for having +snubbed him in America." + +"My dear Eleanor," Mrs. Forrester murmured distressfully. "You +exaggerate that young man's significance." + +"Dear Mrs. Forrester," Miss Scrotton returned, almost now with a solemn +exasperation, "I wish it were possible to exaggerate it. I watched it +grow. His very effrontery fascinates her. We know, you and I, what +Mercedes expects in devotion from a man who cares for her. They must +adore her on their knees. Now Mr. Drew adored standing nonchalantly on +his feet and looking coolly into her eyes. She resented it; she had +constantly to put him in his place. But she would rather have him out of +his place than not have him there at all. That is what she is feeling +now. That is why she is so worn out. She is wishing that Claude Drew +would come back from America, and she is wanting to write one letter to +his ten and finding that she writes five. He writes to her constantly, I +suppose?" + +"I believe he does," Mrs. Forrester conceded. "Mercedes is quite open +about the frequency of his letters. I am sure that you exaggerate, +Eleanor. He interests her, and he charms her if you will. Like every +woman, she is aware of devotion and pleased by it. I don't believe it's +anything more." + +"I believe," said Miss Scrotton, after a moment, and with resolution, +"that it's a great passion; the last great passion of her life." + +"Oh, my dear!" + +"A great passion," Miss Scrotton persisted, "and for a man whom she +knows not to be in any way her equal. It is that that exasperates her." + +Mrs. Forrester meditated for a little while and then, owning to a +certain mutual recognition of facts, she said: "I don't believe that +it's a great passion; but I think that a woman like Mercedes, a genius +of that scope, needs always to feel in her life the elements of a +'situation'--and life always provides such women with a choice of +situations. They are stimulants. Mr. Drew and his like, with whatever +unrest and emotion they may cause her, nourish her art. Even a great +passion would be a tempest that filled her sails and drove her on; in +the midst of it she would never lose the power of steering. She has +essentially the strength and detachment of genius. She watches her own +emotions and makes use of them. Did you ever hear her play more +magnificently than on Friday? If Mr. Drew _y etait pour quelque chose_, +it was in the sense that she made mincemeat of him and presented us in +consequence with a magnificent sausage." + +Miss Scrotton, who had somewhat forgotten her personal grievance in the +exhilaration of these analyses, granted the sausage and granted that +Mercedes made mincemeat of Mr. Drew--and of her friends into the +bargain. "But my contention and my fear is," she said, "that he will +make mincemeat of her before he is done with her." + +Miss Scrotton did not rank highly for wisdom in Mrs. Forrester's +estimation; but for her perspicacity and intelligence she had more +regard than she cared to admit. Echoes of Eleanor's distrusts and fears +remained with her, and, though it was but a minor one, such an echo +vibrated loudly on Monday afternoon when Betty Jardine appeared at +tea-time with Karen. + +It was the afternoon that Karen had promised to Betty, and when this +fact had been made known to Tante it was no grievance and no protest +that she showed, only a slight hesitation, a slight gravity, and then, +as if with cheerful courage in the face of an old sadness: "_Eh bien_," +she said. "Bring her back here to tea, _ma cherie_. So I shall come to +know this new friend of my Karen's better." + +Betty was not at all pleased at being brought back to tea. But Karen +asked her so gravely and prettily and said so urgently that Tante wanted +especially to know her better, and asked, moreover, if Betty would let +her come to lunch with her instead of tea, so that they should have +their full time together, that Betty once more pocketed her suspicions +of a design on Madame von Marwitz's part. The suspicion was there, +however, in her pocket, and she kept her hand on it rather as if it were +a small but efficacious pistol which she carried about in case of an +emergency. Betty was one who could aim steadily and shoot straight when +occasion demanded. It was a latent antagonist who entered Mrs. +Forrester's drawing-room on that Monday afternoon, Karen, all guileless, +following after. Mrs. Forrester and the Baroness were alone and, in a +deep Chesterfield near the tea-table, Madame von Marwitz leaned an arm, +bared to the elbow, in cushions and rested a meditative head on her +hand. She half rose to greet Betty. "This is kind of you, Lady Jardine," +she said. "I feared that I had lost my Karen for the afternoon. _Elle me +manque toujours_; she knows that." Smiling up at Karen she drew her down +beside her, studying her with eyes of fond, maternal solicitude. "My +child looks well, does she not, Mrs. Forrester? And the pretty hat! I am +glad not to see the foolish green one." + +"Oh, I like the green one very much, Tante," said Karen. "But you shall +not see it again." + +"I hope I'm to see it again," said Betty, turning over her pistol. "I +chose it, you know." + +Madame von Marwitz turned startled eyes upon her. "Ah--but I did not +know. Did you tell me this, Karen?" the eyes of distress now turned to +Karen. "Have I forgotten? Was the green hat, the little green hat with +the wing, indeed of Lady Jardine's choosing? Have I been so very rude?" + +"Betty will understand, Tante," said Karen--while Mrs. Forrester, softly +chinking among her blue Worcester teacups, kept a cogitating eye on +Betty Jardine--"that I have so many new hats now that you must easily +forget which is which." + +"All I ask," said Betty, laughing over her mishap, "is that I, +sometimes, may see Karen in the green hat, for I think it charming." + +"Indeed, Betty, so do I," said Karen, smiling. + +"And I must be forgiven for not liking the green hat," Madame von +Marwitz returned. + +Betty and Karen were supplied with tea, and after they had selected +their cakes, and a few inconsequent remarks had been exchanged, Madame +von Marwitz said: + +"And now, my Karen, I have a little plan to tell you of; a little treat +that I have arranged for you. We are to go together, on this next +Saturday, to stay at Thole Castle with my friends the Duke and Duchess +of Bannister. I have told them that I wish to bring my child." + +"But how delightful, Tante. It is to be in the country? We shall be +there, you and I and Gregory, till Monday?" + +"I thought that I should please you. Yes; till Monday. And in beautiful +country. But it is to be our own small treat; yours and mine. Your +husband will lend you to me for those two days." Holding the girl's hand +Madame von Marwitz smiled indulgently at her, with eyes only for her. +Betty, however, was listening. + +"But cannot Gregory come, too, Tante?" Karen questioned, her pleasure +dashed. + +"These friends of mine, my Karen," said Madame von Marwitz, "have heard +of you as mine only. It is as my child that you will come with me; just +as it is as your husband's wife that you see his friends. That is quite +clear, quite happy, quite understood." + +Karen's eyes now turned on Betty. They did not seek counsel, they asked +no question of Betty; but they gave her, in their slight bewilderment, +her opportunity. + +"But Karen, I think you are right," so she took up the gage that Madame +von Marwitz had flung. "I don't think that you must accept this +invitation without, at least, consulting Gregory." + +Madame von Marwitz did not look at her. She continued to gaze as +serenely at Karen as though Betty were a dog that had barked +irrelevantly from the hearth-rug. But Karen fixed widened eyes upon her. + +"I do not need to consult Gregory, Betty," she said. "We have, I know, +no engagements for this Saturday to Monday, and he will be delighted for +me that I am to go with Tante." + +"That may be, my dear," Betty returned with a manner as imperturbable as +Madame von Marwitz's; "but I think that you should give him an +opportunity of saying so. He may not care for his wife to go to +strangers without him." + +"They are not strangers. They are friends of Tante's." + +"Gregory may not care for you to make--as Madame von Marwitz suggests--a +different set of friends from his own." + +"If they become my friends they will become his," said Karen. + +During this little altercation, Madame von Marwitz, large and white, her +profile turned to Betty, sat holding Karen's hand and gazing at her with +an almost slumbrous melancholy. + +Mrs. Forrester, controlling her displeasure with some difficulty, +interposed. "I don't think Lady Jardine really quite understands the +position, Karen," she said. "It isn't the normal one, Lady Jardine. +Madame von Marwitz stands, really, to Karen in a mother's place." + +"Oh, but I can't agree with you, Mrs. Forrester," Betty replied. "Madame +von Marwitz doesn't strike me as being in the least like Karen's mother. +And she isn't Karen's mother. And Karen's husband, now, should certainly +stand first in her life." + +A silence followed the sharp report. Mrs. Forrester's and Karen's eyes +had turned on the Baroness who sat still, as though her breast had +received the shot. With tragic eyes she gazed out above Karen's head; +then: "It is true," she said in a low voice, as though communing with +herself; "I am indeed alone." She rose. With the slow step of a Niobe +she moved down the room and disappeared. + +"I do not forgive you for this, Betty," said Karen, following her +guardian. Betty, like a naughty school-girl, was left confronting Mrs. +Forrester across the tea-table. + +"Lady Jardine," said the old lady, fixing her bright eyes on her guest, +"I don't think you can have realised what you were saying. Madame von +Marwitz's isolation is one of the many tragedies of her life, and you +have made it clear to her." + +"I'm very sorry," said Betty. "But I feel what Madame von Marwitz is +doing to be so mistaken, so wrong." + +"These formalities don't obtain nowadays, especially if a wife is so +singularly related to a woman like Madame von Marwitz. And Mercedes is +quite above all such little consciousnesses, I assure you. She is not +aware of sets, in that petty way. It is merely a treat she is giving the +child, for she knows how much Karen loves to be with her. And it is only +in her train that Karen goes." + +"Precisely." Betty had risen and stood smoothing her muff and not +feigning to smile. "In her train. I don't think that Gregory's wife +should go in anybody's train." + +"It was markedly in Mercedes's train that he found her." + +"All the more reason for wishing now to withdraw her from it. Karen has +become something more than Madame von Marwitz's _panache_." + +Mrs. Forrester at this fixed Betty very hard and echoes of Miss Scrotton +rang loudly. "You must let me warn you, Lady Jardine," she said, "that +you are making a position, difficult already for Mercedes, more +difficult still. It would be a grievous thing if Karen were to recognize +her husband's jealousy. I'm afraid I can't avoid seeing what you have +made so plain to-day, that Gregory is trying to undermine Karen's +relation to her guardian." + +At this Betty had actually to laugh. "But don't you see that it is +simply the other way round?" she said. "It is Madame von Marwitz who is +trying to undermine Karen's relation to Gregory. It is she who is +jealous. It's that I can't avoid seeing." + +"I don't think we have anything to gain by continuing this +conversation," Mrs. Forrester replied. "May I give you some more tea +before you go?" + +"No, thanks. Is Karen coming with me, I wonder? We had arranged that I +was to take her home." + +Mrs. Forrester rang the bell and she and Betty stood in an uneasy +silence until the man returned to say that Mrs. Jardine was to spend the +evening with Madame von Marwitz who had suddenly been taken very ill. + +"Oh, dear! Oh, dear!" Mrs. Forrester almost moaned. "This means one of +her terrible headaches and we were to have dined out. I must telephone +excuses at once." + +"I wish I hadn't had to make you think me such a pig," said Betty. + +"I don't think you a pig," said Mrs. Forrester, "but I do think you a +very mistaken and a very unwise woman. And I do beg you, for Gregory and +for Karen's sake, to be careful what you do." + + + + +CHAPTER XXI + + +"I'm afraid you think that I've made a dreadful mess of things, Gregory. +I simply couldn't help myself," said Betty, half an hour later. "If only +she hadn't gone on gazing at Karen in that aggressive way I might have +curbed my tongue, and if only, afterwards, Mrs. Forrester hadn't shown +herself such an infatuated partisan. But I'm afraid she was right in +saying that I was an unwise woman. Certainly I haven't made things +easier for you, unless you want a _situation nette_. It's there to your +hand if you do want it, and in your place I should. It was a challenge +she gave, you know, to you through me. After the other night there was +no mistaking it. I should forbid Karen to go on Saturday." + +Gregory stood before her still wearing his overcoat, for they had driven +up simultaneously to the door below, his hands in his pockets and eyes +of deep cogitation fixed on his sister-in-law. He was inclined to think +that she had made a dreadful mess of things; yet, at the same time, he +was feeling a certain elation in the chaos thus created. + +"You advise me to declare war on Madame von Marwitz?" he inquired. +"Come; the situation is hardly _nette_ enough to warrant that; what?" + +"Ah; you do see it then!" Betty from the sofa where she sat erect, her +hands in her muff, almost joyfully declared. "You do see, then, what she +is after!" + +He didn't intend to let Betty see what he saw, if that were now +possible. "She's after Karen, of course; but why not? It's a jealous and +exacting affection, that is evident; but as long as Karen cares to +satisfy it I'm quite pleased that she should. I can't declare war on +Madame von Marwitz, Betty, even if I wanted to. Because, if she is fond +of Karen, Karen is ten times fonder of her." + +"Expose her to Karen!" Betty magnificently urged. "You can I'm sure. +You're been seeing things more and more clearly, just as I have; you've +been seeing that Madame von Marwitz, as far as her character goes, is a +fraud. Trip her up. Have things out. Gregory, I warn you, she's a +dangerous woman, and Karen is a very simple one." + +"But that's just it, my dear Betty. If Karen is too simple to see, now, +that she's dangerous, how shall I make her look so? It's I who'll look +the jealous idiot Mrs. Forrester thinks me," Gregory half mused to +himself. "And, besides, I really don't know that I should want to trip +her up. I don't know that I should like to have Karen disillusioned. +She's a fraud if you like, and Karen, as I say, is ten times fonder of +her than she is of Karen; but she is fond of Karen; I do believe that. +And she has been a fairy-godmother to her. And they have been through +all sorts of things together. No; their relationship is one that has its +rights. I see it, and I intend to make Madame von Marwitz feel that I +see it. So that my only plan is to go on being suave and acquiescent." + +"Well; you may have to sacrifice me, then. Karen is indignant with me, I +warn you." + +"I'm a resourceful person, Betty. I shan't sacrifice you. And you must +be patient with Karen." + +Betty, who had risen, stood for a moment looking at the Bouddha. +"Patient? I should think so. She is the one I'm sorriest for. Are you +going to keep that ridiculous thing in here permanently, Gregory?" + +"It's symbolic, isn't it?" said Gregory. "It will stay here, I suppose, +as long as Madame von Marwitz and Karen go on caring for each other. +With all my griefs and suspicions I hope that the Bouddha is a fixture." + +He felt, after Betty had gone, that he had burned a good many of his +boats in thus making her, to some extent, his confidant. He had +confessed that he had griefs and suspicions, and that, in itself, was to +involve still further his relation to his wife. But he had kept from +Betty how grave were his grounds for suspicion. The bearing away of +Karen to the ducal week-end wasn't really, in itself, so alarming an +incident; but, as a sequel to Madame von Marwitz's parting declaration +of the other evening, her supremely insolent, "I must see what I can +do," it became sinister and affected him like the sound of a second, +more prolonged, more reverberating clash upon the gong. To submit was to +show himself in Madame von Marwitz's eyes as contemptibly supine; to +protest was to appear in Karen's as meanly petty. + +His reflections were interrupted by the ringing of the telephone and +when he went to it Karen's voice told him that she was spending the +evening with Tante, who was ill, and that she would not be back till +ten. Something chill and authoritative in the tones affected him +unpleasantly. Karen considered that she had a grievance and perhaps +suspected him of being its cause. After all, he thought, hanging up the +receiver with some abruptness, there was such a thing as being too +simple. One had, indeed, to be very patient with her. And one thing he +promised himself whatever came of it; he wasn't going to sacrifice Betty +by one jot or tittle to his duel with Madame von Marwitz. + +It was past ten when Karen returned and his mood of latent hostility +melted when he saw how tired she looked and how unhappy. She, too, had +steeled herself in advance against something that she expected to find +in him and he was thankful to feel that she wouldn't find it. She was to +find him suave and acquiescent; he would consent without a murmur to +Madame von Marwitz's plan for the week-end. + +"Darling, I'm so sorry that she's ill, your guardian," he said, taking +her hat and coat from her as she sank wearily on the sofa. "How is she +now?" + +She looked up at him in the rosy light of the electric lamps and her +face showed no temporizing recognitions or gratitudes. "Gregory," she +said abruptly, "do you mind--does it displease you--if I go with Tante +next Saturday to stay with some friends of hers?" + +"Mind? Why should I?" said Gregory, standing before her with his hands +in his pockets. "I'd rather have you here, of course. I've been feeling +a little deserted lately. But I want you to do anything that gives you +pleasure." + +She studied him. "Betty thought it a wrong thing for me to do. She hurt +Tante's feelings deeply this afternoon. She spoke as if she had some +authority to come between you and me and between me and Tante. I am very +much displeased with her," said Karen, with her strangely mature +decision. + +The moment had come, decisively, not to sacrifice Betty. "Betty sees +things more conventionally and perhaps more wisely," he said, "than you +or I--or Madame von Marwitz, even, perhaps. She feels a sense of +responsibility towards you--and towards me. Anything she said she meant +kindly, I'm sure." + +Karen listened carefully as though mastering herself. "Responsibility +towards me? Why should she? I feel none towards her." + +"But, my dear child, that wouldn't be in your place," he could not +control the ironic note. "You are a younger woman and a much more +inexperienced one. It's merely as if you'd married into a family where +there was an elder sister to look after you." + +Karen's eyes dwelt on him and her face was cold, rocky. "Do you forget, +as she does, that I have still with me a person who, for years, has +looked after me, a person older still and more experienced still than +the little Betty? I don't need any guidance from your sister; for I have +my guardian to tell me, as she always has, what is best for me to do. It +is impertinent of Betty to imagine that she has any right to interfere. +And she was more than impertinent. I had not wished to tell you; but you +must understand that Betty has been insolent." + +"Come, Karen; don't use such unsuitable words. Hasty perhaps; not +insolent. Betty herself has told me all about it." + +A steely penetration came to Karen's eyes. "She has told you? She has +been here?" + +"Yes." + +"She complained of Tante to you?" + +"She thinks her wrong." + +"And you; you think her wrong?" + +Gregory paused and looked at the young girl on the sofa, his wife. There +was that in her attitude, exhausted yet unappealing, in her face, weary +yet implacable, which, while it made her seem pitiful to him, made her +also almost a stranger; this armed hostility towards himself, who loved +her, this quickness of resentment, this cold assurance of right. He +could understand and pity; but he, too, was tired and overwrought. What +had he done to deserve such a look and such a tone from her except +endure, with unexampled patience, the pressure upon his life, soft, +unremitting, sinister, of something hateful to him and menacing to their +happiness? What, above all, was his place in this deep but narrow young +heart? It seemed filled with but one absorbing preoccupation, one +passion of devotion. + +He turned from her and went to the mantelpiece, and shifting the vases +upon it as he spoke, remembering with a bitter upper layer of +consciousness how Madame von Marwitz's blighting gaze had rested upon +these ornaments in her first visit;--"I'm not going to discuss your +guardian with you, Karen," he said; "I haven't said that I thought her +wrong. I've consented that you should do as she wishes. You have no +right to ask anything more of me. I certainly am not going to be forced +by you into saying that I think Betty wrong. If you are not unfair to +Betty you are certainly most unfair to me and it seems to me that it is +your tendency to be fair to one person only. I'm in no danger of +forgetting her control and guidance of your life, I assure you. If you +were to let me forget it, she wouldn't. She is showing me now--after +telling me the other night what she thought of my _monde_--how she +controls you. It's very natural of her, no doubt, and very natural of +you to feel her right; and I submit. So that you have no ground of +grievance against me." He turned to her again. "And now I think you had +better go to bed. You look very tired. I've some work to get through, so +I'll say good-night to you, Karen dear." + +She rose with a curious automatic obedience, and, coming to him, lifted +her forehead, like a child, for his kiss. Her face showed, perhaps, a +bleak wonder, but it showed no softness. She might be bewildered by this +sudden change in their relation, but she was not weakened. She went +away, softly closing the door behind her. + +In their room, Karen stood for a moment before undressing and looked +about her. Something had happened, and though she could not clearly see +what it was it seemed to have altered the aspect of everything, so that +this pretty room, full of light and comfort, was strange to her. She +felt an alien in it; and as she looked round it she thought of how her +little room at Les Solitudes where, with such an untroubled heart, she +had slept and waked for so many years. + +Three large photographs of Tante hung on the walls, and their eyes met +hers as if with an unfaltering love and comprehension. And on the +dressing-table was a photograph of Gregory; the new thing in her life; +the thing that menaced the old. She went and took it up, and Gregory's +face, too, was suddenly strange to her; cold, hard, sardonic. She +wondered, gazing at it, that she had never seen before how cold and hard +it was. Quickly undressing she lay down and closed her eyes. A +succession of images passed with processional steadiness before her +mind; the carriage in the Forest of Fontainebleau and Tante in it +looking at her; Tante in the hotel at Fontainebleau, her arm around the +little waif, saying: "But it is a Norse child; her name and her hair and +her eyes;" Tante's dreadful face as she tottered back to Karen's arms +from the sight at the lake-edge; Tante that evening lying white and +sombre on her pillows with eyelids pressed down as if on tears, saying: +"Do they wish to take my child, too, from me?" + +Then came the other face, the new face; like a sword; thrusting among +the sacred visions. Consciously she saw her husband's face now, as she +had often, with a half wilful unconsciousness, seen it, looking at +Tante--ah, a fierce resentment flamed up in her at last with the +unavoidable clearness of her vision--looking at Tante with a courteous +blankness that cloaked hostility; with cold curiosity; with mastered +irony, suspicion, dislike. He was, then, a man not generous, not large +and wise of heart, a man without the loving humour that would have +enabled him to see past the defects and flaws of greatness, nor with the +heart and mind to recognize and love it when he saw it. He was petty, +too, and narrow, and arrogantly sure of his own small measures. Her +memories heaped themselves into the overwhelming realisation. She was +married to a man who was hostile to what--until he had come--had been +the dearest thing in her life. She had taken to her heart something that +killed its very pulse. How could she love a man who looked such things +at Tante--who thought such things of Tante? How love him without +disloyalty to the older tie? Already her forbearance, her hiding from +him of her fear, had been disloyalty, a cowardly acquiescence in +something that, from the first hint of it, she should openly have +rebelled against. Slow flames of shame and anger burned her. How could +she not hate him? But how could she not love him? He was part of her +life, as unquestionably, as indissolubly, as Tante. + +Then, the visions crumbling, the flames falling, a chaos of mere feeling +overwhelmed her. It was as though her blood were running backward, +knotting itself in clots of darkness and agony. He had sent her away +unlovingly--punishing her for her fidelity. Her love for Tante destroyed +his love for her. He must have known her pain; yet he could speak like +that to her; look like that. The tears rose to her eyes and rolled down +her cheeks as she lay straightly in the bed, on her back, the clothes +drawn to her throat, her hands clasped tightly on her breast. Hours had +passed and here she lay alone. + +Hours had passed and she heard at last his careful step along the +passage, and the shock of it tingled through her with a renewal of fear +and irrepressible joy. He opened, carefully, the dressing-room door. She +listened, stilling her breaths. + +He would come to her. They would speak together. He would not leave her +when she was so unhappy. Even the thought of Tante's wrongs was effaced +by the fear and yearning, and, as the bedroom door opened and Gregory +came in, her heart seemed to lift and dissolve in a throb of relief and +blissfulness. + +But, with her joy, the thought of Tante hovered like a heavy darkness +above her eyes, keeping them closed. She lay still, ashamed of so much +gladness, yet knowing that if he took her in his arms her arms could but +close about him. + +The stillness deceived Gregory. In the dim light from the dressing-room +he saw her, as he thought, sleeping placidly, her broad braids lying +along the sheet. + +He looked at her for a moment. Then, not stooping to her, he turned +away. + + + + +CHAPTER XXII + + +If only, Gregory often felt, in thinking it over and over in the days of +outer unity and inner estrangement that followed, she had not been able +to go to sleep so placidly. + +All resentment had faded from his heart when he went in to her. He had +longed for reconciliation and for reassurance. But as he had looked at +the seeming calm of Karen's face his tenderness and compunction passed +into a bitter consciousness of frustrated love. Her calm was like a +repulse. Their personal estrangement and misunderstanding left her +unmoved. She had said what she had to say to him; she had vindicated her +guardian; and now she slept, unmindful of him. He asked himself, and for +the first time clearly and steadily, as he lay awake for hours +afterwards in the little dressing-room bed, whether Karen's feelings for +him passed beyond a faithful, sober affection that took him for granted, +unhesitatingly and uncritically, as a new asset in a life dedicated +elsewhere. Romance for her was personified in Tante, and her husband was +a creature of mere kindly domesticity. It was to think too bitterly of +Karen's love for him to see it thus, he knew, even while the torment +grasped him; but the pressure of his own love for her, the loveliness, +the romance that she so supremely personified for him, surged too +strongly against the barrier of her mute, unanswering face, for him to +feel temperately and weigh fairly. There was a lack in her, and because +of it she hurt him thus cruelly. + +They met next morning over a mutual misinterpretation, and, with a sense +of mingled discord and relief, found themselves kissing and smiling as +if nothing had happened. Pride sustained them; the hope that, since the +other seemed so unconscious, a hurt dealt so unconsciously need not, for +pride's sake, be resented; the fear that explanation or protest might +emphasise estrangement. The easiest thing to do was to go on acting as +if nothing had happened. Karen poured out his coffee and questioned him +about the latest political news. He helped her to eggs and bacon and +took an interest in her letters. + +And since it was easiest to begin so, it was easiest so to go on. The +routine of their shared life blurred for them the sharp realisations of +the night. But while the fact that such suffering had come to them was +one that could, perhaps, be lived down, the fact that they did not speak +of it spread through all their life with a strange, new savour. + +Karen went to her ducal week-end; but she did not, when she came back +from it, regale her husband with her usual wealth of detailed +description. She could no longer assume the air of happy confidence +where Tante and her doings with Tante were concerned. That air of +determined cheerfulness, that pretence that nothing was really the +matter and that Tante and Gregory were bound to get on together if she +took it for granted that they would, had broken down. There was relief +for Gregory, though relief of a chill, grey order, in seeing that Karen +had accepted the fact that he and Tante were not to get on. Yet he +smarted from the new sense of being shut out from her life. + +It was he who assumed the air; he who pretended that nothing was the +matter. He questioned her genially about the visit, and Karen answered +all his questions as genially. Yes; it had been very nice; the great +house sometimes very beautiful and sometimes very ugly; the beauty +seemed, in a funny way, almost as accidental as the ugliness. The people +had been very interesting to look at; so many slender pretty women; +there were no fat women and no ugly women at all, or, if they were, they +contrived not to look it. It all seemed perfectly arranged. + +Had she talked to many of them? Gregory asked. Had she come across +anybody she liked? Karen shook her head. She had liked them all--to look +at--but it had gone no further than that; she had talked very little +with any of them; and, soberly, unemphatically, she had added: "They +were all too much occupied with Tante--or with each other--to think much +of me. I was the only one not slender and not beautiful!" + +Gregory asked who had taken her in to dinner on the two nights, and +masked ironic inner comments when he heard that on Saturday it had been +a young actor who, she thought, had been a little cross at having her as +his portion. "He didn't try to talk to me; nor I to him, when I found +that he was cross," she said. "I didn't like him at all. He had fat +cheeks and very shrewd black eyes." On Sunday it had been a young son of +the house, a boy at Eton. "Very, very dear and nice. We had a great talk +about climbing Swiss mountains, which I have done a good deal, you +know." + +Tante, it appeared, had had the ambassador on Saturday and the Duke +himself on Sunday. And she and Tante, as usual, had had great fun in +their own rooms every night, talking everybody over when the day was +done. Karen said nothing to emphasise the contrast between the duke's +friends and Gregory's, but she couldn't have failed to draw her +comparison. Here was a _monde_ where Tante was fully appreciated. That +she herself had not been was not a matter to engage her thoughts. But it +engaged Gregory's. The position in which she had been placed was a +further proof to him of Tante's lack of consideration. Where Karen was +placed depended, precisely, he felt sure of it, on where Madame von +Marwitz wished her to be placed. It was as the little camp-follower that +she had taken her. + +After this event came a pause in the fortunes of our young couple. +Madame von Marwitz, with Mrs. Forrester, went to Paris to give her two +concerts there and was gone for a fortnight. In this fortnight he and +Karen resumed, though warily, as it were, some old customs. They read +their political economy again in the evenings when they did not go out, +and he found her at tea-time waiting for him as she had used to do. She +shared his life; she was gentle and thoughtful; yet she had never been +less near. He felt that she guarded herself against admissions. To come +near now would be to grant that it had been Tante's presence that had +parted them. + +She wrote to Madame von Marwitz, and heard from her, constantly. Madame +von Marwitz sent her presents from Paris; a wonderful white silk +dressing-gown; a box of chocolate; a charming bit of old enamel picked +up in a _rive gauche_ curiosity shop. Then one day she wrote to say that +Tallie had been quite ill--_povera vecchia_--and would Karen be a kind, +kind child and run down and see her at Les Solitudes. + +Gregory had not forgotten the plan for having Mrs. Talcott with them +that winter and had reminded Karen of it, but it appeared then that she +had not forgotten, either; had indeed, spoken to Tante of it; but that +Tante had not seemed to think it a good plan. Tante said that Mrs. +Talcott did not like leaving Les Solitudes; and, moreover, that she +herself, might be going down there for the inside of a week at any +moment and Karen knew how Tallie would hate the idea of not being on the +spot to prepare for her. Let them postpone the idea of a visit; at all +events until she was no longer in England. + +Gregory now suggested that Karen might bring Mrs. Talcott back with her. +There was some guile in the suggestion. Encircling this little oasis of +peace where he and Karen could, at all events, draw their breaths, were +storms and arid wastes. Madame von Marwitz would soon be back. She might +even be thinking of redeeming her promise of coming to stay with them. +If old Mrs. Talcott, slightly invalided, could be installed before the +great woman's return, she might keep her out for the rest of her stay in +London, and must, certainly, keep Karen in to a greater extent than when +she had no guest to entertain. + +Karen could not suspect his motive; he saw that from her frank look of +pleasure. She promised to do her best. It was worth while, he reflected, +to lose her for a few days if she were to bring back such a bulwark as +Mrs. Talcott might prove herself to be. And, besides, he would be +sincerely glad to see the old woman. The thought of her gave him a sense +of comfort and security. + +He saw Karen off next morning. She was to be at Les Solitudes for three +or four days, and on the second day of her stay he had his first letter +from her. It was strange to hear from her again, from Cornwall. It was +the first letter he had had from Karen since their marriage and, with +all its odd recalling of the girlish formality of tone, it was a sweet +one. She had found Mrs. Talcott much better, but still quite weak and +jaded, and very glad indeed to see her. And Mrs. Talcott really seemed +to think that she would like to get away. Karen believed that Mrs. +Talcott had actually been feeling lonely, uncharacteristic as that +seemed. She would probably bring her back on Saturday. The letter ended: +"My dear husband, your loving Karen." + +Mrs. Talcott, therefore, was expected, and Mrs. Barker was told to make +ready for her. + +But on Saturday morning, when Karen was starting, he had a wire from her +telling him that plans were altered and that she was coming back alone. + +He went to meet her at Paddington, remembering the meeting when she had +come up after their engagement. It was a different Karen, a Karen furred +and finished and nearly elegant, who stepped from the train; but she +had, as then, her little basket with the knitting and the book; and the +girlish face was scarcely altered; there was even a preoccupation on it +that recalled still more vividly the former meeting at Paddington. +"Well, dearest, and why isn't Mrs. Talcott here, too?" were his first +words. + +Karen took his arm as he steered her towards the luggage. "It is only +put off, I hope, that visit," she said, "because I heard this morning, +Gregory, and wired to you then, that Tante asks if she may come to us +next week." Her voice was not artificial; it expressed determination as +well as gentleness and seemed to warn him that he must not show her if +he were not pleased. Yet duplicity, in his unpleasant surprise, was +difficult to assume. + +"Really. At last. How nice," he said; and his voice rang oddly. "But +poor old Mrs. Talcott. Madame von Marwitz didn't know, I suppose," he +went on, "that we'd just been planning to have her?" + +Karen, her arm still in his, stood looking over the heaped up luggage +and now pointed out her box to the porter. Then, as they turned away and +went towards their cab, she said, more gently and more determinedly: +"Yes; she did know we had planned it. I wrote and told her so, and that +is why she wrote back so quickly to ask if we could not put off Mrs. +Talcott for her; because she will be leaving London very soon and it +will be, this next week, her only chance of being with us. Mrs. Talcott +did not mind at all. I don't think she really wanted to come so much, +Gregory. It is as Tante says, you know," Karen settled herself in a +corner of the hansom, "she really does not like leaving Les Solitudes." + +Gregory had the feeling of being enmeshed. Why had Madame von Marwitz +thrown this web? Had she really divined in a flash his hope and his +intention? Was there any truth in her sudden statement that this was the +only week she could give them? "Oh! Really," was all that he found to +say to Karen's explanations, and then, "Where is Madame von Marwitz +going when she leaves us then?" + +"To the Riviera, with the Duchess of Bannister, I think it is arranged. +I may wire to her, then, Gregory, at once, and say that she is to come?" + +"Of course. How long are we to have the pleasure of entertaining her?" + +"She did not say; for a week at least, I hope. Perhaps, even, for a +fortnight if that will be convenient for you. It will be a great joy to +me," Karen went on, "if only"--she was speaking with that determined +steadiness, looking before her as they drove; now, suddenly, she turned +her eyes on him "if only you will try to enjoy it, too, Gregory." + +It was, in a sense, a challenge, yet it was, too, almost an appeal, and +it brought them nearer than they had been for weeks. + +Gregory's hand caught hers and, holding it tightly, smiling at her +rather tremulously, he said: "I enjoy anything, darling, that makes you +happy." + +"Ah, but," said Karen, her voice keeping its earnest control, "I cannot +be happy with you and Tante unless you can enjoy her for yourself. Try +to know Tante, Gregory," she went on, now with a little breathlessness; +"she wants that so much. One of the first things she asked me when she +came back was that I should try to make you care for her. She felt at +once--and oh! so did I, Gregory--that something was not happy between +you." + +Her hand holding his tightly, her earnest eyes on his, Gregory felt his +blood turn a little cold as he recognized once more the soft, +unremitting pressure. It had begun, then, so early. She had asked Karen +that when she first came back. "But you see, dearest," he said, trying +to keep his head between realizations of Madame von Marwitz's craft and +Karen's candour, "I've never been able to feel that Madame von Marwitz +wanted me to care for her or to come in at all, as it were. I don't mean +anything unkind; only that I imagined that what she did ask of me was to +keep outside and leave your relation and hers alone. And that's what +I've tried to do." + +"Oh, you mistake Tante, Gregory, you mistake her." Karen's hand grasped +his more tightly in the urgency of her opportunity. "She cared for me +too much--yes, it is there that you do not understand--to feel what you +think. For she knows that I cannot be happy while you shut yourself away +from her." + +"Then it's not she who shuts me out?" he tried to smile. + +"No; no; oh, no, Gregory." + +"I must push in, even when I seem to feel I'm not wanted?" + +She would not yield to his attempted lightness. "You mustn't push in; +you must be in; with us, with Tante and me." + +"Do you mean literally? I'm to be a third at your _tete-a-tetes_?" + +"No, Gregory, I do not mean that; but in thought, in sympathy. You will +try to know Tante. You will make her feel that you and I are not parted +when she is there." + +She saw it all, all Tante's side, with a dreadful clearness. And it was +impossible that she should see what he did. He must submit to seeming +blurred and dull, to pretending not to see anything. At all events her +hand was in his. He felt able to face the duel at close quarters with +Madame von Marwitz as long as Karen let him keep her hand. + + + + +CHAPTER XXIII + + +Tante arrived on Monday afternoon and the arrival reminded Gregory of +the Bouddha's installation; but, whereas the Bouddha had overflowed the +drawing-room only, Madame von Marwitz overflowed the flat. + +A multitude of boxes were borne into the passages where, end to end, +like a good's train on a main line, they stood impeding traffic. + +Louise, harassed and sallow, hurried from room to room, expostulating, +explaining, replying in shrill tones to Madame von Marwitz's sonorous +orders. Victor, led by Mrs. Forrester's footman, made his appearance +shortly after his mistress, and, set at large, penetrated unerringly to +the kitchen where he lapped up a dish of custard; while Mrs. Barker, in +the drawing-room, already with signs of resentment on her face, was +receiving minute directions from Madame von Marwitz in regard to a cup +of chocolate. In the dining-room, Gregory found two strange-looking men, +to whom Barker, also clouded, had served whisky and soda; one of these +was Madame von Marwitz's secretary, Schultz; the other a concert +impresario. They greeted Gregory with a disconcerting affability. + +In the midst of the confusion Madame von Marwitz moved, weary and +benignant, her arm around Karen's shoulders, or seated herself at the +piano to run her fingers appraisingly over it in a majestic surge of +arpeggios. Gregory found her hat and veil tossed on the bed in his and +Karen's room, and when he went into his dressing-room he stumbled over +three band-boxes, just arrived from a modiste's, and hastily thrust +there by Louise. + +Victor bounded to greet him as he sought refuge in the library, and +overturned a table that stood in the hall with two fine pieces of +oriental china upon it. The splintering crash of crockery filled the +flat. Mrs. Barker had taken the chocolate to the drawing-room some time +since, and Madame von Marwitz, the cup in her hand, appeared upon the +threshold with Karen. "Alas! The bad dog!" she said, surveying the +wreckage while she sipped her chocolate. + +Rose was summoned to sweep up the pieces and Karen stooped over them +with murmured regret. + +"Were they wedding-presents, my Karen?" Madame von Marwitz asked. +"Console yourself; they were not of a good period--I noticed them. I +will give you better." + +The vases had belonged to Gregory's mother. He was aware that he stood +rather blankly looking at the fragments, as Rose collected them. "Oh, +Gregory, I am so sorry," said Karen, taking upon herself the +responsibility for Victor's mischance. "I am afraid they are broken to +bits. See, this is the largest piece of all. They can't be mended. No, +Tante, they were not wedding-presents; they belonged to Gregory and we +were very fond of them." + +"Alas!" said Madame von Marwitz above her chocolate, and on a deeper +note. + +Gregory was convinced that she had known they were not wedding-presents. +But her manner was flawless and he saw that she intended to keep it so. +She dined with them alone and at the table addressed her talk to him, +fixing, as ill-luck would have it, on the theatre as her theme, and on +_La Gaine d'Or_ as the piece which, in Paris, had particularly +interested her. "You and Karen, of course, saw it when you were there," +she said. + +It was the piece of sinister fame to which he had refused to take Karen. +He owned that they had not seen it. + +"Ah, but that is a pity, truly a pity," said Madame von Marwitz. "How +did it happen? You cannot have failed to hear of it." + +Unable to plead Karen as the cause for his abstention since Madame von +Marwitz regretted that Karen had missed the piece, Gregory said that he +had heard too much perhaps. "I don't believe I should care for anything +the man wrote," he confessed. + +"_Tiens!_" said Madame von Marwitz, opening her eyes. "You know him?" + +"Heaven forbid!" Gregory ejaculated, smiling with some tartness. + +"But why this rigour? What have you against M. Saumier?" + +It was difficult for a young Englishman of conventional tastes to +formulate what he had against M. Saumier. Gregory took refuge in +evasions. "Oh, I've glanced at reviews of his plays; seen his face in +illustrated papers. One gets an idea of a man's personality and the kind +of thing he's likely to write." + +"A great artist," Madame von Marwitz mildly suggested. "One of our +greatest." + +"Is he really? I'd hardly grasped that. I had an idea that he was merely +one of the clever lot. But I never can see why one should put oneself, +through a man's art, into contact with the sort of person one would +avoid having anything to do with in life." + +Madame von Marwitz listened attentively. "Do you refuse to look at a +Cellini bronze?" + +"Literature is different, isn't it? It's more personal. There's more +life in it. If a man's a low fellow I don't interest myself in his +interpretation of life. He's seen nothing that I'm likely to want to +see." + +Madame von Marwitz smiled, now with a touch of irony. "But you frighten +me. How am I to tell you that I know M. Saumier?" + +Gregory was decidedly taken back. "That's a penalty you have to pay for +being a celebrity, no doubt," he said. "All celebrities know each other, +I suppose." + +"By no means. I allow no one to be thrust upon me, I assure you. And I +have the greatest admiration for M. Saumier's talent. A great artist +cannot be a low fellow; if he were one he would be so much more than +that that the social defect would be negligible. Few great artists, I +imagine, have been of such a character as would win the approval of a +garden party at Lambeth Palace. I am sorry, indeed sorry, that you and +Karen missed _La Gaine d'Or_. It is not a play for the _jeune fille_; +no; though, holding as I do that nothing so fortifies and arms the taste +as liberty, I should have allowed Karen to see it even before her +marriage. It is a play cruel and acrid and beautiful. Yes; there is +great beauty, and it flowers, as so often, on a bitter root. Ah, well, +you will waive your scruples now, I trust. I will take Karen with me to +see it when we are next in Paris together, and that must be soon. We +will go for a night or two. You would like to see Paris with me again; +_pas vrai, cherie?_" + +Gregory had been uncomfortably aware of Karen's contemplation while he +defended his prejudices, and he was prepared for an open espousal of her +guardian's point of view; it was, he knew, her own. But he received once +more, as he had received already on several occasions, an unexpected and +gratifying proof of Karen's recognition of marital responsibility. "I +should like to be in Paris with you again, Tante," she said, "but not to +go to that play. I agreed not to go to it when Gregory and I were there. +I should not care to go when he so much dislikes it." Her eyes met her +guardian's while she spoke. They were gentle and non-committal; they +gave Gregory no cause for triumph, nor Tante for humiliation; they +expressed merely her own recognition of a bond. + +Madame von Marwitz rose to the occasion, but--oh, it was there, the soft +pressure, never more present to Gregory's consciousness than when it +seemed most absent--she rose too emphatically, as if to a need. Her eyes +mused on the girl's face, tenderly brooded and understood. And Karen's +voice and look had asked her not to understand. + +"Ah, that is right; that is a wife," she murmured. "Though, believe me, +_cherie_, I did not know that I was so transgressing." And turning her +glance on Gregory, "_Je vous fais mes compliments_," she added. + +Karen said that he must bring his cigar into the drawing-room, for Tante +would smoke her cigarette with him, and there, until bedtime, things +went as well as they had at dinner--or as badly; for part of their +badness, Gregory more and more resentfully became aware, was that they +were made to seem to go well, from her side, not from his. + +She had a genius, veritably uncanny for, with all sweetness and +hesitancy, revealing him as stiff and unresponsively complacent. It was +impossible for him to talk freely with a person uncongenial to him of +the things he felt deeply; and, pertinaciously, over her coffee and +cigarettes, it was the deep things that she softly wooed him to share +with her. + +He might be stiff and stupid, but he flattered himself that he wasn't +once short or sharp--as he would have been over and over again with any +other woman who so bothered him. And he was sincerely unaware that his +courtesy, in its dry evasiveness, was more repudiating than rudeness. + +When Karen went with her guardian to her room that night, the little +room that looked so choked and overcrowded with the great woman's +multiplied necessities, Madame von Marwitz, sinking on the sofa, drew +her to her and looked closely at her, with an intentness almost tragic, +tenderly smoothing back her hair. + +Karen looked back at her very firmly. + +"Tell me, my child," Madame von Marwitz said, as if, suddenly, taking +refuge in the inessential from the pressure of her own thoughts, "how +did you find our Tallie? I have not heard of that from you yet." + +"She is looking rather pale and thin, Tante; but she is quite well +again; already she will go out into the garden," Karen answered, with, +perhaps, an evident relief. + +"That is well," said Madame von Marwitz with quiet satisfaction. "That +is well. I cannot think of Tallie as ill. She is never ill. It is +perhaps the peaceful, happy life she leads--_povera_--that preserves +her. And the air, the wonderful air of our Cornwall. I fixed on Cornwall +for the sake of Tallie, in great part; I sought for a truly halcyon spot +where that faithful one might end her days in joy. You knew that, +Karen?" + +"No, Tante; you never told me that." + +"It is so," Madame von Marwitz continued to muse, her eyes on the fire, +"It is so. I have given great thought to my Tallie's happiness. She has +earned it." And after a moment, in the same quiet tone, she went on. +"This idea of yours, my Karen, of bringing Tallie up to town; was it +wise, do you think?" + +Karen, also, had been looking at the flames. She brought her eyes now +back to her guardian. "Wasn't it wise, Tante? We had asked her to come +and stay--long ago, you know." + +"Had she seemed eager?" + +"Eager? No; I can't imagine Mrs. Talcott eager about anything. We hoped +we could persuade her, that was all. Why not wise, Tante?" + +"Only, my child, that after the quiet life there, the solitude that she +loves and that I chose for her sake, the pure sea air and the life among +her flowers, London, I fear, would much weary and fatigue her. Tallie is +getting old. We must not forget that Tallie is very old. This illness +warns us. It does not seem to me a good plan. It was your plan, Karen?" + +Karen was listening, with a little bewilderment. "It seemed, to me very +good. I had not thought of Mrs. Talcott as so old as that. I always +think of her as old, but so strong and tough. It was Gregory who +suggested it, in the first place, and this time, too. When I told him +that I was going he thought of our plan at once and told me that now I +must persuade her to come to us for a good long visit. He is really very +fond of Mrs. Talcott, Tante, and she of him, I think. It would please +you to see them together." + +Karen spoke on innocently; but, as she spoke, she became aware from a +new steadiness in her guardian's look, that her words had conveyed some +significance of which she was herself unconscious. + +Madame von Marwitz's hand had tightened on hers. "Ah," she said after a +moment. She looked away. + +"What is it, Tante?" Karen asked. + +Madame von Marwitz had begun to draw deep, slow breaths. Karen knew the +sound; it meant a painful control. "Tante, what is it?" she repeated. + +"Nothing. Nothing, my child." Madame von Marwitz laid her arm around +Karen's shoulders and continued to look away from her. + +"But it isn't nothing," said Karen, after a little pause. "Something +that I have said troubles or hurts you." + +"Is it so? Perhaps you say the truth, my child. Hurts are not new to me. +No, my Karen, no. It is nothing for us to speak of. I understand. But +your husband, Karen, he must have found it thoughtless in me, +indelicate, to force myself in when he had hoped so strongly for another +guest." + +A slow flush mounted to Karen's cheek. She kept silence for a moment, +then in a careful voice she said: "No, Tante; I do not believe that." + +"No?" said Madame von Marwitz. "No, my Karen?" + +"He knew, on the contrary, that I hoped to have you soon--at any time +that you could come," said Karen, in slightly trembling tones. + +Madame von Marwitz nodded. "He knew that, as you tell me; and, knowing +it, he asked Tallie; hoping that with her installed--for a long +visit--my stay might be prevented. Do not let us hide from each other, +my Karen. We have hidden too long and it is the beginning of the end if +we may not say to each other what we see." + +Sitting with downcast eyes, Karen was silent, struggling perhaps with +new realisations. + +Madame von Marwitz bent to kiss her forehead and then, resuming the +tender stroking of her hair, she went on: "Your husband dislikes me. Let +us look the ugly thing full in the face. You know it, and I know it, +and--_parbleu!_--he knows it well. There; the truth is out. Ah, the +brave little heart; it sought to hide its sorrow from me. But Tante is +not so dull a person. The loneliness of heart must cease for you. And +the sorrow, too, may pass away. Be patient, Karen. You will see. He may +come to feel more kindly towards the woman who so loves his wife. +Strange, is it not, and a chastisement for my egotism, if I have still +any of that frothy element lingering in my nature, that I should find, +suddenly, at the end of my life--so near me, bound to me by such +ties--one who is unwilling to trust me, oh, for the least little bit; so +unwilling to accept me at merely my face value. Most people," she added, +"have loved me easily." + +Karen sat on in silence. Her guardian knew this apathetic silence, and +that it was symptomatic in her of deep emotion. And, the contagion of +the suffering beside her gaining upon her, her own fictitious calm +wavered. She bent again to look into the girl's averted face. "Karen, +_cherie_," she said, and now with a quicker utterance; "it is not worse +than I yet realise? You do not hide something that I have not yet seen. +It is dislike; I accept it. It is aversion, even. But his love for you; +that is strong, sincere? He will not make it too difficult for me? I am +not wrong in coming here to be with my child?" + +Karen at length turned her eyes on her guardian with a heavy look. "What +would you find too difficult?" she asked. + +Madame von Marwitz hesitated slightly, taken aback. But she grasped in +an instant her advantage. "That by being here I should feel that I came +between you and your husband. That by being here I made it more +difficult for you." + +"I should not be happier if you were away--if what you think is true, +should I?" said Karen. + +"Yes, my child," Madame von Marwitz returned, and now almost with +severity. "You would. You would not so sharply feel your husband's +aversion for me if I were not here. You would not have it in your ears; +before your eyes." + +"I thought that you talked together quite easily to-night," Karen +continued. "I saw, of course, that you did not understand each other; +but with time that might be. I thought that if you were here he would by +degrees come to know you, for he does not know you yet." + +"We talked easily, did we not, my child, to shield you, and you were not +more deceived by the ease than he or I. He does not understand me? I +hope so indeed. But to say that I do not understand him shows already +your wish to shield him, and at my expense. I do understand him; too +well. And if there is this repugnance in him now, may it not grow with +the enforced intimacy? That is my fear, my dread." + +"He has never said that he disliked you." + +"Said it? To you? I should imagine not, _parbleu_!" + +"He has only said," Karen pursued with a curious doggedness, "that he +did not feel that you cared for him to care." + +"Ah! Is it so? You have talked of it, then? And he has said that? And +did you believe it? Of me?" + +But the growing passion and urgency of her voice seemed to shut Karen +more closely in upon herself rather than sweep her into impulsive +confidence. There was a hot exasperation in Madame von Marwitz's eye as +it studied the averted, stubborn head. "No," was the reply she received. + +"No, no, indeed. It was not the truth that he said to you and you know +that it was not the truth. Oh, I make no accusation against your +husband; he believed it the truth; but you cannot believe that I would +rest satisfied with what must make you unhappy. And how can you be happy +if your husband does not care for me? How can you be happy if he feels +repugnance for me? You cannot be. Is it not so? Or am I wrong?" + +"No," Karen again repeated. + +"Then," said Madame von Marwitz, and a sob now lifted her voice, "then +do not let him put it upon me. Not that! Oh promise me, my Karen! For +that would be the end." + +Karen turned to her suddenly, and passed her arms around her. +"Tante--Tante," she said; "what are you saying? The end? There could not +be an end for us! Do not speak so. Do not. Do not." She was trembling. + +"Ah--could there not! Could there not!" With the words Madame von +Marwitz broke into violent sobs. "Has it not been my doom, +always--always to have what I love taken from me! You love this man who +hates me! You defend him! He will part you from me! I foresee it! From +the first it has been my dread!" + +"No one can ever part us, Tante. No one. Ever." Karen whispered, holding +her tightly, and her face, bending above the sobbing woman, was suddenly +old and stricken in its tormented and almost maternal love. "Tante; +remember your own words. You gave me courage. Will you not be patient? +For my sake? Be patient, Tante. Be patient. He does not know you yet." + + + + +CHAPTER XXIV + + +Gregory heard no word of the revealing talk; yet, when he and Karen were +alone, he was aware of a new chill, or a new discretion, in the +atmosphere. It was as if a veil of ice, invisible yet impassable, hung +between them, and he could only infer that she had something to hide, he +could only suspect, with a bitterer resentment, that Madame von Marwitz +had been more directly exerting her pressure. + +The pressure, whatever it had been, had the effect of making Karen, when +they were all three confronted, more calm, more mildly cheerful than +before, more than ever the fond wife who did not even suspect that a +flaw might be imagined in her happiness. + +Gregory had an idea--his only comfort in this sorry maze where he found +himself so involved--that this attitude of Karen's, combined with his +own undeviating consideration, had a disconcerting effect upon Madame +von Marwitz and at moments induced her to show her weapon too openly in +their wary duel. If he ever betrayed his dislike Karen must see that it +was Tante who wouldn't allow him to conceal it, who, sorrowfully and +gently, turned herself about in the light she elicited and displayed +herself to Karen as rejected and uncomplaining. He hoped that Karen saw +it. But he could be sure of nothing that Karen saw. The flawless loyalty +of her outward bearing might be but the shield for a deepening hurt. All +that he could do was what, in former days and in different conditions, +Mrs. Talcott had advised him to do; "hang on," and parry Madame von +Marwitz's thrusts. She had come, he more and more felt sure of it, urged +by her itching jealousy, for the purpose of making mischief; and if it +was not a motive of which she was conscious, that made her but the more +dangerous with her deep, instinctive craft. + +Meanwhile if there were fundamental anxieties to fret one's heart, there +were superficial irritations that abraded one's nerves. + +Karen was accustomed to the turmoil that surrounded the guarded shrine +where genius slept or worked, too much accustomed, without doubt, to +realise its effect upon her husband. + +The electric bells were never silent. Seated figures, bearing band-boxes +or rolls of music, filled the hall at all hours of the day and night. +Alert interviewers button-holed him on his way in and out and asked for +a few details about Mrs. Jardine's youth, and her relationship to Madame +Okraska. + +Madame von Marwitz rose capriciously and ate capriciously; trays with +strange meals upon them were carried at strange hours to her rooms, and +Barker, Mrs. Barker and Rose all quarrelled with Louise. + +Madame von Marwitz also showed oddities of temper which, with all her +determination to appear at her best, it did not occur to her to control, +oddities that met, from Karen, with a fond tolerance. + +It startled Gregory when they saw Madame von Marwitz, emerging from her +room, administer two smart boxes upon Louise's ears, remarking as she +did so, with gravity rather than anger: "_Voila pour toi, ma fille._" + +"Is Madame von Marwitz in the habit of slapping her servants?" he asked +Karen in their room, aware that his frigid mien required justification. + +She looked at him through the veil of ice. "Tante's servants adore her." + +"Well, it seems a pity to take such an advantage of their adoration." + +"Louise is sometimes very clumsy and impertinent." + +"I can't help thinking that that sort of treatment makes servants +impertinent." + +"I do not care to hear your criticism of my guardian, Gregory." + +"I beg your pardon," said Gregory. + +Betty Jardine met him on a windy April evening in Queen Anne's Gate. "I +see that you had to sacrifice me, Gregory," she said. She smiled; she +bore no grudge; but her smile was tinged with a shrewd pity. + +He felt that he flushed. "You mean that you've not been to see us since +the occasion." + +"I've not been asked!" Betty laughed. + +"Madame von Marwitz is with us, you know," Gregory proffered rather +lamely. + +"Yes; I do know. How do you like having a genius domiciled? I hear that +she is introducing Karen into a very artistic set. After the Bannisters, +Mr. Claude Drew. He is back from America at last, it seems, and is an +assiduous adorer. You have seen a good deal of him?" + +"I haven't seen him at all. Has he been back for long?" + +"Four or five days only, I believe; but I don't know how often he and +Madame von Marwitz and Karen have been seen together. Don't think me a +cat, Gregory; but if she is engaged in a flirtation with that most +unpleasant young man I hope you will see to it that Karen isn't used as +a screen. There have been some really horrid stories about him, you +know." + +Gregory parted from his sister-in-law, perturbed. Indiscreet and naughty +she might be, but Betty was not a cat. The veil of ice was so +impenetrable that no sound of Karen's daily life came to him through it. +He had not an idea of what she did with herself when he wasn't there, +or, rather, of what Madame von Marwitz did with her. + +"You've been seeing something of Mr. Claude Drew, I hear," he said to +Karen that evening. "Do you like him better than you used to do?" They +were in the drawing-room before dinner and dinner had been, as usual, +waiting for half an hour for Madame von Marwitz. + +Gregory's voice betrayed more than a kindly interest, and Karen answered +coldly, if without suspicion; "No; I do not like him better. But Tante +likes him. It is not I who see him, it is Tante. I am only with them +sometimes." + +"And I? Am I to be with them sometimes?" Gregory inquired with an air of +gaiety. + +"If you will come back to tea to-morrow, Gregory," she answered gravely, +"you will meet him. He comes to tea then." + +For the last few days Gregory had fallen into the habit of only getting +back in time for dinner. "You know it's only because I usually find that +you've gone out with your guardian that I haven't come back in time for +tea," he observed. + +"I know," Karen returned, without aggressiveness. "And so, to-morrow, +you will find us if you come." + +He got back at tea-time next day, expecting to make a fourth only of the +small group; but, on his way to the drawing-room, he paused, arrested, +in the hall, where a collection of the oddest looking hats and coats he +had ever seen were piled and hung. + +One of the hats was a large, discoloured, cream-coloured felt, much +battered, with its brown band awry; one was of the type of flat-brimmed +silk, known in Paris as the _Latin Quartier_; another was an enormous +sombrero. Gregory stood frowning at these strange signs somewhat as if +they had been a drove of cockroaches. He had, as never yet before, the +sense of an alien and offensive invasion of his home, and an old, almost +forgotten disquiet smote upon him in the thought that what to him was +strange was to Karen normal. This was her life and she had never really +entered his. + +In the drawing-room, he paused again at the door, and looked over the +company assembled under the Bouddha's smile. Madame von Marwitz was its +centre; pearl-wreathed, silken and silver, she leaned opulently on the +cushions of the sofa where she sat, and Karen at the tea-table seemed +curiously to have relapsed into the background place where he had first +found her. She was watching, with her old contented placidity, a scene +in which she had little part. No, mercifully, though in it she was not +of it. This was Gregory's relieving thought as his eye ran over them, +the women with powdered faces and extravagant clothes and the men with +the oddest collars and boots and hair. "Shoddy Bohemians," was his terse +definition of them; an inaccurate definition; for though, in the main, +Bohemians, they were not, in the main, shoddy. + +Belot was there, with his massive head and sagacious eyes; and a famous +actress, ugly, thin, with a long, slightly crooked face, tinted hair, +and the melancholy, mysterious eyes of a llama. Claude Drew, at a little +table behind Madame von Marwitz, negligently turned the leaves of a +book. Lady Rose Harding, the only one of the company with whom Gregory +felt an affinity, though a dubious one, talked to the French actress and +to Madame von Marwitz. Lady Rose had ridden across deserts on camels, +and sketched strange Asiatic mountains, and paid a pilgrimage to +Tolstoi, and written books on all these exploits; and she had been to +the Adirondacks that summer with the Aspreys and Madame von Marwitz, and +was now writing a book on that. In a corner a vast, though youthful, +German Jew, with finely crisped red-gold hair, large lips and small, +kind eyes blinking near-sightedly behind gold-rimmed spectacles, sat +with another young man, his hands on his widely parted knees, in an +attitude suggesting a capacity to cope with the most unwieldy +instruments of an orchestra; his companion, black and emaciated, talked +in German, with violent gestures and a strange accent, jerking +constantly a lock of hair out of his eyes. A squat, fat little woman, +bundled up, clasping her knees with her joined hands, sat on a footstool +at Madame von Marwitz's feet, gazing at her and listening to her with a +smile of obsequious attention, and now and then, suddenly, and as if +irrelevantly, breaking into a jubilant laugh. Her dusty hair looked as +though, like the White Queen's, a comb and brush might be entangled in +its masses; the low cut neck of her bodice displayed a ruddy throat +wreathed in many strings of dirty seed-pearls, and her grey satin dress +was garnished with dirty lace. + +Gregory had stood for an appreciable moment at the door surveying the +scene, before either Karen or her guardian saw him, and it was then the +latter who did the honours of the occasion, naming him to the bundled +lady, who was an English poetess, and to Mlle. Suzanne Mauret, the +French actress. The inky-locked youth turned out to be a famous Russian +violinist, and the vast young German Jew none other than Herr Franz +Lippheim, to whom--this was the fact that at once, violently, engaged +Gregory's attention--Madame von Marwitz had destined Karen. + +Franz Lippheim, after Gregory had spoken to everybody and when he at +last was introduced, sprang to his feet and came forward, beaming so +intently from behind his spectacles that Gregory, fearing that he might, +conceivably, be about to kiss him, made an involuntary gesture of +withdrawal. But Herr Lippheim, all unaware, grasped his hand the more +vigorously. "Our little Karen's husband!" "Unserer kleinen Karen's +Mann!" he uttered in a deeply moved German. + +In the driest of tones Gregory asked Karen for some tea, and while he +stood above her Herr Lippheim's beam continued to include them both. + +"Sit down here, Franz, near me," said Karen. She, too, had smiled +joyously as Herr Lippheim greeted her husband. The expression of her +face now had changed. + +Herr Lippheim obeyed, placing, as before, his hands on his knees, the +elbows turned outward, and contemplating Karen's husband with a gaze +that might have softened a heart less steeled than Gregory's. + +This, then, was Madame von Marwitz's next move; her next experiment in +seeing what she could "do." Was not Herr Lippheim a taunt? And with what +did he so unpleasantly associate the name of the French actress? The +link clicked suddenly. _La Gaine d'Or_, in its veiling French, was about +to be produced in London, and it was Mlle. Mauret who had created the +heroine's role in Paris. These were the people by means of whom Madame +von Marwitz displayed her power over Karen's life;--a depraved woman (he +knew and cared nothing about Mlle. Mauret's private morality; she was +the more repulsive to him if her morals weren't bad; only a woman of no +morals should be capable of acting in _La Gaine d'Or_;) that impudent +puppy Drew, and this preposterous young man who addressed Karen by her +Christian name and included himself in his inappropriate enthusiasm. + +He drank his tea, standing in silence by Karen's side, and avoiding all +encounter with Herr Lippheim's genial eyes. + +"It is like old times, isn't it, Franz?" said Karen, ignoring her +husband and addressing her former suitor. "It has been--oh, years--since +I have heard such talk. Tante needs all of you, really, to draw her out. +She has been wonderful this afternoon, hasn't she?" + +"_Ah, kolossal!_" said Herr Lippheim, making no gesture, but expressing +the depths of his appreciation by an emphasized solemnity of gaze. + +"You are right, I think, and so does Tante, evidently," Karen continued, +"about the _tempo rubato_ in the Mozart. It is strange that Monsieur +Ivanowski doesn't feel it." + +"Ah! but that is it, he does feel it; it is only that he does not think +it," said Herr Lippheim, now running his fingers through his hair. "Hear +him play the Mozart. He then contradicts in his music all that his words +have said." + +But though Karen talked so pointedly to him, Herr Lippheim could not +keep his eyes or his thoughts from Gregory. "You are a musician, too, +Mr. Jardine?" he smiled, bending forward, blinking up through his +glasses and laboriously carving out his excellent English. "You do not +express, but you have the soul of an artist? Or perhaps you, too, play, +like our Karen here." + +"No," Gregory returned, with a chill utterance. "I know nothing about +music." + +"Is it so, Karen?" Herr Lippheim questioned, his guileless warmth hardly +tempered. + +"My husband is no artist," Karen answered. + +It was from her tone rather than from Gregory's that Herr Lippheim +seemed to receive his intimation; he was a little disconcerted; he could +interpret Karen's tones. "Ach so! Ach so!" he said; but, his good-will +still seeking to find its way to the polished and ambiguous person who +had gained Karen's heart,--"But now you will live amongst artists, Mr. +Jardine, and you will hear music, great music, played to you by the +greatest. So you will come to feel it in the heart." And as Gregory, to +this, made no reply, "You will educate him, Karen; is it not so? With +you and the great Tante, how could it be otherwise?" + +"I am afraid that one cannot create the love of art when it is not +there, Franz," Karen returned. She was neither plaintive nor confiding; +yet there was an edge in her voice which Gregory felt and which, he +knew, he was intended to feel. Karen was angry with him. + +"Have you seen Belot's portrait of Tante, yet, Franz?"--she again +excluded her husband;--"It is just finished." + +Herr Lippheim had seen it only that morning and he repeated, but now in +preoccupied tones, "_Kolossal_!" + +They talked, and Gregory stood above them, aloof from their conversation +frigidly gazing over the company, his elbow in his hand, his neat +fingers twisting his moustache. If he was giving Madame von Marwitz a +handle against him he couldn't help it. Over the heads of Karen and Herr +Lippheim his eyes for a moment encountered hers. They looked at each +other steadily and neither feigned a smile. + +Eleanor Scrotton arrived at six, flushed and flustered. + +"Thank heaven, I haven't missed her!" she said to Gregory, to whom, +to-day, Eleanor was an almost welcome sight. Her eyes had fixed +themselves on Mlle. Mauret. "Have you had a talk with her yet?" + +"I haven't had a talk and I yield my claim to you," said Gregory. "Are +you very eager to meet the lady?" + +"Who wouldn't be, my dear Gregory! What a wonderful face! What thought +and suffering! Oh, it has been the most extraordinary of stories. You +don't know? Well, I will tell you about her some time. She is, +doubtless, one of the greatest living actresses. And she is still quite +young. Barely forty." + +He watched Eleanor make her way to the actress's side, reflecting +sardonically upon the modern growths of British tolerance. Half the +respectable matrons in London would, no doubt, take their girls to see +_La Gaine d'Or_; mercifully, they would in all probability not +understand it; but if they did, was there anything that inartistic +London would not swallow in its terror of being accused of philistinism? + +The company was dispersing. Herr Lippheim stood holding Karen's hands +saying, as she shook them, that he would bring _das Muetterchen_ and _die +Schwesterchen_ to-morrow. Belot came for a last cup of tea and drank it +in sonorous draughts, exchanging a few words with Gregory. He had +nothing against Belot. Mr. Drew leaned on Madame von Marwitz's sofa and +spoke to her in a low voice while she looked at him inscrutably, her +eyes half closed. + +"Lucky man," said Lady Rose to Gregory, on her way out, "to have her +under your roof. I hope you are a scrupulous Boswell and taking notes." +In the hall Barker was assorting the sombrero, the _Latin Quartier_ and +the cream-coloured felt; the last belonged to Herr Lippheim, who was +putting it on when Gregory escorted Lady Rose to the door. + +Gregory gave the young man a listless hand. He couldn't forgive Herr +Lippheim. That he should ever, under whatever encouragements from +Karen's guardian, have dared to aspire to her, was a monstrous fact. + +He watched the thick rims of Herr Lippheim's ears, under the +cream-coloured felt, descending in the lift and wondered if the sight +was to be often inflicted upon him. + +When he went back to the drawing-room, Karen was alone. Madame von +Marwitz had taken Miss Scrotton to her own room. Karen was standing by +the tea-table, looking down at it, her hands on the back of the chair +from which she had risen to say good-bye to her guardian's guests. She +raised her eyes as her husband came in and they rested on him with a +strange expression. + + + + +CHAPTER XXV + + +"Will you shut the door, Gregory?" Karen said. "I want to speak to you." +The feeling with which he looked at her was that with which he had faced +her sleeping, as he thought, after their former dispute. The sense of +failure and disillusion was upon him. As before, it was only of her +guardian that she was thinking. He knew that he had given Madame von +Marwitz a handle against him. + +He obeyed her and when he came and stood before her she went on. "Before +we all meet at dinner again, I must ask you something. Do not make your +contempt of Tante's guests--and of mine--more plain to her than you have +already done this afternoon." + +"Did I make it plain?" Gregory asked, after a moment. + +"I think that if I felt it so strongly, Tante must have felt it," said +Karen, and to this, after another pause, Gregory found nothing further +to say than "I'm sorry." + +"I hardly think," said Karen, holding the back of her chair tightly and +looking down again while she spoke, "that you can have realized that +Herr Lippheim is not only Tante's friend, but mine. I don't think you +can have realized how you treated him. I know that he is very simple and +unworldly; but he is good and kind and faithful; he is a true +artist--almost a great one, and he has the heart of a child. And beside +him, while you were hurting and bewildering him so to-day, you looked to +me--how shall I say it--petty, yes, and foolish, yes, and full of +self-conceit." + +The emotion with which Gregory heard her speak these words, +deliberately, if in a hardened and controlled voice, expressed itself, +as emotion did with him, in a slight, fixed smile. He could not pause to +examine Karen's possible justice; that she should speak so, to him, was +the overpowering fact. + +"I imagined that I behaved with courtesy," he said. + +"Yes, you were courteous," Karen replied. "You made me think of a +painted piece of wood while he was like a growing tree." + +"Your simile is certainly very mortifying," said Gregory, continuing to +smile. But he was not mortified. He was cruelly hurt. + +"I do not wish to mortify you. I have not mortified you, because you +think yourself above it all. But I would like, if I could," said Karen, +"to make you see the truth. I would like to make you see that in +behaving as you have you show yourself not above it but below it." + +"And I would like to make you see the truth, too," Gregory returned, in +the voice of his bitter hurt; "and I ask you, if your prejudice will +permit of it, to make some allowance for my feeling when I found you +surrounded by--this rabble." + +"Rabble? My guardian's friends?" Karen had grown ashen. + +"I hope they're not; but I'm not concerned with her friends; I'm +concerned with you. She can take people in, on the artistic plane, whom +it's not fit that you should meet. That horrible actress,--I wouldn't +have her come within sight of you if I could help it. Your guardian +knows my feeling about the parts she plays. She had no business to ask +her here. As for Herr Lippheim, I have no doubt that he is an admirable +person in his own walk of life, but he is a preposterous person, and it +is preposterous that your guardian should have thought of him as a +possible husband for you." Gregory imagined that he was speaking +carefully and choosing his words, but he was aware that his anger +coloured his voice. He had also been aware, some little time before, in +a lower layer of consciousness, of the stir and rustle of steps and +dresses in the passage outside--Madame von Marwitz conducting Eleanor +Scrotton to the door. And now--had she actually been listening, or did +his words coincide with the sudden opening of the door?--Madame von +Marwitz herself appeared upon the threshold. + +Her face made the catastrophe all too evident. She had heard him. She +had, he felt convinced, crept quietly back and stood to listen before +entering. His memory reconstructed the long pause between the departing +rustle and this apparition. + +Madame von Marwitz's face had its curious look of smothered heat. The +whites of her eyes were suffused though her cheeks were pale. + +"I must apologise," she said. "I overheard you as I entered, Mr. +Jardine, and what I heard I cannot ignore. What is it that you say to +Karen? What is it that you say of the man I thought of as a possible +husband for her?" + +She advanced into the room and laying her arm round Karen's shoulders +she stood confronting him. + +"I don't think I can discuss this with you," said Gregory. "I am very +sorry that you overheard me." The slight smile of his pain had gone. He +looked at Madame von Marwitz with a flinty eye. + +"Ah, but you must discuss it; you shall," said Madame von Marwitz. "You +say things to my child that I am not to overhear. You seek to poison her +mind against me. You take her from me and then blacken me in her eyes. A +possible husband! Would to God," said Madame von Marwitz, with sombre +fury, "that the possibility had been fulfilled! Would to God that it +were my brave, deep-hearted Franz who were her husband--not you, most +ungrateful, most ungenerous of men." + +"Tante," said Karen, who still stood looking down, grasping her +chair-back and encircled by her guardian's arm, "he did not mean you to +hear him. Forgive him." + +"I beg your pardon, Karen," said Gregory, "I am very sorry that Madame +von Marwitz overheard me; but I have said nothing for which I wish to +apologize." + +"Ah! You hear him!" cried Madame von Marwitz, and the inner +conflagration now glittered in her eyes like flames behind the windows +of a burning house. "You hear him, Karen? Forgive him! How can I forgive +him when he has made you wretched! How can I ever forgive him when he +tears your life by thrusting me forth from it--me--and everything I am +and mean! You have witnessed it, Karen--you have seen my efforts to win +your husband. You have seen his contempt for me, his rancour, his +half-hidden insolence. Never--ah, never in my life have I faced such +humiliation as has been offered to me beneath his roof--humiliations, +endured for your sake, Karen--for yours only! Ah"--releasing Karen +suddenly, she advanced a step towards Gregory, with a startling cry, +stretching out her arm--"ungrateful and ungenerous indeed! And you find +yourself one to scorn my Franz! You find yourself one to sneer at my +friends, to stand and look at them and me as if we were vermin infesting +your room! Did I not see it! You! _justes cieux!_ with your bourgeois +little world; your little--little world--so small--so small! your people +like dull beasts pacing in a cage, believing that in the meat thrust in +between their bars and the number of steps to be taken from side to side +lies all the meaning of life; people who survey with their heavy eyes of +surfeit the free souls of the world! Hypocrites! Pharisees! And to this +cage you have consigned my child! and you would make of her, too, a +creature of counted paces and of unearned meat! You would shut her in +from the life of beauty and freedom that she has known! Ah never! never! +there you do not triumph! You have taken her from me; you have won her +love; but her mind is not yours; she sees the cage as I do; you do not +share the deep things of the soul with her. And in her loyal heart--ah, +I know it--will be the cry, undying, for one whose heart you have trod +upon and broken!" + +With these last words, gasped forth on rising sobs, Madame von Marwitz +sank into the chair where Karen still leaned and broke into passionate +tears. + +Gregory again was smiling, with the smile now of decorum at bay, of +embarrassment rather than contempt; but to Karen's eyes it was the smile +of supercilious arrogance. She looked at him sternly over her guardian's +bowed and oddly rolling head. "Speak, Gregory! Speak!" she commanded. + +"My dear," said Gregory--their voices seemed to pass above the clash and +uproar of stormy waters, Madame von Marwitz had abandoned herself to an +elemental grief--"I have nothing to say to your guardian." + +"To me, then," Karen clenched her hands on the back of the chair; "to +me, then, you have something to say. Is it not true? Have you not +repulsed her efforts to come near you? Have you not, behind her back, +permitted yourself to speak with scorn of the man she hoped I would +marry?" + +Gregory paused, and in the pause, as he observed, Madame von Marwitz was +able to withhold for a moment her strange groans and gaspings while she +listened. "I don't think there has been any such effort," he said. "We +were both keeping up appearances, your guardian and I; and I think that +I kept them up best. As for Herr Lippheim, it was only when you accused +me of rudeness to him that I confessed how much it astonished me to find +that he was the man your guardian had wished you to marry. It does +astonish me. Herr Lippheim isn't even a gentleman." + +"Enough!" cried Madame von Marwitz. She sprang to her feet. "Enough!" +she said, half suffocated. "It is the voice of the cage! We will not +stay to hear its standards applied. Come with me, Karen, that I may say +farewell to you." + +She caught Karen by the arm. Her face was strange, savage, suffused. +Gregory went to open the door for them. "Base one!" she said to him. +"Ignominious one!" + +She drew Karen swiftly along the passage and, still keeping her sharp +clasp of her wrist while she opened and closed the door of her room, she +sank, encircling her with her arms, upon the sofa, and wept loudly over +her. + +Karen, too, was now weeping; heavy, shaking sobs. + +"My child! My poor child!" Madame von Marwitz murmured brokenly after a +little time had gone. "I would have spared you this. It has come. We +have both seen it. And now, so that your life may not be ruined, I must +leave it." + +"But Tante--my Tante--" sobbed Karen--Madame von Marwitz did not remember +that Karen had ever so sobbed before--"you cannot mean those words. What +shall I do if you say this? What is left for me?" + +"My child, your life is left you," said Madame von Marwitz, holding her +close and speaking with her lips in the girl's hair. "Your husband's +love is left; the happiness that you chose and that I shall shatter if I +stay; ah, yes, my Karen, how deny it now? I see my path. It is plain +before me. To-night I go to Mrs. Forrester and to-morrow I breathe the +air of Cornwall." + +"But Tante--wait--wait. You will see Gregory again? You will let him +explain? Oh, let me first talk with him! He says bitter things, but so +do you, Tante; and he does not mean to offend as much as you think." + +At this, after a little pause, Madame von Marwitz drew herself slightly +away and put her handkerchief to her eyes and cheeks. The violence of +her grief was over. "Does he still so blind you, Karen?" she then asked. +"Do you still not see that your husband hates me--and has hated me from +the beginning?" + +"Not hate!--Not hate!" Karen sobbed. "He does not understand you--that +is all. Only wait--till to-morrow. Only let me talk to him!" + +"No. He does not understand. That is evident," said Madame von Marwitz +with a bitter smile. "Nor will he ever understand. Will you talk to him, +Karen, so that he shall explain why he smirches my love and my +sincerity? You know as well as I what was the meaning of those words of +his. Can you, loving me, ask me to sue further for the favour of a man +who has so insulted me? No. It cannot be. I cannot see him again. You +and I are still to meet, I trust; but it cannot again be under this +roof." + +Karen now sobbed helplessly, leaning forward, her face in her hands, and +Madame von Marwitz, again laying an arm around her shoulders, gazed with +majestic sorrow into the fire. "Even so," she said at last, when Karen's +sobs had sunken to long, broken breaths; "even so. It is the law of +life. Sacrifice: sacrifice: to the very end. Life, to the artist, must +be this altar where he lays his joys. We are destined to be alone, +Karen. We are driven forth into the wilderness for the sins of the +people. So I have often seen it, and cried out against it in my tortured +youth, and struggled against it in my strength and in my folly. But now, +with another strength, I am enabled to stand upright and to face the +vision of my destiny. I am to be alone. So be it." + +No answer came, from Karen and Madame von Marwitz, after a pause, +continued, in gentler, if no less solemn tones: "And my child, too, is +brave. She, too, will stand upright. She, too, has her destiny to +fulfil--in the world--not in the wilderness. And if the burden should +ever grow too heavy, and the road cut her feet too sharply, and the joy +turn to dust, she will remember--always--that Tante's arms and heart are +open to her--at all times, in all places, and to the end of life. And +now," this, with a sigh of fatigue, came on a more matter-of-fact +note--"let a cab be called for me. Louise will follow with my boxes." + +Karen's tears had ceased. She made no further protest or appeal. + +Rising, she dried her eyes, rang and ordered the cab to be called and +found her guardian's white cloak and veiled hat. + +And while she shrouded her in these, Madame von Marwitz, still gazing, +as if at visions, in the fire, lifted her arms and bent her head with +almost the passivity of a dead thing. Once or twice she murmured broken +phrases: "My ewe-lamb;--taken;--I am very weary. _Mon Dieu, mon +Dieu_,--and is this, then, the end...." + +She rested heavily on Karen's shoulder in rising. "Forgive me," she +said, leaning her head against hers, "forgive me, beloved one. I have +done harm where I meant to make a safer happiness. Forgive me, too, for +my bitter words. I should not have spoken as I did. My child knows that +it is a hot and passionate heart." + +Karen, in silence, turned her face to her guardian's breast. + +"And do not," said Madame von Marwitz, speaking with infinite +tenderness, while she stroked the bent head, "judge your husband too +hardly because of this. He gives what love he can; as he knows love. It +is as my child said; he does not understand. It is not given to some to +understand. He has lived in a narrow world. Do not judge him hardly, +Karen; it is for the wiser, stronger, more loving soul to lift the +smaller towards the light. He can still give my child happiness. In that +trust I find my strength." + +They went down the passage together. Gregory came to the drawing-room +door. He would have spoken, have questioned, but, shrinking from him and +against Karen, as if from an intolerable searing, Madame von Marwitz +hastened past him. He heard the front door open and the last silent +pause of farewell on the threshold. + +Louise scuttled by past him to her mistress's vacated rooms. She did not +see him and he heard that she muttered under her breath: "_Ah! par +exemple! C'est trop fort, ma parole d'honneur!_" + +As Karen came back from the door he went to meet her. + +"Karen," he said, "will you come and talk with me, now?" + +She put aside his hand. "I cannot talk. Do not come to me," she said. "I +must think." And going into their room she shut the door. + + + + +CHAPTER XXVI + + +The telephone sounded while Gregory next morning ate his solitary +breakfast, and the voice of Mrs. Forrester, disembodied of all but its +gravity, asked him, if he would, to come and see her immediately. + +Gregory asked if Madame von Marwitz were with her. He was not willing, +after the final affront that she had put upon him, to encounter Madame +von Marwitz again in circumstances where he might seem to be justifying +himself. But, with a deeper drop, the disembodied voice informed him +that Madame von Marwitz, ten minutes before, had driven to the station +on her way to Cornwall. "You will understand, I think, Gregory," said +Mrs. Forrester, "that it is hardly possible for her to face in London, +as yet, the situation that you have made for her." + +Gregory, to this, replied, shortly, that he would come to her at once, +reserving his comments on the imputed blame. + +He had passed an almost sleepless night, lying in his little +dressing-room bed where, by a tacit agreement, never explicitly +recognized, he had slept, now, for so many nights. Cold fears, shaped at +last in definite forms, stood round him and bade him see the truth. His +wife did not love him. From the beginning he had been as nothing to her +compared with her guardian. The pale, hard light of her eyes as she had +said to him that afternoon, "Speak!" seemed to light the darkness with +bitter revelations. He knew that he was what would be called, +sentimentally, a broken-hearted man; but it seemed that the process of +breaking had been gradual; so that now, when his heart lay in pieces, +his main feeling was not of sharp pain but of dull fatigue, not of +tragic night, but of a grey commonplace from which all sunlight had +slowly ebbed away. + +He found Mrs. Forrester in her morning-room among loudly singing +canaries and pots of jonquils; and as he shook hands with her he saw +that this old friend, so old and so accustomed that she was like a part +of his life, was embarrassed. The wrinkles on her withered, but oddly +juvenile, face seemed to have shifted to a pattern of perplexity and +pained resolution. He was not embarrassed, though he was beaten and done +in a way Mrs. Forrester could not guess at; yet he felt an awkwardness. + +They had known each other for a life-time, he and Mrs. Forrester, but +they were not intimate; and how intimate they would have to become if +they were to discuss with anything like frankness the causes and +consequences of Madame von Marwitz's conduct! A gloomy indifference +settled on Gregory as he realized that her dear friend's conduct was the +one factor in the causes and consequences that Mrs. Forrester would not +be able to appraise at its true significance. + +She shook his hand, and seating herself at a little table and slightly +tapping it with her fingers, "Now, my dear Gregory," she said, "will +you, please, tell me why you have acted like this?" + +"Isn't my case prejudged?" Gregory asked, reconstructing the scene that +must have taken place last night when Madame von Marwitz had appeared +before her friend. + +"No, Gregory; it is not," Mrs. Forrester returned with some terseness, +for she felt his remark to be unbecoming. "I hope to have some sort of +explanation from you." + +"I'm quite ready to explain; but it's hardly possible that my +explanation will satisfy you," said Gregory. "You spoke, just now, when +you called me up, of a situation and said I'd made it. My explanation +can only consist in saying that I didn't make it; that Madame von +Marwitz made it; that she came to us in order to make it and then to fix +the odium of it on me." + +Already Mrs. Forrester had flushed. She looked hard at the pot of +jonquils near her. "You really believe that?" + +"I do. She can't forgive me for not liking her," said Gregory. + +"And you don't like her. You own to it." + +"I don't like her. I own to it," Gregory replied with a certain frosty +relief. It was like taking off damp, threadbare garments that had +chilled one for a long time and facing the winter wind, naked, but +invigorated. "I dislike her very much." + +"May I ask why?" Mrs. Forrester inquired, with careful courtesy. + +"I distrust her," said Gregory. "I think she's dangerous, and tyrannous, +and unscrupulous. I think that she's devoured by egotism. I'm sorry. But +if you ask me why, I can only tell you." + +Mrs. Forrester sat silent for a moment, and then, the flush on her +delicate old cheek deepening, she murmured: "It is worse, far worse, +than Mercedes told me. Even Mercedes didn't suspect this. Gregory,--I +must ask you another question: Do you really imagine that you and your +cruel thoughts of her would be of the slightest consequence to Mercedes +Okraska, if you had not married the child for whose happiness she holds +herself responsible?" + +"Of course not. She wouldn't give me another thought, if I weren't +there, in her path; I am in her path, and she feels that I don't like +her, and she hasn't been able to let me alone." + +"She has not let you alone because she hoped to make your marriage +secure in the only way in which security was possible for you and Karen. +What happiness could she see for Karen's future if she were to have cut +herself apart from her life; dropped you, and Karen with you? That, +doubtless, would have been the easy thing to do. There is indeed no +reason why women like Mercedes Okraska, women with the world at their +feet, should trouble to think of the young men they may chance to meet, +whose exacting moral sense they don't satisfy. I am glad you see that," +said Mrs. Forrester, tapping her table. + +"It would have been far kinder to have dropped Karen than deliberately +to set to work, as she has done, to ruin her happiness. She hasn't been +able to keep her hands off it. She couldn't stand it--a happiness she +hadn't given; a happiness for which gratitude wasn't due to her." + +"Gregory, Gregory," Mrs. Forrester raised her eyes to him now; "you are +frank with me, very frank; and I must be frank with you. There is more +than dislike here, and distrust, and morbid prejudice. There is +jealousy. Hints of it have come to me; I've tried to put them aside; +I've tried to believe, as my poor Mercedes did, that, by degrees, you +would adjust yourself to the claims on Karen's life, and be generous and +understanding, even when you had no spontaneous sympathy to give. But it +is all quite clear to me now. You can't accept the fact of your wife's +relation to Mercedes. You can't accept the fact of a devotion not wholly +directed towards yourself. I've known you since boyhood, Gregory, and +I've always had regard and fondness for you; but this is a serious +breach between us. You seem to me more wrong and arrogant than I could +trust myself to say. And you have behaved cruelly to a woman for whom my +feeling is more than mere friendship. In many ways my feeling for +Mercedes Okraska is one of reverence. She is one of the great people of +the world. To know her has been a possession, a privilege. Anyone might +be proud to know such a woman. And when I think of what you have now +said of her to me--when I think of how I saw her--here--last +night,--broken--crushed,--after so many sorrows--" + +Tears had risen to Mrs. Forrester's eyes. She turned her head aside. + +"Do you mean," said Gregory after a moment, in which it seemed to him +that his grey world preceptibly, if slightly, darkened, "do you mean +that I've lost your friendship because of Madame von Marwitz?" + +"I don't know, Gregory; I can't tell you," said Mrs. Forrester, not +looking at him. "I don't recognize you. As to Karen, I cannot imagine +what your position with her can be. How is she to bear it when she knows +that it is said that you insulted her guardian's friends and then turned +her out of your house?" + +"I didn't turn her out," said Gregory; he walked to the window and +stared into the street. "She went because that was the most venomous +thing she could do. And I didn't insult her friends." + +"You said to her that the man she had thought of as a husband for Karen +was not a gentleman. You said that you did not understand how Mercedes +could have chosen such a man for her. You said this with the child +standing between you. Oh, you cannot deny it, Gregory. I have heard in +detail what took place. Mercedes saw that unless she left you Karen's +position was an impossible one. It was to save Karen--and your relation +to Karen--that she went." + +Gregory, still standing at the window, was silent, and then asked: "Have +you seen Herr Lippheim?" + +"No, Gregory," Mrs. Forrester returned, and now with trenchancy, the +concrete case being easier to deal with openly. "No; I have not seen +him; but Mercedes spoke to me about him last winter, when she hoped for +the match, and told me, moreover, that she was surprised by Karen's +refusal, as the child was much attached to him. I have not seen him; but +I know the type--and intimately. He is a warm-hearted and intelligent +musician." + +"Your bootmaker may be warm-hearted and intelligent." + +"That is petulant--almost an insolent simile, Gregory. It only reveals, +pitifully, your narrowness and prejudice--and, I will add, your +ignorance. Herr Lippheim is an artist; a man of character and +significance. Many of my dearest friends have been such; hearts of gold; +the salt of the world." + +"Would you have allowed a daughter of yours, may I ask, to marry one of +these hearts of gold?" + +"Certainly; most certainly," said Mrs. Forrester, but with a haste and +heat somewhat suspicious. "If she loved him." + +"If he were personally fit, you mean. Herr Lippheim is undoubtedly +warm-hearted and, in his own way, intelligent, but he is as unfit to be +Karen's husband as your bootmaker to be yours." + +They had come now, on this lower, easier level, to one of the points +where temper betrays itself as it cannot do on the heights of contest. +Gregory's reiteration of the bootmaker greatly incensed Mrs. Forrester. + +"My dear Gregory," she said, "I yield to no one in my appreciation of +Karen; owing to the education and opportunities that Mercedes has given +her, she is a charming young woman. But, since we are dealing with, +facts, the bare, bald, worldly aspects of things, we must not forget the +facts of Karen's parentage and antecedents. Herr Lippheim is, in these +respects, I imagine, altogether her equal. A rising young musician, the +friend and _protege_ of one of the world's great geniuses, and a +penniless, illegitimate girl. Do not let your rancour, your jealousy, +blind you so completely." + +Gregory turned from the window at this, smiling a pallid, frosty smile +and Mrs. Forrester was now aware that she had made him very angry. "I +may be narrow," he said, "and conventional and ignorant; but I'm +unconventional and clear-sighted enough to judge people by their actual, +not their market, value. Of Herr Lippheim I know nothing, except that +his parentage and antecedents haven't made a gentleman, or anything +resembling one, of him; while of Karen I know that hers, unfortunate as +they certainly were, have made a lady and a very perfect one. I don't +forgive Madame von Marwitz for a great many things in regard to her +treatment of Karen," Gregory went on with growing bitterness, "chief +among them that she has taken her at her market value and allowed her +friends to do the same. I've been able, thank goodness, to rescue Karen, +at all events, from that. Madame von Marwitz can't carry her about any +longer like a badge from some charitable society on her shoulder. No +woman who really loved Karen, or who really appreciated her," Gregory +added, falling back on his concrete fact, "could have thought of Herr +Lippheim as a husband for her." + +Mrs. Forrester sat looking up at him, and she was genuinely aghast. + +"You are incredible to me, Gregory," she said. "You set your one year of +devotion to Karen against Mercedes's life-time, and you presume to +discredit hers." + +"Yes. I do. I don't believe in her devotion to Karen." + +"Do you realize that your attitude may mean a complete rupture between +Karen and her guardian?" + +"No such luck; I'm afraid!" said Gregory with a grim laugh. "My only +hope is that it may mean a complete rupture between Madame von Marwitz +and me. It goes without saying, feeling as I do, that, if it wouldn't +break Karen's heart, I'd do my best to prevent Madame von Marwitz from +ever seeing her again." + +There was a little silence and then Mrs. Forrester got up sharply. + +"Very well, Gregory," she said. "That will do." + +"Are you going to shake hands with me?" he asked, still with the grim +smile. + +"Yes. I will shake hands with you, Gregory," Mrs. Forrester replied. +"Because, in spite of everything, I am fond of you. But you must not +come here again. Not now." + +"Never any more, do you really mean?" + +"Not until you are less wickedly blind." + +"I'm sorry," said Gregory. "It's never any more then, I'm afraid." + +He was very sorry. He knew that as he walked away. + + + + +CHAPTER XXVII + + +Mrs. Forrester remained among her canaries and jonquils, thinking. She +was seriously perturbed. She was, as she had said, fond of Gregory, but +she was fonder, far, of Mercedes von Marwitz, whom Gregory had caused to +suffer and whom he would, evidently, cause to suffer still more. + +She controlled the impulse to telephone to Eleanor Scrotton and consult +with her; a vague instinct of loyalty towards Gregory restrained her +from that. Eleanor would, in a day or two, hear from Cornwall and what +she would hear could not be so bad as what Mrs. Forrester herself could +tell her. After thinking for the rest of the morning, Mrs. Forrester +decided to go and see Karen. She was not very fond of Karen. She had +always been inclined to think that Mercedes exaggerated the significance +of the girl's devotion, and Gregory's exaggeration, now, of her general +significance--explicable as it might be in an infatuated young +husband--disposed her the less kindly towards her. She felt that Karen +had been clumsy, dull, in the whole affair. She felt that, at bottom, +she was somewhat responsible for it. How had Gregory been able, living +with Karen, to have formed such an insensate conception of Mercedes? The +girl was stupid, acquiescent; she had shown no tact, no skill, no +clarifying courage. Mrs. Forrester determined to show them all--to talk +to Karen. + +She drove to St. James's at four o'clock that afternoon and Barker told +her that Mrs. Jardine was in the drawing-room. Visitors, evidently, were +with her, and it affected Mrs. Forrester very unpleasantly, as Barker +led her along the passage, to hear rich harmonies of music filling the +flat. She had expected to be perhaps ushered into a darkened bedroom; to +administer comfort and sympathy to a shattered creature before +administering reproof and counsel. But Karen not only was up; she was +not alone. The strains were those of chamber-music, and a half-perplexed +delight mingled with Mrs. Forrester's displeasure as she recognized the +heavenly melodies of Schumann's Pianoforte Quintet. The performers were +in the third movement. + +Karen rose, as Barker announced her, from the side of a stout lady at +the piano, and Mrs. Forrester, nodding, her finger at her lips, dropped +into a chair and listened. + +The stout lady at the piano had a pale, fat, pear-shaped face, her +grizzled hair parted above it and twisted to a large outstanding knob +behind. She wore eyeglasses and peered through them at her music with +intelligent intensity and profound humility. The violin was played by an +enormous young man with red hair, and the viola, second violin and +'cello by three young women, all of the black-and-tan Semitic type. + +Mrs. Forrester was too much preoccupied with her wonder to listen as she +would have wished to, but by the time the end of the movement was come +she had realized that they played extremely well. + +Karen came forward in the interval. She was undoubtedly pale and +heavy-eyed; but in her little dress of dark blue silk, with her narrow +lawn ruffles and locket and shining hair, she showed none of the +desperate signs appropriate to her circumstances nor any embarrassment +at the incongruous situation in which Mrs. Forrester found her. + +"This is Frau Lippheim, Mrs. Forrester," she said. "And these are +Fraeulein Lotta and Minna and Elizabeth, and this is Herr Franz. I think +you have often heard Tante speak of our friends." + +Her ears buzzing with the name of Lippheim since the night before, Mrs. +Forrester was aware that she showed confusion, also that for a brief, +sharp instant, while her eyes rested on Herr Franz, a pang of perverse +sympathy for Gregory, in a certain aspect of his wickedness, +disintegrated her state of mind. He was singular looking indeed, this +untidy young man, whose ill-kept clothes had a look of insecurity, like +arrested avalanches on a mountain. "No, I can feel for Gregory somewhat +in this," Mrs. Forrester said to herself. + +"We are having some music, you see," said Karen. "Herr Lippheim promised +me yesterday that they would all come and play to me. Can you stay and +listen for a little while? They must go before tea, for they have a +rehearsal for their concert," she added, as though to let Mrs. Forrester +know that she was not unconscious of the matter that must have brought +her. + +There was really no reason why she shouldn't stay. She could not very +well ask to have the Lippheims and their instruments turned out. +Moreover she was very fond of the Quintet. Mrs. Forrester said that she +would be glad to stay. + +When they went on to the fourth movement, and while she listened, giving +her mind to the music, Mrs. Forrester's disintegration slowly recomposed +itself. It was not only that the music was heavenly and that they played +so well. She liked these people; they were the sort of people she had +always liked. She forgot Herr Franz's uncouth and mountainous aspect. +His great head leaning sideways, his eyes half closed, with the +musician's look of mingled voluptuous rapture and cold, grave, listening +intellect, he had a certain majesty. The mother, too, all devout +concentration, was an artist of the right sort; the girls had the gentle +benignity that comes of sincere self-dedication. They pleased Mrs. +Forrester greatly and, as she listened, her severity towards Gregory +shaped itself anew and more forcibly. Narrow, blind, bigoted young man. +And it was amusing to think, as a comment on his fierce consciousness of +Herr Lippheim's unfitness, that here Herr Lippheim was, admitted to the +very heart of Karen's sorrow. It was inconceivable that anyone but very +near and dear friends should have been tolerated by her to-day. Karen, +too, after her fashion, was an artist. The music, no doubt, was helpful +to her. Soft thoughts of her great, lacerated friend, speeding now +towards her solitudes, filled Mrs. Forrester's eyes more than once with +tears. + +They finished and Frau Lippheim, rubbing her hands with her +handkerchief, stood smiling near-sightedly, while Mrs. Forrester +expressed her great pleasure and asked all the Lippheims to come and see +her. She planned already a musical. Karen's face showed a pale beam of +gladness. + +"And now, my dear child," said Mrs. Forrester, when the Lippheims had +departed and she and Karen were alone and seated side by side on the +sofa, "we must talk. I have come, of course you know, to talk about this +miserable affair." She put her hand on Karen's; but already something in +the girl's demeanour renewed her first displeasure. She looked heavy, +she looked phlegmatic; there was no response, no softness in her glance. + +"You have perhaps a message to me, Mrs. Forrester, from Tante," she +said. + +"No, Karen, no," Mrs. Forrester with irrepressible severity returned. "I +have no message for you. Any message, I think should come from your +husband and not from your guardian." + +Karen sat silent, her eyes moving away from her visitor's face and +fixing themselves on the wall above her head. + +The impulse that had brought Mrs. Forrester was suffering alterations. + +Gregory had revealed the case to her as worse than she had supposed; +Karen emphasized the revelation. And what of Mercedes between these two +young egoists? "I must ask you, Karen," she said, "whether you realise +how Gregory has behaved, to the woman to whom you, and he, owe so much?" + +Karen continued to look fixedly at the wall and after a moment of +deliberation replied: "Tante did not speak rightly to Gregory, Mrs. +Forrester. She lost her temper very much. You know that Tante can lose +her temper." + +Mrs. Forrester, at this, almost lost hers. "You surprise me, Karen. Your +husband had spoken insultingly of her friends--and yours--to her. Why +attempt to shield him? I heard the whole story, in detail, from your +guardian, you must remember." + +Again Karen withdrew into a considering silence; but, though her face +remained impassive, Mrs. Forrester observed that a slight flush rose to +her cheeks. + +"Gregory did not intend Tante to overhear what he said," she produced at +last. "It was said to me--and I had questioned him--not to her. Tante +came in by chance. It is not likely, Mrs. Forrester, that my version +would differ in any way from hers." + +"You mustn't take offence at what I say, Karen," Mrs. Forrester spoke +with more severity; "your version does differ. To my astonishment you +seem actually to defend your husband." + +"Yes; from what is not true: that is not to differ from Tante as to what +took place." Karen brought her eyes to Mrs. Forrester's. + +"From what is not true. Very well. You will not deny that he so +intensely dislikes your guardian and has shown it so plainly to her that +she has had to leave you. You will not deny that, Karen?" + +"No. I will not deny that," Karen replied. + +"My poor child--it is true, and it is only a small part of the truth. I +don't know what Gregory has said to you in private, but even Mercedes +had not prepared me for what he said to me this morning." + +"What did he say to you this morning, Mrs. Forrester?" + +"He believes her to be a bad woman, Karen; do you realise that; has he +told you that; can you bear it? Dangerous, unscrupulous, tyrannous, +devoured by egotism, were the words he used of her. I shall not forget +them. He accused her of hypocrisy in her feeling for you. He hoped that +you might never see her again. It is terrible, Karen. Terrible. It puts +us all--all of us who love Mercedes, and you through her, into the most +impossible position." + +Karen sat, her head erect, her eyes downcast, with a rigidity of +expression almost torpid. + +"Do you see the position he puts us in, Karen?" Mrs. Forrester went on +with insistence. "Have you had the matter out with Gregory? Did you +realise its gravity? I must really beg you to answer me." + +"I have not yet spoken with my husband," said Karen, in a chill, +lifeless tone. + +"But you will? You cannot let it pass?" + +"No, Mrs. Forrester. I will not let it pass." + +"You will insist that he shall make a full apology to Mercedes?" + +"Is he to apologise to her for hating her?" Karen at this asked +suddenly. + +"For hating her? What do you mean?" Mrs. Forrester was taken aback. + +"If he is to apologise," said Karen, in a still colder, still more +lifeless voice, "it must be for something that can be changed. How can +he apologise to her for hating her if he continues to hate her?" + +"He can apologise for having spoken insultingly to her." + +"He has not done that. It was Tante who overheard what she was not +intended to hear. And it was Tante who spoke with violence." + +"It amazes me to hear you put it on her shoulders, Karen. He can +apologise, then, for what he has said to me," said Mrs. Forrester with +indignation. "You will not deny that what he said of her to me was +insulting." + +"He is to tell her that he has said those words and then apologise, Mrs. +Forrester? Oh, no; you do not think what you say." + +"Really, my dear Karen, you have a most singular fashion of speaking to +a person three times your age!" Mrs. Forrester exclaimed, the more +incensed for the confusion of thought into which the girl's persistence +threw her. "The long and short of it is that he must make it possible +for Mercedes to meet him, with decency, in the future." + +"But I do not know how that can be," said Karen, rising as Mrs. +Forrester rose; "I do not know how Tante, now, can see him. If he thinks +these things and does not say them, there may be pretence; but if he +says them, to Tante's friends, how can there be pretence?" + +There was no appeal in her voice. She put the facts, so evident to +herself, before her visitor and asked her to look at them. Mrs. +Forrester was suddenly aware that her advice might have been somewhat +hasty. She also felt suddenly as though, on a reconnoitring march down a +rough but open path, she found herself merging in the gloomy mysteries +of a forest. There were hidden things in Karen's voice. + +"Well, well," she said, taking the girl's hand and casting about in her +mind for a retreat; "that's to see it as hopeless, isn't it, and we +don't want to do that, do we? We want to bring Gregory to reason, and +you are the person best fitted to do that. We want to clear up these +dreadful ideas he has got into his head, heaven knows how. And no one +but you can do it. No one in the world, my dear Karen, is more fitted +than you to make him understand what our wonderful Tante really is. +There is the trouble, Karen," said Mrs. Forrester, finding now the +original clue with which she had started on her expedition; "he +shouldn't have been able, living with you, seeing your devotion, seeing +from your life, as you must have told him of it, what it was founded on, +he shouldn't have been able to form such a monstrous conception of our +great, dear one. You have been in fault there, my dear, you see it now, +I am sure. At the first hint you should have made things clear to him. I +know that it is hard for a young wife to oppose the man she loves; but +love mustn't make us cowardly," Mrs. Forrester murmured on more +cheerfully as they moved down the passage, "and Gregory will only love +you more wisely and deeply if he is made to recognize, once for all, +that you will not sacrifice your guardian to please him." + +They were now at the door and Karen had not said a word. + +"Well, good-bye, my dear," said Mrs. Forrester. Oddly she did not feel +able to urge more strongly upon Karen that she should not sacrifice her +guardian to her husband. "I hope I've made things clearer by coming. It +was better that you should, realize just what your guardian's friends +felt--and would feel--about it, wasn't it?" Karen still made no reply +and on the threshold Mrs. Forrester paused to add, with some urgency: +"It was right, you see that, don't you, Karen, that you should know what +Gregory is really feeling?" + +"Yes," Karen now assented. "It is better that I should know that." + + + + +CHAPTER XXVIII + + +Gregory when he came in that evening thought at first, with a pang of +fear, that Karen had gone out. It was time for dressing and she was not +in their room. In the drawing-room it was dark; he stood in the doorway +for a moment and looked about it, sad and tired and troubled, wondering +if Karen had gone to Mrs. Forrester's, wondering whether, in her grave +displeasure with him, she had even followed her guardian. And then, from +beside him, came her voice. "I am here, Gregory. I have been waiting for +you." + +His relief was so intense that, turning up the lights, seeing her +sitting there on a little sofa near the door, he bent involuntarily over +her to kiss her. + +But her hand put him away. + +"No; I must speak to you," she said. + +Gregory straightened himself, compressing his lips. + +Karen had evidently not thought of changing. She wore her dark-blue silk +dress. She had, indeed, been sitting there since Mrs. Forrester went. He +looked about the room, noting, with dull wonder, the grouped chairs, and +open piano. "You have had people here?" + +"Yes. The Lippheims came and played to me. I would have written to them +and told them not to come; but I forgot. And Mrs. Forrester has been +here." + +"Quite a reception," said Gregory. He walked to the window and looked +out. "Well," he said, not turning to his wife, "what have you to say to +me, Karen?" His tone was dry and even ironic. + +"Mrs. Forrester came to tell me," said Karen, "that you had seen her +this morning." + +"Yes. Well?" + +"And she told me," Karen went on, "that you had a great deal to say to +her about my guardian--things that you have never dared to say to me." + +He turned to her now and her eyes from across the room fixed themselves +upon him. + +"I will say them to you if you like," said Gregory, after a moment. He +leaned against the side of the window and folded his arms. And he +examined his wife with, apparently, the cold attention that he would +have given to a strange witness in the box. And indeed she was strange +to him. Over his aching and dispossessed heart he steeled himself in an +impartial scrutiny. + +"It is true, then," said Karen, "that you believe her tyrannous and +dangerous and unscrupulous, and that you think her devoured by egotism, +and hypocritical in her feeling for me, and that you hope that I may +never see her again?" + +She catalogued the morning's declarations accurately, like the witness +giving unimpeachable testimony. But it was rather absurd to see her as +the witness, when, so unmistakably, she considered herself the judge and +him the criminal in the dock. There was relief in pleading guilty to +everything. "Yes: it's perfectly true," he said. + +She looked at him and he could discover no emotion on her face. + +"Why did you not tell me this when you asked me to marry you?" she +questioned. + +"Oh--I wasn't so sure of it then," said Gregory. "And I loved you and +hoped it would never come out. I didn't want to give you pain. That's +why I never dared tell you, as you put it." + +"You wanted to marry me and you knew that if you told me the truth I +would not marry you; that is the reason you did not dare," said Karen. + +"Well, there's probably truth in that," Gregory assented, smiling; "I'm +afraid I was an infatuated creature, perhaps a dishonest one. I can't +expect you to make allowances for my condition, I know." + +She lowered her eyes and sat for so long in silence that presently, +rather ashamed of the bitterness of his last words, he went on in a +kinder tone: "I know that I can never make you understand. You have your +infatuation and it blinds you. You've been blind to the way in which, +from the very beginning, she has tracked me down. You've been blind to +the fact that the thing that has moved her hasn't been love for you but +spite, malicious spite, against me for not giving her the sort of +admiration she's accustomed to. If I've come to hate her--I didn't in +the least at first, of course--it's only fair to say that she hates me +ten times worse. I only asked that she should let me alone." + +"And let me alone," said Karen, who had listened without a movement. + +"Oh no," Gregory said, "that's not at all true. You surely will be fair +enough to own that it's not; that I did everything I could to give you +both complete liberty." + +"As when you applauded and upheld Betty for her insolent interference; +as when you complained to me of my guardian because she asked that I +should have a wider life; as when you hoped to have Mrs. Talcott here so +that my guardian might be kept out." + +"Did she suggest that?" + +"She showed it to me. I had not seen it even then. Do you deny it?" + +"No; I don't suppose I can, though it was nothing so definite. But I +certainly hoped that Madame von Marwitz would not come here." + +"And yet you can tell me that you have not tried to come between us." + +"Yes; I can. I never tried to come between you. I tried to keep away. +It's been she, as I say, who has tracked me down. That was what I was +afraid of if she came here; that she'd force me to show my dislike. Can +you deny, Karen, I ask you this, that from the beginning she has made +capital to you out of my dislike, and pointed it out to you?" + +"I will not discuss that with you," said Karen; "I know that you can +twist all her words and actions." + +"I don't want to do that. I can see a certain justice in her malice. It +was hard for her, of course, to find that you'd married a man she didn't +take to and who didn't take to her; but why couldn't she have left it at +that?" + +"It couldn't be left at that. It wasn't only that," said Karen. "If she +had liked you, you would never have liked her; and if you had liked her +she would have liked you." + +The steadiness of her voice as she thus placed the heart of the matter +before him brought him a certain relief. Perhaps, in spite of his cold +realizations and the death of all illusion as to Karen's love for him, +they could really, now, come to an understanding, an accepted +compromise. His heart ached and would go on aching until time had +blunted its hurts, and a compromise was all he had to hope for. He had +nothing to expect from Karen but acceptance of fact and faithful +domesticity. But, after all the uncertainties and turmoils, this bitter +peace had its balms. He took up her last words. + +"Ah, well, she'd have liked my liking," he analysed it. "I don't know +that she'd have liked me;--unless I could have managed to give her +actual worship, as you and her friends do. But I'm not going to say +anything more against her. She has forced the truth from me, and now we +may bury it. You shall see her, of course, whenever you want to. But I +hope that I shall never have to speak of her to you again." + +The talk seemed to have been brought to an end. Karen, had risen and +Barker, entering at the moment, announced dinner. + +"By Jove, is it as late as that," Gregory muttered, nodding to him. He +turned to Karen when Barker was gone and, the pink electric lights +falling upon her face, he saw as he had not seen before how grey and +sunken it was. She had made no movement towards the door. + +"Gregory," she said, fixing her eyes upon him, and he then saw that he +had misinterpreted her quiet, "I tell you that these things are not +true. They are not true. Will you believe me?" + +"What things?" he asked. But he was temporizing. He saw that the end had +not come. + +"The things you believe of Tante. That she is a heartless woman, using +those who love her--feeding on their love. I say it is not true. Will +you believe me?" + +She stood on the other side of the room, her arms hanging at her sides, +her hands hanging open, all her being concentrated in the ultimate +demand of her compelling gaze. + +"Karen," he said, "I know that she must be lovable; I know, of course, +that she has power, and charm, and tenderness. I think I can understand +why you feel for her as you do. But I don't think that there is any +chance that I shall change my opinion of her; not for anything you say. +I believe that she takes you in completely." + +Karen gazed at him. "You will still believe that she is tyrannous, and +dangerous, and false, whatever I may say?" + +"Yes, Karen. I know it sounds horrible to you. You must try to forgive +me for it. We won't speak of it again; I promise you." + +She turned from him, looking before her at the Bouddha, but not as if +she saw it. "We shall never speak of it again," she said. "I am going to +leave you, Gregory." + +For a moment he stared at her. Then he smiled. "You mustn't punish me +for telling you the truth, Karen, by silly threats." + +"I do not punish you. You have done rightly to tell me the truth. But I +cannot live with a man who believes these things." + +She still gazed at the Bouddha and again Gregory stared at her. His face +hardened. "Don't be absurd, Karen. You cannot mean what you say." + +"I am going to-night. Now," said Karen. + +"Going? Where?" + +"To Cornwall, back to my guardian. She will take care of me again. I +will not live with you." + +"If you really mean what you say," said Gregory, after a moment, "you +are telling me that you don't love me. I've suspected it for some time." + +"I feel as if that were true," said Karen, looking now down upon the +ground. "I think I have no more love for you. I find you a petty man." +It was impossible to hope that she was speaking recklessly or +passionately. She had come to the conclusion with deliberation; she had +been thinking of it since last night. She was willing to cast him off +because he could not love where she loved. How deeply the roots of hope +still knotted themselves in him he was now to realize. He felt his heart +and mind rock with the reverberation of the shattering, the pulverizing +explosion, and he saw his life lying in a wilderness of dust about him. + +Yet the words he found were not the words of his despair. "Even if you +feel like this, Karen," he said, "there is no necessity for behaving +like a lunatic. Go and stay with your guardian, by all means, and +whenever you like. Start to-morrow morning. Spend most of your time with +her. I shall not put the smallest difficulty in your way. But--if only +for your own sake--have some common-sense and keep up appearances. You +must remain my wife in name and the mistress of my house." + +"Thank you, you mean to be kind, I know," said Karen, who had not looked +at him since her declaration; "But I am not a conventional woman and I +do not wish to live with a man who is no longer my husband. I do not +wish to keep up appearances. I do not wish it to be said--by those who +know my guardian and what she has done for me and been to me--that I +keep up the appearance of regard for a man who hates her. I made a +mistake in marrying you; you allowed me to make it. Now, as far as I +can, I undo it by leaving you. Perhaps," she added, "you could divorce +me. That would set you free." + +The remark in its childishness, callousness, and considerateness struck +him as one of the most revealing she had made. He laughed icily. "Our +laws only allow of divorce for one cause and I advise you not to seek +freedom for yourself--or for me--by disgracing yourself. It's not worth +it. The conventions you scorn have their solid value." + +She had now turned her head and was looking at him. "I think you are +insulting me," she said. + +For the first time he observed a trembling in her voice and interpreted +it as anger. It gave him a hurting satisfaction to have made her angry. +She had appalled and shattered him. + +"I am not insulting you, I am warning you, Karen," he said. "A woman who +can behave as you are behaving is capable of acts of criminal folly. You +don't believe in convention, and in your guardian's world you will meet +many men who don't." + +"What do you mean by criminal folly?" + +"I mean living with a man you're not married to." + +He had simply and sincerely forgotten something. Karen's face grew +ashen. + +"You mean that my mother was a criminal?" + +Even at this moment of his despair Gregory was horribly sorry. Yet the +memory that she recalled brought a deeper fear for her future. He had +spoken with irony of her suggestion about divorce and freedom. But did +not her very blood, as well as her environment, give him reason to +emphasise his warning? + +"I didn't mean that. I wasn't thinking of that," he said, "as you must +know. And to be criminally foolish is a very different thing from being +a criminal. But I'm convinced that to break social laws--and these laws +about men and women have deeper than merely social sanctions--to break +them, I'm convinced, can bring no happiness. I feel about your mother, +and what she did--I say it with all reverence--that she was as mistaken +as she was unfortunate. And I beg of you, Karen, never to follow her +example." + +"It is not for you to speak of her!" Karen said, not moving from her +place but uttering the words with a still and sudden passion that he had +never heard from her. "It is not for you to preach sermons to me on the +text of my mother's misfortunes. I do not call them misfortunes--nor did +she. I do not accept your laws, and she was not afraid of them. How dare +you call her unfortunate? She lost nothing that she valued and she +gained great happiness, and gave it, for she was happy with my father. +It was a truer marriage than any I have known. She was more married than +you or I have ever been or could ever have been; for there was deep love +between them, and trust and understanding. Do not speak to me of her. I +forbid it." + +She turned to the door. Gregory sprang to her side and seized her wrist. +"Karen! Where are you going? Wait till to-morrow!" he exclaimed, fear +for her actual safety surmounting every other feeling. + +She stood still under his hand and looked at him with her still passion +of repudiation. "I will not wait. I shall go to-night to Frau Lippheim. +And to-morrow I shall go to Cornwall. I shall tell Mrs. Barker to pack +my clothes and send them to me there." + +"You have no money." + +"Frau Lippheim will lend me money. My guardian will take care of me. It +is not for you to have any thought for me." + +He dropped her arm. "Very well. Go then," he said. + +He turned from her. He heard that she paused, the knob of the door in +her hand. "Good-bye," she then said. + +Again it was, inconceivably, the mingled childishness, callousness and +considerateness. That, at the moment, she could think of the formality, +suffocated him. "Good-bye," he replied, not looking round. + +The door opened and closed. He heard her swift feet passing down the +passage to their room. + +She was not reckless. She needed her hat and coat at least. Quiet, +rational determination was in all her actions. + +Yet, as he waited to hear her come out again, a hope that he knew to be +chimerical rose in him. She would, perhaps, return, throw herself in his +arms and, weeping, say that she loved him and could not leave him. +Gregory's heart beat quickly. + +But when he heard her footsteps again they were not returning. They +passed along to the kitchen; she was speaking to Mrs. Barker--Gregory +had a shoot of surface thought for Mrs. Barker's astonishment; they +entered the hall again, the hall door closed behind them. + +Gregory stood looking at the Bouddha. The tears kept mounting to his +throat and eyes and, furiously, he choked them back. He did not see the +Bouddha. + +But, suddenly becoming aware of the bland contemplative gaze of the +great bronze image, his eyes fixed themselves on it. + +He had known it from the first to be an enemy. Its presage was +fulfilled. The tidal wave had broken over his life. + + + + +PART II + + + + +CHAPTER XXIX + + +Karen sat in her corner of the railway carriage looking out at familiar +scenery. + +Reading and the spring-tide beauties of the Thames valley had gone by in +the morning. Then, after the attendant had passed along the corridor +announcing lunch, and those who were lunching had followed him in single +file, had come the lonely majesty of the Somerset downs, lying like +great headlands along the plain, a vast sky of rippled blue and silver +above them. They had passed Plymouth where she had always used to look +down from the high bridges and wonder over the lives of the midshipmen +on the training-ships, and now they were winding through wooded Cornish +valleys. + +Karen had looked out of her window all day. She had not read, though +kind Frau Lippheim had put the latest _tendenz-roman_, paper-bound, into +the little basket, which was also stocked with stout beef-sandwiches, a +bottle of milk, and the packet of chocolate and bun in paper bag that +Franz had added to it at the station. + +Poor Franz. He and his mother had come to see her off and they had both +wept as the train moved away, and strange indeed it must have been for +them to see the Karen Jardine who, only yesterday, had been, apparently, +so happy, and so secure in her new life, carried back to the old; a wife +who had left her husband. + +Karen had slept little the night before, and kind Franz must have slept +less; for he had given her his meagre bedroom and spent the night on the +narrowest, hardest, most slippery of sofas in the sitting-room of the +Bayswater lodging-house where Karen had found the Lippheims very +cheaply, very grimly, not to say greasily, installed. It was no wonder +that Franz's eyes had been so heavy, his face so puffed and pale that +morning; and his tears had given the last touch of desolation to his +countenance. + +Karen herself had not wept, either at the parting or at the meeting of +the night before. She had told them, with no explanations at all, that +she had left her husband and was going back to her guardian, and the +Lippheims had asked no questions. + +It might have been possible that Franz, as he sat at the table, his +fingers run through his hair, clutching his head while he and his mother +listened to her, was not so dazed and lost as was Frau Lippheim, who had +not seen Gregory. Franz might have his vague perceptions. "_Ach! Ach!_" +he had ejaculated once or twice while she spoke. + +And Frau Lippheim had only said: "_Liebes Kind! Liebes, armes Kind!_" + +She was, after all, going back to the great Tante and they felt, no +doubt, that no grief could be ultimate which had that compensatory +refuge. + +She was going back to Tante. As the valleys, in their deepened shadows, +streamed past her, Karen remembered that it had hardly been at all of +Tante that she had thought while the long hours passed and her eyes +observed the flying hills and fields. Perhaps she had thought of +nothing. The heavy feeling, as of a stone resting on her heart, of doom, +defeat and bitterness, could hardly have been defined as thought. She +had thought and thought and thought during these last dreadful days; +every mental cog had been adjusted, every wheel had turned; she had held +herself together as never before in all her life, in order to give +thought every chance. For wasn't that to give him every chance? and +wasn't that, above all, to give herself any chance that might still be +left her? + +And now the machinery seemed to lie wrecked. There was not an ember of +hope left with which to kindle its activity. How much hope there must +have been to have made it work so firmly and so furiously during these +last days! how much, she hadn't known until her husband had come in last +night, and, at last, spoken openly. + +Even Mrs. Forrester's revelations, though they had paralyzed her, had +not put out the fires. She had still hoped that he could deny, explain, +recant, own that he had been hasty, perhaps; perhaps mistaken; give her +some loophole. She could have understood--oh, to a degree almost +abject--his point of view. Mrs. Forrester had accused her of that. And +Tante had accused her of it, too. But no; it had been slowly to freeze +to stillness to hear his clear cold utterance of shameful words, see the +folly of his arrogance and his complacency, realise, in his glacial look +and glib, ironic smile, that he was blind to what he was destroying in +her. For he could not have torn her heart to shreds and then stood +bland, unaware of what he had done, had he loved her. Her young spirit, +unversed in irony, drank in the bitter draught of disillusion. They had +never loved each other; or, worse, far worse, they had loved and love +was this puny thing that a blow could kill. His love for her was dead. + +She still trembled when the ultimate realization surged over her, +looking fixedly out of the window lest she should weep aloud. + +She had only one travelling companion, an old woman who got out at +Plymouth. Karen had found her curiously repulsive and that was one +reason why she had kept her eyes fixed on the landscape. She had been +afraid that the old woman would talk to her, perhaps offer her +refreshments, or sympathy; for she was a kind old woman, with bland eyes +and a moist warm face and two oily curls hanging forward from her +old-fashioned bonnet upon her shoulders. She was stout, dressed in tight +black cashmere, and she sat with her knees apart and her hands, gloved +in grey thread gloves, lying on them. She held a handkerchief rolled +into a ball, and from time to time, as if furtively, she would raise +this handkerchief to her brow and wipe it. And all the time, Karen felt, +she looked mildly and humbly at her and seemed to divine her distress. + +Karen was thankful when she got out. She had been ashamed of her +antipathy. + +Bodmin Road was now passed and the early spring sunset shone over the +tree-tops in the valleys below. Karen leaned her head back and closed +her eyes. She was suddenly aware of her great fatigue, and when they +reached Gwinear Road she found that she had been dozing. + +The fresh, chill air, as she walked along the platform, waiting for the +change of trains, revived her. She had not been able to eat her beef +sandwiches and the thought that so much of Frau Lippheim's good food +should be wasted troubled her; she was glad to find a little wandering +fox-terrier who ate the meat eagerly. She herself, sitting beside the +dog, nibbled at Franz's chocolate. She had had nothing on her journey +but the milk and part of the bun which Franz had given her. + +Now she was in the little local train and the bleak Cornish country, +nearing the coast, spread before her eyes like a map of her future life. +She began to think of the future, and of Tante. + +She had not sent word to Tante that she was coming. She felt that it +would be easiest to appear before her in silence and Tante would +understand. There need be no explanations. + +She imagined that Tante would find it best that she should live, +permanently now, in Cornwall with Mrs. Talcott. It could hardly be +convenient for her to take about with her a wife who had left her +husband. Karen quite realized that her status must be a very different +one from that of the unshadowed young girl. + +And it would be strange to take up the old life again and to look back +from it at the months of life with Gregory--that mirage of happiness +receding as if to a blur of light seen over a stretch of desert. Still +with her quiet and unrevealing young face turned towards the evening +landscape, Karen felt as if she had grown very old and were looking +back, after a life-time without Gregory, at the mirage. How faint and +far it would seem to be when she was really old--like a nebulous star +trembling on the horizon. But it would never grow invisible; she would +never forget it; oh never; nor the dreadful pain of loss. To the very +end of life, she was sure of it, she would keep the pang of the shining +memory. + +When they reached Helston, dusk had fallen. She found a carriage that +would drive her the twelve miles to the coast. It was a quiet, grey +evening and as they jolted slowly along the dusty roads and climbed the +steep hills at a snail's pace, she leaned back too tired to feel +anything any longer. And now they were out upon the moors where the +gorse was breaking into flowers; and now, over the sea, she saw at last +the great beacon of the Lizard lighthouse sweeping the country with its +vast, desolate, yet benignant beam. + +They reached the long road and the stile where, a year before, she had +met Gregory. Here was the hedge of fuchsia; here the tamarisks on their +high bank; here the entrance to Les Solitudes. The steeply pitched grey +roofs rose before her, and the white walls with their squares of orange +light glimmered among the trees. + +She alighted, paid the man, and rang. + +A maid, unknown to her, came to the door and showed surprise at seeing +her there with her bag. + +Yes; Madame von Marwitz was within. Karen had entered with the asking. +"Whom shall I announce, Madam?" the maid inquired. + +Karen looked at her vaguely. "She is in the music-room? I do not need to +be announced. That will go to my room." She put down the bag and crossed +the hall. + +She was not aware of feeling any emotion; yet a sob had taken her by the +throat and tears had risen to her eyes; she opened them widely as she +entered the dusky room, presenting a strange face. + +Madame von Marwitz rose from a distant sofa. + +In her astonishment, she stood still for a moment; then, like a great, +white, widely-winged moth, she came forward, rapidly, yet with hesitant, +reconnoitring pauses, her eyes on the girl who stood in the doorway +looking blindly towards her. + +"Karen!" she exclaimed sharply. "What brings you here?" + +"I have come back to you, Tante," said Karen. + +Tante stood before her, not taking her into her arms, not taking her +hands. + +"Come back to me? What do you mean?" + +"I have left Gregory," said Karen. She was bewildered now. What had +happened? She did not know; but it was something that made it impossible +to throw herself in Tante's arms and weep. + +Then she saw that another person was with them. A man was seated on the +distant sofa. He rose, wandering slowly down the room, and revealed +himself in the dim light that came from the evening sky and sea as Mr. +Claude Drew. Pausing at some little distance he fixed his eyes on Karen, +and in the midst of all the impressions, striking like chill, moulding +blows on the melted iron of her mood, she was aware of these large, dark +eyes of Mr. Drew's and of their intent curiosity. + +The predominant impression, however, was of a changed aspect in +everything, and as Tante, now holding her hands, still stood silent, +also looking at her with intent curiosity, the impression vaguely and +terribly shaped itself for her as a piercing question: Was Tante not +glad to have her back? + +There came from Tante in another moment a more accustomed note. + +"You have left your husband--because of me--my poor child?" + +Karen nodded. Mr. Drew's presence made speech impossible. + +"He made it too difficult for you?" + +Karen nodded again. + +"And you have come back to me." Madame von Marwitz summed it up rather +than inquired. And then, after another pause, she folded Karen in her +arms. + +The piercing question seemed answered. Yet Karen could not now have +wept. A dry, hard desolation filled her. "May I go to my room, Tante?" + +"Yes, my child. Go to your room. You will find Tallie. Tallie is in the +house, I think--or did I send her in to Helston?--no, that was for +to-morrow." She held Karen's hand at a stretch of her arm while she +seemed, with difficulty still, to collect her thoughts. "But I will come +with you myself. Yes; that is best. Wait here, Claude." This to the +silent, dusky figure behind them. + +"Do not let me be a trouble." Karen controlled the trembling of her +voice. "I know my way." + +"No trouble, my child; no trouble. Or none that I am not glad to take." + +Tante had her now on the stair--her arm around her shoulders. "You will +find us at sixes and sevens; a household hastily organized, but Tallie, +directed by wires, has done wonders. So. My poor Karen. You have left +him. For good? Or is it only to punish him that you come to me?" + +"I have left him for good." + +"So," Madame von Marwitz repeated. + +With all the veils and fluctuations, one thing was growing clear to +Karen. Tante might be glad to have her back; but she was confused, +trying to think swiftly, to adjust her thoughts. They were in Karen's +little room overlooking the trees at the corner of the house. It was +dismantled; a bare dressing-table, the ewer upturned in the basin, the +bed and its piled bedding covered with a sheet. Madame von Marwitz sat +down on the bed and drew Karen beside her. + +"But is not that to punish him too much?" + +"It is not to punish him. I cannot live with him any longer." + +"I see; I see;" said Madame von Marwitz, with a certain briskness, as +though, still, to give herself time to think. "It might have been wiser +to wait--to wait for a little. I would have written to you. We could +have consulted. It is serious, you know, my Karen, very serious, to +leave one's husband. I went away so that this should not come to you." + +"I could not wait. I could not stay with him any longer," said Karen +heavily. + +"There is more, you mean. You had words? He hates me more than you +thought?" + +Karen paused, and then assented: "Yes; more than I thought." + +Above the girl's head, which she held pressed down on her shoulder, +Madame von Marwitz pondered for some moments. "Alas!" she then uttered +in a deep voice. And, Karen saying nothing, she repeated on a yet more +melancholy note: "Alas!" + +Karen now raised herself from Tante's shoulder; but, at the gesture of +withdrawal, Madame von Marwitz caught her close again and embraced her. +"I feared it," she said. "I saw it. I hoped to hide it by my flight. My +poor child! My beloved Karen!" + +They held each other for some silent moments. Then Madame von Marwitz +rose. "You are weary, my Karen; you must rest; is it not so? I will send +Tallie to you. You will see Tallie--she is a perfection of discretion; +you do not shrink from Tallie. And you need tell her nothing; she will +not question you. Between ourselves; is it not so? Yes; that is best. +For the present. I will come again, later--I have guests, a guest, you +see. Rest here, my Karen." She moved towards the door. + +Karen looked after her. An intolerable fear pressed on her. She could +not bear, in her physical weakness, to be left alone with it. "Tante!" +she exclaimed. + +Madame von Marwitz turned. "My child?" + +"Tante--you are glad to have me back?" + +Her pride broke in a sob. She hid her face in her hands. + +Madame von Marwitz returned to the bed. + +"Glad, my child?" she said. "For all the sorrow that it means? and to +know that I am the cause? How can I be glad for my child's unhappiness?" + +She spoke with a touch of severity, as though in Karen's tears she felt +an unexpressed accusation. + +"Not for that," Karen spoke with difficulty. "But to have me with you +again. It will not be a trouble?" + +There was a little silence and then, her severity passing to melancholy +reproof, Madame von Marwitz said: "Did we not, long since, speak of +this, Karen? Have you forgotten? Can you so wound me once again? Only my +child's grief can excuse her. It is a sorrow to see your life in ruins; +I had hoped before I died to see it joyous and secure. It is a sorrow to +know that you have maimed yourself; that you are tied to an unworthy +man. But how could it be a trouble to me to have you with me? It is a +consolation--my only consolation in this calamity. With me you shall +find peace and happiness again." + +She laid her hand on Karen's head. Karen put her hand to her lips. + +"There. That is well," said Madame von Marwitz with a sigh, bending to +kiss her. "That is my child. Tante is sad at heart. It is a heavy blow. +But her child is welcome." + +When she had gone Karen lay, her face in the billows of the bed, while +she fixed her thoughts on Tante's last words. + +They became a sing-song monotone. "Tante is sad at heart. But her child +is welcome. It is a heavy blow. But her child is welcome." + +After the anguish there was a certain ease. She rested in the given +reassurance. Yet the sing-song monotone oppressed her. + +She felt presently that her hat, wrenched to one side, and still fixed +to her hair by its pins, was hurting her. She unfastened it and dropped +it to the floor. She felt too tired to do more just then. + +Soon after this the door opened and Mrs. Talcott appeared carrying a +candle, a can of hot water, towels and sheets. + +Karen drew herself up, murmuring some vague words of welcome, and Mrs. +Talcott, after setting the candle on the dressing-table and the hot +water in the basin, remarked: "Just you lie down again, Karen, and let +me wash your face for you. You must be pretty tired and dirty after that +long journey." + +But Karen put her feet to the ground. They just sustained her. "Thank +you, Mrs. Talcott. I will do it," she said. + +She bent over the water, and, while she washed, Mrs. Talcott, with +deliberate skill, made up the bed. Karen sank in a chair. + +"You poor thing," said Mrs. Talcott, turning to her as she smoothed down +the sheet; "Why you're green. Sit right there and I'll undress you. Yes; +you're only fit to be put to bed." + +She spoke with mild authority, and Karen, under her hands, relapsed to +childhood. + +"This all the baggage you've brought?" Mrs. Talcott inquired, finding a +nightdress in Karen's dressing-case. She expressed no surprise when +Karen said that it was all, passed the nightdress over her head and, +when she had lain down, tucked the bed-clothes round her. + +"Now what you want is a hot-water bottle and some dinner. I guess you're +hungry. Did you have any lunch on the train?" + +"I've had some chocolate and a bun and some milk, oh yes, I had enough," +said Karen faintly, raising her hand to her forehead; "but I must be +hungry; for my head aches so badly. How kind you are, Mrs. Talcott." + +"You lie right there and I'll bring you some dinner." Mrs. Talcott was +swiftly tidying the room. + +"But what of yours, Mrs. Talcott? Isn't it your dinner-time?" + +"I've had my supper. I have supper early these days." + +Karen dimly reflected, when she was gone, that this was an innovation. +Whoever Madame von Marwitz's guests, Mrs. Talcott had, until now, always +made an _acte de presence_ at every meal. She was tired and not feeling +well enough after her illness, she thought. + +Mrs. Talcott soon returned with a tray on which were set out hot +_consommee_ and chicken and salad, a peach beside them. Hot-house fruit +was never wanting when Madame von Marwitz was at Les Solitudes. + +"Lie back. I'll feed it to you," said Mrs. Talcott. "It's good and +strong. You know Adolphe can make as good a _consommee_ 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?" + +"Yes, she and Mr. Drew are going off for the day." Mrs. Talcott adjusted +Karen's pillow. + +"But I shall see Tante before she goes?" It was the formless, +featureless fear that came closer. + +"My, yes! You'll see her all right," said Mrs. Talcott. "She was asking +after you the first thing and hoped you'd stay in bed till lunch. Now +you eat your breakfast right away like a good girl." + +Karen tried to eat her breakfast like a good girl and the sound of the +_Wohltemperirtes Clavier_ seemed again to encircle and sustain her. + +"How'd you sleep, honey?" Mrs. Talcott inquired. The term hardly +expressed endearment, yet it was such an unusual one from Mrs. Talcott +that Karen could only surmise that her tears had touched the old woman. + +"Very, very well," she said. + +"How'd you like me to bring up some mending I've got to do and sit by +you till Mercedes comes?" Mrs. Talcott pursued. + +"Oh, please do, Mrs. Talcott," said Karen. She felt that she would like +to have Mrs. Talcott there with her very much. She would probably cry +unless Mrs. Talcott stayed with her, and she did not want Tante to find +her crying. + +So Mrs. Talcott brought her basket of mending and sat by the window, +sewing in silence for the most part, but exchanging with Karen now and +then a quiet remark about the state of the garden and how the plants +were doing. + +At eleven the sound of the piano ceased and soon after the stately tread +of Madame von Marwitz was heard outside. Mrs. Talcott, saying that she +would come back later on, gathered up her mending as she appeared. She +was dressed for motoring, with a long white cloak lined with white fur +and her head bound in nun-like fashion with a white coif and veil. +Beautiful she looked, and sad, and gentle; a succouring Madonna; and +Karen's heart rose up to her. It clung to her and prayed; and the +realisation of her own need, her own dependence, was a new thing. She +had never before felt dependence on Tante as anything but proud and +glad. To pray to her now that she should never belie her loveliness, to +cling to that faith in her without which all her life would be a thing +distorted and unrecognisable, was not pride or gladness and seemed to be +the other side of fear. Yet so gentle were the eyes, so tender the smile +and the firm clasp of the hands taking hers, while Tante murmured, +stooping to kiss her: "Good morning to my child," that the prayer seemed +answered, the faith approved. + +If Madame von Marwitz had been taken by surprise the night before, if +she had had to give herself time to think, she had now, it was evident, +done her thinking. The result was this warmly cherishing tenderness. + +"Ah," she said, still stooping over Karen, while she put back her hair, +"it is good to have my child back again, mine--quite mine--once more." + +"I have slept so well, Tante," said Karen. She was able to smile up at +her. + +Madame von Marwitz looked about the room. "And now it is to gather the +dear old life closely about her again. Gardening, and reading; and quiet +times with Tante and Tallie. Though, for the moment, I must be much with +my guest; I am helping him with his work. He has talent, yes; it is a +strange and complicated nature. You did not expect to find him here?" + +Karen held Tante's hand and her gaze was innocent of surmise. Mr. Drew +had never entered her thoughts. "No. Yes. No, Tante. He came with you?" + +"Yes, he came with me," said Madame von Marwitz. "I had promised him +that he should see Les Solitudes one day. I was glad to find an +occupation for my thoughts in helping him. I told him that if he were +free he might join me. It is good, in great sorrow, to think of others. +Now it is, for the young man and for me, our work. Work, work; we must +all work, _ma cherie_. It is our only clue in the darkness of life; our +only nourishment in the desert places." Again she looked about the room. +"You came without boxes?" + +"Yes, Mrs. Barker is to send them to me." + +"Ah, yes. When," said Madame von Marwitz, in a lower voice, "did you +leave? Yesterday morning?" + +"No, Tante. The night before." + +"The night before? So? And where did you spend the night? With Mrs. +Forrester? With Scrotton? I have not yet written to Scrotton." + +"No. I went to the Lippheims." + +"The Lippheims? So?" + +"The others, Tante, would have talked to me; and questioned me. I could +not have borne that. The Lippheims were so kind." + +"I can believe it. They have hearts of gold, those Lippheims. They would +cut themselves in four to help one. And the good Lise? How is she? I am +sorry to have missed Lise." + +"And she was, oh, so sorry to have missed you, Tante. She is well, I +think, though tired; she is always tired, you remember. She has too much +to do." + +"Indeed, yes; poor Lise. She might have been an artist of the first rank +if she had not given herself over to the making of children. Why did she +not stop at Franz and Lotta and Minna? That would have given her the +quartette,"--Madame von Marwitz smiled--she was in a mildly merry mood. +"But on they go--four, five, six, seven, eight--how many are there--_bon +Dieu!_ of how many am I the god-mother? One grows bewildered. It is +almost a rat's family. Lise is not unlike a white mother-rat, with the +small round eye and the fat body." + +"Oh--not a rat, Tante," Karen protested, a little pained. + +"A rabbit, you think? And a rabbit, too, is prolific. No; for the rabbit +has not the sharpness, not the pointed nose, the anxious, eager look--is +not so the mother, indeed. Rat it is, my Karen; and rat with a golden +heart. How do you find Tallie? She has been with you all the morning? +You have not talked with Tallie of our calamities?" + +"Oh, no, Tante." + +"She is a wise person, Tallie; wise, silent, discreet. And I find her +looking well; but very, very well; this air preserves her. And how old +is Tallie now?" she mused. + +Though she talked so sweetly there was, Karen felt it now, a +perfunctoriness in Tante's remarks. She was, for all the play of her +nimble fancy, preoccupied, and the sound of the motor-horn below seemed +a signal for release. "Tallie is, _mon Dieu_," she computed, +rising--"she was twenty-three when I was born--and I am nearly +fifty"--Madame von Marwitz was as far above cowardly reticences about +her age as a timeless goddess--"Tallie is actually seventy-two. Well, I +must be off, _ma cherie_. We have a long trip to make to-day. We go to +Fowey. He wishes to see Fowey. I pray the weather may continue fine. You +will be with us this evening? You will get up? You will come to dinner?" + +She paused at the mantelpiece to adjust her veil, and Karen, in the +glass, saw that her eyes were fixed on hers with a certain intentness. + +"Yes, I will get up this morning, Tante," she said. "I will help Mrs. +Talcott with the garden. But dinner? Mrs. Talcott says that she has +supper now. Shall I not have my supper with her? Perhaps she would like +that?" + +"That would perhaps be well," said Madame von Marwitz. "That is perhaps +well thought." Still she paused and still, in the glass, she fixed +cogitating eyes on Karen. She turned, then, abruptly. "But no; I do not +think so. On second thoughts I do not think so. You will dine with us. +Tallie is quite happy alone. She is pleased with the early supper. I +shall see you, then, this evening." + +A slight irritation lay on her brows; but she leaned with all her +tenderness to kiss Karen, murmuring, "_Adieu, mon enfant_." + +When the sound of the motor had died away Karen got up, dressed and went +downstairs. + +The music-room, its windows open to the sea, was full of the signs of +occupancy. + +The great piano stood open. Karen went to it and, standing over it, +played softly the dearly loved notes of the prelude in D flat. + +She practised, always, on the upright piano in the morning-room; but +when Tante was at home and left the grand piano open she often played on +that. It was a privilege rarely to be resisted and to-day she sat down +and played the fugue through, still very softly. Then, covering the +keys, she shut the lid and looked more carefully about the room. + +Flowers and books were everywhere. Mrs. Talcott arranged flowers +beautifully; Karen recognized her skilful hand in the tall branches of +budding green standing high in a corner, the glasses of violets, the +bowls of anemones and the flat dishes of Italian earthenware filled with +primroses. + +On a table lay a pile of manuscript; she knew Mr. Drew's small, thick +handwriting. A square silver box for cigarettes stood near by; it was +marked with Mr. Drew's initials in Tante's hand. How kind she was to +that young man; but Tante had always been lavish with those of whom she +was fond. + +Out on the verandah the vine-tendrils were already green against the +sky, and on a lower terrace she saw Mrs. Talcott at work, as usual, +among the borders. Mrs. Talcott then, had not yet gone to Helston and +she would not be alone and she was glad of that. In the little cupboard +near the pantry she found a pair of old gardening gloves and her own old +gardening hat. The day was peaceful and balmy; all was as it had always +been, except herself. + +She worked all the morning in the garden and walked in the afternoon on +the cliffs with Victor. Victor had come down with Tante. + +Mrs. Talcott had adjourned the trip to Helston; so they had tea +together. Her boxes had not yet come and when it was time to dress for +dinner she had nothing to change to but the little white silk with the +flat blue bows upon it, the dress in which Gregory had first seen her. +She had left it behind her when she married and found it now hanging in +a cupboard in her room. + +The horn of the returning motor did not sound until she was dressed and +on going down she had the music-room to herself for nearly half an hour. +Then Mr. Drew appeared. + +The tall white lamps with their white shades had been brought in, but +the light from the windows mingled a pale azure with the gold. Mr. Drew, +Karen reflected, looked in the dual illumination like a portrait by +Besnard. He had, certainly, an unusual and an interesting face, and it +pleased her to verify and emphasize this fact; for, accustomed as she +was to watching Tante's preoccupations with interesting people, she +could not quite accustom herself to her preoccupation with Mr. Drew. To +account for it he must be so very interesting. + +She was not embarrassed by conjectures as to what, after her entry of +last night, Mr. Drew might be thinking about her. It occurred to her no +more than in the past to imagine that anybody attached to Tante could +spare thought to her. And as in the past, despite all the inner +desolation, it was easy to assume to this guest of Tante's the attitude +so habitual to her of the attendant in the temple, the attendant who, +rising from his seat at the door, comes forward tranquilly to greet the +worshipper and entertain him with quiet comment until the goddess shall +descend. + +"Did you have a nice drive?" she inquired. "The weather has been +beautiful." + +Mr. Drew, coming up to her as she stood in the open window, looked at +her with his impenetrable, melancholy eyes, smiling at her a little. + +There was no tastelessness in his gaze, nothing that suggested a +recollection of what he had heard or seen last night; yet Karen was made +vaguely aware from his look that she had acquired some sort of +significance for him. + +"Yes, it's been nice," he said. "I'm very fond of motoring. I'd like to +spend my days in a motor--always going faster and faster; and then drop +down in a blissful torpor at night. Madame von Marwitz was so kind and +made the chauffeur go very fast." + +Karen was somewhat disturbed by this suggestion. "I am sure that she, +too, would like going very fast. I hope you will not tempt her." + +"Oh, but I'm afraid I do," Mr. Drew confessed. "What is the good of a +motor unless you go too fast in it? A motor has no meaning unless it's a +method of intoxication." + +Karen received the remark with inattention. She looked out over the sea, +preoccupied with the thought of Tante's recklessness. "I do not think +that going so fast can be good for her music," she said. + +"Oh, but yes," Mr. Drew assured her, "nothing is so good for art as +intoxication. Art is rooted in intoxication. It's all a question of how +to get it." + +"But with motoring you only get torpor, you say," Karen remarked. And, +going on with her own train of thoughts, "So much shaking will be bad, +perhaps, for the muscles. And there is always the danger to consider. I +hope she will not go too fast. She is too important a person to take +risks." There was no suggestion that Mr. Drew should not take them. + +"Don't you like going fast? Don't you like taking risks? Don't you like +intoxication?" Mr. Drew inquired, and his eyes travelled from the blue +bows on her breast to the blue bows on her elbow-sleeves. + +"I have never been intoxicated," said Karen calmly--she was quite +accustomed to all manner of fantastic visitors in the temple--"I do not +think that I should like it. And I prefer walking to any kind of +driving. No, I do not like risks." + +"Ah yes, I can see that. Yes, that's altogether in character," said Mr. +Drew. He turned, then, as Madame von Marwitz came in, but remained +standing in the window while Karen went forward to greet her guardian. +Madame von Marwitz, as she took her hands and kissed her, looked over +Karen's shoulder at Mr. Drew. + +"Why did you not come to my room, _cherie_?" she asked. "I had hoped to +see you alone before I came down." + +"I thought you might be tired and perhaps resting, Tante," said Karen, +who had, indeed, paused before her guardian's door on her way down, and +then passed on with a certain sense of shyness; she did not want in any +way to force herself on Tante. + +"But you know that I like to have you with me when I am tired," Madame +von Marwitz returned. "And I am not tired: no: it has been a day of +wings." + +She walked down the long room, her arm around Karen, with a buoyancy of +tread and demeanour in which, however, Karen, so deep an adept in her +moods discovered excitement rather than gaiety. "Has it been a good day +for my child?" she questioned; "a happy, peaceful day? Yes? You have +been much with Tallie? I told Tallie that she must postpone the trip to +Helston so that she might stay with you." Tante on the sofa encircled +her and looked brightly at her; yet her eye swerved to the window where +Mr. Drew remained looking at a paper. + +Karen said that she had been gardening and walking. + +"Good; bravo!" said Tante, and then, in a lower voice: "No news, I +suppose?" + +"No; oh no. That could not be, Tante," said Karen, with a startled look, +and Tante went on quickly: "But no; I see. It could not be. And it has, +then, been a happy day for my Karen. What is it you read, Claude?" + +Karen's sense of slight perplexity in regard to Tante's interest in Mr. +Drew was deepened when she called him Claude, and her tone now, half +vexed, half light, was perplexing. + +"Some silly things that are being said in the House," Mr. Drew returned, +going on reading. + +"What things?" said Tante sharply. + +"Oh, you wouldn't expect me to read a stupid debate to you," said Mr. +Drew, lifting his eyes with a smile. + +Dinner was announced and they went in, Tante keeping her arm around +Karen's shoulders and sweeping ahead with an effect of unawareness as to +her other guest. She had, perhaps, a little lost her temper with him; +and his manner was, Karen reflected, by no means assiduous. At the +table, however, Tante showed herself suave and sweet. + +One reason why things seemed a little strange, Karen further reflected, +was that Mrs. Talcott came no longer to dinner; and she was vaguely +sorry for this. + + + + +CHAPTER XXXI + + +Karen's boxes arrived next day, neatly packed by Mrs. Barker. And not +only her clothes were in them. She had left behind her the jewel-box +with the pearl necklace that Gregory had given her, the pearl and +sapphire ring, the old enamel brooch and clasp and chain, his presents +all. The box was kept locked, and in a cupboard of which Gregory had the +key; so that he must have given it to Mrs. Barker. The photographs, too, +from their room, not those of him, but those of Tante; of her father; +and a half a dozen little porcelain and silver trinkets from the +drawing-room, presents and purchases particularly hers. + +It was right, quite right, that he should send them. She knew it. It was +right that he should accept their parting as final. Yet that he should +so accurately select and send to her everything that could remind him of +her seemed to roll the stone before the tomb. + +She looked at the necklace, the ring, all the pretty things, and shut +the box. Impossible that she should keep them yet impossible to send +them back as if in a bandying of rebuffs. She would wait for some years +to pass and then they should be returned without comment. + +And the clothes, all these dear clothes of her married life; every dress +and hat was associated with Gregory. She could never wear them again. +And it felt, not so much that she was locking them away, as that Gregory +had locked her out into darkness and loneliness. She took up the round +of the days. She practised; she gardened, she walked and read. Of Tante +she saw little. + +She was accustomed to seeing little of Tante, even when Tante was there; +quite accustomed to Tante's preoccupations. Yet, through the fog of her +own unhappiness, it came to her, like an object dimly perceived, that in +this preoccupation of Tante's there was a difference. It showed, itself +in a high-pitched restlessness, verging now and again on irritation--not +with her, Karen, but with Mr. Drew. To Karen she was brightly, +punctually tender, yet it was a tenderness that held her away rather +than drew her near. + +Karen did not need to be put aside. She had always known how to efface +herself; she needed no atonement for the so apparent fact that Tante +wanted to be left alone with Mr. Drew as much as possible. The +difficulty in leaving her came with perceiving that though Tante wanted +her to go she did not want to seem to want it. + +She caressed Karen; she addressed her talk to her; she kept her; yet, +under the smile of the eyes, there was an intentness that Karen could +interpret. It devolved upon her to find the excuse, the necessity, for +withdrawal. Mrs. Talcott, in the morning-room, was a solution. Karen +could go to her almost directly after dinner, as soon as coffee had been +served; for on the first occasion when she rose, saying that she would +have her coffee with Mrs. Talcott, Tante said with some sharpness--after +a hesitation: "No; you will have your coffee here. Tallie does not have +coffee." Groping her way, Karen seemed to touch strange forms. Tante +cared so much about this young man; so much that it was almost as if she +would be willing to abandon her dignity for him. It was more than the +indulgent, indolent interest, wholly Olympian, that she had so often +seen her bestow. She really cared. And the strangeness for Karen was in +part made up of pain for Tante; for it almost seemed that Tante cared +more than Mr. Drew did. Karen had seen so many men care for Tante; so +many who were, obviously, in love with her; but she had seen Tante +always throned high above the prostrate adorers, idly kind; holding out +a hand, perhaps, for them to kiss; smiling, from time to time, if they, +fortunately, pleased her; but never, oh never, stepping down towards +them. + +It seemed to her now that she had seen Tante stepping down. It was only +a step; she could never become the suppliant, the pursuing goddess; and, +as if with her hand still laid on the arm of her throne, she kept all +her air of high command. + +But had she kept its power? Mr. Drew's demeanour reminded Karen +sometimes of a cat's. Before the glance and voice of authority he would, +metaphorically, pace away; pausing to blink up at some object that +attracted his attention or to interest himself in the furbishing of +flank or chest. At a hint of anger or coercion, he would tranquilly +disappear. Tante, controlling indignation, was left to stare after him +and to regain the throne as best she might, and at these moments Karen +felt that Tante's eye turned on her, gauging her power of +interpretation, ready, did she not feign the right degree of +unconsciousness, to wreak on her something of the controlled emotion. +The fear that had come on the night of her arrival pressed closely on +Karen then, but, more closely still, the pain for Tante. Tante's clear +dignity was blurred; her image, in its rebuffed and ineffectual +autocracy, became hovering, uncertain, piteous. And, in seeing and +feeling all these things, as if with a lacerated sensitiveness, Karen +was aware that, in this last week of her life, she had grown much older. +She felt herself in some ways older than her guardian. + +It was on the morning of her seventh day at Les Solitudes that she met +Mr. Drew walking early in the garden. + +The sea was glittering blue and gold; the air was melancholy in its +sweetness; birds whistled. + +Karen examined Mr. Drew as he approached her along the sunny upper +terrace. + +With his dense, dark eyes, delicate face and golden hair, his white +clothes and loose black tie, she was able to recognize in him an object +that might charm and even subjugate. To Karen he seemed but one among +the many strange young men she had seen surrounding Tante; yet this +morning, clearly, and for the first time, she saw why he subjugated +Tante and why she resented her subjugation. There was more in him than +mere pose and peculiarity; he had some power; the power of the cat: he +was sincerely indifferent to anything that did not attract him. And at +the same time he was unimportant; insignificant in all but his +sincerity. He was not a great writer; Tante could never make a great +writer out of him. And he was, when all was said and done, but one among +many strange young men. + +"Good morning," he said. He doffed his hat. He turned and walked beside +her. They were in full view of the house. "I hoped that I might find +you. Let us go up to the flagged garden," he suggested; "the sea is +glittering like a million scimitars. One has a better view up there." + +"But it is not so warm," said Karen. "I am walking here to be in the +sun." + +Mr. Drew had also been walking there to be in the sun; but they were in +full view of the house and he was aware of a hand at Madame von +Marwitz's window-curtain. He continued, however, to walk beside Karen up +and down the terrace. + +"I think of you," he said, "as a person always in the sun. You suggest +glaciers and fields of snow and meadows full of flowers--the sun pouring +down on all of them. I always imagine Apollo as a Norse God. Are you +really a Norwegian?" + +Karen was, as we have said, accustomed to young men who talked in a +fantastic manner. She answered placidly: "Yes. I am half Norwegian." + +"Your name, then, is really yours?--your untamed, yet intimate, name. It +is like a wild bird that feeds out of one's hand." + +"Yes; it is really mine. It is quite a common name in Norway." + +"Wild birds are common," Mr. Drew observed, smiling softly. + +He found her literalness charming. He was finding her altogether +charming. From the moment that she had appeared at the door in the dusk, +with her white, blind, searching face, she had begun to interest him. +She was stupid and delightful; a limpid and indomitable young creature +who, in a clash of loyalties, had chosen, without a hesitation, to leave +the obvious one. Also she was married yet unawakened, and this, to Mr. +Drew, was a pre-eminently charming combination. The question of the +awakened and the unawakened, of the human attitude to passion, +preoccupied him, practically, more than any other. His art dealt mainly +in themes of emotion as an end in itself. + +The possibilities of passion in Madame von Marwitz, as artist and +genius, had strongly attracted him. He had genuinely been in love with +Madame von Marwitz. But the mere woman, as she more and more helplessly +revealed herself, was beginning to oppress and bore him. + +He had amused himself, of late, by imaging his relation to her in the +fable of the sun and the traveller. Her beams from their high, sublime +solitudes had filled him with delight and exhilaration. Then the +radiance had concentrated itself, had begun to follow him--rather in the +manner of stage sunlight--very unflaggingly. He had wished for intervals +of shade. He had been aware, even during his long absence in America, of +sultriness brooding over him, and now, at these close quarters, he had +begun to throw off his cloak of allegiance. She bored him. It wasn't +good enough. She pretended to be sublime and far; but she wasn't sublime +and far; she was near and watchful and exacting; as watchful and +exacting as a mistress and as haughty as a Diana. She was not, and had, +evidently, no intention of being, his mistress, and for the mere +pleasure of adoring her Mr. Drew found the price too high to pay. He did +not care to proffer, indefinitely, a reverent passion, and he did not +like people, when he showed his weariness, to lose their tempers with +him. Already Madame von Marwitz had lost hers. He did not forget what +she looked like nor what she said on these occasions. She had mentioned +the large-mouthed children at Wimbledon--facts that he preferred to +forget as much as possible--and he did not know that he forgave her. +There was a tranquil malice in realizing that as Madame von Marwitz +became more and more displeasing to him, Mrs. Jardine, more and more, +became pleasing. A new savour had come into his life since her +appearance and he had determined to postpone a final rupture with his +great friend and remain on for some time longer at Les Solitudes. He +wondered if it would be possible to awaken Mrs. Jardine. + +"Haven't I heard you practising, once or twice lately?" he asked her +now, as they turned at the end of the terrace and walked back. + +"Yes," said Karen; "I practise every morning." + +"I'd no idea you played, too." + +"It is hardly a case of 'too', is it," Karen said, mildly amused. + +"I don't know. Perhaps it is. One may look at a Memling after a Michael +Angelo, you know. I wish you'd play to me." + +"I am no Memling, I assure you." + +"You can't, until I hear you. Do play to me. Brahms; a little Brahms." + +"I have practised no Brahms for a long time. I find him too difficult." + +"I heard you doing a Bach prelude yesterday; play that." + +"Certainly, if you wish it, I will play it to you," said Karen, "though +I do not think that you will much enjoy it." + +Mrs. Talcott was in the morning-room over accounts; so Karen went with +the young man into the music-room and opened the grand piano there. + +She then played her prelude, delicately, carefully, composedly. She knew +Mr. Drew to be musicianly; she did not mind playing to him. + +More and more, Mr. Drew reflected, looking down at her, she reminded him +of flower-brimmed, inaccessible mountain-slopes. He must discover some +method of ascent; for the music brought her no nearer; he was aware, +indeed, that it removed her. She quite forgot him as she played. + +The last bars had been reached when the door opened suddenly and Madame +von Marwitz appeared. + +She had come in haste--that was evident--and a mingled fatigue and +excitement was on her face. Her white cheeks had soft, sodden +depressions and under her eyes were little pinches in the skin, as +though hot fingers had nipped her there. She looked almost old, and she +smiled a determined, adjusted smile, with heavy eyes. "_Tiens, tiens_," +she said, and, turning elaborately, she shut the door. + +Karen finished her bars and rose. + +"This is a new departure," said Madame von Marwitz. She came swiftly to +them, her loose lace sleeves flowing back from her bare arms. "I do not +like my piano touched, you know, Karen, unless permission is given. No +matter, no matter, my child. Let it not occur again, that is all. You +have not found the right balance of that phrase," she stooped and +reiterated with emphasis a fragment of the prelude. "And now I will +begin my work, if you please. Tallie waits for you, I think, in the +garden, and would be glad of your help. Tallie grows old. It does not do +to forget her." + +"Am I to go into the garden, too?" Mr. Drew inquired, as Madame von +Marwitz seated herself and ran her fingers over the keys. "I thought we +were to motor this morning." + +"We will motor when I have done my work. Go into the garden, by all +means, if you wish to." + +"May I come into the garden with you? May I help you there?" Mr. Drew +serenely drawled, addressing Karen, who, with a curious, concentrated +look, stood gazing at her guardian. + +She turned her eyes on him and her glance put him far, far away, like an +object scarcely perceived. "I am not going into the garden," she said. +"Mrs. Talcott is working in the morning-room and does not need me yet." + +"Ah. She is in the morning-room," Madame von Marwitz murmured, still not +raising her eyes, and still running loud and soft scales up and down. +Karen left the room. + +As the door closed upon her, Madame von Marwitz, with a singular effect +of control, began to weave a spider's-web of intricate, nearly +impalpable, sound. "Go, if you please," she said to Mr. Drew. + +He stood beside her, placid. "Why are you angry?" he asked. + +"I am not pleased that my rules should be broken. Karen has many +privileges. She must learn not to take, always, the extra inch when the +ell is so gladly granted." + +He leaned on the piano. Her controlled face, bent with absorption above +the lacey pattern of sound that she evoked, interested him. + +"When you are angry and harness your anger to your art like this, you +become singularly beautiful," he remarked. He felt it; and, after all, +if he were to remain at Les Solitudes and attempt to scale those Alpine +slopes he must keep on good terms with Madame von Marwitz. + +"So," was her only reply. Yet her eyes softened. + +He raised the lace wing of her sleeve and kissed it, keeping it in his +hand. + +"No foolishness if you please," said Madame von Marwitz. "Of what have +you and Karen been talking?" + +"I can't get her to talk," said Mr. Drew. "But I like to hear her play." + +"She plays with right feeling," said Madame von Marwitz. "She is not a +child to express herself in speech. Her music reveals her more truly." + +"_Nur wo du bist sei alles, immer kindlich_," Mr. Drew mused. "That is +what she makes me think of." With anybody of Madame von Marwitz's +intelligence, frankness was far more likely to allay suspicion than +guile. And for very pride now she was forced to seem reassured. "Yes. +That is so," she said. And she continued to play. + + + + +CHAPTER XXXII + + +Karen meanwhile made her way to the cliff-path and, seating herself on a +grassy slope, she clasped her knees with her hands and gazed out over +the sea. She was thinking hard of something, and trying to think only of +that. It was true, the permission had been that she was to play on the +grand-piano when it was left open. There had been no rule set; it had +not been said that she was not to play at other times and indeed, on +many occasions, she had played unrebuked, before Tante came down. But +the thing to remember now, with all her power, was that, technically, +Tante had been right. To hold fast to that thought was to beat away a +fear that hovered about her, like a horrible bird of prey. She sat there +for a long time, and she became aware at last that though she held so +tightly to her thought, it had, as it were, become something lifeless, +inefficacious, and that fear had invaded her. Tante had been unkind, +unjust, unloving. + +It was as though, in taking refuge with Tante, she had leaped from a +great height, seeing security beneath, and as though, alighting, she +slipped and stumbled on a sloping surface with no foothold anywhere. +Since she came, there had been only this sliding, sliding, and now it +seemed to be down to unseen depths. For this was more and worse than the +first fear of her coming. Tante had been unkind, and she so loved Mr. +Drew that she forgot herself when he bestowed his least attention +elsewhere. + +Karen rose to her feet suddenly, aware that she was trembling. + +She looked over the sea and the bright day was dreadful to her. Where +was she and what was she, and what was Tante, if this fear were true? +Not even on that far day of childhood when she had lost herself in the +forest had such a horror of loneliness filled her. She was a lost, an +unwanted creature. + +She turned from the unanswering immensities and ran down the cliff-path +towards Les Solitudes. She could not be alone. To think these things was +to feel herself drowning in fear. + +Emerging from the higher trees she caught sight below her of Mrs. +Talcott's old straw hat moving among the borders; and, in the midst of +the emptiness, the sight was strength and hope. The whole world seemed +to narrow to Mrs. Talcott. She was secure and real. She was a spar to be +clung to. The nightmare would reveal itself as illusion if she kept near +Mrs. Talcott. She ran down to her. + +Mrs. Talcott was slaying slugs. She had placed pieces of orange-peel +around cherished young plants to attract the depredators and she held a +jar of soot; into the soot the slugs were dropped as she discovered +them. + +The sight of her was like a draught of water to parching lips. Reality +slowly grew round Karen once more. Tante had been hasty, even unkind; +but she was piteous, absorbed in this great devotion; and Tante loved +her. + +She walked beside Mrs. Talcott and helped her with the slugs. + +"Been out for a walk, Karen?" Mrs. Talcott inquired. They had reached +the end of the border and moved on to a higher one. + +"Only to the cliff," said Karen. + +"You look kind of tired," Mrs. Talcott remarked, and Karen owned that +she felt tired. "It's so warm to-day," she said. + +"Yes; it's real hot. Let's walk under the trees." Mrs. Talcott took out +her handkerchief and wiped her large, saffron-coloured forehead. + +They walked slowly in the thin shadow of the young foliage. + +"You're staying on for a while, aren't you?" Mrs. Talcott inquired +presently. She had as yet asked Karen no question and Karen felt that +something in her own demeanour had caused this one. + +"For more than a while," she said. "I am not going away again." In the +sound of the words she found a curious reassurance. Was it not her home, +Les Solitudes? + +Mrs. Talcott said nothing for some moments, stooping to nip a drooping +leaf from a plant they passed. Then she questioned further: "Is Mr. +Jardine coming down here?" + +"I have left my husband," said Karen. + +For some moments, Mrs. Talcott, again, said nothing, but she no longer +had an eye for the plants. Neither did she look at Karen; her gaze was +fixed before her. "Is that so," was at last her comment. + +The phrase might have expressed amazement, commiseration or protest; its +sound remained ambiguous. They had come to a rustic bench. "Let's sit +down for a while," she said; "I'm not as young as I was." + +They sat down, the old woman heavily, and she drew a sigh of relief. +Looking at her Karen saw that she, too, was very tired. And she, +too--was it not strange that to-day she should see it for the first +time?--was very lonely. A sudden pity, profound and almost passionate, +filled her for Mrs. Talcott. + +"You'll not mind having me here--for all the time now--again, will you?" +she asked, smiling a little, with determination, for she did not wish +Mrs. Talcott to guess what she had seen. + +"No," said Mrs. Talcott, continuing to gaze before her, and shaking her +head. "No, I'll be glad of that. We get on real well together, I think." +And, after another moment of silence, she went on in the same +contemplative tone: "I used to quarrel pretty bad with my husband when I +was first married, Karen. He was the nicest, mildest kind of man, as +loving as could be. But I guess most young things find it hard to get +used to each other all at once. It ain't easy, married life; at least +not at the beginning. You expect such a high standard of each other and +everything seems to hurt. After a while you get so discouraged, perhaps, +finding it isn't like what you expected, that you commence to think you +don't care any more and it was all a mistake. I guess every young wife +thinks that in the first year, and it makes you feel mighty sick. Why, +if marriage didn't tie people up so tight, most of 'em would fly apart +in the first year and think they just hated each other, and that's why +it's such a good thing that they're tied so tight. Why I remember once +the only thing that seemed to keep me back was thinking how Homer--Homer +was my husband's name, Homer G. Talcott--sort of snorted when he +laughed. I was awful mad with him and it seemed as if he'd behaved so +mean and misunderstood me so that I'd got to go; but when I thought of +that sort of childish snort he'd give sometimes, I felt I couldn't leave +him. It's mighty queer, human nature, and the teeny things that seem to +decide your mind for you; I guess they're not as teeny as they seem. But +those hurt feelings are almost always a mistake--I'm pretty sure of it. +Any two people find it hard to live together and get used to each other; +it don't make any difference how much in love they are." + +There was no urgency in Mrs. Talcott's voice and no pathos of +retrospect. Its contemplative placidity might have been inviting another +sad and wise old woman to recognize these facts of life with her. + +Karen's mood, while she listened to her, was hardening to the iron of +her final realization, the realization that had divided her and Gregory. +"It isn't so with us, Mrs. Talcott," she said. "He has shown himself a +man I cannot live with. None of our feelings are the same. All my sacred +things he despises." + +"Mercedes, you mean?" Mrs. Talcott suggested after a moment's silence. + +"Yes. And more." Karen could not name her mother. + +Mrs. Talcott sat silent. + +"Has Tante not told you why I was here?" Karen presently asked. + +"No," said Mrs. Talcott. "I haven't had a real talk with Mercedes since +she got back. Her mind is pretty well taken up with this young man." + +To this Karen, glancing at Mrs. Talcott in a slight bewilderment, was +able to say nothing, and Mrs. Talcott pursued, resuming her former tone: +"There's another upsetting thing about marriage, Karen, and that is that +you can't expect your families to feel about each other like you feel. +It isn't in nature that they should, and that's one of the things that +young married people can't make up their minds to. Now Mr. Jardine isn't +the sort of young man to care about many people; few and far between +they are, I should infer, and Mercedes ain't one of them. Mercedes +wouldn't appeal to him one mite. I saw that as plain as could be from +the first." + +"He should have told me so," said Karen, with her rocky face and voice. + +"Well, he didn't tell you he found her attractive, did he?" + +"No. But though I saw that there was blindness, I thought it was because +he did not know her. I thought that when he knew her he would care for +her. And I could forgive his not caring. I could forgive so much. But it +is worse, far worse than that. He accuses Tante of dreadful things. It +is hatred that he feels for her. He has confessed it." The colour had +risen to Karen's cheeks and burned there as she spoke. + +"Well now!" Mrs. Talcott imperturbably ejaculated. + +"You can see that I could not live with a man who hated Tante," said +Karen. + +"What sort of things for instance?" Mrs. Talcott took up her former +statement. + +"How can I tell you, Mrs. Talcott. It burns me to think of them. +Hypocrisy in her feeling for me; selfishness and tyranny and deceit. It +is terrible. In his eyes she is a malignant woman." + +"Tch! Tch!" Mrs. Talcott made an indeterminate cluck with her tongue. + +"I struggled not to see," said Karen, and her voice took on a sombre +energy, "and Tante struggled, too, for me. She, too, saw from the very +first what it might mean. She asked me, on the very first day that they +met, Mrs. Talcott, when she came back, she asked me to try and make him +like her. She was so sweet, so magnanimous," her voice trembled. Oh the +deep relief, so deep that it seemed to cut like a knife--of remembering, +pressing to her, what Tante had done for her, endured for her! "So +sweet, so magnanimous, Mrs. Talcott. She did all that she could--and so +did I--to give him time. For it was not that I lacked love for my +husband. No. I loved him. More, even more, than I loved Tante. There was +perhaps the wrong. I was perhaps cowardly, for his sake. I would not +see. And it was all useless. It grew worse and worse. He was not rude to +her. It was not that. It was worse. He was so careful--oh I see it +now--not to put himself in the wrong. He tried, instead, to put her in +the wrong. He misread every word and look. He sneered--oh, I saw it, and +shut my eyes--at her little foibles and weaknesses; why should she not +have them as well as other people, Mrs. Talcott? And he was +blind--blind--blind," Karen's voice trembled more violently, "to all the +rest. So that it had to end," she went on in broken sentences. "Tante +went because she could bear it no longer. And because she saw that I +could bear it no longer. She hoped, by leaving me, to save my happiness. +But that could not be. Mrs. Talcott, even then I might have tried to go +on living with that chasm--between Tante and my husband--in my life; but +I learned the whole truth as even I hadn't seen it; as even she hadn't +seen it. Mrs. Forrester came to me, Mrs. Talcott, and told me what +Gregory had said to her of Tante. He believes her a malignant woman," +said Karen, repeating her former words and rising as she spoke. "And to +me he did not deny it. Everything, then, was finished for us. We saw +that we did not love each other any longer." + +She stood before Mrs. Talcott in the path, her hands hanging at her +sides, her eyes fixed on the wall above Mrs. Talcott's head. + +Mrs. Talcott did not rise. She sat silent, looking up at Karen, and so +for some moments they said nothing, while in the spring sunshine about +them the birds whistled and an early white butterfly dipped and +fluttered by. + +"I feel mighty tired, Karen," Mrs. Talcott then said. Her eyelid with +the white mole twitched over her eye, the lines of her large, firm old +mouth were relaxed. Karen's eyes went to her and pity filled her. + +"It is my miserable story," she said. "I am so sorry." + +"Yes, I feel mighty tired," Mrs. Talcott repeated, looking away and out +at the sea. "It's discouraging. I thought you were fixed up all safe and +happy for life." + +"Dear Mrs. Talcott," said Karen, earnestly. + +"I don't like to see things that ought to turn out right turning out +wrong," Mrs. Talcott continued, "and I've seen a sight too many of them +in my life. Things turning out wrong that were meant to go right. Things +spoiled. People, nice, good people, like you and Mr. Jardine, all upset +and miserable. I've seen worse things, too," Mrs. Talcott slowly rose as +she spoke. "Yes, I've seen about as bad things happen as can happen, and +it's always been when Mercedes is about." + +She stood still beside Karen, her bleak, intense old gaze fixed on the +sea. + +Karen thought that she had misheard her last words. "When Tante is +about?" she repeated. "You mean that dreadful things happen to her? That +is one of the worst parts of it now, Mrs. Talcott--only that I am so +selfish that I do not think of it enough--to know that I have added to +Tante's troubles." + +"No." Mrs. Talcott now said, and with a curious mildness and firmness. +"No, that ain't what I mean. Mercedes has had a sight of trouble. I +don't deny it, but that ain't what I mean. She makes trouble. She makes +it for herself and she makes it for other people. There's always trouble +going, of some sort or other, when Mercedes is about." + +"I don't understand you, Mrs. Talcott," said Karen. An uncanny feeling +had crept over her while the old woman spoke. It was as if, helplessly, +she were listening to a sleep-walker who, in tranced unconsciousness, +spoke forth mildly the hidden thought of his waking life. + +"No, you don't understand, yet," said Mrs. Talcott. "Perhaps it's fair +that you don't. Perhaps she can't help it. She was born so, I guess." +Mrs. Talcott turned and walked towards the house. + +The panic of the cliff was rising in Karen again. Mrs. Talcott was worse +than the cliff and the unanswering immensities. She walked beside her, +trying to control her terror. + +"You mean, I think," she said, "that Tante is a tragic person and people +who love her must suffer because of all that she has had to suffer." + +"Yes, she's tragic all right," said Mrs. Talcott. "She's had about as +bad a time as they make 'em--off and on. But she spoils things. And it +makes me tired to see it going on. I've had too much of it," said Mrs. +Talcott, "and if this can't come right--this between you and your nice +young husband--I don't feel like I could get over it somehow." Leaning +on Karen's arm with both hands she had paused and looked intently down +at the path. + +"But Mrs. Talcott," Karen's voice trembled; it was incredible, yet one +was forced by Mrs. Talcott's whole demeanour to ask the question without +indignation--"you speak as if you were blaming Tante for something. You +do not blame her, do you?" + +Mrs. Talcott still paused and still looked down, as if deeply pondering. +"I've done a lot of thinking about that very point, Karen," she said. +"And I don't know as I've made up my mind yet. It's a mighty intricate +question. Perhaps we've all got only so much will-power and when most of +it is ladled out into one thing there's nothing left to ladle out into +the others. That's the way I try, sometimes, to figure it out to myself. +Mercedes has got a powerful sight of will-power; but look at all she's +got to use up in her piano-playing. There she is, working up to the last +notch all the time, taking it out of herself, getting all wrought up. +Well, to live so as you won't be spoiling things for other people needs +about as much will-power as piano-playing, I guess, when you're as big a +person as Mercedes and want as many things. And if you ain't got any +will-power left you just do the easiest thing; you just take what you've +a mind to; you just let yourself go in every other way to make up for +the one way you held yourself in. That's how it is, perhaps." + +"But Mrs. Talcott," said Karen in a low voice, "all this--about me and +my husband--has come because Tante has thought too much of us and too +little of herself. It would have been much easier for her to let us +alone and not try and make Gregory like her. I do not recognise her in +what you are saying. You are saying dreadful things." + +"Well, dreadful things have happened, I guess," said Mrs. Talcott. "I +want you to go back to your nice husband, Karen." + +"No; no. Never. I can never go back to him," said Karen, walking on. + +"Because he hates Mercedes?" + +"Not only that. No. He is not what I thought. Do not ask me, Mrs. +Talcott. We do not love each other any longer. It is over." + +"Well, I won't say anything about it, then," said Mrs. Talcott, who, +walking beside her, kept her hand on her arm. "Only I liked Mr. Jardine. +I took to him right off, and I don't take to people so easy. And I take +to you, Karen, more than you know, I guess. And I'll lay my bottom +dollar there's some mistake between you and him, and that Mercedes is +the reason of it." + +They had reached the house. + +"But wait," said Karen, turning to her. She laid both her hands on the +old woman's arm while she steadied her voice to speak this last thought. +"Wait. You are so kind to me, Mrs. Talcott; but you have made everything +strange--and dreadful. I must ask you--one question, Mrs. Talcott. You +have been with Tante all her life. No one knows her as you do. Tell me, +Mrs. Talcott. You love Tante?" + +They faced each other at the top of the steps, on the verandah. And the +young eyes plunged deep into the old eyes, passionately searching. + +For a moment Mrs. Talcott did not reply. When she did speak, it was +decisively as if, while recognising Karen's right to ask, Karen must +recognise that the answer must suffice. "I'd be pretty badly off if I +didn't love Mercedes. She's all I've got in the world." + + + + +CHAPTER XXXIII + + +The sound of the motor, whirring skilfully among the lanes, was heard at +six, and shortly after Madame von Marwitz's return Mrs. Talcott knocked +at her door. + +Madame von Marwitz was lying on the sofa. Louise had removed her wraps +and dress and was drawing off her shoes. Her eyes were closed. She +seemed weary. + +"I'll see to Madame," said Mrs. Talcott with her air of composed and +unassuming authority. It was somewhat the air of an old nurse, sure of +her prerogatives in the nursery. + +Louise went and Mrs. Talcott took off the other shoe and fetched the +white silk _mules_. + +Madame von Marwitz had only opened her eye for a glimmer of recognition, +but as Mrs. Talcott adjusted a _mule_, she tipped it off and muttered +gloomily: "Stockings, please. I want fresh stockings." + +There was oddity--as Mrs. Talcott found, and came back, with a pair of +white silk stockings--in the sight of the opulent, middle-aged figure on +the sofa, childishly stretching out first one large bare leg and then +the other to be clothed; and it might have aroused in Mrs. Talcott a +vista of memories ending with the picture of a child in the same +attitude, a child as idle and as autocratic. + +"Thank you, Tallie," Madame von Marwitz said, wearily but kindly, when +the stockings were changed. + +Mrs. Talcott drew a chair in front of the sofa, seated herself and +clasped her hands at her waist. "I've come for a talk, Mercedes," she +said. + +Madame von Marwitz now was sleepily observing her. + +"A talk! _Bon Dieu!_ But I have been talking all day long!" + +She yawned, putting a folded arm under her head so that, slightly +raising it, she could look at Mrs. Talcott more comfortably. "What do +you want to talk about?" she inquired. + +Mrs. Talcott's eyes, with their melancholy, immovable gaze, rested upon +her. "About Karen and her husband," she said. "I gathered from some talk +I had with Karen to-day that you let her think you came away from London +simply and solely because you'd had a quarrel with Mr. Jardine." + +Madame von Marwitz lay as if arrested by these words for some moments of +an almost lethargic interchange, and then in an impatient voice she +returned: "What business is it of Karen's, pray, if I didn't leave +London simply and solely on account of my quarrel with her husband? I +had found it intolerable to be under his roof and I took the first +opportunity for leaving it. The opportunity happened to coincide with my +arrangements for coming here. What has that to do with Karen?" + +"It has to do with her, Mercedes, because the child believes you were +thinking about her when, as a matter of fact, you weren't thinking about +her or about anyone but this young man you've gotten so taken up with. +Karen believes you care for her something in the same way she does for +you, and it's a sin and a shame, Mercedes," Mrs. Talcott spoke with no +vehemence at all of tone or look, but with decision, "a sin and a shame +to let that child ruin her life because of you." + +Again Madame von Marwitz, now turning her eyes on the ceiling, seemed to +reflect dispassionately. "I never conceived it possible that she would +leave him," she then said. "I found him insufferable and I saw that +unless I went Karen also would come to see him as insufferable. To spare +the poor child this I came away. And I was amazed when she appeared +here. Amazed and distressed," said Madame von Marwitz. And after another +moment she took up: "As for him, he has what he deserves." + +Mrs. Talcott eyed her. "And what do you deserve, I'd like to know, for +going meddling with those poor happy young things? Why couldn't you let +them alone? Karen's been a bother to you for years. Why couldn't you be +satisfied at having her nicely fixed up and let her tend to her own +potato-patch while you tended to yours? You can't make me believe that +it wasn't your fault--the whole thing--right from the beginning. I know +you too well, Mercedes." + +Again Madame von Marwitz lay, surprisingly still and surprisingly +unresentful. It was as if, placidly, she were willing to be undressed, +body or soul, by her old nurse and guardian. But after a moment, and +with sudden indignation, she took up one of Mrs. Talcott's sentences. + +"A bother to me? I am very fond of Karen. I am devoted to Karen. I +should much like to know what right you have to intimate that my feeling +for her isn't sincere. My life proves the contrary. As for saying that +it is my fault, that is merely your habit. Everything is always my fault +with you." + +"It always has been, as far as I've been able to keep an eye on your +tracks," Mrs. Talcott remarked. + +"Well, this is not. I deny it. I absolutely," said Madame von Marwitz, +and now with some excitement, "deny it. Did I not give her to him? Did I +not go to them with tenderest solicitude and strive to make possible +between him and me some relation of bare good fellowship? Did I not curb +my spirit, and it is a proud and impatient one, as you know, to endure, +lest she should see it, his veiled insolence and hostility? Oh! when I +think of what I have borne with from that young man, I marvel at my own +forbearance. I have nothing to reproach myself with, Tallie; nothing; +and if his life is ruined I can say, with my hand on my heart,"--Madame +von Marwitz laid it there--"that he alone is to blame for it. A more +odious, arrogant, ignorant being," she added, "I have never encountered. +Karen is well rid of him." + +Mrs. Talcott remained unmoved. "You don't like him because he don't like +you and that's about all you've got against him, I reckon, if the truth +were known," she said. "You can make yourself see it all like that if +you've a mind to, but you can't make me; I know you too well, Mercedes. +You were mad at him because he didn't admire you like you're used to +being admired, and you went to work pinching and picking here and there, +pretending it was all on Karen's account, but really so as you could get +even with him. You couldn't stand their being happy all off by +themselves without you. Why I can see it all as plain and clear as if +I'd been there right along. Just think of your telling that poor deluded +child that you wanted her to make her husband like you. That was a nice +way, wasn't it, for setting her heart at rest about you and him. If you +didn't like him and saw he didn't like you, why didn't you keep your +mouth shut? That's all you had to do, and keep out of their way all you +could. If you'd been a stupid woman there might have been some excuse +for you, but you ain't a stupid woman, and you know precious well what +you're about all the time. I don't say you intended to blow up the whole +concern like you've done; but you wanted to get even with Mr. Jardine +and show him that Karen cared as much for you as she did for him, and +you didn't mind two straws what happened to Karen while you were doing +it." + +Madame von Marwitz had listened, turning on her back and with her eyes +still on the ceiling, and the calm of her face might have been that of +indifference or meditation. But now, after a moment of receptive +silence, indignation again seemed to seize her. "It's false!" she +exclaimed. + +"No it ain't false, Mercedes, and you know it ain't," said Mrs. Talcott +gloomily. + +"False, and absolutely false!" Madame von Marwitz repeated. "How could I +keep my mouth shut--as you delicately put it--when I saw that Karen saw? +How keep my mouth shut without warping her relation to me? I spoke to +her with lightest, most tender understanding, so that she should know +that my heart was with her while never dreaming of the chasms that I saw +in her happiness. It was he who forced me to an open declaration and he +who forced me to leave; for how was happiness possible for Karen if I +remained with them? No. He hated me, and was devoured by jealousy of +Karen's love for me." + +"I guess if it comes to jealousy you've got enough for two in any +situation. It don't do for you to talk to me about jealousy, Mercedes," +Mrs. Talcott returned, "I've seen too much of you. You can't persuade me +it wasn't your fault, not if you were to talk till the cows come home. I +don't deny but what it was pretty hard for you to see that Mr. Jardine +didn't admire you. I make allowances for that; but my gracious me," said +Mrs. Talcott with melancholy emphasis, "was that any reason for a big +middle-aged woman like you behaving like a spiteful child? Was it any +reason for your setting to work to spoil Karen's life? No, Mercedes, +you've done about as mean a thing as any I've seen you up to and what I +want to know now is what you're going to do about it." + +"Do about it?" Madame von Marwitz wrathfully repeated. "What more can I +do? I open my house and my heart to the child. I take her back. I mend +the life that he has broken. What more do you expect of me?" + +"Don't talk that sort of stage talk to me, Mercedes. What I want you to +do is to make it possible so as he can get her back." + +"He is welcome to get her back if he can. I shall not stand in his way. +It would be a profound relief to me were he to get her back." + +"I can see that well enough. But how'll you help standing in his way? +The only thing you could do to get out of his way would be to help Karen +to be quit of you. Make her see that you're just as bad as he thinks +you. I guess if you told her some things about yourself she'd begin to +see that her husband wasn't so far wrong about you." + +"_Par exemple!_" said Madame von Marwitz with a short laugh. She raised +herself to give her pillow a blow and turning on her side and +contemplating more directly her ancient monitress she said, "I sometimes +wonder what I keep you here for." + +"I do, too, sometimes," said Mrs. Talcott, "and I make it out that you +need me." + +"I make it out," Madame von Marwitz repeated the phrase with a noble +dignity of manner, "that I am too kind of heart, too aware of what I owe +you in gratitude, to resent, as I have every right to do, the license +you allow yourself in speaking to me." + +"Yes; you'll always get plain speaking from me, Mercedes," Mrs. Talcott +remarked, "just as long as you have anything to do with me." + +"Indeed I shall. I am but too well aware of the fact," said Madame von +Marwitz, "and I only tolerate it because of our life-long tie." + +"You'll go on tolerating it, I guess, Mercedes. You'd feel mighty queer, +I expect, if the one person in the world who knew you through and +through and had stood by you through everything wasn't there to fall +back on." + +"I deny that you know me through and through," Madame von Marwitz +declared, but with a drop from her high manner; sulkily rather than with +conviction. "You have always seen me with the eye of a lizard." Her +simile amused her and she suddenly laughed. "You have somewhat the +vision of a lizard, Tallie. You scrutinize the cracks and the fissures, +but of the mountain itself you are unaware. I have cracks and fissures, +no doubt, like all the rest of our sad humanity; but, _bon Dieu!_--I am +a mountain, and you, Tallie," she went on, laughing softly, "are a +lizard on the mountain. As for Mr. Jardine, he is a mole. But if you +think that Karen will be happier burrowing underground with him than +here with me, I will do my best. Yes;" she reflected; "I will write to +Mrs. Forrester. She shall see the mole and tell him that when he sends +me an apology I send him Karen. It is a wild thing to leave one's +husband like this. I will make her see it." + +"Now you see here, Mercedes," said Mrs. Talcott, rising and fixing an +acute gaze upon her, "don't you go and make things worse than they are. +Don't you go interfering between Karen and her husband. The first move's +got to come from them. I don't trust you round the corner where your +vanity comes in, and I guess what you've got in your mind now is that +you'd like to make it out to your friends how you've tried to reconcile +Karen and her husband after he's treated you so bad. If you want to tell +Karen that he was right in all the things he believed about you and that +this isn't the first time by a long shot that you've wrecked people with +your jealousy, and that he loves her ten times more than you do, that's +a different thing, and I'll stand by you through it. But I won't have +you meddling any more with those two poor young things, so you may as +well take it in right here." + +Madame von Marwitz's good humour fell away. "And for you, may I ask you +kindly to mind your own business?" she demanded. + +"I'll make this affair of Karen's my business if you ain't real careful, +Mercedes," said Mrs. Talcott, standing solid and thick and black, in the +centre of the room. "Yes, you'd better go slow and sure or you'll find +there are some things I can't put up with. This affair of Karen has made +me feel pretty sick, I can tell you. I've seen you do a sight of mean +things in your life, but I don't know as I've seen you do a meaner. I +guess," Mrs. Talcott continued, turning her eyes on the evening sea +outside, "it would make your friends sit up--all these folks who admire +you so much--if they could know a thing or two you've done." + +"Leave the room," said Madame von Marwitz, now raising herself on her +elbow and pointing to the door. "Leave the room at once. I refuse to lie +here and be threatened and insulted and brow-beaten by you. Out of my +sight." + +Mrs. Talcott looked at the sea for a moment longer, in no provocative +manner, but rather as if she had hardly heard the words addressed to +her; and then she looked at Mercedes, who, still raised on her elbow, +still held her arm very effectively outstretched. This, too, was no +doubt a scene to which she was fully accustomed. + +"All right," she said, "I'm going." She moved towards the door. At the +door she halted, turned and faced Madame von Marwitz again. "But don't +you forget, Mercedes Okraska," she said, "that I'll make it my affair if +you ain't careful." + + + + +CHAPTER XXXIV + + +Karen, during the two or three days that followed her strange +conversation with Mrs. Talcott, felt that while she pitied and cared for +Mrs. Talcott as she had never yet pitied and cared for her, she was also +afraid of her. Mrs. Talcott had spoken no further word and her eyes +rested on her with no more than their customary steadiness; but Karen +knew that there were many words she could speak. What were they? What +was it that Mrs. Talcott knew? What secrets were they that she carried +about in her lonely, ancient heart? + +Mrs. Talcott loomed before her like a veiled figure of destiny bearing +an urn within which lay the ashes of dead hopes. Mrs. Talcott's eyes +looked at her above the urn. It was always with them. When they gardened +together it was as if Mrs. Talcott set it down on the ground between +them and as if she took it up again with a sigh of fatigue--it was +heavy--when they turned to go. Karen felt herself tremble as she +scrutinized the funereal shape. There was no refuge with Mrs. Talcott. +Mrs. Talcott holding her urn was worse than the lonely fears. + +And, for those two or three days of balmy, melancholy spring, the lonely +fears did not press so closely. They wheeled far away against the blue. +Tante was kinder to her and was more aware of her. She almost seemed a +little ashamed of the scene with the piano. She spoke to Karen of it, +flushing a little, explaining that she had slept badly and that Karen's +rendering of the Bach had made her nervous, emphasizing, too, the rule, +new in its explicitness, that the grand piano was only to be played on +by Karen when it was left open. "You did not understand. But it is well +to understand rules, is it not, my child?" said Madame von Marwitz. "And +this one, I know, you will not transgress again." + +Karen said that she understood. She had something of her rocky manner in +receiving these implicit apologies and commands, yet her guardian could +see an almost sick relief rising in her jaded young eyes. + +Other things were different. Tante seemed now to wish very constantly to +have her there when Mr. Drew was with her. She made much of her to Mr. +Drew. She called his attention to her skill in gardening, to her +directness of speech, to her individuality of taste in dress. These +expositions made Karen uncomfortable, yet they seemed an expression of +Tante's desire to make amends. And Mr. Drew, with his vague, +impenetrable regard, helped her to bear them. It was as if, a clumsy +child, she were continually pushed forward by a fond, tactless mother, +and as if, mildly shaking her hand, the guest before whom she was +displayed showed her, by kind, inattentive eyes, that he was paying very +little attention to her. Mr. Drew put her at her ease and Tante +embarrassed her. She became, even, a little grateful to Mr. Drew. But +now, aware of this strange bond, it was more difficult to talk to him +when they were alone and when, once or twice, he met her in the garden +or house, she made always an excuse to leave him. She and Mr. Drew could +have nothing to say to each other when Tante was not there. + +One evening, returning to Les Solitudes after a walk along the cliffs, +Karen found that tea was over, as she had intended that it should be, +Tante and Mr. Drew not yet come in from their motoring, and Mrs. Talcott +safely busied in the garden. There was not one of them with whom she +could be happily alone, and she was glad to find the morning-room empty. +Mrs. Talcott had left the kettle boiling for her on the tea-table and +the small tea-pot, which they used in their usual _tete-a-tete_, ready, +and Karen made herself a cup. + +She was tired. She sat down, when she had had her tea, near the window +and looked out over the ranged white flowers growing in their low white +pots on the window-seat, at the pale sea and sky. She sat quietly, her +cheek on one hand, the other in her lap, and from time to time a great +involuntary sigh lifted her breast. It seemed nearer peace than fear, +this mood of immeasurable, pale sorrow. It folded her round like the +twilight falling outside. + +The room was dim when she heard the sound of the returning motor and she +sat on, believing that here she would be undisturbed. Tante rarely came +to the morning-room. But it was Tante who presently appeared, wearing +still her motoring cloak and veil, the nun-like veil bound round her +head. Karen thought, as she rose, and looked at her, that she was like +one of the ghost-like white flowers. And there was no joy for her in +seeing her. She seemed to be part of the sadness. + +She turned and closed the door with some elaboration, and as she came +nearer Karen recognized in her eyes the piteous look of quelled +watchfulness. + +"You are sitting here, alone, my child?" she said, laying her hand, but +for a moment only, on Karen's shoulder. Karen had resumed her seat, and +Tante moved away at once to take up a vase of flowers from the +mantelpiece, smell the flowers, and set it back. "Where is Tallie?" + +"Still in the garden, I think. I worked with her this morning and before +tea. Since tea I have had a walk." + +"Where did you walk?" Madame von Marwitz inquired, moving now over to +the upright piano and bending to examine in the dusk the music that +stood on it. Karen described her route. + +"But it is lonely, very lonely, for you, is it not?" Tante murmured +after a moment's silence. Karen said nothing and she went on, "And it +will be still more lonely if, as I think probable, I must leave you here +before long. I shall be going; perhaps to Italy." + +A sensation of oppression that she could not have analyzed passed over +Karen. Why was Tante going to Italy? Why must she leave Les Solitudes? +Her mind could not rest on the supposition that her own presence drove +Tante forth, that the broken _tete-a-tete_ was to be resumed under less +disturbing circumstances. She could not ask Tante if Mr. Drew was to be +in Italy; yet this was the question that pressed on her heart. + +"Oh, but I am very used to Les Solitudes," she said. + +"Used to it. Yes. Too used to it," said Madame von Marwitz, seating +herself now near Karen, her eyes still moving about the room. "But it is +not right, it is not fitting, that you should spend your youth here. +That was not the destiny I had hoped for you. I came here to find you, +Karen, so that I might talk to you." Her fingers slightly tapped her +chair-arm. "We must talk. We must see what is to be done." + +"Do you mean about me, Tante?" Karen asked after a moment. The look of +the ghostly room and of the white, enfolded figure seated before her +with its restless eyes seemed part of the chill that Tante's words +brought. + +"About you. Yes. About who else, _parbleu_!" said Madame von Marwitz +with a slight laugh, her eyes shifting about the room; and with a change +of tone she added: "I have it on my heart--your situation--day and +night. Something must be done and I am prepared to do it." + +"To do what?" asked Karen. Her voice, too, had changed, but not, as +Madame von Marwitz's, to a greater sweetness. + +"Well, to save it--the situation; to help you." Madame von Marwitz's ear +was quick to catch the change. "And I have come, my Karen, to consult +with you. It is a matter, many would say, for my pride to consider; but +I will not count my pride. Your happiness, your dignity, your future are +the things that weigh with me. I am prostrated, made ill, by the +miserable affair; you see it, you see that I am not myself. I cannot +sleep. It haunts me--you and your broken life. And what I have to +propose," Tante looked down at her tapping fingers while she spoke, "is +that I offer myself as intermediary. Your husband will not take the +first step forward. So be it. I will take it. I will write to Mrs. +Forrester. I will tell her that if your husband will but offer me the +formal word of apology I will myself induce you to return to him. What +do you say, my Karen? Oh, to me, as you know, the forms are indifferent; +it is of you and your dignity that I think. I know you; without that +apology from him to me you could not contemplate a reconciliation. But +he has now had his lesson, your young man, and when he knows that, +through me, you would hold out the olive-branch, he will, I predict, +spring to grasp it. After all, he is in love with you and has had time +to find it out; and even if he were not, his mere man's pride must +writhe to see himself abandoned. And you, too, have had your lesson, my +poor Karen, and have seen that romance is a treacherous sand to build +one's life upon. Dignity, fitness, one's rightful place in life have +their claims. You are one, as I told you, to work out your destiny in +the world, not in the wilderness. What do you say, Karen? I would not +write without consulting you. _Hein!_ What is it?" + +Karen had risen, and Madame von Marwitz's eyelashes fluttered a little +in looking up at her. + +"I will never forgive you, I will never forgive you," said Karen in a +harsh voice, "if you speak of this again." + +"What is this that you say to me, Karen?" Madame von Marwitz, too, rose. + +"Never speak to me of this again," said Karen. + +In the darkening room they looked at each other as they had never in all +their lives looked before. They were equals in maturity of demand. + +For a strange moment sheer fury struggled with subtler emotions in +Madame von Marwitz's face, and then self-pity, overpowering, engulfing +all else. "And is this the return you make me for my love?" she cried. +Her voice broke in desperate sobs and long-pent misery found relief. She +sank into her chair. + +"I asked for no reconciliation," said Karen. "I left him and we knew +that we were parting forever. There is no love between us. Have you no +understanding at all, and no thought of my pride?" + +It was woman addressing woman. The child Karen was gone. + +"Your pride?" Madame von Marwitz repeated in her sobs. "And what of +mine? Was it not for you, stony-hearted girl? Is it not your happiness I +seek? If I have been mistaken in my hopes for you, is that a reason for +turning upon me like a serpent!" + +Karen had walked to the long window that opened to the verandah and +looked out, pressing her forehead to the pane. "You must forgive me if I +was unkind. What you said burned me." + +"Ah, it is well for you to speak of burnings!" Madame von Marwitz +sobbed, aware that Karen's wrath was quelled. "I am scorched by all of +you! by all of you!" she repeated incoherently. "All the burdens fall +upon me and, in reward, I am spurned and spat upon by those I seek to +serve!" + +"I am sorry, Tante. It was what you said. That you should think it +possible." + +"Sorry! Sorry! It is easy to say that you are sorry when you have rolled +me in the dust of your insults and your ingratitude!" Yet the sobs were +quieter. + +"Let us say, then, that it has been misunderstanding," said Karen. She +still stood in the window, but as she spoke the words she drew back +suddenly. She had found herself looking into Mr. Drew's eyes. His face, +gazing in oddly upon her, was at the other side of the pane, and, in the +apparition, its suddenness, its pallor, rising from the dusk, there was +something almost horrible. + +"Who is that?" came Tante's voice, as Karen drew away. She had turned in +her chair. + +It seemed to Karen, then, that the room was filled with the whirring +wings of wild emotions, caught and crushed together. Tante had sprung up +and came with long, swift strides to the window. She, too, pressed her +face against the pane. "Ah! It is Claude," she said, in a hushed strange +voice, "and he did not see that I was here. What does he mean by looking +in like that?" she spoke now angrily, drying her eyes as she spoke. She +threw open the window. "Claude. Come here." + +Mr. Drew, whose face seemed to have sunk, like a drowned face, back into +dark water, returned to the threshold and paused, arrested by his +friend's wretched aspect. "Come in. Enter," said Madame von Marwitz, +with a withering stateliness of utterance. "You have the manner of a +spy. Did you think that Karen and I were quarrelling?" + +"I couldn't think that," said Mr. Drew, stepping into the room, "for I +didn't see that you were here." + +"We have had a misunderstanding," said Madame von Marwitz. "No more. And +now we understand again. Is it not so, my Karen? You are going?" + +"I think I will go to my room," said Karen, who looked at neither Madame +von Marwitz nor Mr. Drew. "You will not mind if I do not come to dinner +to-night." + +"Certainly not. No. Do as you please. You are tired. I see it. And I, +too, am tired." She followed Karen to the door, murmuring: "_Sans +rancune, n'est-ce-pas?_" + +"Yes, Tante." + +As the door closed upon Karen, Madame von Marwitz turned to Mr. Drew. + +"If you wish to see her, why not seek her openly? Who makes it difficult +for you to approach her?" Her voice had the sharpness of splintering +ice. + +"Why, no one, _ma chere_," said Mr. Drew. "I wasn't seeking her." + +"No? And what did it mean, then, your face pressed close to hers, there +at the window?" + +"It meant that I couldn't see who it was who stood there. Just as I can +hardly now see more than that you are unhappy. What is the matter, my +dear and beautiful friend?" His voice was solicitous. + +Madame von Marwitz dropped again into her chair and leaning forward, her +hands hanging clasped between her knees, she again wept. "The matter is +the old one," she sobbed. "Ingratitude! Ingratitude on every hand! My +crime now has been that I have sought--at the sacrifice of my own +pride--to bring a reconciliation between that stubborn child and her +husband, and for my reward she overwhelms me with abuse!" + +"Tell me about it," said Mr. Drew, seating himself beside her and, +unreproved, taking her hand. + + + + +CHAPTER XXXV + + +Karen did not go to her room. She was afraid that Mrs. Talcott would +come to her there. She asked the cook for a few sandwiches and going to +one of the lower terraces she found a seat there and sat down. She felt +ill. Her mind was sore and vague. She sat leaning her head on her hand, +as she had sat in the morning-room, her eyes closed, and did not try to +think. + +She had escaped something--mercifully. Yes, the supreme humiliation that +Tante had prepared for her was frustrated. And she had been strangely +hard and harsh to Tante and in return Tante had been piteous yet +unmoving. Her heart was dulled towards Tante. She felt that she saw her +from a great distance. + +The moon had risen and was shining brightly when she at last got up and +climbed the winding paths up to the house. + +A definite thought, after the hours that she had sat there, had at last +risen through the dull waters of her mind. Why should Tante go away? Why +should not she herself go? There need be no affront to Tante, no +alienation. But, for a time, at least, would it not be well to prove to +Tante that she could be something more than a problem and a burden? +Could she not go to the Lippheims in Germany and teach English and +French and Italian there--she knew them all--and make a little money, +and, when Tante wanted her again to come to Les Solitudes, come as an +independent person? + +It was a curious thought. It contradicted the assumptions upon which her +life was founded; for was she not Tante's child and Tante's home her +home? So curious it was that she contemplated it like an intricate +weapon laid in her hand, its oddity concealing its significance. + +She turned the weapon over. She might be Tante's child and Tante's home +might be hers; yet a child could gain its own bread, could it not? What +was there to pierce and shatter in the thought that it would be well for +her to gain her bread? "Tante has worked for me too long," she said to +herself. She was not pierced or shattered. Something very strange was in +her hand, but she was only reasonable. + +She had stood still, in the midst of her swift climbing towards the +house, to think it all out clearly, and it was as she stood there that +she saw the light of a cigarette approaching her. It was Mr. Drew and he +had seen her. Karen was aware of a deep stirring of displeasure and +weariness. "But, please," he said, as, slightly bowing her head, and +murmuring, "Good-night," she passed him; "I want--I very particularly +want--to see you." He turned to walk beside her, tossing away his +cigarette. "There is something I particularly want to say." + +His tone was grave and kind and urgent. It reproached her impatient +impulse. He might have come with a message from Tante. + +"Where is my guardian?" she asked. + +"She has gone to bed. She has a horrible headache, poor thing," said Mr. +Drew, who was leading her through the little copse of trees and along +the upper paths. "Here, shall we sit down here? You are not cold?" + +They were in the flagged garden. Karen, vaguely expectant, sat down on +the rustic bench and Mr. Drew sat beside her. The moonlight shone +through the trees and fell fantastically on the young man's face and +figure and on Karen, sitting upright, her little shawl of white knitted +wool drawn closely about her shoulders and enfolding her arms. "Not for +long, please," she said. "It is growing late and although I am not cold +I am tired. What have you to say, Mr. Drew?" + +He had so much to say and it was, so obviously, his opportunity, his +complete opportunity at last, that, before the exquisite and perilous +task of awakening this creature of flowers and glaciers, Mr. Drew +collected his resources with something of the skill and composure of an +artist preparing canvas and palette. He must begin delicately and +discreetly, and then he must be sudden and decisive. + +"I want to make you feel, in the first place, if I can," he said, +leaning forward to look into her face and observing with satisfaction +that she made no movement of withdrawal as he came a little nearer in so +doing, "that I'm your friend. Can I, do you think, succeed in making you +feel that?" His experience had told him that it really didn't matter so +much what one said. To come near was the point, and to look deeply. +"I've had so few chances of showing you how much your friend I am." + +"Thank you," said Karen. "You are kind." She did not say that he would +succeed in making her feel him a friend. + +"We have been talking about you, talking a great deal, since you left +us, your guardian and I," Mr. Drew continued, and he looked at the one +of Karen's hands that was visible, emerging from the shawl to clasp her +elbow, the left hand with its wedding-ring, "and ludicrous as it may +seem to you, I can't but feel that I understand you a great deal better +than she does. She still thinks of you as a child--a child whose little +problems can be solved by facile solutions. Forgive me, I know it may +sound fatuous to you, but I see what she does not see, that you are a +suffering woman, and that for some problems there are no solutions." His +eyes now came back to hers and found them fixed on him with a wide +astonished gaze. + +"Has my guardian asked you to say anything to me?" she said. + +"No, not exactly that," said Mr. Drew, a little disconcerted by her tone +and look, while at the same time he was marvelling at the greater and +greater beauty he found in the impassive moonlit face--how had he been +so unconscionably stupid as not to see for so long how beautiful she +was!--"No, she certainly hasn't asked me to say anything to you. She is +going away, you know, to Italy; it's a sudden decision and she's been +telling me about it. I can't go with her. I don't think it a good plan. +I can stay on here, but I can't go to Italy. Perhaps she'll give it up. +She didn't find me altogether sympathetic and I'm afraid we've had +something of a disagreement. I am sure you've seen since you've been +here that if your guardian doesn't understand you she doesn't understand +me, either." + +"But I cannot speak of my guardian to you," said Karen. She had kept her +eyes steadily upon him waiting to hear what he might have to say, but +now the thought of Tante in her rejected queenliness broke insufferably +upon her making her sick with pity. This man did not love Tante. She +rose as she spoke. + +"Do not speak of her to me," she said. + +"But we will not speak of her. I do not wish to speak of her," said Mr. +Drew, also rising, a stress of excitement and anxiety making itself felt +in his soft, sibilant, hurried tones; "I understand every exquisite +loyalty that hedges your path. And I'm hedged, too; you see that. Wait, +wait--please listen. We won't speak of her. What I want to speak of is +you. I want to ask you to make use of me. I want to ask you to trust me. +You love her, but how can you depend on her? She is a child, an +undisciplined, capricious child, and she is displeased with you, +seriously displeased. Who is there in the world you can depend on? You +are unutterably alone. And I ask you to turn to me." + +Her frosty scrutiny disconcerted him. He had not touched her in the +least. + +"These are things you cannot say to me," she said. "There is nothing +that you can do for me. I only know you as my guardian's friend; you +forgot that, I think, when you brought me here." She turned from him. + +"Oh, but you do not understand! I have made you angry! Oh, please, Mrs. +Jardine;" his voice rose to sharp distress. He caught her hand with a +supplicating yet determined grasp. "You can't understand. You are so +inconceivably unaware. It is because of you; all because of you. Haven't +you really seen or understood? She can't forgive you because I love you. +I love you, you adorable child. I have only stayed on and borne with her +because of you!" + +His passion flamed before her frozen face. And as, for a transfixed +moment of stupor, she stood still, held by him, he read into her +stillness the pause of the woman to whom the apple of the tree of life +is proffered, amazed, afraid, yet thrilled through all her being, +tempted by the very suddenness, incapable of swift repudiation. He threw +his arms around her, taking, in a draught of delight, the impression of +silvery, glacial loveliness that sent dancing stars of metaphor +streaming in his head, and pressed his lips to her cheek. + +It was but one moment of attainment. The thrust that drove him from her +was that, indeed, of the strong young goddess, implacable and outraged. +Yet even as he read his deep miscalculation in her aspect he felt that +the moment had been worth it. Not many men, not even many poets, could +say that they had held, in such a scene, on such a night, an unwilling +goddess to their breast. + +She did not speak. Her eyes did not pause to wither. They passed over +him. He had an image of the goddess wheeling to mount some chariot of +the sky as, with no indignity of haste, she turned from him. She turned. +And in the path, in the entrance to the flagged garden, Tante stood +confronting them. + +She stood before them in the moonlight with a majesty at once +magnificent and ludicrous. She had come swiftly, borne on the wings of a +devouring suspicion, and she maintained for a long moment her Medusa +stare of horror. Then, it was the ugliest thing that Karen had ever +seen, the mask broke. Hatred, fury, malice, blind, atavistic passions +distorted her face. It was to fall from one nightmare to another and a +worse; for Tante seized her by the shoulders and shook and shook and +shook her, till the blood sprang and rang in her ears and eyeballs, and +her teeth chattered together, and her hair, loosened by the great jerks, +fell down upon her shoulders and about her face. And while she shook +her, Tante snarled--seeming to crush the words between her grinding +teeth, "Ah! _perfide! perfide! perfide!_" + +From behind, other hands grasped Karen's shoulders. Mr. Drew grappled +with Tante for possession of her. + +"Leave me--with my guardian," she gathered her broken breath to say. She +repeated it and Mr. Drew, invisible to her, replied, "I can't. She'll +tear you to pieces." + +"Ah! You have still to hear from me--vile seducer!" Madame von Marwitz +cried, addressing the young man over Karen's shoulder. "Do you dare +dispute my right to save her from you--foul serpent! Leave us! Does she +not tell you to leave us?" + +"I'll see her safely out of your hands before I leave her," said Mr. +Drew. "How dare you speak of perfidy when you saw her repulse me? You'd +have found it easier to forgive, no doubt, if she hadn't." + +These insolent words, hurled at it, convulsed the livid face that +fronted Karen. And suddenly, holding Karen's shoulders and leaning +forward, Madame von Marwitz broke into tears, horrible tears--in all her +life Karen had never pitied her as she pitied her then--sobbing with +raking breaths: "No, no; it is too much. Have I not loved him with a +saintly love, seeking to uplift what would draw me down? Has he not +loved me? Has he not sought to be my lover? And he can spit upon me in +the dust!" She raised her head. "Did you believe me blind, infatuated? +Did you think by your tricks and pretences to evade me? Did I not see, +from the moment that she came, that your false heart had turned from +me?" Her eyes came back to Karen's face and fury again seized her. "And +as for you, ungrateful girl--perfidious, yes, and insolent one--you +deserve to be denounced to the world. Oh, we understand those retreats. +What more alluring to the man who pursues than the woman who flees? What +more inflaming than the pose of white, idiotic innocence? You did not +know. You did not understand--" fiercely, in a mincing voice, she +mimicked a supposed exculpation. "You are so young, so ignorant of +life--so _immer kindlich_! Ah!" she laughed, half strangled, "until the +man seizes you in his arms you are quite unaware--but quite, quite +unaware--of what he seeks from you. Little fool! And more than fool. +Have I not seen your wiles? From day to day have I not watched you? Now +it is the piano. You must play him your favourite little piece; so +small; you have so little talent; but you will do your best. Now the +chance meeting in the garden; you are so fond of flowers; you so love +the open air, the sea, the wandering on the cliffs; such a free, wild +creature you are. And now we have the frustrated _rendezvous_ of this +evening; he should find you dreaming, among your flowers, in the dusk. +The pretty picture. And no, you want no dinner; you will go to your own +room. But you are not to be found in your own room. Oh, no; it is again +the garden; the moon; the sea and solitude that you seek! Be silent!" +this was almost shouted at Claude Drew, who broke in with savage +denials. "Do you think still to impose on me--you traitor?--No," her +eyes burned on Karen's face. "No; you are wiser. You do not speak. You +know that the time for insolence has passed. What! You take refuge with +me here. You fly from your husband and throw yourself on my hands and +say to me,"--again she assumed the mincing tones--"Yes, here I am again. +Continue, pray, to work for me; continue, pray, to clothe and feed and +lodge me; continue to share your life with me and all of rich and wide +and brilliant it can offer; continue, in a word, to hold me high--but +very high--above the gutter from which I came--and I take you, I receive +you in my arms, I shelter you from malicious tongues, I humble myself in +seeking to mend your shattered life; and for my reward you steal from me +the heart of the one creature in the world I loved--the one--the only +one! Until you came he was mine. Until you came he yearned for me--only +for me. Oh, my heart is broken! broken! broken!" She leaned forward, +wildly sobbing, and raising herself she shook the girl with all her +force, crying: "Out of my sight! Be off! Let me see no more of you!" +Covering her face with her hands, she reeled back, and Karen fled down +the path, hearing a clamour of sobs and outcries behind her. + +She fled along the cliff-path and an incomparable horror was in her +soul. Her life had been struck from her. It seemed a ghost that ran, +watched by the moon, among the trees. + +On the open cliff-path it was very light. The sky was without a cloud. +The sea lay like a vast cloth of silk, diapered in silver. + +Karen ran to where the path led to a rocky verge. + +From here, in daylight, one looked down into a vast hollow in the coast +and saw at the bottom, far beneath, a stony beach, always sad, and set +with rocks. To-night the enormous cup was brimmed with blackness. + +Karen, pausing and leaning forward, resting on her hands, stared across +the appalling gulf of inky dark, and down into the nothingness. + +Horror had driven her to the spot, and horror, like a presence, rose +from the void, and beckoned her down to oblivion. Why not? Why not? The +question of despair seemed, like a vast pendulum, to swing her to and +fro between the sky and the blackness, so that, blind and deaf and dumb, +she felt only the horror, and her own pulse of life suspended over +annihilation. And while her fingers clutched tightly at the rock, the +thought of Gregory's face, as it had loved her, dimly, like a far +beacon, flashed before her. Their love was dead. He did not love her. +But they had loved. She moved back, trembling. She did not want to die. +She lay down with her face to the ground on the grassy cliff. + +When she raised herself it was as if after a long slumber. She was +immensely weary, with leaden limbs. Horror was spent; but a dull +oppression urged her up and on. There was something that she must never +see again; something that would open before her again the black abyss of +nothingness; something like the moon, that once had lived, but was now a +ghost, white, ghastly, glittering. She must go. At once. And, as if far +away, a tiny picture rose before her of some little German town, where +she might earn a living and be hidden and forgotten. + +But first she must see Mrs. Talcott. She must say good-bye to Mrs. +Talcott. There was nothing now that Mrs. Talcott could show her. + +She went back softly and carefully, pausing to listen, pushing through +unused, overgrown paths and among thickets of gorse and stunted Cornish +elms. In the garden all was still; the dreadful clamour had ceased. By +the back way she stole up to her room. + +A form rose to meet her as she opened the door. Mrs. Talcott had been +waiting for her. Taking her hand, Mrs. Talcott drew her in and closed +the door. + + + + +CHAPTER XXXVI + + +Mrs. Talcott sat down on the bed and Karen knelt before her with her +head in her lap. The old woman's passed quietly over her hair while she +wept, and the homely gentleness, like the simplicity of milk to famished +lips, flowed into her horror-haunted mind. + +She tried to tell Mrs. Talcott what had happened. "She does not love me, +Mrs. Talcott. She has turned me out. Tante has told me to go." + +"I've seen her," said Mrs. Talcott, stroking on. "I was just going out +to look for you if you didn't come in. Did she tear your hair down like +this? It's all undone." + +"It was when she shook me, Mrs. Talcott. She found me with Mr. Drew. He +had kissed me. I could not help it. She knew that I could not help it. +She knows that I am not a bad woman." + +"You mustn't take Mercedes at her word when she's in a state like that, +Karen. She's in an awful state. She's parted from that young man." + +"And I am going, Mrs. Talcott." + +"Well, I've wanted you to go, from the first. Now you've found her out, +this ain't any place for you. You can't go hanging on for all your life, +like I've done." + +"But Mrs. Talcott--what does it mean? What have I found out? What is +Tante?" Karen sobbed. "For all these years so beautiful--so +beautiful--to me, and suddenly to become my enemy--someone I do not +know." + +"You never got in her way before. She's got no mercy, Mercedes hasn't, +if you get in her way. Where'd you thought of going, Karen?" + +"To Frau Lippheim. She is still in London, I think. I could join her +there. You could lend me a little money, Mrs. Talcott. Enough to take me +to London." + +Mrs. Talcott was silent for a moment. "Come up here, on the bed, Karen," +she then said. "Here, wrap this cloak around you; you're awful cold. +That's right. Now I want you to sit quiet while I explain things to you +the best I can. I've made up my mind to do it. Mercedes will be in her +right mind to-morrow and frantic to get hold of you again and get you to +forgive her. Oh, I know her. And I don't want her to get hold of you +again. I want you to be quit of her. I want you to see, as clear as day, +how your husband was right about Mercedes, all along." + +"Oh, do not speak of him--" Karen moaned, covering her face as she sat on +the bed beside Mrs. Talcott. + +"I ain't going to speak about him. I'm going to tell you about me and +Mercedes," said Mrs. Talcott. "I'm going to explain Mercedes. And I'm +going way back to the very beginning to do it." + +"Explain it to me. What is she? Has it all been false--all her +loveliness?" + +"I don't know about false," said Mrs. Talcott. "Mercedes ain't all bad; +not by a long shot. She feels good sometimes, like most folks, when it +ain't too much trouble. You know how it began, Karen. You know how I'm a +sort of connection of Mercedes's mother and I've told you about Dolores. +The prettiest creature you ever set eyes on. Mercedes looks like her; +only it was a softer face than Mercedes's with great, big black eyes. I +can see her now, walking round the galleries of that lovely house in New +Orleans with a big white camellia in her black hair and a white muslin +dress, standing out round her--like they wore then; singing--singing--so +young and happy--it almost breaks my heart to think about her. I've told +you about Mercedes's father, too, Pavelek Okraski, and how he came out +to New Orleans and gave lessons to Dolores Bastida and made love to her +on the sly and got her to run away with him--poor silly thing. When I +think it all over I seem to piece things out and see how Mercedes came +to be what she is. Her mother was just as sweet and loving as she could +be, but scatter-brained and hot-tempered. And Pavelek was a mighty mean +man and a mighty bad man, too, a queer, tricky, sly sort of man; but +geniusy, with very attractive manners. Mercedes has got his eyes and his +way of laughing; she shows her teeth just like he used to do when he +laughed. Well, he took Dolores off to Poland and spent all her money as +fast as he could get it, and then Senor Bastida and the two boys--nice, +hot-tempered boys they were and perfect pictures--all got killed in a +vendetta they had with another family in Louisiana, and poor Senora +Bastida got sick and died and all the family fortunes went to pieces and +there was no more home and no more money either, for Dolores. She just +lost everything straight off. + +"She sent for me then. Her baby was coming and Pavelek had gone off and +she didn't know where he was and she was about distracted. I'd been +married before she ran away with Pavelek, but Homer only lived four +years and I was a widow then. I had folks left still in Maine; but no +one very near and there wasn't anybody I seemed to take to so much as I +always had to Dolores. You may say she had a sort of fascination for me. +So I sold out what I had and came. My, what a queer journey that was. I +don't know how I got to Cracow. I only spoke English and travelling +wasn't what it is nowadays. But I got there somehow and found that poor +child. She was the wretchedest creature you ever set eyes on; thin as +thin; and all haggard and wild. Pavelek neglected her and ran after +other women and drank, and when he got drunk and she used to fly out at +him--for she was as hot-tempered as she could be--he used to beat her. +Yes; that man used to beat Dolores." A note of profound and enduring +anger was in Mrs. Talcott's voice. + +"He came back after I got there. I guess he thought I'd brought some +money, and he came in drunk one day and tried to hit her before me. He +didn't ever try it again after that. I just got up and struck him with +all my might and main right in the face and he fell down and hurt his +head pretty bad and Dolores began to shriek and said I'd killed her +husband; but he didn't try it again. He was sort of scared of me, I +guess. No: I ain't forgiven Pavelek Okraski yet and I reckon I never +shall. I don't seem to want to forgive him, neither in this world nor +the next--if there is a next," Mrs. Talcott commented. + +"Well, the time for the baby came and on the day Mercedes was born the +Austrians bombarded Cracow; it was in '48. I took Dolores down to the +cellar and all day long we heard the shells bursting, and the people +screeching. And that was the time Mercedes came into the world. Dolores +most died, but she got through. But afterwards I couldn't get proper +care for her, or food either. She just pined off and died five months +after the baby came. Pavelek most went off his head. He was always fond +of her in his own mean way, and I guess he suffered considerable when +she died. He went off, saying he'd send some money for me and the baby, +but precious little of it did I ever see. I made some by sewing and +giving lessons in English--I reckon some of those young Poles got queer +ways of speaking from me, I was never what you'd call a polished +speaker--and I scraped on. Time and time again we were near starving. +My! that little garret room, and that big church--Panna Marya they +called it--where I'd go and sit with the baby when the services were on +to see if I could keep warm in the crowd! And the big fire in '50, when +I carried the baby out in a field with lots of other people and slept +out. It lasted for ten days that fire. + +"It seems like a dream sometimes, all that time," Mrs. Talcott mused, +and the distant sorrow of her voice was like the blowing of a winter +wind. "It seems like a dream to think I got through with the child +alive, and that my sweet, pretty little Dolores went under. There's some +things that don't bear thinking about. Well, I kept that baby warm and I +kept it fat, and it got to be the prettiest, proudest thing you ever set +eyes on. She might have been a queen from the very beginning. And as for +Pavelek, she just ruled him from the time she began to have any sense. +It was mighty queer to see that man, who had behaved so bad to her +mother, cringing before that child. He doted on her, and she didn't care +a button for him. It used to make me feel almost sorry for Pavelek, +sometimes. She'd look at him, when he tried to please her and amuse her, +like he was a performing dog. It kept Pavelek in order, I can tell you, +and made things easier for me. She'd just say she wanted things and if +she didn't get them straight off she'd go into a black rage, and he'd be +scared out of his life and go and work and get 'em for her. And then she +began to show she was a prodigy. Pavelek taught her the violin first and +then the piano and when he realized she was a genius he most went off +his head with pride. Why that man--the selfishest, laziest creature by +nature--worked himself to skin and bone so that she should have the best +lessons and everything she needed. We both held our noses to the +grindstone just as tight as ever we could, and Mercedes was brought up +pretty well, I think, considering. + +"She gave that first concert in Warsaw--we'd moved to Warsaw--and then +Pavelek seemed to go to pieces. He just drank himself to death. Well, +after that, rich relations of Mercedes's turned up--cousins of the +Bastidas', who lived in Paris. They hadn't lifted a finger to help +Dolores, or me with the baby after Dolores died; but they remembered +about us now Mercedes was famous and made us come to live with them in +Paris and said they had first claim on Mercedes. I didn't take to the +Bastidas. But I stayed on because of Mercedes. I got to be a sort of +nurse for her, you may say. Well, as she got older, and prettier and +prettier, and everyone just crazy about her, I saw she didn't have much +use for me. I didn't judge her too hard; but I began to see through her +then. She'd behaved mighty bad to me again and again, she used to fly at +me and bite me and tear my hair, when she was a child, if I thwarted +her; but I always believed she really loved me; perhaps she did, as much +as she can. But after these rich folks turned up and her life got so +bright and easy she just seemed to forget all about me. So I went home. + +"I stayed home for four or five years and then Mercedes sent for me. She +used to write now and then to her 'Dearest Tallie' as she always called +me, and I'd heard all about how she'd come out in Paris and Vienna as a +great pianist, and how she'd quarrelled with her relations and how she'd +run away with a young English painter and got married to him. It was an +awful silly match, and they'd all opposed it; but it pleased me somehow. +I thought it showed that Mercedes was soft-hearted like her mother, and +unworldly. Well, she wrote that she was miserable and that her husband +was a fiend and broke her heart and that she hated all her relations and +they'd all behaved like serpents to her--Mercedes is always running +across serpents--and how I was the only true friend she had and the only +one who understood her, and how she longed for her dear Tallie. So I +sold out again--I'd just started a sort of little farm near the old +place in Maine, raising chickens and making jam--and came over again. I +don't know what it is about Mercedes, but she gets a hold over you. And +guess I always felt like she was my own baby. I had a baby, but it died +when it was born. Well, she was living in Paris then and they had a fine +flat and a big studio, and when Mercedes got into a passion with her +husband she'd take a knife and slash up his canvases. She quarrelled +with him day and night, and I wasn't long with them before I saw that it +was all her fault and that he was a weak, harmless sort of young +creature--he had yellow hair, longish, and used to wear a black velvet +cap and paint sort of dismal pictures of girls with long necks and wild +sort of eyes--but that the truth was she was sick of him and wanted to +marry the Baron von Marwitz. + +"You can commence to get hold of the story now, Karen. You remember the +Baron. A sad, stately man he was, as cultured and intellectual as could +be and going in the best society. Mercedes had found pretty quick that +there wasn't much fun in being married to a yellow-haired boy who lived +on the money she made and wasn't a mite in society. And the Baron was +just crazy over her in his dignified, reverential way. Poor fellow!" +said Mrs. Talcott pausing in a retrospect over this vanished figure, +"Poor fellow! I guess he came to rue the day he ever set eyes on her. +Well, Mercedes made out to him how terrible her life was and how she was +tied to a dissipated, worthless man who lived on her and was unfaithful +to her. And it's true that Baldwin Tanner behaved as he shouldn't; but +he was a weak creature and she'd disillusionized him so and made him so +miserable that he just got reckless. And he'd never asked any more than +to live in a garret with her and adore her, and paint his lanky people +and eat bread and cheese; he told me so, poor boy; he just used to lay +his head down on my lap and cry like a baby sometimes. But Mercedes made +it out that she was a victim and he was a serpent; and she believed it, +too; that's the power of her; she's just determined to be in the right +always. So at last she made it all out. She couldn't divorce Baldwin, +being a Catholic; but she made it out that she wasn't really married to +him. It appears he didn't get baptized by his folks; they hadn't +believed in baptizing; they were free-thinkers. And the Baron got his +powerful friends to help and they all set to work at the Pope, and they +got him to fix it up, and Mercedes's marriage was annulled and she was +free to marry again. That's what was in her mind in sending for me, you +see; she'd quarrelled with her folks and she wanted a steady respectable +person who knew all about her to stand by her and chaperon her while she +was getting rid of Baldwin. Mercedes has always been pretty careful +about her reputation; she's hardly ever taken any risks. + +"Well, she was free and she married the Baron, and poor Baldwin got a +nice young English girl to marry him, and she reformed him, and they're +alive and happy to this day, and I guess he paints pretty poor pictures. +And it makes Mercedes awful mad to hear about how happy they are; she +has a sort of idea, I imagine, that Baldwin didn't have any right to get +married again. I've always had a good deal of satisfaction over +Baldwin," said Mrs. Talcott. "It's queer to realize that Mercedes was +once just plain Mrs. Baldwin Tanner, ain't it? It was a silly match and +no mistake. Well, it took two or three years to work it all out, and +Mercedes was twenty-five when she married the Baron. I didn't see much +of them for a while. They put me around in their houses to look after +things and be there when Mercedes wanted me. She'd found out she +couldn't get along without me in those two or three years. Mercedes was +the most beautiful creature alive at that time, I do believe, and all +Europe was wild about her. She and the Baron went about and she gave +concerts, and it was just a triumphal tour. But after a spell I began to +see that things weren't going smooth. Mercedes is the sort of person +who's never satisfied with what she's got. And the Baron was beginning +to find her out. My! I used to be sorry for that man. I'll never forget +his white, sick face the first time she flew out at him and made one of +her scenes. '_Emprisonne ma jeunesse_,'" Mrs. Talcott quoted with a +heavy accent. "That's what she said he'd done to her. He was twenty +years older than Mercedes, the Baron. Mercedes always liked to have men +who were in love with her hanging about, and that's what the trouble was +over. The more they cared the worse she treated them, and the Baron was +a very dignified man and didn't like having them around. And she was +dreadful jealous of him, too, and used to fly out at him if he so much +as looked at another woman; in her way I guess he was the person +Mercedes cared for most in all her life; she respected him, too, and she +knew he was as clever as she was and more so, and as for him, in spite +of everything, he always stayed in love with her. They used to have +reconciliations, and when he'd look at her sort of scornful and loving +and sad all together, it would make her go all to pieces. She'd throw +herself in his arms and cry and cry. No, she ain't all bad, Mercedes. +And she thought she could make things all right with him after she'd let +herself go; she depended on his caring for her so much and being sorry +for her. But I saw well enough as the years went on that he got more and +more depressed. He was a depressed man by nature, I reckon, and he read +a sight of philosophy of the gloomy kind--that writer Schopenhauer was a +favourite of his, I recollect, and Mercedes thought a sight of him, +too--and after ten years or so of Mercedes I expect the Baron was pretty +sick of life. + +"Well, you came. You thought it was Mercedes who was so good to you, and +it was in a way. But it was poor Ernst who really cared. He took to you +the moment he set eyes on you, and he'd liked your father. And he wanted +to have you to live with them and be their adopted daughter and inherit +their money when they died. It had always been a grief to him that +Mercedes wouldn't have any children. She just had a horror of having +children, and he had to give up any hope of it. Well, the moment +Mercedes realized how he cared for you she got jealous and they had a +scene over you right off, in that hotel at Fontainebleau. She took on +like her heart would break and put it that she couldn't bear to have any +one with them for good, she loved him so. It was true in a way. I didn't +count of course. He looked at her, sick and scornful and loving, and he +gave way. That was why you were put to school. She tried to make up by +being awful nice to you when you came for your holidays now and then; +but she never liked having you round much and Ernst saw it and never +showed how much he cared for you. But he did care. You had a real friend +in him, Karen. Well, after that came the worst thing Mercedes ever did." +Mrs. Talcott paused, gazing before her in the dimly lighted room. "Poor +things! Poor Mercedes! It nearly killed her. She's never been the same +since. And it was all her fault and she knows it and that's why she's +afraid. That's why," she added in a lower voice, "you're sorry for her +and put up with everything, because you know she's a miserable woman and +it wouldn't do for her to be alone. + +"A young man turned up. His name don't matter now, poor fellow. He was +just a clever all-over-the-place young man like so many of them, +thinking they know more about everything than God Almighty;--like this +young man in a way, only not a bad young man like him;--and downright +sick with love of Mercedes. He followed her about all over Europe and +went to every concert she gave and laid himself out to please her in all +the ways he could. And he had a great charm of manner--he was a Russian +and very high-bred--and he sort of fascinated her, and she liked it all, +I can tell you. Her youth was beginning to go, and the Baron was mighty +gloomy, and she just basked in this young man's love, and pretty soon +she began to think she was in love with him--perhaps she was--and had +never loved before, and she certainly worked herself up to suffer +considerably. Well, the Baron saw it. He saw she didn't treat him the +way she'd treated the others; she was kind of humble and tender and +distracted all the time. The Baron saw it all, but she never noticed +that he was getting gloomier and gloomier. I sometimes wonder if things +might have been different if he'd been willing to confide in me some. It +does folks a sight of good if there's someone they can tell things to. +But the Baron was very reserved and never said a word. And at last she +burst out with a dreadful scene. You were with them; yes, it was that +summer at Felsenschloss; but you didn't know anything about it of +course. I was pretty much in the thick of it all, as far as Mercedes +went, and I tried to make her see reason and told her she was a sinful +woman to treat her husband so; but I couldn't hold her back. She broke +out at him one day and told him he was like a jailor to her, and that he +suffocated her talent and that he hung on her like a vampire and sucked +her youth, and that she loved the other man. I can see her now, rushing +up and down that long saloon on that afternoon, with the white blinds +drawn down and the sun filtering through them, snatching with her hands +at her dress and waving her arms up and down in the air. And the Baron +sat on a sofa leaning on his elbow with his hand up over his eyes and +watched her under it. And he didn't say one word. When she fell down on +another sofa and cried and cried, he got up and looked at her for a +moment; but it wasn't the scornful, loving look; it was a queer, dark, +dead way. And he just went out. And we never saw him alive again. + +"You know the rest, Karen. You found him. But no one knows why he did +it, no one but you and me. He put an end to himself, because he couldn't +stand it any longer, and to set her free. They called it suicidal mania +and the doctors said he must have had melancholia for years. But I +shan't ever forget his face when he went out, and no more will Mercedes. +After he was gone she thought she'd never cared for anything in the +world but him. She never saw that young man again. She wrote him a +letter and laid the blame on him, and said he'd tried to take her from +her adored husband and that she'd never forgive him and loathed the +thought of him, and that he had made her the most wretched of women, and +he went and blew his brains out and that was the end of him. I had +considerable difficulty in getting hold of that letter. It was on him +when he killed himself. But I managed to talk over the police and hush +it up. Mercedes gave me plenty of money to manage with. I don't know +what she thinks about that poor fellow; she's never named his name since +that day. And she went on like a mad thing for two years or more. You +remember about that, Karen. She said she'd never play the piano again or +see anybody and wanted to go and be a nun. But she had a friend who was +a prioress of a convent, and she advised her not to. I guess poor +Mercedes wouldn't have stayed long in a convent. And the reason she was +nice to you was because the Baron had been fond of you and she wanted to +make up all she could for that dreadful thing in her life. She had you +to come and live with her. You didn't interfere with anything any longer +and it sort of soothed her to think it was what he'd have liked. She's +fond of you, too. She wouldn't have put up with you for so long if she +hadn't been. She'd have found some excuse for being quit of you. But as +for loving you, Karen child, like you thought she did, or like you love +her, why it's pitiful. I used to wonder how long it would be before you +found her out." + +Karen's face was hidden; she had rested it upon her hands, leaning +forward, her elbows on her knees, and she had not moved while Mrs. +Talcott told her story. Now, as Mrs. Talcott sat silent, she stirred +slightly. + +"Tante! Tante!" she muttered. "My beautiful!" + +Mrs. Talcott did not reply to this for some moments; then she laid her +hand on Karen's shoulder. "That's it," she said. "She's beautiful and it +most kills us to find out how cruel and bad she can be. But I guess we +can't judge people like Mercedes, Karen. When you go through life like a +mowing-machine and see everyone flatten out before you, you must get +kind of exalted ideas about yourself. If anything happens that makes a +hitch, or if anybody don't flatten out, why it must seem to you as if +they were wrong in some way, doing you an injury. That's the way it is +with Mercedes. She don't mean to be cruel, she don't mean to be bad; but +she's a mowing-machine and if you get in her way she'll cut you up fine +and leave you behind. And the thing for you to do, Karen, is to get out +of her way as quick as you can." + +"Yes, I am going," said Karen. + +Again Mrs. Talcott sat silent. "I'd like to talk to you about that, +Karen," she then said. "I want to ask you to give up going to Frau +Lippheim. There ain't any sense in that. It's a poor plan. What you +ought to do, Karen, is to go right back to your nice young husband." + +Karen, who sat on as if crushed beyond the point where anything could +crush her further, shook her head. "Do not ask me that, Mrs. Talcott," +she said. "I can never go back to him." + +"But, Karen, I guess you've got to own now that he was right and you +were wrong in that quarrel of yours. I guess you'll have to own that it +must have made him pretty sick to see her putting him in the wrong with +you all the time and spoiling everything; and there's no one on earth +can do that better than Mercedes." + +"I see it all," said Karen. "But that does not change what happened +between Gregory and me. He does not love me. I saw it plainly. If he had +me back it would only be because he cares for conventions. He said cruel +things to me." + +"I guess you said cruel things to him, Karen." + +Karen shook her head slightly, with weariness rather than impatience. + +"No, for he saw that it was my loyalty to her--my love of her--that he +was wounding. And he never understood. He never helped me. I can never +go back to him, for he does not love me." + +"Now, see here, Karen," said Mrs. Talcott, after a pause, "you just let +me work it out. You'll have a good sleep and to-morrow morning I'll see +you off, before Mercedes is up, to a nice little farm near here that I +know about--just a little way by train--and there you'll stay, nice and +quiet, and I'll not let Mercedes know where you are. And I'll write to +Mr. Jardine and tell him just what's happened and what you meant to do, +and that you want to go to Frau Lippheim; and you mark my words, Karen, +that nice young husband of yours'll be here quicker than you can say +Jack Robinson." + +Karen had dropped her hands and was looking at her old friend intently. +"Mrs. Talcott, you do not understand," she said. "You cannot write to +him. Have I not told you that he does not love me?" + +"Shucks!" said Mrs. Talcott. "He'll love you fast enough now that +Mercedes is out of the way." + +"But, Mrs. Talcott," said Karen, rising and looking down at the old +woman, whose face, in the dim light, had assumed to her reeling mind an +aspect of dangerous infatuation--"I do not think you know what you are +saying. What do I want of a man who only loves me when I cease to love +my guardian?" + +"Well, say you give up love, then," Mrs. Talcott persisted, and a panic +seized Karen as she heard the unmoved tones. "Say you don't love him and +he don't love you. You can have conventions, then--he wants that you +say, and so can you--and a good home and a nice husband who won't treat +you bad in any way. That's better than batting about the world all by +yourself, Karen; you take my word for it. And you can take my word for +it, too, that if you behave sensible and do as I say, you'll find out +that all this is just a miserable mistake and that he loves you just as +much as ever. Now, see here," Mrs. Talcott, also, had risen, and stood +in her habitual attitude, resting heavily on one hip, "you're not fit to +talk and I'm not going to worry you any more. You go to sleep and we'll +see about what to do to-morrow. You go right to sleep, Karen," she +patted the girl's shoulder. + +The panic was deepening in Karen. She saw guile on Mrs. Talcott's +storm-beaten and immutable face; and she heard specious reassurance in +her voice. Mrs. Talcott was dangerous. She had set her heart on this +last desire of her passionless, impersonal life and had determined that +she and Gregory should come together again. It was this desire that had +unsealed her lips: she would never relinquish, it. She might write to +Gregory; she might appeal to him and put before him the desperate plight +in which his wife was placed. And he might come. What were a wife's +powers if she was homeless and penniless, and a husband claimed her? +Karen did not know; but panic breathed upon her, and she felt that she +must fly. She, too, could use guile. "Yes," she said. "I will go to +sleep. And to-morrow we will talk. But what you hope cannot be. +Good-night, Mrs. Talcott." + +"Good-night, child," said Mrs. Talcott. + +They had joined hands and the strangeness of this farewell, the +knowledge that she might never see Mrs. Talcott again, and that she was +leaving her to a life empty of all that she had believed it to contain, +rose up in Karen so strongly that it blotted out for a moment her own +terror. + +"You have been so good to me," she said, in a trembling voice. "Never +shall I forget what you have done for me, Mrs. Talcott. May I kiss you +good-night?" + +They had never kissed. + +Mrs. Talcott's eyes blinked rapidly, and a curious contortion puckered +her mouth and chin. Karen thought that she was going to cry and her own +eyes filled with tears. + +But Mrs. Talcott in another moment had mastered her emotion, or, more +probably, it could find no outlet. The silent, stoic years had sealed +the fount of weeping. Only that dry contortion of her face spoke of her +deep feeling. Karen put her arms around her and they kissed each other. + +"Good-night, child," Mrs. Talcott then said in a muffled voice, and +disengaging herself she went out quickly. + +Karen stood listening to the sound of her footsteps passing down the +corridor. They went down the little flight of stairs that led to another +side of the house and faded away. All was still. + +She did not pause or hesitate. She did not seem to think. Swiftly and +accurately she found her walking-shoes and put them on, her hat and +cloak; her purse with its half-crown, its sixpence and its few coppers. +Swiftly she laid together a change of underwear and took from her +dressing-table its few toilet appurtenances. She paused then, looking at +the ornaments of her girlhood. She must have money. She must sell +something; yet all these her guardian had given her. + +No; not all. Her little gold watch ticked peacefully, lying on the table +beside her bed as it had lain beside her for so many years; her +beautiful little watch, treasured by her since the distant birthday when +Onkel Ernst had given it. + +She clutched it tightly in her hand and it seemed to her, as she had +once said to Gregory, that the iron drove deep into her heart and turned +up not only dark forgotten things but dark and dreadful things never +seen before. + +She leaned against the table, putting the hand that held Onkel Ernst's +watch to her eyes, and his agony became part of her own. How he had +suffered. And the other man, the young, forgotten Russian. Mrs. +Talcott's story became real to her as it had not yet been. It entered +her; it filled her past; it linked itself with everything that she had +been and done and believed. And the iron drove down deeper, until of her +heart there seemed only to be left a deep black hole. + + + + +CHAPTER XXXVII + + +Mrs. Talcott had a broken night and it was like a continuation of some +difficult and troubled dream when she heard the voice of Mercedes saying +to her: "Tallie, Tallie, wake up. Tallie, will you wake! _Bon Dieu!_ how +she sleeps!" + +The voice of Mercedes when she had heard it last had been the voice of +passion and desperation, but its tone was changed this morning; it was +fretful, feverishly irritable, rather than frantic. + +Mrs. Talcott opened her eyes and sat up in bed. She wore a Jaeger +nightgown and her head, with its white hair coiled at the top, was +curiously unaltered by its informal setting. + +"What do you mean by coming waking me up like this after the night +you've given me," she demanded, fully awakened now. "Go right straight +away or I'll put you out." + +"Don't be a fool, Tallie," said Madame von Marwitz, who, in a silken +dressing-gown and with her hair unbound, had an appearance at once +childish and damaged. "Where is Karen? I've been to her room and she is +not there. The door downstairs is unbolted. Is she gone out to walk so +early?" + +Mrs. Talcott sat still and upright in her bed. "What time is it?" she +asked. + +"It is seven. I have been awake since dawn. Do you imagine that I have +had a pleasant night?" + +Mrs. Talcott did not answer this query. She sprang out of bed. + +"Perhaps she's gone to meet the bus at the cross-roads. But I told her I +was going to take her. Tell Burton to come round with the car as quick +as he can. I'll go after her and see that she's all right. Why, the +child hasn't got any money," Mrs. Talcott muttered, deftly drawing on +her clothes beneath her nightgown which she held by the edge of the neck +between her teeth. + +Madame von Marwitz listened to her impeded utterance frowning. + +"The bus? What do you mean? Why is she meeting the bus?" + +"To take her to London where she's going to the Lippheims," said Mrs. +Talcott, casting aside the nightgown and revealing herself in chemise +and petticoat. "You go and order that car, Mercedes," she added, as she +buckled together her sturdy, widely-waisted stays. "This ain't no time +for talk." + +Madame von Marwitz looked at her for another moment and then rang the +bell. She put her head outside the door to await the housemaid and, as +this person made some delay, shouted in a loud voice: "Handcock! Jane! +Louise! Where are you? _Faineantes!_" she stamped her foot, and, as the +housemaid appeared, running; "Burton," she commanded. "The car. At once. +And tell Louise to bring me my tea-gown, my shoes and stockings, my fur +cloak, at once; but at once; make haste!" + +"What are you up to, Mercedes?" Mrs. Talcott inquired, as Madame von +Marwitz thrust her aside from the dressing-table and began to wind up +her hair before the mirror. + +"I am getting ready to go with you, _parbleu_!" Madame von Marwitz +replied. "Is that you, Louise? Come in. You have the things? Put on my +shoes and stockings; quickly; _mais depechez-vous donc_! The +tea-gown--yes, over this--over it I say! So. Now bring me a motor-veil +and gloves. I shall do thus." + +Mrs. Talcott, while Louise with an air of profoundest gloom arrayed her +mistress, kept silence, but when Louise had gone in search of the +motor-veil she remarked in a low but imperative voice: "You'll get out +at the roadside and wait for me, that's what you'll do. I won't have you +along when I meet Karen. She couldn't bear the sight of you." + +"Peace!" Madame von Marwitz commanded, adjusting the sash of her +tea-gown. "I shall see Karen. The deplorable misunderstanding of last +night shall be set right. Her behaviour has been undignified and +underhanded; but I misunderstood her, and, pierced to the heart by the +treachery of a man I trusted, I spoke wildly, without thought. Karen +will understand. I know my Karen." + +It was not the moment for dispute. Louise had re-entered with the veil +and Madame von Marwitz bound it about her head, standing before the +mirror, and gazing at herself, fixedly and unseeingly, with dark eyes +set in purpled orbits. She turned then and swept from the room, and Mrs. +Talcott, pinning on her hat as she went, followed her. + +Not until they were speeding through the fresh, chill air, did Mrs. +Talcott speak. Madame von Marwitz, leaning to one side of the open car, +scanned the stretch of road before them, melancholy and monotonous under +the pale morning sky, and Mrs. Talcott, moving round determinedly in her +corner, faced her. + +"I want to tell you, right now, Mercedes," said Mrs. Talcott, "that +Karen's done with you. There's no use in your coming, for you'll never +get her back. I've told her all about you, Mercedes;--yes, I ain't +afraid of you and you know it;--I told her. I made up my mind to it last +night after I'd seen you and heard all your shameful story and how you'd +treated her. I made up my mind that you shouldn't get hold of her again, +not if I could help it. The time had come to tell that child that her +husband was right all along and that you ain't a woman to be trusted. +She'd seen for herself what you could do, and I made a sure thing of it. +I've held my tongue for all my life, but I spoke out last night. I want +her to be quit of you for good. I want her to go back to her husband. +Yes, Mercedes; I've burst up the whole concern." + +Madame von Marwitz, her hand holding tightly the side of the car and her +eyes like large, dark stones in her white face, was sitting upright and +was staring at her. She could not speak and Mrs. Talcott went on. + +"She knows all about you now; about you and Baldwin Tanner and you and +Ernst, and about that pitiful young Russian. She knows how you treated +them. She knows how it wasn't you but Ernst who was her real friend, and +how you didn't want her to live with you. She knows that you're a mighty +unfortunate creature and a mighty dangerous one; and what I advise you +to do, Mercedes, is to get out here and go right home. Karen won't ever +come back to you again, I'm as sure of it as I'm sure my name's Hannah +Talcott." + +They sped, with softly singing speed, through the chill morning air. The +hard, tight, dark eyeballs still fixed themselves on the old woman +almost lifelessly, and still she sat grasping the side of the car. She +had the look of a creature shot through the heart and maintaining the +poise and pride of its startled and arrested life. Mechanical forces +rather than volition seemed to sustain her. + +"Say, Mercedes, will you get out?" Mrs. Talcott repeated. And the rigid +figure then moved its head slightly in negation. + +They reached the cross-roads where a few carts and an ancient fly stood +waiting for the arrival of the omnibus that plied between the Lizard and +Helston. Karen was nowhere to be seen. + +"Perhaps she went across the fields and got into the bus at the Lizard," +said Mrs. Talcott. "We'll wait and see, and if she isn't in the bus +we'll go on to Helston. Perhaps she's walking." + +Madame von Marwitz continued to say nothing, and in a moment they heard +behind them the clashing and creaking of the omnibus. It drew up at the +halt and Karen was not in it. + +"To Helston," said Mrs. Talcott, standing up to speak to the chauffeur. + +They sped on before the omnibus had resumed its journey. + +Tints of azure and purple crept over the moors; the whitening sky showed +rifts of blue; it was a beautiful morning. Mrs. Talcott, keeping a keen +eye on the surrounding country, became aware presently that Mercedes had +turned her gaze upon her and was examining her. + +She looked round. + +There was no anger, no resentment, even, on the pallid face. It seemed +engaged, rather, in a deep perplexity--that of a child struck down by +the hand that, till then, had cherished it. It brooded in sick wonder on +Mrs. Talcott, and Mrs. Talcott looked back with her ancient, weary eyes. +Madame von Marwitz broke the silence. She spoke in a toneless voice. +"Tallie--how could you?" she said. "Oh, Tallie--how could you have told +her?" + +"Mercedes," said Mrs. Talcott, gently but implacably, "I had to. It was +right to make sure you shouldn't get hold of her again. She had to go, +and she had to go for good. If you want me to go, too, I will, but it's +only fair to tell you that I never felt much sorrier for you than I do +at this minute." + +"There have been tragedies in my life," Madame von Marwitz went on in +the low, dulled voice. "I have been a passion-tossed woman. Yes, I have +not been guiltless. But how could you cut out my heart with all its +scars and show it to my child?" + +"It was right to do it, Mercedes, so as you shouldn't ruin her life. +She's not your child, and you've shown her she's not. A mother don't +behave so to her child, however off her head she goes." + +"I was mad last night." The tears ran slowly down Madame von Marwitz's +cheeks. "I can tell that to Karen. I can explain. I can throw myself on +her mercy. I loved him and my heart was broken. One is not responsible. +It is the animal, wounded to death, that shrieks and tears at the spear +it feels entering its flesh." + +"I'm awful sorry for you, Mercedes," said Mrs. Talcott. + +And now, hiding her face in her hands and leaning back in her cushions, +Madame von Marwitz began to weep with the soft reiterated sobbing of a +miserable child. "I have no one left. I am alone," she sobbed. "Even you +have turned against me." + +"No, I haven't turned against you," said Mrs. Talcott. "I'm here." And +presently, while Mercedes wept, Mrs. Talcott took her hand and held it. + +They reached Helston and climbed the steep, stony road to the station. +There was no sign of Karen. Mrs. Talcott got out and made inquiries. She +might have gone to London by the train that left at dawn; but no one had +noticed such a young lady. Mrs. Talcott came back to the car with her +fruitless story. + +Mercedes, by this time, had dried her eyes and was regaining, +apparently, her more normal energies. "Not here? Not seen? Not heard +of?" she repeated. "But where is she then?" + +Mrs. Talcott stood at the door of the car and looked at her charge. +"Well, I'm afraid she made off in the night, straight away, after I'd +talked to her." + +"Made off in the night?" A dark colour suddenly suffused Madame von +Marwitz's face. + +"Yes, that's it, I reckon. I must have said something to scare her about +her going back to her husband. Perhaps she thought I'd bring him down +without her knowing, and perhaps she wasn't far wrong. I'm afraid I've +played the fool. She thought I'd round on her in some way and so she +just lit out." + +Madame von Marwitz stared at her. The expression of her face had +entirely altered; there was no trace of the dazed and wretched child. +Dark forces lit her eyes and the relaxed lines of her lips tightened. + +"Get in," she commanded. "Tell him to drive back, and get in." And when +Mrs. Talcott had taken her place beside her she went on in a low, +concentrated voice: "Is it not possible that she has joined that vile +seducer?" + +Mrs. Talcott eyed her with the fixity of a lion-tamer. Their moment of +instinctive closeness had passed. "Now see here, Mercedes," she said; "I +advise you to be careful what you say." + +"Careful! I am half mad! Between you all you will drive me mad!" said +Madame von Marwitz with intensity of fury. "You fill Karen's mind with +lies about my past--oh, there are two sides to every story! she shall +hear my side!--you drive her forth with your threats to hand her over to +the man she loathes, and she takes refuge--where else?--with that +miscreant. Why not? Where else had she to go? You say that she had no +money. We call now at the hotel. If he is gone, and if within the day we +do not hear that she is with Lise, we will send at once for detectives." + +"You'd better control yourself, Mercedes," said Mrs. Talcott. "If Karen +ain't found it'll be a mighty ugly story for you to face up to, and if +she's found it won't be all plain sailing for you either; you've got to +pay the price for what you've done. But if it gets round that you drove +her out and then spread scandal about her, you'll do for yourself--just +keep your mind on that if you can." + +"Scandal! What scandal shall I spread? If he disappears and she with +him, will the facts not shriek aloud? If she is found she will be found +by me. I will wire at once to Lise." + +"We'll wire to Lise and we'll wire to Mr. Jardine, that's what we'll do. +Karen may have changed her mind. She may have felt shy of telling me she +had. She may have come to see that he's the thing she's got to hang on +to. What I hope for is that if she ain't in London already with him, +she's hiding somewhere about here and has sent for him herself." + +"Ah, I understand your hope; it is of a piece with all your treachery," +said Madame von Marwitz in a voice suffocated by conflicting angers. "If +she is with her husband he, too, will hear the story--the false, garbled +story of my crimes. He is my enemy, you know it; my malignant enemy; you +know that he will spread this affair broadcast. And you can rejoice in +this! You are glad for my disgrace and ruin!" Tears again streamed from +her eyes. + +"Don't take on so, Mercedes," said Mrs. Talcott. "If Karen's with her +husband all they're likely to be thinking about is that he was right and +has got her back again. Karen's bound to tell him something about what +happened, and you can depend upon Karen for saying as little as she can. +But if you imagine that you're going to be let off from being found out +by that young man, you're letting yourself in for a big disappointment, +and you can take my word for it. It's because he's right about you that +Karen'll go back to him." + +Madame von Marwitz turned her head away and fixed her eyes on the +landscape. + +They reached the little village near Les Solitudes, and at the little +hotel, with its drowsy, out-of-season air, Mrs. Talcott descended, +leaving Mercedes proudly seated in the car, indifferent to the possible +gaze from above of her faithless devotee. Mrs. Talcott returned with the +information that Mr. Drew was upstairs and not yet awake. "Go up. Go up +to him," said the tormented woman, after a moment of realized relief or +disappointment--who can say? "He may have seen her. He may have given +her money for her journey. They may have arranged to meet later." + +Mrs. Talcott again disappeared and she only returned after some ten +minutes. "Home," she then said to Burton, climbing heavily into the car. +"Yes, there he was, sleeping as peaceful as a dormouse in his silk +pyjamas," she remarked. "I startled him some, I reckon, when I waked him +up. No, he don't know anything about her. Wanted to jump up and look for +her when I told him she was missing. Keep still, Mercedes--what do you +mean by bouncing about like that--folks can see you. I talked to him +pretty short and sharp, that young man, and I told him the best thing he +could do now was to pack his grip-sack and clear out. He's going right +away and he promised to send me a telegram from London to-night. He can +catch the second train." + +Madame von Marwitz leaned back. She closed her eyes. The car had climbed +to the entrance of Les Solitudes and the fuchsia hedge was passing on +each side. Mrs. Talcott, looking at her companion, saw that she had +either actually fainted or was simulating a very realistic fainting-fit. +Mercedes often had fainting-fits at moments of crisis; but she was a +robust woman, and Mrs. Talcott had no reason to believe that any of them +had been genuine. She did not believe that this one was genuine, yet she +had to own, looking at the leaden eyelids and ashen face, that Mercedes +had been through enough in the last twelve hours to break down a +stronger person. And it was appropriate that she should return to her +desolate home in a prostrate condition. + +Mrs. Talcott, as often before, played her part. The maids were summoned; +they supported Madame von Marwitz's body; Burton took her shoulders and +Mrs. Talcott her feet. So the afflicted woman was carried into the house +and upstairs and laid upon her bed. + +Mrs. Talcott then went and sent telegrams to Frau Lippheim and to +Gregory Jardine. She asked them to let her know if Karen arrived in +London during the day. She had her answers that evening. That from +Gregory ran--"Not seen or heard of Karen. What has happened? Write by +return. Or shall I come to you?" The other was from the Lippheims' +landlady and said that the Lippheims had returned to Germany four days +before and that no one had arrived to see them. + +The evening post had gone. Mrs. Talcott went out and answered Gregory by +wire: "Writing to-morrow morning. We think Karen is in London. Stay +where you are." + + + + +CHAPTER XXXVIII + + +Mrs. Talcott went early to Madame von Marwitz's room next morning, as +soon, in fact, as she had seen her breakfast-tray carried away. She had +shown Mercedes her telegrams the evening before, and Mercedes, lying on +her bed where she had passed the day in heavy slumbers, had muttered, +"Let me sleep. The post is gone. We can do nothing more till to-morrow." +Like a wounded creature she was regaining strength and wholeness in +oblivion. When Mrs. Talcott had gone softly into her room at bedtime, +she had found her soundly sleeping. + +But the fumes and torpors of grief and pain were this morning dispersed. +Mercedes sat at the desk in her bedroom attired in a _robe-de-chambre_, +and rapidly and feverishly wrote. + +"I'm glad to see you're feeling better, Mercedes," said Mrs. Talcott, +closing the door and coming to her side. "We've got a lot to talk over +this morning. I guess we'll have to send for those detectives. What are +you writing there?" + +Madame von Marwitz, whose face had the sodden, slumbrous look that +follows long repose, drew the paper quickly to one side and replied: +"You may mind your affairs and leave me to mind my own. I write to my +friend. I write to Mrs. Forrester." + +"You hand me that letter, Mercedes," said Mrs. Talcott, in a mild but +singularly determined tone, and after a moment Madame von Marwitz did +hand it to her. + +Mrs. Talcott perused the first page. Then she lifted her eyes to her +companion, who, averting hers with a sullen look, fixed them on the sea +outside. It was raining and the sea was leaden. + +"Now just you listen to me, Mercedes Okraska," said Mrs. Talcott, +heavily emphasizing her words and leaning the hand that held the letter +on the writing-table, "I'll go straight up to London and tell the whole +story to Mr. Jardine and Mrs. Forrester--the same as I told it to Karen +with all that's happened here besides--I will as sure as my name's +Hannah Talcott--if you write one word of that shameful idea to your +friends. Lay down that pen." + +Madame von Marwitz did not lay it down, but she turned in her chair and +confronted her accuser, though with averted eyes. "You say 'shameful.' I +say, yes; shameful, and true. She has not gone to her husband. She has +not gone to the Lippheims. I believe that he has joined her. I believe +that it was arranged. I believe that she is with him now." + +"You can't look me in the eye and say you believe it, Mercedes," said +Mrs. Talcott. + +Madame von Marwitz looked her in the eye, sombrely, and she then varied +her former statement. "He has pursued her. He has found her. He will try +to keep her. He is a depraved and dangerous man." + +"We'll let him alone. We're done with him for good and all, I guess. My +point is this: don't you write any lies to your friends thinking that +you're going to whiten yourself by blackening Karen. I'm speaking the +sober truth when I say I'll go straight off to London and tell Mr. +Jardine and Mrs. Forrester the whole story, unless you write a letter, +right now, as you sit here, that I can pass." + +Again averting her eyes, Madame von Marwitz clutched her pen in rigid +fingers and sat silent. + +"It is blackmail! Tyranny!" she ejaculated presently. + +"All right. Call it any name you like. But my advice to you, Mercedes, +is to pull yourself together and see this thing straight for your own +sake. I know what's the matter with you, you pitiful, silly thing; it's +this young man; it makes you behave like a distracted creature. But +don't you see as plain as can be that what Karen's probably done is to +go to London and that Mr. Jardine'll find her in a day or two. Now when +those two young people come together again, what kind of a story will +Karen tell her husband about you--what'll he think of you--what'll your +friends think of you--if they all find out that in addition to behaving +like a wild-cat to that poor child because you were fairly daft with +jealousy, and driving her away--oh, yes you did, Mercedes, it don't do +any good to deny it now--if in addition to all that they find out that +you've been trying to save your face by blackening her character? Why, +they'll think you're the meanest skunk that ever walked on two legs; and +they'll be about right. Whereas, Mercedes," Mrs. Talcott had been +standing square and erect for some time in front of her companion, and +now, as her tone became more argumentative and persuasive, she allowed +her tired old body to sag and rest heavily on one hip--"whereas if you +write a nice, kind, loving, self-reproachful letter, all full of your +dreadful anxiety and affection--why, if Karen ever sees it it'll soften +her towards you perhaps; and it'll make all your friends sorry for you, +too, and inclined to hush things up if Mr. Drew spreads the story +around--won't it, Mercedes?"--Madame von Marwitz had turned in her chair +and was staring before her with a deeply thoughtful eye.--"Why, it's as +plain as can be, Mercedes, that that's your line." + +"True," Madame von Marwitz now said. "True." Her voice was deep and +almost solemn. "You are right. Yes; you are right, Tallie." + +She leaned her forehead on her hand, shading her eyes as she pondered. +"A letter of noble admission; of sorrow; of love. Ah! you recall me to +my better self. It will touch her, Tallie; it is bound to touch her, is +it not? She cannot feel the bitterness she now feels if she reads such a +letter; is not that so, Tallie?" + +"That's so. You've got it," said Mrs. Talcott. + +Madame von Marwitz, however, continued to lean on her desk and to shade +her eyes, and some moments of silence passed thus. Then, as she leaned, +the abjectness of her own position seemed suddenly borne in upon her. +She pushed back her chair and clutching the edge of the desk with both +hands, gave a low cry. + +Mrs. Talcott looked at her, inquiring, but unmoved. + +"Oh--it is easy for you--standing there--watching my humiliation--making +your terms!" Madame von Marwitz exclaimed in bitter, trembling tones. +"You see me in the dust,--and it is you who strike me there. I am to +drag myself--with precautions--apologies--to that child's feet--that +waif!--that bastard!--that thing I picked up and made! I am to be glad +because I may hope to move her to mercy! Ah!--it is too much! too much! +I curse the day that I saw her! I had a presentiment--I remember it +now--as I saw her standing there in the forest with her foolish face. I +felt in my inmost soul that she was to bring me sorrow. She takes him +from me! She puts me to shame before the world! And I am to implore her +to take pity on me!" + +She had extended her clenched hand in speaking and now struck it +violently on the desk. The silver blotter, the candlesticks, the +pen-tray and ink-stand leaped in their places and the ink, splashing up, +spattered her white silk robe. + +"There now," said Mrs. Talcott, eyeing her impassively, "you've gone and +spoiled your nice dress." + +"Damn the dress!" said Madame von Marwitz. Leaning her elbows on the +desk and her face on her hands, she wept; the tears trickled between her +fingers. + +But in a very little while the storm passed. She straightened herself, +found her lace-edged handkerchief and dried her eyes and cheeks; then, +taking a long breath, she drew forward a pad of paper. + +"I am a fool, am I not, Tallie," she remarked. "And you are wise; a +traitor, yet wise. I will do as you say. Wait there and you shall see." + +Mrs. Talcott now subsided heavily into a chair and for some fifteen +minutes there was no sound but the scratching of Madame von Marwitz's +pen and the deep sighs that from time to time she heaved. + +Then: "So: will that do?" she asked, leaning back with the deepest of +the sighs and handing the pages to Mrs. Talcott. + +Her dark, cold eyes, all clouded with weeping, had a singularly +child-like expression as she thus passed on her letter for inspection. +And--as when she had stretched out her legs for Mrs. Talcott to put on +her stockings--one saw beyond the instinctively confiding gesture a long +series of scenes reaching back to childhood, scenes where, in crises, +her own craft and violence and unscrupulous resource having undone her, +she had fallen back in fundamental dependence on the one stable and +inalienable figure in her life. + +Mrs. Talcott read: + + "My Friend--Dearest and best Beloved,--I am in the straits of a + terrible grief.--I am blind with weeping, dazed from a sleepless + night and a day of anguish.--My child, my Karen, is gone and, oh my + friend, I am in part to blame.--I am hot of blood, quick of tongue, + as you know, and you know that Karen is haughty, resentful, + unwilling to brook reproof even from me. But I do not attempt to + exonerate myself. I will open my heart to you and my friend will + read aright and interpret the broken words. You know that I cared + for Claude Drew; you guessed perhaps how strong was the hold upon + me of the frail, ambiguous, yet so intelligent modern spirit. It + was to feel the Spring blossom once more on my frosty branches when + this young life fell at my knees and seemed to find in me its + source and goal. Mine was a sacred love and pain mingled with my + maternal tenderness when he revealed himself to me as seeking from + me the lesser things of love, the things I could not give, that + elemental soil of sense and passion without which a man's devotion + so strangely withers,--I could give him water from the wells and + light from the air; I could not give him earth. My friend, he was + here when Karen came, and, already I had seen it, his love was + passing from me. Her youth, her guilelessness, her courage and the + loyalty of her return to me, aroused his curiosity, his indolent + and--you will remember--his unsatisfied, passion. I saw at once, + and I saw danger. I knew him to be a man believing in neither good + nor evil, seeking only beauty and the satisfaction of desire. Not + once--but twice, thrice, did I warn Karen, and she resented my + warnings. She is a creature profoundly pure and profoundly simple + and her stubborn spirit rests in security upon its own assurances. + She resented my warnings and she repulsed my attempts to lead and + guard her. Another difference had also come between us. I hoped to + effect a reconciliation between her and her husband; I suggested to + Karen that I should write to you and offer myself as an + intermediary; I could not bear to see her young life ruined for my + sake. Karen was not kind to me; the thought of her husband is + intolerable to her and she turned upon me with bitterness. I was + hurt and I told her so. She brought me to tears. My friend, it was + late on the night of that day--the night before last--that I found + her with Claude Drew in the garden; and found her in his arms. Do + not misunderstand; she had not returned his love; she repulsed him + as I came upon them; but I, in my consternation, my anger, my + dismay, snatched her from him and spoke to them both with + passionate reproof. I sent Karen to the house and remained behind + to deal with the creature who had so betrayed my trust. He is now + my avowed enemy. So be it. I do not see him again. + + "At dawn, after a sleepless night, I went to Karen's room to take + her in my arms and to ask her pardon for my harsh words. She was + gone. Gone, my friend. Tallie tells me that she believed me to have + said that unless she could obey me I must forbid her to remain + under my roof. These were not my words; but she had misunderstood + and had fiercely resented my displeasure. She told Tallie that she + would go to the Lippheims,--for them, as I have told you, she has a + deep affection. Tallie urged upon her that she should communicate + with her husband, let him know what had happened, return to + him--even if it were to blacken me in his eyes--and would to God + that it had been so!--But she repulsed the suggestion with + bitterness. It must also have filled her with terror lest we should + ourselves make some further attempt to bring about a + reconciliation; for it was in the night, and immediately after her + talk with Tallie, that she went, although she and Tallie had + arranged that she was to go to the Lippheims next day. + + "We have wired to the Lippheims and find that they have left + England. And we have wired to Mr. Jardine, and she is not with him. + She may be on her way to Germany; she may be concealed in the + country near here; she may be in London. Unless we have news of her + to-morrow I send for a detective. Oh, to hold her in my arms! I am + crushed to the earth with sorrow and remorse. Show this letter to + her husband. I have no thought of pride. + + "Your devoted and unhappy Mercedes." + +Mrs. Talcott read and remained for some moments reflecting after she had +read. "Well, I suppose that's got to do," she commented, "though I don't +call it a satisfactory letter. You've fixed it up real smart, but it's a +long way off the truth." + +Madame von Marwitz, while Mrs. Talcott read, had been putting back the +disordered strands of her hair, adjusting her laces, and dabbing vaguely +with her handkerchief at the splashes of ink that disfigured the front +of her dress--thereby ruining the handkerchief; she looked up sharply +now. + +"I deny that it is a long way off the truth." + +"A long way off," Mrs. Talcott repeated colourlessly; "but I guess it'll +have to do. I'm willing you should make the best story out for yourself +you can to your friends, so long as Karen knows the truth and so long as +you don't spread scandal about her. Now I'll write to Mr. Jardine." + +Madame von Marwitz's eyes were still fixed sharply on her and a sudden +suspicion leapt to them. "Here then!" she exclaimed. "You write in my +presence as I have done in yours. And we go to the village together that +I may see you post the self-same letter. I have had enough of +betrayals!" + +Mrs. Talcott allowed a grim smile to touch her lips. "My, but you're +silly, Mercedes," she said. "Get up, then, and let me sit there. I'd +just as leave I'm sure. You know I'm determined that Karen shall go back +to her husband and that I'm going to do all I can so as she shall. So +there's nothing I want to hide." + +She took up the pen and Madame von Marwitz leaned over her shoulder and +read as she wrote: + + "Dear Mr. Jardine,--Mercedes and Karen have had a disagreement and + Karen took it very hard and has made off, we don't know where. Go + round to Mrs. Forrester and see what Mercedes has got to say about + it. Karen will tell you her side when you see her. She feels very + bad about you yet; and thinks things are over between you; but you + hang on, Mr. Jardine, and it'll all come right. You'd better find + out whether Karen's called at the Lippheims' and get a detective + and try and trace her out. If she's with them in Germany I advise + you to go right over and see her.--Yours sincerely, + + "Hannah Talcott." + +Mrs. Talcott, as she finished, heard that the breathing of Mercedes, +close upon her, had become heavier. She did not look at her. She knew +what Mercedes was feeling, and dreading; and that Mercedes was helpless. + +"There's no reason under the sun why Handcock shouldn't take these +letters as usual," she remarked; "but if you're set on it that you're +being betrayed, put on your shoes and dress and we'll walk down and mail +them together." + + + + +CHAPTER XXXIX + + +It was on the second morning after this that the letters were brought in +to Madame von Marwitz while she and Mrs. Talcott sat in the music-room +together. + +The two days had told upon them both. The face of Mercedes was like a +beautiful fruit, rain-sodden and gnawed at the heart by a worm. Mrs. +Talcott's was more bleached, more desolate, more austere. + +The one letter that Handcock brought to Mrs. Talcott was from Gregory +Jardine: + + "Dear Mrs. Talcott," it said, "Thank you for your kind note. I am + very unhappy and only a little less unhappy than when Karen left + me. One cause of our estrangement is, perhaps, removed; but the + fact borne in upon me at the time of that parting was that, while + she was everything in life to me, she hardly knew the meaning of + the words love and marriage. I need not tell you that I will do all + in my power to induce her to return to me, and all in my power to + win her heart. It was useless to make any attempt at reconciliation + while her guardian stood between us. I cannot pretend that I feel + more kindly towards Madame von Marwitz now; rather the reverse. It + is plain to me that she has treated Karen shamefully. You must + forgive me for my frankness.--Sincerely yours, + + "Gregory Jardine." + +Mrs. Talcott when she looked up from this letter saw that Mercedes was +absorbed in hers. Her expression had stiffened as she read, and when she +had finished the hand holding it dropped to her side. She sat looking +down in a dark contemplation. + +Mrs. Talcott asked no question. United in the practical exigencies of +their search for Karen, united in their indestructible relation of +respective dependence and stability, which the last catastrophe had +hardly touched--for Mercedes had accepted her betrayal with a singular +passivity, as if it had been a force of nature that had overtaken +her--there was yet a whole new region of distrust between them. She and +Mercedes, as Mrs. Talcott cheerlessly imaged it, were like a constable +and his captive adrift, by a curious turn of fortune, on the waters of a +sudden inundation. Together they baled out water and worked at the oar, +but both were aware that when the present peril was past a sentence had +still to be carried out on one of them. Mercedes could not evade her +punishment. If Karen were found Gregory Jardine must come to know that +her guardian had, literally, driven her from her home. In that case it +rested with Gregory's sense of mercy whether Mercedes should be exposed +to the world or not. And after reading Gregory's letter Mrs. Talcott +reflected that there was not much to hope of mercy from him. So she +showed a tactful consideration of her companion's state of nerves by +pressing her no further than was necessary. + +On this occasion, however, there was no need for pressure; Mercedes, in +her dismal plight, turned to her with the latest development of it. + +"Ah," she said, while she still continued to gaze down fixedly, "this it +is to have true friends. This is human loyalty. It is well." + +"What's the matter, Mercedes?" Mrs. Talcott asked, as she was evidently +invited to do. + +"Read if you will," said Madame von Marwitz. She held out the letter +which Mrs. Talcott rose to take. + +It was from Mrs. Forrester and was full of sympathy for her afflicted +friend, and full of sympathy for foolish, headstrong little Karen. The +mingled sympathies rang strangely. She avowed self-reproach. She was +afraid that she had precipitated the rupture between Karen and her +husband, not quite, perhaps, understanding the facts. She had seen +Gregory, she was very sorry for him. She was, apparently, sorry for +everyone; except of course, Mr. Drew, the villain of the piece; but of +Mr. Drew and of Mercedes's sacred love for him, she made no mention. +Mrs. Forrester was fond, but she was wary. She had received, evidently, +her dim thrust of disillusion. Mercedes had blamed herself and Mrs. +Forrester did not deny that Mercedes must be to blame. + +"Yes; she's feeling pretty sick," Mrs. Talcott commented when she had +read. "The trouble is that anybody who knows how much Karen loved you +knows that she wouldn't have made off like that without you'd treated +her ugly. That'll be the trouble with most of your friends, I reckon. +Who's your other letter from?" + +Madame von Marwitz roused herself from her state of contemplation. She +opened the second letter saying, tersely: "Scrotton." + +"She ain't likely to take sides with Karen," Mrs. Talcott observed, +inserting her hand once more in the stocking she was darning, these +homely occupations having for the last few days been brought into the +music-room, since Mercedes would not be left alone. "She was always just +as jealous of Karen as could be." + +She proceeded to darn and Madame von Marwitz to read, and as she read a +dark flush mounted to her face. Clenching her hand on Miss Scrotton's +letter, she brought it down heavily on the back of the chair she sat in. +Then, without speaking, she got up, tossed the letter to Mrs. Talcott, +and began to pace the room, setting the furniture that she encountered +out of her way with vindictive violence. + + "My Darling, Darling Mercedes," Miss Scrotton wrote, "This is too + terrible. Shall I come to you at once? I thought this morning after + I had seen Mrs. Forrester and read your heartbreaking letter that I + would start to-day; but let me hear from you, you may be coming up + to town. If you stay in Cornwall, Mercedes, you must not be alone; + you must not; and I am, as you know, devoted heart and soul. If all + the world turned against you, Mercedes, I should keep my faith in + you. I need hardly tell you what is being said. Claude Drew is in + London and though, naturally, he does not dare face your friends + with his story, rumours are abroad. Betty Jardine does not know + him, but already she has heard; I met her only a few hours ago and + the miserable little creature was full of malicious satisfaction. + The story that she has heard--and believes--and that London will + believe--is the crude, gross one that facts, so disastrously, have + lent colour to; you, in a fit of furious jealousy, driving Karen + away. My poor, great, suffering friend, I need not tell you that I + understand. Your letter rings true to me in every line, and is but + too magnanimous.--Oh Mercedes!--had you but listened to my warnings + about that wretched man. Do you remember that I told you that you + were scattering your pearls before swine? And your exculpation of + Karen did not convince me as it seemed to do Mrs. Forrester. A + really guileless woman is not found--late at night--in a man's + arms. I cannot forget Karen's origins. There must be in her the + element of reckless passion. Mr. Drew is spreading a highly + idealised account of her and says that to see you together was to + see Antigone in the clutches of Clytemnestra. There is some + satisfaction in knowing that the miserable man is quite distracted + and is haunted by the idea that Karen may have committed suicide. + Betty Jardine says that in that case you and he would have to + appear at the inquest.--Oh, my poor Mercedes!--But I feel sure that + this is impossible. Temper, not tragedy, drove Karen from you and + it was on her part a dastardly action. I am seeing everybody that I + can; they shall have my version. The Duchess is in the country; I + have wired to her that I will go to her at once if you do not send + for me; it is important that she should have the facts as I see + them before these abominable rumours reach her. Dear Mrs. Forrester + means, I am sure, to do loyally; you may count upon her to listen + to no scandal; but its breath alarms and chills her: she does not + interpret your letter as I do. + + "Good-bye, my dear one. Wire to me please, at once. Ever and always + _ton Eleanor devouee_." + +"Well," Mrs. Talcott commented warily, folding the letter and glancing +at Madame von Marwitz; "she don't let any grass grow under her feet, +does she? Do you want her down?" + +"Want her! Why should I want her! The insufferable fool!" cried Madame +von Marwitz still striding to and fro with tigerish regularity. "Does +she think me, too, a fool, to be taken in by her grimaces of loyalty +when it is as apparent as the day that delight is her chief emotion. +Here is her opportunity--_parbleu!_--At last! I am in the dust--and if +also in the dock so much the better. She will stand by me when others +fall away. She will defend the prostrate Titaness from the vultures that +prey upon her and gain at last the significance she has, for so long, so +eagerly and so fruitlessly pursued. Ah!--_par exemple!_ Let her come to +me expecting gratitude. I will spurn her from me like a dog!" Madame von +Marwitz, varying her course, struck a chair aside as she spoke. + +"Well, I shouldn't fly out at her if I was you," said Mrs. Talcott. +"She's as silly as they make 'em, I allow, but it's all to the good if +her silliness keeps her sticking to you through thick and thin. It's +just as well to have someone around to drive off the vultures, even if +it's only a scarecrow--and Miss Scrotton is better than that. She's a +pretty brainy woman, for all her silliness, and she's pretty fond of +you, too, only you haven't treated her as well as she thinks you ought +to have, and it makes her feel kind of spry and cheerful to see that her +time's come to show you what a fine fellow she is. Most folks are like +that, I guess," Mrs. Talcott mused, returning to her stocking, "they +don't suffer so powerful over their friends' misfortunes if it gives +them a chance of showing what fine fellows they are." + +"Friends!" Madame von Marwitz repeated with scorching emphasis. +"Friends! Truly I have proved them, these friends of mine. Cowards and +traitors all, or crouching hounds. I am to be left, I perceive, with the +Scrotton as my sole companion." But now she paused in her course, struck +by a belated memory. "You had a letter. You have heard from the +husband." + +"Yes, I have," said Mrs. Talcott, "and you may as well see it." She drew +forth Gregory's letter from under the heap of darning appliances on her +lap. + +Madame von Marwitz snatched it from her and read it, once rapidly, once +slowly; and then, absorbed again in dark meditations, she stood holding +it, her eyes fixed on the ground. + +"He ain't as violent as might be expected, is he?" Mrs. Talcott +suggested. Distrust was abroad in the air between her and Mercedes; she +offered the fact of Gregory's temperateness as one that might mitigate +some anticipations. + +"He is as insolent as might be expected," said Madame von Marwitz. She +flung the letter back to Mrs. Talcott, resuming her pacing, with a +bitter laugh. "And to think," she said presently, "that I hoped--but +truly hoped--with all my heart--to reconcile them! To think that I +offered myself to Karen as an intermediary. It was true--yes, literally +true--what I told Mrs. Forrester--that I spoke to Karen of it--with all +love and gentleness and that she turned upon me like a tigress." + +"And you'll recollect," said Mrs. Talcott, "that I told you to keep your +hands off them and that you'd made enough mischief as it was. Why I +guess you did hope she'd go back. You wanted to get rid of Karen and to +have that young man to yourself; that's the truth, but you didn't tell +that to Mrs. Forrester." + +"I deny it," said Madame von Marwitz; but mechanically; her thoughts +were elsewhere. She still paced. + +"Well," said Mrs. Talcott, "you'd better send that telegram to Miss +Scrotton, telling her not to come, or you'll have her down here as soon +as she's seen the Duchess." + +"Send it; send it at once," said Madame von Marwitz. "Tell her that I do +not need her. Tell her that I will write." The force of her fury had +passed; counsels of discretion were making themselves felt. "Go at once +and send it." + +She paused again as Mrs. Talcott rose. "If Karen is not found within +three days, Tallie, I go to London. I believe that she is in London." + +Mrs. Talcott faced her. "If she's in London she'll be found as soon by +Mr. Jardine as by you." + +"Yes; that may be," said Mercedes, and discretion, now, had evidently +the mastery; "but Karen will not refuse to see me. I must see her. I +must implore her forgiveness. You would not oppose that, would you, +Tallie?" + +"No, I'd not oppose your asking her to forgive you," Mrs. Talcott +conceded, "when she's got back to her husband. Only I advise you to stay +where you are till you hear she's found." + +"I will do as you say, Tallie," said Madame von Marwitz meekly. She went +to the piano, and seating herself began to play the _Wohltemperirtes +Clavier_. + + + + +CHAPTER XL + + +Six days had passed since Karen's disappearance. The country had been +searched; London, still, was being examined, and the papers were +beginning to break into portraits of the missing girl. Karen became +remote, non-existent, more than dead, it seemed, when her face, like +that of some heroine of a newspaper novelette, gazed at one from the +breakfast-table. The first time that this happened, Madame von Marwitz, +flinging the sheet from her, had burst into a violent storm of weeping. + +She sat, on the afternoon of the sixth day, in a sunny corner of the +lower terrace and turned the leaves of a book with a listless hand. She +was to be alone till dinner-time; Tallie had gone in to Helston by bus, +and she had the air of one who feels solitude at once an oppression and +a relief. She read little, raising her eyes to gaze unseeingly over the +blue expanses stretched beneath her or to look down as vaguely into the +eyes of Victor, who lay at her feet. The restless spirit of the house +had reached Victor. He lay with his head on his extended paws in an +attitude of quiescence; but his ears were pricked to watchfulness, his +eyes, as he turned them now and again up to his mistress, were troubled. +Aware of his glance, on one occasion, Madame von Marwitz stooped and +caressed his head, murmuring: "_Nous sommes des infortunes, hein, mon +chien._" Her voice was profoundly sad. Victor understood her. Slightly +thudding his tail he gave a soft responsive groan; and it was then, +while she still leaned to him and still caressed his head, that shrill, +emphatic voices struck on Madame von Marwitz's ear. + +The gravelled nook where she sat, her garden chair, with its adjusted +cushions, set against a wall, was linked by ascending paths and terraces +to the cliff-path, and this again, though only through a way overgrown +with gorse and bramble, to the public coast-guards' path along the +cliff-top. The white stones that marked the way for the coast-guards +made a wide _detour_ behind Madame von Marwitz's property and this +nearer egress to the cliff was guarded by a large placard warning off +trespassers. Yet, looking in the direction of the voices, Madame von +Marwitz, to her astonishment, saw that three ladies, braving the +interdict, were actually marching down in single file upon her. + +One was elderly and two were young; they wore travelling dress, and, as +she gazed at them in chill displeasure, the features of the first became +dimly familiar to her. Where, she could not have said, yet she had seen +that neat, grey head before, that box-like hat with its depending veil, +that firmly corseted, matronly form, with its silver-set pouch, +suggesting, typical of the travelling American lady as it was, a +marsupial species. She did not know where she had seen this lady; but +she was a travelling American; she accosted one in determined tones, +and, at some time in the past, she had waylaid and inconvenienced her. +Madame von Marwitz, as the three trooped down upon her, did not rise. +She pointed to the lower terrace. "This is private property," she said, +and her aspect might well have turned the unwary visitors, Acteon-like, +into stags, "I must ask you to leave it at once. You see the small door +in the garden wall below; it is unlocked and it leads to the village. +Good-day to you." + +But, with a singularly bright and puckered look, the look of a +surf-bather, who measures with swift eye the height of the rolling +breaker and plunges therein, the elderly lady addressed her with +extraordinary volubility. + +"Baroness, you don't remember us--but we've met before, we have a mutual +friend:--Mrs. General Tollman of St. Paul's, Minnesota.--Allow me to +introduce myself again:--Mrs. Slifer--Mrs. Hamilton K. Slifer:--my +girls, Maude and Beatrice. We had the privilege of making your +acquaintance over a year ago, Baroness, at the station in London, just +before you sailed, and we had some talks on the steamer to that +perfectly charming woman, Miss Scrotton. I hope she's well. We're over +again this year, you see; we pine for dear old England and come just as +often as we can. We feel we belong here more than over there sometimes, +I'm afraid,"--Mrs. Slifer laughed swiftly and deprecatingly.--"My girls +are so often taken for English girls, the Burne-Jones type you know. +We've got friends staying at Mullion, so we thought we'd just drop down +on Cornwall for a little tour after we landed at Southampton, and we +drove over this afternoon and came down by the cliff--we are just crazy +about your scenery, Baroness--it's just the right setting for you--we've +been saying so all day--to have a peek at the house we've heard so much +about; and we don't want to disturb you, but it's the greatest possible +pleasure, Baroness, to have this beautiful glimpse of you--with your +splendid dog--how d' ye do, Victor--why I do believe he remembers me; we +petted him so much at the station when your niece was holding him. We +saw Mrs. Jardine the other day, Baroness--such a pleasant surprise that +was, too--only we're sorry to see she's so delicate. The New Forest will +be just the place for her. We stayed there three days after landing, +because my Beatrice here was very sea-sick and I wanted her to have a +little rest. We were simply crazy over it. I do hope Mrs. Jardine's +getting better." + +All this had been delivered with such speed, such an air of decision and +purpose, that Madame von Marwitz, who had risen in her bewildered +indignation and stood, her book beneath her arm, her white cloak caught +about her, had found no opportunity to check the torrent of speech, and +as these last words came as swiftly and as casually as the rest she +could hardly, for a moment, collect her faculties. + +"My niece? Mrs. Jardine?" she repeated, with a wild, wan utterance. +"What do you say of her?" + +It was at this moment that Miss Beatrice began, in the background, to +adjust her camera. She told her mother and sister afterwards that she +seemed to feel it in her bones that something was doing. + +Mrs. Slifer, emerging from her breaker in triumph, struck out, blinking +and smiling affably. "We heard all about the wedding in America," she +said, "and we thought we might call upon her in London and see that +splendid temple you'd given her--we heard all about that, too. I never +saw a picture of him, but I knew her in a minute, naturally, though she +did look so pulled down. Why, Baroness--what's the matter!" + +Madame von Marwitz had suddenly clutched Mrs. Slifer's arm with an +almost appalling violence of mien and gesture. + +"What is the matter?" Madame von Marwitz repeated, shaking Mrs. Slifer's +arm. "Do you know what you are saying? My niece has been lost for a +week! The whole country is searching for her! Where have you seen her? +When was it? Answer me at once!" + +"Why Baroness, by all means, but you needn't shake my head off," said +Mrs. Slifer, not without dignity, raising her free hand to straighten +her hat. "We've never heard a word about it. Why this is perfectly +providential.--Baroness--I must ask you not to go on shaking me like +that. I've got a very delicate stomach and the least thing upsets my +digestion." + +"_Justes cieux!_" Madame von Marwitz cried, dropping Mrs. Slifer's arm +and raising her hands to her head, while, in the background, Miss +Beatrice's kodak gave a click--"Will the woman drive me mad! Karen! My +child! Where is she!" + +"Why, we saw her at the station at Brockenhurst--in the New +Forest--didn't we Maude," said Mrs. Slifer, "and it must have been--now +let me see--" poor Mrs. Slifer collected her wits, a bent forefinger at +her lips. "To-day's Thursday and we got to Mullion yesterday--and we +stopped at Winchester for a day and night on our way to the New Forest, +it was on Saturday last of course. We'd been having a drive about that +part of the forest and we were taking the train and they had just come +and we saw them on the opposite platform. He was just helping her out of +the train and we didn't have any time to go round and speak to them--" + +"They!" Madame von Marwitz nearly shouted. "She was with a man! Last +Saturday! Who was it? Describe him to me! Was he slender--with fair +hair--dark eyes--the air of a poet?" She panted. And her aspect was so +singular that Miss Beatrice, startled out of her professional readiness, +failed to snap it. + +"Why no," said Mrs. Slifer, keeping her clue. "I shouldn't say a +poetical looking man, should you, Maude? A fleshy man--very big and +fleshy, and he was taking such good care of her and looked so kind of +tender and worried that I concluded he was her husband. She looked like +a very sick woman, Baroness." + +"Fleshy?" Madame von Marwitz repeated, and the word, in her moan, was +almost graceful. "Fleshy, you say? An old man? A stout old man?" she +held her hands distractedly pressed to her head. "What stout old man +does Karen know? Is it a stranger she has met?" + +"No, he wasn't old. This was a young man, Baroness. He had--now let me +see--his hair was sort of red--I remember noticing his hair; and he wore +knee-pants and a soft hat with a feather in it and was very high +coloured." + +"_Bon Dieu!_" Madame von Marwitz gasped. She had again, while Mrs. +Slifer spoke, seized her by the arm as though afraid that she might +escape her and she now gazed with a fixed gaze above Mrs. Slifer's head +and through the absorbed Maude and Beatrice. "Red hair?--A large young +man?--Was he clean shaven? Did he wear eyeglasses? Had he the face of a +musician? Did he look like an Englishman--an English gentleman?" + +Mrs. Slifer, nodding earnest assent to the first questions, shook her +head at the latter. "No, he didn't. What I said to Maude and Beatrice +was that Mr. Jardine looked more German than English. He looked just +like a German student, Baroness." + +"Franz Lippheim!" cried Madame von Marwitz. She sank back upon the seat +from which she had risen, putting a hand before her eyes. + +Victor, at her knees, laid a paw upon her lap and whined an +interrogative sympathy. The three American ladies gathered near and +gazed in silence upon the great woman, and Beatrice, carefully adjusting +her camera, again took a snap. The picture of Madame von Marwitz, with +her hand before her eyes, her anxious dog at her knees, found its way +into the American press and illustrated touchingly the story of the lost +adopted child. Madame von Marwitz was not sorry when, among a batch of +press-cuttings, she came across the photograph and saw that her most +genuine emotion had been thus made public. + +She looked up at last, and the dizziness of untried and perilous freedom +was in her eyes; but curious, now, of other objects, they took in, +weighed and measured the little group before her; power grew in them, an +upwelling of force and strategy. + +She smiled upon the Slifers and she rose. + +"You have done me an immeasurable service," she said, and as she spoke +she took Mrs. Slifer's hand with a noble dignity. "You have lifted me +from despair. It is blessed news that you bring. My child is safe with a +good, a talented man; one for whom I have the deepest affection. And in +the New Forest--at Brockenhurst--on Saturday. Ah, I shall soon have her +in my arms." + +Still holding Mrs. Slifer's hand she led them up the terraces and +towards the house. "The poor child is ill, distraught. She had parted +from her husband--fled from him. Ah, it has been a miserable affair, +that marriage. But now, all will be well. _Bon Dieu!_ what joy! What +peace of heart you have brought me! I shall be with her to-morrow. I +start at once. And you, my good friends, let me hear your plans. Let me +be of service to you. Come with me for the last stage of your journey. I +will not part with you willingly." + +"It's all simply too wonderful, Baroness," Mrs. Slifer gasped, as she +skipped along on her short legs beside the goddess-like stride of the +great woman, who held her--who held her very tightly. "We were just +going to drift along up to Tintagel and then work up to London, taking +in all the cathedrals we could on our way." + +"And you will change your route in order to give me the pleasure of your +company. You will forfeit Tintagel: is it not so?" Madame von Marwitz +smiled divinely. "You will come with me in my car to Truro where we take +the train and I will drop you to-night at the feet of a cathedral. So. +Your luggage is at Mullion? That is simple. We wire to your friends to +pack and send it on at once. Leave it to me. You are in my hands. It is +a kindness that you will do me. I need you, Mrs. Slifer," she pressed +the lady's arm. "My old friend, who lives with me, has left me for the +day, and, moreover, she is too old to travel. I must not be alone. I +need you. It is a kindness that you will do me. Now you will wait for me +here and tea will be brought to you. I shall keep you waiting but for a +few moments." + +It was to be lifted on the back of a genie. She had wafted them up, +along the garden paths, across the verandah, into the serenity and +spaciousness and dim whites and greens and silvers of the great +music-room, with a backward gaze that had, in all its sweetness, +something of hypnotic force and fixity. + +She left them with the Sargent portrait looking down at them and the +room in its strangeness and beauty seemed part of the spell she laid +upon them. The Slifers, herded together in the middle of it, gazed about +them half awe-struck and spoke almost in whispers. + +"Why, girls," said Mrs. Slifer, who was the first to find words, "this +is the most thrilling thing I ever came across." + +"You've pulled it off this time, mother, and no mistake," said Maude, +glancing somewhat furtively up at the Sargent. "Do look at that +perfectly lovely dress she has on in that picture. Did you ever see such +pearls; and the eyes seem to follow you, don't they?" + +"The poor, distracted thing just clings to us," said Mrs. Slifer. "I +shouldn't wonder if she was as lonely as could be." + +"All the same," Beatrice, the doubting Thomas of the group, now +commented, "I don't think however excited she was she ought to have +shaken you like that, mother." Beatrice had examined the appurtenances +of the great room with a touch of nonchalance. It was she whom Gregory +had seen at the station, seated on the pile of luggage. + +"That's petty of you, Bee," said Mrs. Slifer gravely. "Real small and +petty. It's a great soul at white heat we've been looking at." + +Handcock at this point brought in tea, and after she had placed the tray +and disposed the plates of cake and bread-and-butter and left the +Slifers alone again, Mrs. Slifer went on under her breath, seating +herself to pour out the tea. "And do look at this tea-pot, girls; isn't +it too cute for words. My! What will the Jones say when they hear about +this! They'd give their eye-teeth to be with us now." + +The Slifers, indeed, were never to forget their adventure. It was to be +impressed upon their minds not only by its supreme enviableness but by +its supreme discomfort. It was almost five when, like three Ganymedes +uplifted by the talons of a fierce, bright bird, they soared with Madame +von Marwitz towards Truro, and at Truro, in spite of a reckless speed +which desperately dishevelled their hair and hats, they arrived too late +to catch the 6.40 train for Exeter. + +Madame von Marwitz strode majestically along the platform, her white +cloak trailing in the dust, called for station-masters, demanded special +trains, fixed haughty, uncomprehending eyes upon the officials who +informed her that she could not possibly get a train until ten, resigned +herself, with sundry exclamations of indignation and stamps of the foot, +to the tedious wait, sailed into the refreshment room only to sail out +again, mounted the car not yet dismissed, bore the Slifers to a hotel +where they had a dinner over which she murmured at intervals "_Bon Dieu, +est-ce-donc possible!_" and then, in the chill, dark evening, toured +about in the adjacent country until ten, when Burton was sent back to +Les Solitudes and when they all got into the train for Exeter. + +She had never in all her life travelled alone before. She hardly knew +how to procure her ticket, and her helplessness in regard to box and +dressing-case was so apparent that Mrs. Slifer saw to the one and Maude +carried the other, together with the fur-lined coat when this was thrown +aside. + +The hours that they passed with her in the train were the strangest that +the Slifers had ever passed. They were chilled, they were sleepy, they +were utterly exhausted; but they kept their eyes fixed on the +perplexing, resplendent object that upbore them. + +Beatrice, it is true, showed by degrees, a slight sulkiness. She had not +liked it when, at Truro, Madame von Marwitz had supervised their wires +to the Jones, and she liked it less when Madame von Marwitz explained to +them in the train that she relied upon them not to let the Jones--or +anybody for the present--know anything about Mrs. Jardine. Something in +Madame von Marwitz's low-toned and richly murmured confidences as she +told Maude and Mrs. Slifer that it was important for Mrs. Jardine's +peace of mind, and for her very sanity, that her dreaded husband should +not hear of her whereabouts, made Beatrice, as she expressed it to +herself, "tired." + +She looked out of the window while her mother and sister murmured, "Why +certainly, Baroness; why yes; we perfectly understand," leaning forward +in the illuminated carriage like docile conspirators. + +After this Madame von Marwitz said that she would try to sleep; but, +propped in her corner, she complained so piteously of discomfort that +Mrs. Slifer and Maude finally divested themselves of their jackets and +contrived a pillow for her out of them. They assured her that they were +not cold and Madame von Marwitz, reclining now at full length, murmured +"_Mille remerciements_." Soon she fell asleep and Mrs. Slifer and Maude, +very cold and very unresentful, sat and watched her slumbers. From time +to time she softly snored. She was very comfortable in her fur-lined +cloak. + +It was one o'clock when they reached Exeter and drove, dazed and numbed, +to a hotel. Here Madame von Marwitz further availed herself of the +services of Maude and Mrs. Slifer, for she was incapable of unpacking +her box and dressing-case. Mrs. Slifer maided her while Maude, with +difficulty at the late hour, procured her hot water, bouillon and toast. +Beatrice meanwhile, callously avowing her unworthiness, said that she +was "dead tired" and went to bed. + +Madame von Marwitz bade Mrs. Slifer and Maude the kindest good-night, +smiling dimly at them over her bedroom candlestick as she ushered them +to the door. "So," she said; "I leave you to your cathedral." + +When the Slifers arose next day, late, for they were very weary, they +found that Madame von Marwitz had departed by an early train. + + * * * * * + +Meanwhile, at Les Solitudes, old Mrs. Talcott turned from side to side +all night, sleepless. Her heart was heavy with anxiety. + +Karen was found and to-morrow Mercedes would be with her; she had sent +for Mercedes, so the note pinned to Mrs. Talcott's dressing-table had +informed her, and Mercedes would write. + +What had happened? Who were the unknown ladies who had appeared from no +one knew where during her absence at Helston and departed with Mercedes +for Truro? + +"Something's wrong. Something's wrong," Mrs. Talcott muttered to herself +during the long hours. "I don't believe she's sent for Mercedes--not +unless she's gone crazy." + +At dawn she fell at last into an uneasy sleep. She dreamed that she and +Mercedes were walking in the streets of Cracow, and Mercedes was a +little child. She jumped beside Mrs. Talcott, holding her by the hand. +The scene was innocent, yet the presage of disaster filled it with a +strange horror. Mrs. Talcott woke bathed in sweat. + +"I'll get an answer to my telegram this morning," she said to herself. +She had telegraphed to Gregory last night, at once: "Karen is found. +Mercedes has gone to her. That's all I know yet." + +She clung to the thought of Gregory's answer. Perhaps he, too, had news. +But she had no answer to her telegram. The post, instead, brought her a +letter from Gregory that had been written the morning before. + + "Dear Mrs. Talcott," it ran. "Karen is found. The detectives + discovered that Mr. Franz Lippheim had not gone to Germany with his + family. They traced him to an inn in the New Forest. Karen is with + him and has taken his name. May I ask you, if possible, to keep + this fact from her guardian for the present.--Yours sincerely, + + "Gregory Jardine." + +When Mrs. Talcott had read this she felt herself overcome by a sudden +sickness and trembling. She had not yet well recovered from her illness +of the Spring. She crept upstairs to her room and went to bed. + + + + +CHAPTER XLI + + +It seemed to Karen, after hours had passed, that she had ceased to be +tired and that her body, wafted by an involuntary rhythm, was as light +as thistle-down on the wind. + +She had crossed the Goonhilly Downs where the moonlight, spreading far +and wide with vast unearthly brightness, filled all the vision with +immensities of space and brought memories of strains from Schubert's +symphonies, silver monotonies of never-ending sound. + +She had plunged down winding roads, blackly shadowed by their hedgerow +trees, passing sometimes a cottage that slept between its clumps of +fuchsia and veronica. She had climbed bare hill-sides where abandoned +mines or quarries had left desolate mementoes that looked in the +moonlight like ancient tombs and catacombs. + +Horror lay behind her at Les Solitudes, a long, low cloud on the horizon +to which she had turned her back. The misery that had overpowered and +made her one with its dread realities lay beneath her feet. She was +lifted above it in a strange, disembodied enfranchisement all the night, +and the steady blowing of the wind, the leagues of silver, the mighty +sky with its far, high priestess, were part of an ecstasy of sadness, +impersonal, serene, hallucinated, like that of the music that +accompanied the rhythm of her feet. + +The night was almost over and dawn was coming, when, on a long uphill +road, she felt her heart flag and her footsteps stagger. + +The moon still rode sharp and high, but its light seemed concentrated in +its own glittering disk and the world was visible in an uncanny darkness +that was not dark. The magic of the night had vanished and the beat of +vast, winding melodies melted from Karen's mind leaving her dry and +brittle and empty, like a shell from which the tides have drawn away. + +She knew what she had still to do. At the top of the road she was to +turn and cut across fields to a headland above Falmouth--from which a +path she knew led to the town. She had not gone to Helston, but had +taken this cross-country way to Falmouth because she knew that at any +hour of the night she might be missed and followed and captured. They +would not think of Falmouth; they would not dream that she could walk so +far. In the town she would pawn Onkel Ernst's watch and take the early +train to London and by evening she would be with Frau Lippheim. So she +had seen it all, in flashes, last night. + +But now, toiling up the interminable road, clots of darkness floating +before her eyes, cold sweats standing on her forehead, the sense of her +exhaustion crushed down upon her. She tried to fix her thoughts on the +trivial memories and forecasts that danced in her mind. The odd blinking +of Mrs. Talcott's eyelid as she had told her story; the pattern of the +breakfast set that she and Gregory had used--ah, no!--not that! she must +not fix that memory!--the roofs and chimneys of some little German town +where she was to find a refuge; for though it was to join the Lippheims +that she fled, she did not see her life as led with theirs. Leaning upon +these pictures as if upon a staff she held, she reached the hill-top. +Her head now seemed to dance like a balloon, buffeted by the great +throbs of her blood. She trailed with leaden feet across the fields. In +the last high meadow she paused and looked down at the bend of the great +bay under the pallid sky and at the town lying like a scattering of +shells along its edge. How distant it was. How like a mirage. + +A little tree was beside her and its leaves in the uncanny light looked +like crisp black metal. The sea was grey. The sunrise was still far off. +Karen sank beneath the tree and leaned her head against it. What should +she do if she were unable to walk on? There was still time--hours and +hours of time--till the train left Falmouth; but how was she to reach +Falmouth? Fears rolled in upon her like dark breakers, heaping +themselves one upon the other, stealthy, swift, not to be escaped. She +saw the horrible kindness in Mrs. Talcott's eyes, relegated, not +relinquished. She saw herself pursued, entrapped, confronted by Gregory, +equally entrapped, forced by her need, her helplessness, to come to her +and coldly determined--as she had seen him on that dreadful evening of +their parting--to do his duty by her, to make her and to keep her safe, +and his own dignity secure. To see him again, to strive against him +again, weaponless, now, without refuge, and revealed to herself and to +him as a creature whose whole life had been founded on illusion, to +strive not only against his ironic authority but, worst of all, against +a longing, unavowed, unlooked at, a longing that crippled and unstrung +her, and that ran under everything like a hidden river under granite +hills--she would die, she felt, rather than endure it. + +She had closed her eyes as she leaned her head against the tree and when +she opened them she saw that the leaves of the tree had turned from +black to green and that the grass was green and the sea and sky faintly +blue. Above her head the long, carved ripples of the morning cirri +flushed with a heavenly pink and there came from a thicket of a little +wood the first soft whistle of a wakened bird. Another came and then +another, and suddenly the air was full of an almost jangling sweetness. +Karen felt herself trembling. Shudders ran over her. She was ravished to +life, yet without the answering power of life. Her longing, her +loneliness, her fear, were part of the intolerable loveliness and they +pierced her through and through. + +She struggled to her feet, holding the tree in her clasp, and, after the +galvanised effort, she closed her eyes again, and again leaned her head +upon the bark. + +Then it was that she heard footsteps, sudden footsteps, near. For a +moment a paralysis of fear held down her eyelids. "_Ach Gott!_" she +heard. And opening her eyes, she saw Franz Lippheim before her. + +Franz Lippheim was dressed, very strangely dressed, in tweeds and +knicker-bockers and wore a soft round hat with a quill in it--the oddest +of hats--and had a knapsack on his back. The colours of the coming day +were caricatured in his ruddy face and red-gold hair, his bright green +stockings and bright red tie. He was Germanic, flagrant, incredible, and +a Perseus, an undreamed of, God-sent Perseus. + +"_Ach Gott!_ Can it be so!" he was saying, as he approached her, walking +softly as though in fear of dispersing a vision. + +And as, not speaking, still clasping her tree, she held out her hand to +him, he saw the extremity of her exhaustion and put his arm around her. + +She did not faint; she kept her consciousness of the blue sky and the +cirri--golden now--and even of Franz's tie and eyeglasses, glistening +golden in the rising sunlight; but he had lowered her gently to the +ground, kneeling beside her, and was supporting her shoulders and +putting brandy to her lips. After a little while he made her drink some +milk and then she could speak to him. + +She must speak and she must tell him that she had left her guardian. She +must speak of Tante. But what to say of her? The shame and pity that had +gone with her for days laid their fingers on her lips as she thought of +Tante and of why she had left her. Her mind groped for some availing +substitute. + +"Franz," she said, "you must help me. I have left Tante. You will not +question me. There is a breach between us; she has been unkind to me. I +can never see her again." And now with clearer thought she found a +sufficient truth. "She has not understood about me and my husband. She +has tried to make me go back to him; and I have fled from her because I +was afraid that she would send for him. She is not as fond of me as I +thought she was, Franz, and I was a burden to her when I came. Franz, +will you take me to London, to your mother? I am going with you all to +Germany. I am going to earn my living there." + +"_Du lieber Gott!_" Herr Lippheim ejaculated. He stared at Karen in +consternation. "Our great lady--our great Tante--has been unkind to you? +Is it then possible, Karen?" + +"Yes, Franz; you must believe me. You must not question me." + +"Trust me, my Karen," said Herr Lippheim now; "do not fear. It shall be +as you say. But I cannot take you to the Muetterchen in London, for she +is not there. They have gone back to Germany, Karen, and it is to +Germany that we must go." + +"Can you take me there, Franz, at once? I have no money; but I am going +to pawn this watch that Onkel Ernst gave me." + +"That is all simple, my Karen. I have money. I took with me the money +for my tour; I was on a walking-tour, do you see, and reached Falmouth +last night and had but started now to pay my respects at Les Solitudes. +I wished to see you, Karen, and to see if you were well. But it is very +far to your village. How have you come so far, at night?" + +"I walked. I have walked all night. I am so tired, Franz. So tired. I do +not know how I shall go any further." She closed her eyes; her head +rested against his shoulder. + +Franz Lippheim looked down at her with an infinite compassion and +gentleness. "It will all be well, my Karen; do not fear," he said. "The +train does not go from Falmouth for three hours still. We will take it +then and go to Southampton and sail for Germany to-night. And for now, +you will drink this milk--so, yes; that is well;--and eat this +chocolate;--you cannot; it will be for later then. And you will lie +still with my cloak around you, so; and you will sleep. And I will sit +beside you and you will have no troubled thoughts. You are with your +friends, my Karen." While he spoke he had wrapped her round and laid her +head softly on a folded garment that he drew from his knapsack; and in a +few moments he saw that she slept, the profound sleep of complete +exhaustion. + +Franz Lippheim sat above her, not daring to light his pipe for fear of +waking her. He, watched the glory of the sunrise. It was perhaps the +most wonderful hour in Franz's life. + +Phrases of splendid music passed through his mind, mingling with the +sound of the sea. No personal pain and no personal hope was in his +heart. He was uplifted, translated, with the beauty of the hour and its +significance. + +Karen needed him. Karen was to come to them. He was to see her +henceforward in his life. He was to guard and help her. He was her +friend. The splendour and the peace of the golden sky and golden sea +were the angels of a great initiation. Nothing could henceforth be as it +had been. His brain stirred with exquisite intuitions, finding form for +them in the loved music that, henceforth, he would play as he had never +before played it. And when he looked from the sea and sky down at the +sleeping face beside him, wasted and drawn and piteous in its repose, +large tears rose in his eyes and flowed down his cheeks, and the sadness +was more beautiful than any joy that he had known. + +What she had suffered!--the dear one. What they must help her to forget! +To her, also, the hour would send it angels: she would wake to a new +life. + +He turned his eyes again to the rising sun, and his heart silently +chanted its love and pride and sadness in the phrases of Beethoven, of +Schubert and of Brahms, and from time to time, softly, he muttered to +himself, this stout young German Jew with the red neck-tie and the +strange round hat: "_Suesses Kind! Unglueckliches Kind! Oh--der schoene +Tag!_" + + + + +CHAPTER XLII + + +Madame Von Marwitz looked out from her fly at the ugly little wayside +inn with its narrow lawn and its bands of early flowers. Trees rose +round it, the moors of the forest stretched before. It was remote and +very silent. + +Here it was, she had learned at the station, some miles away, that the +German lady and gentleman were staying, and the lady was said to be very +ill. Madame von Marwitz's glance, as it rested upon the goal of her +journey, had in it the look of vast, constructive power, as when, for +the first time, it rested on a new piece of music, realized it, mastered +it, possessed it, actual, in her mind, before her fingers gave it to the +world. So, now, she realized and mastered and possessed the scene that +was to be enacted. + +She got out of the fly and told the man to carry in her box and +dressing-case and then to wait. She opened the little gate, and as she +did so, glancing up, she saw Franz Lippheim standing looking out at her +from a ground-floor window. His gaze was stark in its astonishment. She +returned it with a solemn smile. In another moment she had put the +landlady aside with benign authority and was in the little sitting-room. +"My Franz!" she exclaimed in German. "Thank God!" She threw her arms +around his neck and burst into sobs. + +Franz, holding a pipe extended in his hand, stood for a moment in +silence his eyes still staring their innocent dismay over her shoulder. +Then he said: "How have you come here, _gnaedige Frau_?" + +"Come, Franz!" Madame von Marwitz echoed, weeping: "Have I not been +seeking my child for the last six days! Love such as mine is a torch +that lights one's path! Come! Yes; I am come. I have found her! She is +safe, and with my Franz!" + +"But Karen is ill, very ill indeed," said Franz, speaking with some +difficulty, locked as he was in the great woman's arms. "The doctor +feared for her life three days ago. She has been delirious. And it is +you, _gnaedige Frau_, whom she fears;--you and her husband." + +Madame von Marwitz leaned back her head to draw her hand across her +eyes, clearing them of tears. + +"But do I not know it, Franz?" she said, smiling a trembling smile at +him. "Do I not know it? I have been in fault; yes; and I will make +confession to you. But--oh!--my child has punished me too cruelly. To +leave me without a word! At night! It was the terror of her husband that +drove her to it, Franz. Yes; it has been a delirium of terror. She was +ill when she went from me." + +She had released him now, though keeping his hands in hers, and she +still held them as they sat down at the centre table in the little room, +he on one side, she on the other, she leaning to him across it; and she +read in his face his deep discomfort. + +"But you see, _gnaedige Frau_," Franz again took up his theme; "she +believes that you wish to send her back to him; she has said it; she +could not trust you. And so she fled from you. And I have promised to +take care of her. I am to take her to my mother in Germany as soon as +she can travel. We were on our way to Southampton and would have been, +days since, with the Muetterchen, if in the train Karen had not become so +ill--so very ill. It was a fever that grew on her, and delirium. I did +not know what was best to do. And I remembered this little inn where the +Muetterchen and we four stayed some years ago, when we came first to +England. The landlady was very good; and so I thought of her and brought +Karen here. But when she is better I must take her to Germany, _gnaedige +Frau_. I have promised it." + +While Franz thus spoke a new steadiness had come to Madame von Marwitz's +eyes. They dilated singularly, and with them her nostrils, as though she +drew a deep new breath of realisation. It was as if Franz had let down a +barrier; pointed out a way. There was no confession to be made to Franz. +Karen had spared her. + +She looked at him, looked and looked, and she shook her head with +infinite gentleness. "But Franz," she said, "I do not wish her to go +back to her husband. I was in fault, yes, grave fault, to urge it upon +her; but Karen's terror was her mistake, her delirium. It was for my +sake that she had left him, Franz, because to me he had shown insolence +and insult;--for your sake, too, Franz, for he tried to part her from +all her friends and of you he spoke with an unworthy jealousy. But +though my heart bled that Karen should be tied to such a man, I knew him +to be not a bad man; hard, narrow, but in his narrowness upright, and +fond, I truly believed it, of his wife. And I could not let her break +her marriage--do you not see, Franz,--if it were for my sake. I could +not see her young life ruined in its dawn. I wished to write to my good +friend Mrs. Forrester--who is also Karen's friend, and his, and I +offered myself as intermediary, as intercessor from him to Karen, if +need be. Was it so black, my fault? For it was this that Karen resented +so cruelly, Franz. Our Karen can be harsh and quick, you know that, +Franz. But no! Can she--can you, believe for one moment that I would now +have her return to him, if, indeed, it were any longer possible? No, +Franz; no; no; no; Karen shall never see that man again. Only over my +dead body should he pass to her. I swear it, not only to you, but to +myself. And Franz, dear Franz, what I think of now is you, and your love +and loyalty to my Karen. You have saved her; you have saved me; it is +life you bring--a new life, Franz," and smiling upon him, her cheeks +still wet with tears, she softly sang Tristan's phrase to Kurvenal: +"_Holder! Treuer!--wie soll dir Tristan danken!_" + +Her joy, her ecstasy of gratitude, shone upon him. She was the tutelary +goddess of his family. Trust, for himself and for his loved Karen, went +out to her and took refuge beneath the great wings she spread. And as +she held his hands and smiled upon him he told her in his earnest, +honest German, all that had happened to him and Karen; of his +walking-tour; and of the meeting on the Falmouth headland at dawn; and +of their journey here. "And one thing, _gnaedige Frau_," he said, "that +troubled me, but that will now be well, since you are come to us, is +that I have told them here that Karen is my wife. See you, _gnaedige +Frau_, the good landlady knows us all and knows that Lotta, Minna and +Elizabeth are the only daughters that the Muetterchen has--besides the +little ones. I remembered that the Muetterchen had told her this; she +talked much with her; it was but three years ago, _gnaedige Frau_; it was +not time enough for a very little one to grow up; so I could not say +that Karen was my sister; and I have to be much with her; I sit beside +her all through the night--for she is afraid to be alone, the _armes +Kind_; and the good landlady and the maid must sleep. So it seemed to me +that it was right to tell them that Karen was my wife. You think so, +too, _nicht wahr, gnaedige Frau_?" + +Madame von Marwitz had listened, her deeply smiling eyes following, +understanding all; and as the last phase of the story came they deepened +to only a greater sweetness. They showed no surprise. A content almost +blissful shone on Franz Lippheim. + +"It is well, Franz," she said. "Yes, you have done rightly. All is well; +more well than you yet perhaps see. Karen is safe, and Karen shall be +free. What has happened is God-sent. The situation is in our hands." + +For a further moment, silent and weighty, she gazed at him and then she +added: "There need be no fear for you and Karen. I will face all pain +and difficulty for you both. You are to marry Karen, Franz." + +The shuttle that held the great gold thread of her plan was thrown. She +saw the pattern stretch firm and fair before her. Silently and sweetly, +with the intentness of a sibyl who pours and holds forth a deep potion, +she smiled at him across the table. + +Franz, who all this time had been leaning on his arms, his hands in +hers, his eyes, through their enlarging pince-nez, fixed on her, did not +move for some moments after the astounding statement reached him. His +stillness and his look of arrested stupor suggested, indeed, a large +blue-bottle slung securely in the subtle threads of a spider's web and +reduced to torpid acquiescence by the spider's stealthy ministrations. +He gazed with mildness, almost with blandness, upon the enchantress, as +if some prodigy of nature overtopping all human power of comment had +taken place before him. Then in a small, feeble voice he said: "_Wass +meinen Sie, gnaedige Frau?_" + +"Dear, dear Franz," Madame von Marwitz murmured, pressing his hands with +maternal solicitude, and thus giving him more time to adjust himself to +his situation. "It is not as strange as your humility finds it. And it +is now inevitable. You do not I think realize the position in which you +and Karen are placed. I am not the only witness; the landlady, the +doctor, the maid, and who knows who else,--all will testify that you +have been here with Karen as your wife, that you have been with her day +and night. Do not imagine that Mr. Jardine has sought to take Karen back +or would try to. He has made no movement to get her back. He has most +completely acquiesced in their estrangement. And when he hears that she +has fled with you, that she has passed here, for a week almost, as your +wife, he will be delighted--but delighted, with all his anger against +you--to seize the opportunity for divorcing her and setting himself +free." + +But while she spoke Franz's large and ruddy face had paled. He had drawn +his hands from hers though she tried to retain them. He rose from his +chair. "But, _gnaedige Frau_," he said, "that is not right. No; that is +wrong. He may not divorce Karen." + +"How will you prevent him from divorcing her, Franz?" Madame von Marwitz +returned, holding him with her eye, while, in great agitation, he passed +his hand repeatedly over his forehead and hair. "You have been seen. I +have been told by those who had seen you that you and Karen were here. +Already Karen's husband must know it. And if you could prevent it, would +you wish to, Franz? Would you wish, if you could, to bind her to this +man for life? Try to think clearly, my friend. It is Karen's happiness +that hangs in the balance. It is upon that that we must fix our eyes. My +faith forbids divorce; but I am not _devote_, and Karen is not of my +faith, nor is her husband, nor are you. I take my stand beside Karen. I +say that one so young, so blameless, so unfortunate, shall not have her +life wrecked by one mistake. With me as your champion you and Karen can +afford to snap your fingers at the world's gross verdict. Karen will be +with me. I will take her abroad. I will cherish her as never child was +cherished. We make no defence. In less than a year the case is over. +Then you will come for Karen and you will be married from my house. I +will give Karen a large dot; she shall want for nothing in her life. And +you and she will live in Germany, with your friends and your great +music, and your babies, Franz. What I had hoped for two years ago shall +come to pass and this bad dream shall be forgotten." + +Franz, looking dazedly about him while she spoke, now dropped heavily on +his chair and joining his hands before his eyes leaned his head upon +them. He muttered broken ejaculations. "_Ach Gott! Unbegreiflich!_ Such +happiness is not to think on! You are kind, kind, _gnaedige Frau_. You +believe that all is for the best. But Karen--_gnaedige Frau_, our little +Karen! She does not love me. How could she be happy with me? Never for +one moment have I hoped. It was against my wish that the Muetterchen +wrote to you that time two years ago. No; always I saw it; she had +kindness only for me and friendliness; but no love; never any love. And +it will be to smirch our Karen's name, _gnaedige Frau_. It will be to +accept disgrace for her. We must defend her from this accusation, for it +is not true. Ah, _gnaedige Frau_, you are powerful in the world. Can you +not make it known that it is untrue, that Karen did not come to me?" + +He leaned his forehead on his clasped hands, protesting, appealing, +expostulating, and Madame von Marwitz, leaning slightly back in her +chair, resting her cheek against her finger, scrutinized his bent head +with a change of expression. Intently, almost fiercely, with half-closed +lids, she examined Franz's crisp upstanding hair, the thick rims of his +ruddy ears, the thick fingers with their square and rather dirty nails +and the large turquoise that adorned one of them. Cogitation, +self-control and fierce determination were in her gaze; then it veiled +itself again in gentleness and, with a steady and insistent patience, +she said: "You are astray, my friend, much astray, and very ignorant. +Look with me at fact, and then say, if you can, that we can make it +known that it is untrue. You are known to be in love with Karen; you are +known to have asked me for her hand. Karen makes a marriage that is +unhappy; it is known that she is not happy with her husband. Did you not +yourself see that all was not well with them? It has been known for +long. You arrive in London; Karen sees you again; next day she flies +from Mr. Jardine and takes refuge with you at your lodgings. Yes, you +will say, but your mother, your sisters, too, were there. Yes, the world +will answer, and she came to me to wait till they were gone and you free +to join her. In a fortnight's time she seizes a pretext for leaving +me--I speak of what the world will say Franz--and meets you. Will the +world, will Karen's husband, believe that it was by chance? She is found +hidden with you here, those who see you come to me; it is so I find you, +and she is here bearing your name. Come, my friend, it is no question of +saving Karen from smirches; the world will say that it is your duty as +an honourable man to marry Karen. Better that she should be known as +your wife than as your abandoned mistress. So speaks the world, Franz. +And though we know that it speaks falsely we have no power to undeceive +it. But now, mark me, my friend; I have no wish to undeceive it. I do +not see the story, told even in these terms, as disgraceful; I do not +see my Karen smirched. I am not one who weighs the human heart and its +needs in the measures of convention. Bravely and in truth, Karen frees +herself. So be it. You say that she does not love you. I say, Franz, how +do you know that? I say that if she does not love you yet, she will love +you; and I add, Franz, for the full ease of your conscience, that if +Karen, when she is free, does not wish to marry you, then--it is very +simple--she remains with me and does not marry. But what I ask of you +now is bravery and discretion, for our Karen's sake. She must be freed; +in your heart you know that it is well that Karen should be freed. In +your heart you know that Karen must not be bound till death to this man +she loathes and dreads and will never see again. If not you, Franz, is +it not possible that Karen may love another man one day? But it is you +that she will love; nay, it is you she loves. I know my Karen's heart. +Tell me, Franz, am I not right in what I say?" + +For some time now Franz had been looking at her and her voice grew more +tender and more soft as she saw that he found no word of protest. He sat +upright, still, at intervals, running his fingers through his hair, +breathing deeply, near tears, yet arrested and appeased. And hope, +beautiful, strange hope, linking itself to the intuitions of the dawn +when he had sat above Karen's sleep, stole into his heart. Why could it +not be true? Why should not Karen come to love him? She would be with +him, free, knowing how deep and tender was his love for her, and that it +made no claim. Would not her heart answer his one day? And as if +guessing at his thoughts Madame von Marwitz added, the dimness of tears +in her own eyes: "See, my Franz, let it be in this wise. I bring Karen +to your mother in a few days; she will be strong enough for travel in a +few days, is it not so? She will then be with you and yours in Germany, +and I watching over you. So you will see her from day to day? So you +will gently mend the torn young heart and come to read it. And you may +trust a wise old woman, Franz, when I prophesy to you that Karen's heart +will turn and grow to yours. You may trust one wise in hearts when she +tells you that Karen is to be your loving wife." + +She rose, and the sincerity of her voice was unfeigned. She was moved, +deeply moved, by the beauty of the pattern she wove. She was deeply +convinced by her own creation. + +Franz, too, got up, stumbling. + +"And now, Franz," she said, "we say _au revoir_. I have come and it is +not seemly that you remain here longer. You go to Germany to make ready +for us and I write to your mother to-day. Ah!--the dear Lise! Her heart +will rejoice! Where is your room, Franz, and where is Karen's?" + +There were three doors in the little sitting-room. She had entered from +the passage by one. She looked now towards the others. + +Franz opened one, it showed a flight of stairs. "Karen's room is up +those stairs," he said, closing it very softly. "And mine is here, next +this one where we are. We are very quiet, you see, and shut in to +ourselves. There is no other way to Karen's room but this, and her room +is at the back, so that no disturbance reaches her. I think that she +still sleeps, _gnaedige Frau_; we must not wake her if she sleeps. I will +take you to her as soon as she is awake." + +Madame von Marwitz, with her unchanging smile, was pressing him towards +the door of his own room. + +"I will wait. I will wait until she wakes, Franz. Your luggage? It is +here? I will help you to pack, my Franz." + +She had drawn him into his room, her arm passed into his, and, even +while she spoke, she pointed out the few effects scattered here and +there. And, with his torpid look of a creature hypnotized, Franz obeyed +her, taking from her hands the worn brush, the shaving appliances, the +socks and book and nightshirt. + +When all were laid together in his knapsack and he had drawn the straps, +he turned to her, still with the dazzled gaze. "But this may wait," he +said, "until I have said good-bye to Karen." + +Madame von Marwitz looked at him with an almost musing sweetness. She +had the aspect of a conjuror who, with a last light puff of breath or +touch of a magic finger, puts forth the final resource of a stupefying +dexterity. So delicately, so softly, with a calm that knew no doubt or +hesitation, she shook her head. "No; no farewells, now, my Franz. That +would not be well. That would agitate her. She could not listen to all +our story. She could not understand. Later, when she is in my arms, at +peace, I will tell her all and that you are gone to wait for us, and +give her your adieu." + +He gazed at the conjuror. "But, _gnaedige Frau_, may I not say good-bye +to Karen? Together we could tell her. It will be strange to her to wake +and find that I am gone." + +Her arm was passed in his again. She was leading him through the +sitting-room. And she repeated with no change of voice: "No, my Franz. I +know these illnesses. A little agitation is very bad. You will write to +her daily. She shall have your letters, every day. You promise me--but I +need not ask it of our Franz--to write. In three days, or in four, we +will be with you." + +She had got him out of his room, out of the sitting-room, into the +passage. The cab still waited, the cabman dozed on his box in the spring +sunlight. Before the landlady Madame von Marwitz embraced Franz and +kissed and blessed him. She kept an arm round him till she had him at +the cab-door. She almost lifted him in. + +"You will tell Karen--that you did not find it right--that I should say +good-bye to her," he stammered. + +And with a last long pressure of the hand she said: "I will tell her, +Franz. We will talk much of you, Karen and I. Trust me, I am with you +both. In my hands you are safe." + +The cab rolled away and Franz's face, from under the round hat and the +quill, looked back at the triumphant conjuror, dulled and dazed rather +than elated, by the spectacle of her inconceivable skill. + + + + +CHAPTER XLIII + + +Karen lay sleeping in the little room above. She had slept so much since +they had carried her, Franz, and the two women with kind faces, into +this little room; deep draughts of sleep, as though her exhausted nature +could never rest enough. Fever still drowsed in her blood and a haze of +half delirious visions often accompanied her waking. They seemed to +gather round her now, as, in confused and painful dreams, she rose from +the depths towards consciousness again. Dimly she heard the sound of +voices and her dream wove them into images of fear and sorrow. + +She was running along the cliff-top. She had run for miles and it was +night and beside her yawned the black gulfs of the cliff-edge. And from +far below, in the darkness, she heard a voice wailing as if from some +creature lost upon the rocky beach. It was Gregory in some great peril. +Pity and fear beat upon her like black wings as she ran, and whether it +was to escape him or to succour him she did not know. + +Then from the waking world came distinctly the sound of rolling wheels, +and opening her eyes she looked out upon her room, its low uneven +ceiling, its coloured print of Queen Victoria over the mantelpiece, its +text above the washhand-stand and chest of drawers. On the little table +beside her bed Onkel Ernst's watch ticked softly. The window was open +and a tree rustled outside. And through these small, familiar sounds she +still heard the rolling of retreating wheels. The terror of her dream +fastened upon this sound until another seemed to strike, like a soft, +stealthy blow, upon her consciousness. + +Footsteps were mounting the stairs to her room. Not Franz's footsteps, +nor the doctor's, nor the landlady's, nor Annie the housemaid's. She +knew all these. + +Who was it then who mounted, softly rustling, towards her? The terror of +the dream vanished in a tense, frozen panic of actuality. + +She wished to scream, and could not; she wished to leap up and fly, but +there was no way of escape. It was Tante who came, slowly, softly, +rustling in silken fabrics; the very scent of her garments seemed wafted +before her, and Karen's heart stopped in its heavy beating as the door +handle gently turned and Tante stood within the room. + +Karen looked at her and Madame von Marwitz looked back, and Madame von +Marwitz's face was almost as white as the death-like face on the pillow. +She said no word, nor did Karen, and in the long stillness delirium +again flickered through Karen's brain, and Tante, standing there, became +a nightmare presence, dead, gazing, immutable. Then she moved again, and +the slow, soft moving was more dreadful than the stillness, and coming +forward Tante fell on her knees beside the bed and hid her face in the +bed-clothes. + +Karen gave a strange hoarse cry. She heard herself crying, and the sound +of her own voice seemed to waken her again to reality: "Franz! Franz! +Franz!" + +Madame von Marwitz was weeping; her large white shoulders shook with +sobs. "Karen," she said, "forgive me! Karen, it is I. Forgive me!" + +"Franz!" Karen repeated, turning her head away on the pillow. + +"Karen, you know me?" said Madame von Marwitz. She had lifted her head +and she gazed through her tears at the strange, changed, yet so +intimately known, profile. It was as if Karen were the more herself, +reduced to the bare elements of personality; rocky, wasted, alienated. +"Do not kill me, my child," she sobbed, "Listen to me, Karen! I have +come to explain all, and to implore for your forgiveness." She possessed +herself of one of the hot, emaciated hands. Karen drew it away, but she +turned her head towards her. + +Tante's tears, her words and attitude of abjection, dispersed the +nightmare horror. She understood that Tante had come not as a ghastly +wraith; not as a pursuing fury; but as a suppliant. Her eyes rested on +her guardian and their gaze, now, was like cold, calm daylight. "Why are +you here?" she asked. + +Madame von Marwitz's sobs, at this, broke forth more violently. "You +remember our parting, my child! You remember my mad and shameful words! +How could I not come!" she articulated brokenly. "Oh, I have sought you +in terror, in unspeakable longing! My child--it was a madness. Did you +not see it? I went to you at dawn that day to kneel before you, as I +kneel now, and to implore your pardon. And you were gone! Oh, Karen--you +will listen to me now!" + +"You need not tell me," said Karen. "I understand." + +"Ah, no: ah, no:" said Madame von Marwitz, laying her supplicating hand +on the sleeve of Karen's nightdress. "You do not understand. How could +you--young and cold and flawless--understand my heart, my wild, stained +heart, Karen, my fierce and desolate and broken heart. You are air and +water; I am earth and fire; how could you understand my darkness and my +rage?" She spoke, sobbing, with a sincerity dreadful and irrefragable, +as if she stripped herself and showed a body scarred and burning. With +all the forces of her nature she threw herself on Karen's pity, tearing +from herself, with a humility far above pride and shame, the glamour +that had held Karen's heart to hers. Deep instinct guided her +spontaneity. Her glamour, now, must consist in having none; her nobility +must consist in abasement, her greatness in being piteous. + +"Listen to me, Karen," she sobbed, "The world knows but one side of +me--you have known but one side;--even Tallie, who knows so much, who +understands so much--does not know the other--the dark and tortured +soul. I am not a good woman, Karen, the blood that flows in my veins is +tainted, ambiguous. I have sinned. I have been savage and dastardly; but +it has always been in a madness when I could not seize my better self: +flames seem to sweep me on. Listen, Karen, you are so strong, so calm, +how could you dream of what a woman's last wild passion can be, a woman +whose whole soul is passion? Love! it is all that I have craved. Love! +love! all my inner life has been enmeshed in it--in craving, in seeking, +in destroying. It is like a curse upon me, Karen. You will not +understand; yet that love of love, is it not so with all us wretched +women; do we not long, always, all of us, for the great flame to which +we may surrender, the flame that will appease and exalt us, annihilate +us, yet give us life in its supremacy? So I have always longed; and not +grossly; mine has never been the sensual passion; it has been beauty and +the heights of life that I have sought. And my curse has been that for +me has come no appeasement, no exaltation, but only, always, a dark +smouldering of joylessness. With my own hand I broke the great and +sacred devotion that blessed my life, because I was thus cursed. +Jealousy, the craving for a more complete possession, for the ecstasy I +had not found, blind forces in my blood, drove me on to the destruction +of that precious thing. I wrecked myself, I killed him. Oh, Karen, you +know of whom I speak." Convulsively, the blackness of her memories +assailing her in their old forms of horror, Madame von Marwitz sobbed, +burying her face in the bed-clothes, her hand forgetting to clutch at +Karen's sleeve. She lifted her face and the tears streamed from under +her closed lids. "Let me not think of it or I shall go mad. How could I, +having known that devotion, sink to the place where you have seen me? Be +pitiful. He needed me so much--I believed. My youth was fading; I was +growing old. Soon the time was to come when no man's heart would turn to +me. Be pitiful. You do not know what it is to look without and see life +slowly growing dark and look within and see only sinister memories. It +came to me like late sunlight--like cool, sweet water--his love. I +believed in it. I loved him. Oh--" she sobbed, "how I loved him, Karen! +How my heart was torn with sick jealousy when I saw that his had turned +from me to you. I loved you, Karen, yet I hated you. Open your generous +heart to me, my child; do not spurn me from you. Understand how it may +be that one can strike at the thing one loves. I knew myself in the +grasp of an evil passion, but I could not tear it from me. I even +feared, with a savage fear that seemed to eat into my brain, that you +responded to his love. Oh, Karen, it was not I who spoke those shameful +words, when I found you with him, but a creature maddened with pain and +jealousy, who for days had fought against her madness and knew when she +spoke that she was mad. When I had sent him from me, when he was gone +from my life, and I knew that all was over, the evil fury passed from my +brain like a mist. I knew myself again. I saw again the sweet and sacred +places of my life. I saw you, Karen. Oh, my child," again the pleading +hand trembled on Karen's sleeve, "it has not all been misplaced, your +love for me; not all illusion. I am still the woman who has loved you +through so many years. You will not let one hour of frenzy efface our +happy years together?" + +The words, the sobbing questions that waited for no answer, the wailing +supplications, had been poured forth in one great upwelling. Through the +tears that streamed she had seen Karen's face in blurred glimpses, lying +in profile to her on its pillow. Now, when all had been said and her +mind was empty, waiting, she passed her hand over her eyes, clearing +them of tears, and fixed them on Karen. + +And silence followed. So long a silence that wonder came. Had she +understood? Was she half unconscious? Had all the long appeal been +wasted? + +But Karen at last spoke and the words, in their calm, seemed to the +listening woman to pass like a cold wind over buds and tendrils of +reviving life, blighting them. + +"I am sorry for you," said Karen. "And I understand." + +Madame von Marwitz stared at her for another silent moment. "Yes," she +then said, "you are sorry for me. You understand. It is my child's great +heart. And you forgive me, Karen?" + +Again came silence; then, restlessly turning her head as if the effort +to think pained her, Karen said, "What do you mean by forgiveness?" + +"I mean pity, Karen," said Madame von Marwitz. "And compassion, and +tenderness. To be forgiven is to be taken back." + +"Taken back?" Karen repeated. "But I do not feel that I love you any +longer." She spoke in a dull, calm voice. + +Madame von Marwitz remained kneeling for some moments longer. Then a +dark flush mounted to her face. She became aware that her knees were +stiff with kneeling and her cheeks salt with tears. Her head ached and a +feeling of nausea made her giddy. She rose and looked about her with dim +eyes. + +A small wooden chair stood against the wall at a little distance from +the bed. She went to it and sank down upon it, and leaning her head upon +her hand she wept softly to herself. Her desolation was extreme. + +Karen listened to her for a long time, and without any emotion. Now that +the horror had passed, her only feeling was one of sorrow and +oppression. She was very sorry for the weeping woman; but she wished +that she would go away. And her mind at last wandered from the thought +of Tante. "Where is Franz?" she asked. + +The fount of Madame von Marwitz's tears was exhausted. She dried her +eyes and cheeks. She blew her nose. She gathered together her thoughts. +"Karen," she said, "I will not speak of myself. You say that you do not +love me. I can only pray that my love for you may in time win you to me +again. Never again, I know it, can I stand before you, untarnished, as I +stood before; but I will trust my child's deep heart as strength once +more comes to her. Pity will grow to love. I will love you; that will be +enough. But I have come to you not only as a mother to her child. I have +come to you as a friend to whom your welfare is of the first importance. +I have much to say to you, Karen." + +Madame von Marwitz rose. She went to the washhand-stand and bathed her +face. The triumph that she had held in her hand seemed melting through +her fingers; but, thinking rapidly and deeply, she drew the scattered +threads of the plan together once more, faced her peril and computed her +resources. + +The still face on the pillow was unchanged, its eyes still calmly +closed. She could not attempt to take the hand of this alien Karen, nor +even to touch her sleeve. She went back to her chair. + +"Karen," she said, "if you cannot love me, you can still think of me as +your friend and counsellor. I am glad to hear you speak of our Franz. +That lights my way. I have had much talk with our good and faithful +Franz. Together we have faced all that there is of difficult and sad to +face. My child shall be spared all that could trouble her. Franz and I +are beside you through it all. Your husband, Karen, is to divorce you +because of Franz. You are to be set free, my child." + +A strange thing happened then. If Madame von Marwitz had plunged a +dagger into Karen's heart, the change that transformed her deathly face +could hardly have been more violent. It was as if all the amazed and +desperate life fled to her eyes and lips and cheeks. Colour flooded her. +Her eyes opened and shone. Her lips parted, trembled, uttered a loud +cry. She turned her head and looked at her guardian. Her dream was with +her. What was that loud cry for help, hers or his? + +Madame von Marwitz looked back and her face, too, was changed. +Realizations, till then evaded, flashed over it as though from Karen's +it caught the bright up-flaming of the truth. Fear followed, darkening +it. Karen's truth threatened the whole fabric of the plan, threatened +her life in all that it held of value. Resentment for a moment convulsed +it. Then, with a steady mastery, yet the glance, sunken, sickened, of +one who holds off disabling pity while he presses out a fluttering life +beneath his hand, she said: "Yes, my child. Your wild adventure is +known. You have been here for days and nights with this young man who +loves you and he has given you his name. Your husband seizes the +opportunity to free himself. Can you not rejoice, Karen, that it is to +set you free also? It is of that only that I have thought. I have +rejoiced for you. And I have told Franz that I will stand by you and by +him so that no breath of shame or difficulty shall touch you. In me you +have the staunchest friend." + +Madame von Marwitz, while she addressed these remarks to the strange, +vivid face that stared at her with wide and shining eyes, was aware of a +sense of nausea and giddiness so acute that she feared she might succumb +to sickness. She put her hand before her eyes, reflecting that she must +have some food if she were to think clearly. She sat thus for some +moments, struggling against the invading weakness. When she looked up +again, the flame whose up-leaping had so arrested her, which had, to be +just, so horrified her, was fallen to ashes. + +Karen's eyes were closed. A bitter composure, like that sometimes seen +on the face of the dead, folded her lips. + +Madame von Marwitz, suddenly afraid, rose and went to her and stooped +over her. And, for a dreadful moment, she did not know whether it was +with fear or hope that she scanned the deathly face. Abysses of horror +seemed to fall within her as she thus bent over Karen and wondered +whether she had died. + +It had been a foolish fear. The child had not even fainted. Madame von +Marwitz's breath came back to her, almost in a sob, as, not opening her +eyes, Karen repeated her former question: "Where is Franz?" + +"He will be back soon; Franz will soon be here," said Madame von Marwitz +gently and soothingly. + +"I must see him," said Karen. + +"You shall. You shall see him, my Karen," said Madame von Marwitz. "You +are with those who love you. Have no fear. Franz is of my mind in this +matter, Karen. You will not wish to defend yourself against your +husband's suit, is it not so? Defence, I fear, my Karen, would be +useless. The chain of evidence against you is complete. But even if it +were not, if there were defence to make, you would not wish to sue to +your husband to take you back?" + +Karen still with closed eyes, turned her head away on the pillow. "Let +him be free," she said. "He knows that I wished him to be free. When I +left him I told him that I hoped to set him free. Let him believe that I +have done so." + +Madame von Marwitz still leaned above her and, as when Franz had +imparted the unlooked-for tidings of Karen's reticence, so now her eyes +dilated with a deepened hope. + +"You told him so, Karen?" she repeated gently, after a moment. + +"Yes," said Karen, "I told him so. I shall make no defence. Will you go +now? I am tired. And will you send Franz to me when he comes back?" + +"Yes, my child; yes," said Madame von Marwitz. "It is well. I will be +below. I will watch over you." She raised herself at last. "There is +nothing that I can do for you, my Karen?" + +"Nothing," said Karen. Her voice, too, seemed sinking into ashes. + +Madame von Marwitz opened the door to the dark little staircase and +closed it. In the cloaking darkness she paused and leaned against the +wall. "_Bon Dieu!_" she murmured to herself "_Bon Dieu!_" + +She felt sick. She wished to sleep. But she could not sleep yet. She +must eat and restore her strength. And she had letters to write; a +letter to Mrs. Forrester, a letter to Frau Lippheim, and a note to +Tallie. It was as if she had thrown her shuttle across a vast loom that, +drawing her after the thread she held, enmeshed her now with all the +others in its moving web. She no longer wove; she was being woven into +the pattern. Even if she would she could not extricate herself. + +The thought of this overmastering destiny sustained and fortified her. +She went on down the stairs and into the little sitting-room. + + + + +CHAPTER XLIV + + +The days that passed after her arrival at the inn were to live in Madame +von Marwitz's memory as a glare of intolerable anxiety, obliterating all +details in its heat and urgency. She might, during the hours when she +knelt supplicating beside Karen's bed, have been imaged as a furnace and +Karen as a corpse lying in it, strangely unconsumed, passive and +unresponsive. There was no cruelty in Karen's coldness, no unkindness +even. Pity and comprehension were there; but they were rocks against +which Madame von Marwitz dashed herself in vain. + +When she would slip from her kneeling position and lie grovelling and +groaning on the ground, Karen sometimes would say: "Please get up. +Please don't cry," in a tone of distress. But when the question, +repeated in every key, came: "Karen, will you not love me again?" +Karen's answer was a helpless silence. + +Schooling the fury of her eagerness, and in another mood, Madame von +Marwitz, after long cogitations in the little sitting-room, would mount +to point out to Karen that to persist in her refusal to marry Franz, +when she was freed, would be to disgrace herself and him, and to this +Karen monotonously and immovably would reply that she would not marry +Franz. + +Madame von Marwitz had not been able to keep from her beyond the evening +of the first day that Franz had gone. "To Germany, my Karen, where he +will wait for you." Karen's eyes had dwelt widely, but dully, on her +when she made this announcement and she had spoken no word; nor had she +made any comment on Madame von Marwitz's further explanations. + +"He felt it right to go at once, now that I had come, and bring no +further scandal on your head. He would not have you waked to say +good-bye." + +Karen lay silent, but the impassive bitterness deepened on her lips. +When Franz's first letter to Karen arrived Madame von Marwitz opened, +read and destroyed it. It revealed too plainly, in its ingenuous +solicitude and sorrow, the coercion under which Franz had departed. Yes; +the plan was there and they were all enmeshed in it; but what was to +happen if Karen would not marry Franz? How could that be made to match +the story she had now written to Mrs. Forrester? And what was to happen +if Karen refused to come with her? It would not do, Madame von Marwitz +saw that clearly, for an alienated Karen to be taken to the Lippheims'. +Comparisons and disclosures would ensue that would send the loom, with a +mighty whirr, weaving rapidly in an opposite direction to that of the +plan. Franz, in Germany, must be pacified, and Karen be carried off to +some lovely, lonely spot until the husband's suit was safely won. It was +not fatal to the plan that Karen should be supposed, finally, to refuse +to marry Franz; that might be mitigated, explained away when the time +came; but a loveless Karen at large in the world was a figure only less +terrifying than a Karen reunited to her husband. She felt as if she had +drawn herself up from the bottom of the well where Karen's flight had +precipitated her and as if, breathing the air, seeing the light of the +happy world, she swung in a circle, clutching her wet rope, horrible +depths below her and no helping hand put out to draw her to the brink. + +Gregory's letter in answer to the letter she had sent to Mrs. Forrester, +with the request that he should be informed of its contents, came on the +second morning. It fortified her. There was no questioning; no doubt. He +formally assured her that he would at once take steps to set Karen free. + +"Ah, he does not love her, that is evident," said Madame von Marwitz to +herself, and with a sense of quieted pulses. The letter was shown to +Karen. + +Mrs. Forrester's note was not quite reassuring. It, also, accepted her +story; but its dismay constituted a lack of sympathy, even, Madame von +Marwitz felt, a reproach. + +She wrote of Gregory's broken heart. She lamented the breach that had +come between him and Karen and made this disaster possible. + +Miss Scrotton's paean was what it inevitably would be. From Tallie came +no word, and this implied that Tallie, too, was convinced, though +Tallie, no doubt, was furious, and would, as usual, lay the blame on +her. + +Danger, however, lurked in Tallie's direction, and until she was safely +out of England with Karen she should not feel herself secure. +Pertinaciously and blandly she insisted to the doctor that Frau Lippheim +was now quite well enough to make a short sea voyage. She would secure +the best of yachts and the best of trained nurses, and a little voyage +would be the very thing for her. The doctor was recalcitrant, and Madame +von Marwitz was in terror lest, during the moments they spent by her +bedside, Karen should burst forth in a sudden appeal to him. + +A change for the worse, very much for the worse, had, he said, come over +his patient. He was troubled and perplexed. "Has anything happened to +disturb her?" he asked in the little sitting-room, and something in his +chill manner reminded her unpleasantly of Gregory Jardine;--"her +husband's sudden departure?" + +Madame von Marwitz felt it advisable, then, to take the doctor into her +confidence. He grew graver as she spoke. He looked at her with eyes more +scrutinizing, more troubled and more perplexed. But, reluctantly, he saw +her point. The unfortunate young woman upstairs, a fugitive from her +husband, must be spared the shock of a possible brutal encounter. +Perhaps, in a day or two, it might be possible to move her. She could be +taken in her bed to Southampton and carried on board the yacht. + +Madame von Marwitz wired at once and secured the yacht. + +It was after this interview with the doctor, after the sending of the +wire, that she mounted the staircase to Karen's room with the most +difficult part of her task still before her. She had as yet not openly +broached to Karen the question of what the immediate future should be. +She approached it now by a circuitous way, seating herself near Karen's +bed and unfolding and handing to her a letter she had that morning +received from Franz. It was a letter she could show. Franz was in +Germany. + +"The dear Franz. The good Franz," Madame von Marwitz mused, when Karen +had finished and her weak hand dropped with the letter to the sheet. "No +woman had ever a truer friend than Franz. You see how he writes, Karen. +He will never trouble you with his hopes." + +"No; Franz will never trouble me," said Karen. + +"Poor Franz," Madame von Marwitz repeated. "He will be seen by the world +as a man who refuses to marry his mistress when she is freed." + +"I am not his mistress," said Karen, who, for all her apathy, could show +at moments a disconcerting vehemence. + +"You will be thought so, my child." + +"Not by him," said Karen. + +"No; not by him," Madame von Marwitz assented with melancholy. + +"Not by his mother and sisters," said Karen. "And not by Mrs. Talcott." + +"Nor by me, my Karen," said Madame von Marwitz with a more profound +gloom. + +"No; not by you. No one who knows me will think so," said Karen. + +Madame von Marwitz paused after this for a few moments. Experience had +taught her that to abandon herself to her grief was not the way to move +Karen. When she spoke again it was in a firm, calm voice. + +"Listen, my Karen," she said. "I see that you are fixed in this resolve +and I will plead with you no further. I will weary you no more. Remember +only, in fairness, that it is for your sake that I have pleaded. You +will be divorced; so be it. And you will not marry Franz. But after this +Karen? and until this?" + +Karen lay silent for a moment and then turned her head restlessly away. + +"Why do you ask me? How can I tell?" she said. "I wish to go to Frau +Lippheim. When I am well again I wish to work and make my living." + +"But, my Karen," said Madame von Marwitz with great gentleness, "do you +not see that for you to go to Franz's mother now, in her joy and belief +in you, is a cruelty? Later on, yes; you could then perhaps go to her, +though it will be at any time, with this scandal behind you, to place +our poor Lise, our poor Franz, in an ambiguous position indeed. But now, +Karen? While the case is going on? Your husband says, you remember, that +he starts proceedings at once." + +Karen lay still. And suddenly the tears ran down her cheeks. "Why cannot +I see Franz?" she said. "Why do you ask me questions that I cannot +answer? How do I know what I shall do?" She sobbed, quick, dry, alarming +sobs. + +"Karen--my Karen," Madame von Marwitz murmured, "do not weep, my dear +one. You exhaust yourself. Do not speak so harshly to me, Karen. Will +you let me think for you? See, my child, I accept all. I ask for +nothing. You do not forgive me--oh, not truely--you do not love me. Our +old life is dead. I have killed it with my own hand. I see it all, +Karen. And I accept my doom. But even so, can you not be merciful to me +and let me help you now? Do not break my heart, my child. Do not crush +me down into the dust. Come with me. I will take you to quiet and +beautiful shores. I will trouble you in nothing. There will be no more +pleading; no more urgency. You shall do as it pleases you in all things, +and I will ask only to watch over you. Let me do this until you are free +and can choose your own life. Do not tell me that you hate me so much +that you will not do this for me." + +Her voice was weighted with its longing, its humility, its tenderness. +The sound of it seemed to beat its way to Karen through mists that lay +about her as Tante's cries and tears had not done. A sharper thrust of +pity pierced her. "I do not hate you," she said. "You must not think +that. I understand and I am very sorry. But I do not love you. I shall +not love you again. And how could I come with you? You said--what did +you say that night?" She put her hand before her eyes in the effort of +memory. "That I was ungrateful;--that you fed and clothed me;--that I +took all and gave nothing. And other, worse things; you said them to me. +How can that be again? How could I come with a person who said those +things to me?" + +"Oh--but--my child--" Madame von Marwitz's voice trembled in its hope and +fear, though she restrained herself from rising and bending to the girl: +"did I not make you believe me when I told you that I was mad? Do you +not know that the vile words were the weapons I took up against you in +my madness? That you gave nothing, Karen? When you are my only stay in +life, the only thing near me in the world--you and Tallie--the thing +that I have thought of as mine--as if you were my child. And if you came +to me now you would give still more. If it is known that you will not +return--that you will not forgive me and come with me--I am disgraced, +my child. All the world will believe that I have been cruel to you. All +the world will believe that you hate me and that hatred is all that I +have deserved from you." + +Karen again had put her hand to her head. "What do you mean?" she +questioned faintly. "Will it help you if I come with you?" + +Madame von Marwitz steadied her voice that now shook with rising sobs. +"If you will not come I am ruined." + +"You ask to have me to come--though I do not love you?" + +"I ask you to come--on any terms, my Karen. And because I love you; +because you will always be the thing dearest in the world to me." + +"I could go to Frau Lippheim, if you would help to send me to her," said +Karen, still holding her hand to her head; "I could, I am sure, explain +to her and to Franz so that they would not blame me. But people must not +think that I hate you." + +"No; no?" Madame von Marwitz hardly breathed. + +"They must not think that; for it is not true. I do not love you, but I +have no hatred for you," said Karen. + +"You will come then, Karen?" + +Still with her eyes hidden the girl hesitated as if bewildered by the +pressure of new realisations. "You would leave me much alone? You would +not talk to me? I should be quiet?" + +"Oh, my Karen--quiet--quiet--" Madame von Marwitz was now sobbing. "You +will send for me if you feel that you can see me; unless you send I do +not obtrude myself on you. You will have an attendant of your own. All +shall be as you wish." + +"And when I am free I may choose my own life?" + +"Free! free! the world before you! all that I have at your feet, to +spurn or stoop to!" Tante moaned incoherently. + +"When will it be--that we must go?" Karen then, more faintly, asked. +Madame von Marwitz had risen to her feet. In her ecstasy of gladness she +could have clapped her hands above her head and danced. And the strong +control she put upon herself gave to her face almost the grimace of a +child that masters its weeping. She was drawn from her well. She stood +upon firm ground. "In two days, my child, if you are strong enough. In +two days we will set sail." + +"In two days," Karen repeated. And, dully, she repeated again; "I come +with you in two days." + +Madame von Marwitz now noticed that tears ran from under the hand. These +tears of Karen's alarmed her. She had not wept at all before to-day. + +"My child is worn and tired. She would rest. Is it not so? Shall I leave +her?" she leaned above the girl to ask. + +"Yes; I am tired," said Karen. + +And leaning there, above the hidden face, above the heart wrung with its +secret agony, in all her ecstasy and profound relief, Madame von Marwitz +knew one of the bitterest moments of her life. She had gained safety. +But what was her loss, her irreparable loss? In the dark little +staircase she leaned, as on the day of her coming, against the wall, and +murmured, as she had murmured then: "_Bon Dieu! Bon Dieu!_" But the +words were broken by the sobs that, now uncontrollably, shook her as she +stumbled on in the darkness. + + + + +CHAPTER XLV + + +Some years had passed since Mrs. Talcott had been in London, and it +seemed to her, coming up from her solitudes, noisier, more crowded, more +oppressive than when she had seen it last. She had a jaded yet an acute +eye for its various aspects, as she drove from Paddington towards St. +James's, and a distaste, born of her many years of life in cities, took +more definite shape in her, even while the excitement of the movement +and uproar accompanied not inappropriately the strong impulses that +moved her valorous soul. + +Mrs. Talcott wore a small, round, black straw hat trimmed with a black +bow. It was the shape that she had worn for years; it was unaffected by +the weather and indifferent to the shifting of fashion. Her neck-gear +was the one invariable with her in the daytime; a collar of lawn turned +down over a black silk stock. About her shoulders was a black cloth +cape. Sitting there in her hansom, she looked very old, and she looked +also very national and typical; the adventurous, indomitable old girl of +America, bent on seeing all that there was to see, emerged for the first +time in her life from her provinces, and carrying, it might have been, a +Baedeker under her arm. + +It was many years since Mrs. Talcott had passed beyond the need of +Baedekers, and her provinces were a distant memory; yet she, too, was +engaged, like the old American girl, in the final adventure of her life. +She did not know, as she drove along in her hansom with her shabby +little box on the roof, whether she were ever to see Les Solitudes +again. + +"Carry it right up," she said to the porter at the mansions in St. +James's when she arrived there. "I've come for the night, I expect." + +The porter had told her that Mr. Jardine had come in. And he looked at +Mrs. Talcott curiously. + +At the door of Gregory's flat Mrs. Talcott encountered a check. Barker, +mournful and low-toned as an undertaker, informed her firmly that Mr. +Jardine was seeing nobody. He fixed an astonished eye upon Mrs. +Talcott's box which was being taken from the lift. + +"That's all right," said Mrs. Talcott. "Mr. Jardine'll see me. You tell +him that Mrs. Talcott is here." + +She had walked past Barker into the hall and her box was placed beside +her. + +Barker was very much disconcerted, yet he felt Mrs. Talcott to be a +person of weight. He ushered her into the drawing-room. + +In the late sunlight it was as gay and as crisp as ever, but for the +lack of flowers, and the Bouddha still sat presiding in his golden +niche. + +"Mr. Jardine is in the smoking-room, Madam," said Barker, and, gauging +still further the peculiar significance of this guest whose name he now +recovered as one familiar to him on letters, he added in a low voice: +"He has not used this room since Mrs. Jardine left us." + +"Is that so?" said Mrs. Talcott gravely. "Well, you go and bring him +here right away." + +Mrs. Talcott stood in the centre of the room when Barker had gone and +gazed at the Bouddha. And again her figure strongly suggested that of +the sight-seer, unperturbed and adequate amidst strange and alien +surroundings. Gregory found her before the Bouddha when he came in. If +Mrs. Talcott had been in any doubt as to one of the deep intuitions that +had, from the first, sustained her, Gregory's face would have reassured +her. It had a look of suffocated grief; it was ravaged; it asked nothing +and gave nothing; it was fixed on its one devouring preoccupation. + +"How do you do, Mrs. Talcott," he said. They shook hands. His voice was +curiously soft. + +"I've come up, you see," said Mrs. Talcott. "I've come up to see you, +Mr. Jardine." + +"Yes?" said Gregory gently. He had placed a chair for her but, when she +sat down, he remained standing. He did not, it was evident, imagine her +errand to be one that would require a prolonged attention from him. + +"Mr. Jardine," said Mrs. Talcott, "what was your idea when you first +found out about Karen from the detective and asked me not to tell?" + +Gregory collected his thoughts, with difficulty. "I don't know that I +had any idea," he answered. "I was stunned. I wanted time to think." + +"And you hoped it wasn't true, perhaps?" + +"No; I hadn't any hope. I knew it was true. Karen had said things to me +that made it nothing of a surprise. But perhaps my idea was that she +would be sorry for what she had done and write to me, or to you. I think +I wanted to give Karen time." + +"Well, and then?" Mrs. Talcott asked. "If she had written?" + +"Well, then, I'd have gone to her." + +"You'd have taken her back?" + +"If she would have come, of course," said Gregory, in his voice of +wraith-like gentleness. + +"You wanted her back if she'd gone off with another man like that and +didn't love you any more?" + +Gregory was silent for a moment and she saw that her persistence +troubled and perplexed him. + +"As to love," he said, "Karen was a child in some things. I believe that +she would have grown to love me if her guardian hadn't come between us. +And it might have been to escape from her guardian as well as with the +idea of freeing herself from me that she took refuge with this man. I am +convinced that her guardian behaved badly to her. It's rather difficult +for me to talk to you, Mrs. Talcott," said Gregory, "though I am +grateful for your kindness, because I so inexpressibly detest a person +whom you care for." + +"Mr. Jardine," said Mrs. Talcott, fixing her eyes upon him, "I want to +say something right here, so as there shan't be any mistake about it. +You were right about Mercedes, all along; do you take that in? I don't +want to say any more about Mercedes than I've got to; I've cut loose +from my moorings, but I guess I do care more about Mercedes than +anyone's ever done who's known her as well as I do. But you were right +about her. And I'm your friend and I'm Karen's friend, and it pretty +near killed me when all this happened." + +Gregory now had taken a chair before her and his eyes, with a new look, +gazed deeply into hers as she went on: "I wouldn't have accepted what +your letter said, not for a minute, if I hadn't got Mercedes's next +thing and if I hadn't seen that Mercedes, for a wonder, wasn't telling +lies. I was a mighty sick woman, Mr. Jardine, for a few days; I just +seemed to give up. But then I got to thinking. I got to thinking, and +the more I thought the more I couldn't lie there and take it. I thought +about Mercedes, and what she's capable of; and I thought about you and +how I felt dead sure you loved Karen; and I thought about that poor +child and all she'd gone through; and the long and short of it was that +I felt it in my bones that Mercedes was up to mischief. Karen sent for +her, she said; but I don't believe Karen sent for her;--I believe she +got wind somehow of where Karen was and lit out before I could stop her; +yes, I was away that day, Mr. Jardine, and when I came back I found that +three ladies had come for Mercedes and she'd made off with them. It may +be true about Karen; she may have done this wicked thing; but if she's +done it I don't believe it's the way Mercedes says she has. And I've +worked it out to this: you must see Karen, Mr. Jardine; you must have it +from her own mouth that she loves Franz and wants to go off with him and +marry him before you give her up." + +Gregory's face, as these last words were spoken, showed a delicate +stiffening. "She won't see me," he said. + +"Who says so?" asked Mrs. Talcott. + +"Don't imagine that I'd have accepted her guardian's word for it," said +Gregory, "but everything Madame von Marwitz has written has been merely +corroborative. She told us that Karen was there with this man and I knew +it already. She said that Karen had begun to look to him as a rescuer +from me on the day she saw him here in London, and what I remembered of +that day bore it out. She said that I should remember that on the night +we parted Karen told me that she would try to set herself free. Karen +has confided in her; it was true. And it's true, isn't it, that Karen +was in terror of falling into my hands. You can't deny this, can you? +Why should I torture Karen and myself by seeing her?" said Gregory. He +had averted his eyes as he spoke. + +"But do you want her back, Mr. Jardine?" Mrs. Talcott had faced his +catalogue of evidence immovably. + +"Not if she loves this man," said Gregory. "And that's the final fact. I +know Karen; she couldn't have done this unless she loved him. The +provocation wasn't extreme enough otherwise. She wouldn't, from sheer +generosity, disgrace herself to free me, especially since she knew that +I considered that that would be to disgrace me, too. No; her guardian's +story has all the marks of truth on it. She loves the man and she had +planned to meet him. And all I've got to do now is to see that she is +free to marry him as soon as possible." He got up as he spoke and walked +up and down the room. + +Mrs. Talcott's eye followed him and his despair seemed a fuel to her +faith. "Mr. Jardine," she said, after a moment of silence, "I'll stake +my life on it you're wrong. I know Karen better than you do; I guess +women understand each other better than a man ever understands them. The +bed-rock fact about a woman is that she'll hide the thing she feels most +and she'll say what she hopes ain't true so as to give the man a chance +for convincing her it ain't true. And the blamed foolishness of the man +is that he never does. He just goes off, sick and mournful, and leaves +her to fight it out the best she can. Karen don't love Franz Lippheim, +Mr. Jardine; nothing'll make me believe she loves him. And nothing'll +make me believe but what you could have got her to stay that time she +left you if you'd understood women better. She loves you, Mr. Jardine, +though she mayn't know it, and it's on the cards she knows it so well +that she's dead scared of showing it. Because Karen's a wife through and +through; can't you see it in her face? You're youngish yet, and a man, +so I don't feel as angry with you as you deserve, perhaps, for not +understanding better and for letting Karen get it into her head you +didn't love her any more; for that's what she believes, Mr. Jardine. And +what I'm as sure of as that my name's Hannah Talcott is that she'll +never get over you. She's that kind of woman; a rare kind; rocky; she +don't change. And if she's gone and done this thing, like it appears she +has, it isn't in the way Mercedes says; it's only to set you free and to +get away from the fear of being handed over to a man who don't love her. +For she didn't understand, either, Mr. Jardine. Women are blamed foolish +in their way, too." + +Gregory had stopped in his walk and was standing before Mrs. Talcott +looking down at her; and while Mrs. Talcott fixed the intense blue of +her eyes upon him he became aware of an impression almost physical in +its vividness. It was as if Mrs. Talcott were the most wise, most +skilful, most benevolent of doctors who, by some miraculous modern +invention, were pumping blood into his veins from her own +superabundance. It seemed to find its way along hardened arteries, to +creep, to run, to tingle; to spread with a radiant glow through all his +chilled and weary body. Hope and fear mounted in him suddenly. + +He could not have said, after that, exactly what happened, but he could +afterwards recall, brokenly, that he must have shed tears; for his first +distinct recollection was that he was leaning against the end of the +piano and that Mrs. Talcott, who had risen, was holding him by the hand +and saying: "There now, yes, I guess you've had a pretty bad time. You +hang on, Mr. Jardine, and we'll get her back yet." + +He wanted to put his head on Mrs. Talcott's shoulder and be held by her +to her broad breast for a long time; but, since such action would have +been startlingly uncharacteristic of them both, he only, when he could +speak, thanked her. + +"What shall I do, now?" he asked. He was in Mrs. Talcott's hands. "It's +no good writing to Karen. Madame von Marwitz will intercept my letter if +what you believe is true. Shall we go down to the New Forest directly? +Shall I force my way in on Karen?" + +"That's just what you'll have to do; I don't doubt it," said Mrs. +Talcott. "And I'll go with you, to manage Mercedes while you get hold of +Karen. And I'm not fit for it till I've had a night's rest, so we'll go +down first thing to-morrow, Mr. Jardine. I'm spending the night here so +as we can talk it all out to-night. But first I'm going round to Mrs. +Forrester's. If I'm right, Mr. Jardine, and there ain't any 'if' about +it in my own mind, it's important that people should know what the truth +is now, before we go. We don't want to have to seem to work up a story +to shield Karen if she comes back to you. I'm going to Mrs. Forrester's +and I'm going to that mighty silly woman, Miss Scrotton, and I'll have +to tell them a thing or two that'll make them sit up." + +"But wait first, you must be so tired. Do have some tea first," Gregory +urged, as the indomitable old woman made her way towards the door. "And +what can you say to them, after all? We are sure of nothing." + +Mrs. Talcott paused with her hand on the door knob; "I'm sure of one +thing, and they've got to hear it; and that is that Mercedes treated +Karen so bad she had to go. Mercedes isn't going to get let off that. I +told her so. I told her I'd come right up and tell her friends about her +if she stole a march on me, and that's what she's done. Yes," said Mrs. +Talcott, opening the door, "I've cut loose from my moorings and +Mercedes's friends have got to hear the truth of that story and I'm +going to see that they do right away. Good-bye, Mr. Jardine. I don't +want any tea; I'll be back in time for dinner, I guess." + + + + +CHAPTER XLVI + + +Peace had descended upon the little room where Karen lay, cold, still +peace. There were no longer any tears or clamour, no appeals and +agonies. Tante was often with her; but she seldom spoke now and Karen +had ceased to feel more than a dull discomfort when she came into the +room. + +Tante smiled at her with the soft, unmurmuring patience of her exile, +she tended her carefully, she told her that in a day or two, at +furthest, they would be out at sea in the most beautiful of yachts. "All +has been chosen for my child," she said. "The nurse meets us at +Southampton and we wing our way straight to Sicily." + +Karen was willing that anything should be done with her except the one +thing. It had surprised her to find how much it meant to Tante that she +should consent to go back to her. It had not been difficult to consent, +when she understood that that was all that Tante wanted and why she +wanted it so much. It was the easier since in her heart she believed +that she was dying. + +All these days it had been like holding her way through a whirlpool. The +foam and uproar of the water had beat upon her fragile bark of life, had +twisted it and turned it again and again to the one goal where she would +not be. Tante had been the torrent, at once stealthy and impetuous, and +the goal where she had wished to drive her had been marriage to Franz. +Karen had known no fear of yielding, it would have been impossible to +her to yield; yet she had thought sometimes that the bark would crack +under the onslaught of the torrent and she be dragged down finally to +unconsciousness. + +All that torment was over. She seemed to be sliding rapidly and smoothly +down a misty river. She could see no banks, no sky; all was white, soft, +silent. There was no strength left in her with which to struggle against +the thought of death, no strength with which to fear it. + +But, as she lay in the little room, her hands folded on her breast, +corpse-like already in her placidity, something wailed within her and +lamented. And sometimes tears rose slowly and swelled her eyelids and +she felt herself a creature coffined and underground, put away and +forgotten, though not yet a creature dead. Her heart in the darkness +still lived and throbbed. Thoughts of Gregory were with her always, +memories of him and of their life together which, now that she had lost +him forever, she might cherish. She felt, though she lay so still, that +she put out her hands always, in supplication, to Gregory. He would +forget her, or remember her only as his disgrace. It seemed to her that +if she could feel Gregory lean to her and kiss her forehead in +tenderness and reconciliation her breath could sweetly cease. + +The day before the departure was come and it was a warm, quiet +afternoon. Tante had been with her in the morning, engaged in +preparations for the journey. She had brought to show to Karen the +exquisite nightgowns and wrappers, of softest wool and silk, that she +was to wear on the yacht. The long cloak, too, of silk all lined with +swansdown, such a garment as the tenderest, most cherished of mortals +should wear. This was for Karen when she lay on deck in the sun. And +there was a heavier fur-lined cloak for chilly days and the loveliest of +shoes and stockings and scarves. All these things Tante had sent for for +Karen, and Karen thanked her, as she displayed them before her, gently +and coldly. She felt that Tante was piteous at these moments, but +nothing in her was moved towards her. Already she was dead to Tante. + +She was alone now, again, and she would not see Tante till tea-time. +Tante had asked her if she could sleep and she had said yes. She lay +with eyes closed, vaguely aware of the sounds that rose to her from the +room beneath, where Tante was engaged with the landlady in arranging the +new possessions in boxes, and of the fainter sounds from the road in +front of the house. Wheels rolled up and stopped. They often came, +during these last days; Tante's purchases were arriving by every post. +And the voices below seemed presently to alter in pitch and rhythm, +mounting to her in a sonorous murmur, dully rising and falling. Karen +listened in indifference. + +But suddenly there came another sound and this was sharp and near. + +There was only one window in the little room; it was open, and it looked +out at the back of the house over a straggling garden set round with +trees and shrubberies. The sound was outside the window, below it and +approaching it, the strangest sound, scratching, cautious, deliberate. + +Karen opened her eyes and fixed them on the window. The tree outside +hardly stirred against the blue spring sky. Someone was climbing up to +her window. + +She felt no fear and little surprise. She wondered, placidly, fixing her +eyes upon the patterned square of blue and green. And upon this +background, like that of some old Italian picture, there rose the head +and shoulders of Mrs. Talcott. + +Karen raised herself on her elbow and stared. The river stopped in its +gliding; the mists rolled away; the world rocked and swayed and settled +firmly into a solid, visible reality; Mrs. Talcott's face and her round +black straw hat and her black caped shoulders, hoisting themselves up to +the window-sill. Never in her life was she to forget the silhouette on +the sky and the branching tree, nor Mrs. Talcott's resolute, large, old, +face, nor the gaze that Mrs. Talcott's eyes fixed on her as she came. + +Mrs. Talcott put her knee on the window-sill and then struggled for a +moment, her foot engaged in the last rung of the ladder; then she turned +and stepped down backwards into the room. + +Karen, raised on her elbow, was trembling. + +"Lay down, honey," said Mrs. Talcott, gently and gravely, as they looked +at each other; and, as she came towards the bed, Karen obeyed her and +joined her hands together. "Oh, will you come with us?" she breathed. +"Will you stay with me? I can live if you stay with me, Mrs. +Talcott--dear Mrs. Talcott." + +She stretched out her hands to her, and Mrs. Talcott, sitting down on +the bed beside her, took her in her arms. + +"You're all right, now, honey. I'm not going to leave you," she said, +stroking back Karen's hair. + +Karen leaned her head against her breast, and closed her eyes. + +"Listen, honey," said Mrs. Talcott, who spoke in low, careful tones: "I +want to ask you something. Do you love Franz Lippheim? Just answer me +quiet and easy now. I'm right here, and you're as safe as safe can be." + +Karen, on Mrs. Talcott's breast, shook her head. "Oh, no, Mrs. Talcott; +you could not believe that. Why should I love dear Franz?" + +"Then it's only so as to set your husband free that you're marrying +Franz?" Mrs. Talcott went on in the same even voice. + +"But no, Mrs. Talcott," said Karen, "I am not going to marry Franz." And +now she lifted her head and looked at Mrs. Talcott. "Why do you ask me +that? Who has told you that I am to marry Franz?" + +Mrs. Talcott, keeping an arm around her, laid her back on the pillow. + +"But, Karen, if you run off like that with Franz and come here and stay +as his wife," she said, "and get your husband to divorce you by acting +so, it's natural that people should think that you're going to marry the +young man, ain't it?" + +A burning red had mounted to Karen's wasted cheeks. Her sunken eyes +dwelt on Mrs. Talcott with a sort of horror. "It is true," she said. "He +may think that; he must think that; because unless he does he cannot +divorce me and set himself free, and he must be free, Mrs. Talcott; he +has said that he wishes to be free. But I did not run away with Franz. I +met him, on the headland, that morning, and he was to take me to his +mother, and I was so ill that he brought me here. That was all." + +Mrs. Talcott smoothed back her hair. "Take it easy, honey," she said. +"There's nothing to worry over one mite. And now I've asked my questions +and had my answers, and I've got something to tell. Karen, child, it's +all been a pack of lies that Mercedes has told so as to get hold of you, +and so as he shouldn't--so as your husband shouldn't, Karen. Listen, +honey: your husband loves you just for all he's worth. I've seen him. I +went up to him. And he told me how you were all the world to him, and +how, if only you didn't love this young man and didn't want to be free, +he'd do anything to get you back, and how if you'd done the wicked thing +he'd been told and then gotten sorry, he'd want you back just the same +because you were his dear wife, and the one woman he loved. But he +couldn't force himself on you if you loved someone else and hated him. +So I just told him that I didn't believe you loved Franz; and I got him +to hope it, too, and we came down together, Karen, and Mercedes is like +a lion at bay downstairs, and she's in front of that door that leads up +here and swears it'll kill you to see us; and I'd seen the ladder +leaning on the wall and I just nipped out while she was talking, and +brought it round to what I calculated would be your window and climbed +up, and that's what I've come to tell you, Karen, that he loves you, and +that he's downstairs, and that he's waiting to know whether you'll see +him." + +Mrs. Talcott rose and stood by the bed looking down into Karen's eyes. +"Honey, I can bring him up, can't I?" she asked. + +Karen's eyes looked up at her with an intensity that had passed beyond +joy or appeal. Her life was concentrated in her gaze. + +"You would not lie to me?" she said. "It is not pity? He loves me?" + +"No, I wouldn't lie to you, dearie," said Mrs. Talcott, with infinite +tenderness; "lies ain't my line. It's not pity. He loves you, Karen." + +"Bring him," Karen whispered. "I have always loved him. Don't let me die +before he comes." + + + + +CHAPTER XLVII + + +Mrs. Talcott, as she descended the staircase, heard in the little +sitting-room a voice, the voice of Mercedes, speaking on and on, in a +deep-toned, continuous roll of vehement demonstration, passionate +protest, subtle threat and pleading. Gregory's voice she did not hear. +No doubt he stood where she had left him, at the other side of the +table, confronting his antagonist. + +Mrs. Talcott turned the knob of the door and slightly pushed it. A heavy +weight at once was flung against it. + +"You shall not come in! You shall not! I forbid it! I will not be +disturbed!" cried the voice of Mercedes, who must, in the moment, have +guessed that she had been foiled. + +"Quit that foolishness," said Mrs. Talcott sternly. She leaned against +the door and forced it open, and Mercedes, dishevelled, with eyes that +seemed to pant on her like eyes from some dangerous jungle, flung +herself once more upon the door and stood with her back against it. + +"Mr. Jardine," said Mrs. Talcott, not looking at her recovered captive, +"Karen is upstairs and wants to see you. She doesn't love Franz Lippheim +and she isn't going to marry him. She didn't run away with him; she met +him when she'd run away from her guardian and he was going to take her +to his mother, only she got sick and he had to bring her here. She was +told that you wanted to divorce her and wanted to be free. She loves +you, Mr. Jardine, and she's waiting up there; only be mighty gentle with +her, because she's been brought to death's door by all that she's been +through." + +"I forbid it! I forbid it!" shrieked Madame von Marwitz from her place +before the door, spreading her arms across it. "She is mad! She is +delirious! The doctor has said so! I have promised Franz that you shall +not come to her unless across my dead body. I have sworn it! I keep my +promise to Franz!" + +Gregory advanced to the door, eyeing her. "Let me pass," he said. "Let +me go to my wife." + +"No! no! and no!" screamed the desperate woman. "You shall not! It will +kill her! You shall be arrested! You wish to kill a woman who has fled +from you! Help! Help!" He had her by the wrists and her teeth seized his +hands. She fought him with incredible fury. + +"Hold on tight, Mr. Jardine," Mrs. Talcott's voice came to him from +below. "There; I've got hold of her ankles. Put her down." + +With a loud, clashing wail through clenched and grinding teeth, Madame +von Marwitz, like a pine-tree uprooted, was laid upon the floor. Mrs. +Talcott knelt at her feet, pinioning them. She looked along the large +white form to Gregory at the other end, who was holding down Madame von +Marwitz's shoulders. "Go on, Mr. Jardine," she said. "Right up those +stairs. She'll calm down now. I've had her like this before." + +Gregory rose, yet paused, torn by his longing, yet fearful of leaving +the old woman with the demoniac creature. But Madame von Marwitz lay as +if in a trance. Her lids were closed. Her breast rose and fell with +heavy, regular breaths. + +"Go on, Mr. Jardine," said Mrs. Talcott. So he left them there. + +He went up the little stairs, dark and warm, and smelling--he was never +to forget the smell--of apples and dust, and entered a small, light room +where a window made a square of blue and green. Beyond it in a narrow +bed lay Karen. She did not move or speak; her eyes were fixed on his; +she did not smile. And as he looked at her Mrs. Talcott's words flashed +in his mind: "Karen's that kind: rocky: she don't change." + +But she had changed. She was his as she had never been, never could have +been, if the sinister presence lying there downstairs had not finally +revealed itself. He knelt beside her and she was in his arms and his +head was laid in the old sacred way beside his darling's head. They did +not seem to speak to each other for a long time nor did they look into +each other's eyes. He held her hand and looked at that, and sometimes +kissed it gently. But after words had come and their eyes had dared to +meet in joy, Karen said to him: "And I must tell you of Franz, Gregory, +dear Franz. He is suffering, I know. He, too, was lied to, and he was +sent away without seeing me again. We will write to Franz at once. And +you will care for my Franz, Gregory?" + +"Yes; I will care for your Franz; bless your Franz," said Gregory, with +tears, his lips on her hand. + +"He came to me like an angel that morning," Karen said in her breath of +voice; "and he has been like a beautiful mother to me; he has taken care +of me like a mother. It was on the headland over Falmouth--that he came. +Oh, Gregory," she turned her face to her husband's breast, "the birds +were beginning to sing and I thought that I should never see you again." + + + + +CHAPTER XLVIII + + +When the door had shut behind Gregory, Madame von Marwitz spoke, her +eyes still closed: + +"Am I now permitted to rise?" + +Mrs. Talcott released her ankles and stood up. + +"You've made a pretty spectacle of yourself, Mercedes," she remarked as +Madame von Marwitz raised herself with extraordinary stateliness. "I've +seen you behave like you were a devil before, but I never saw you behave +like you were quite such a fool. What made you fight him and bite him +like that? What did you expect to gain by it I'd like to know? As if you +could keep that strong young man from his wife." + +Madame von Marwitz had walked to the small mirror over the mantelpiece +and was adjusting her hair. Her face, reflected between a blue and gold +shepherd and shepherdess holding cornucopias of dried honesty, was still +ashen, but she possessed all her faculties. "This is to kill Karen," she +now said. "And yours will be the responsibility." + +"Taken," Mrs. Talcott replied, but with no facetiousness. + +Several of the large tortoiseshell pins that held Madame von Marwitz's +abundant locks were scattered on the floor. She turned and looked for +them, stooped and picked them up. Then returning to the mirror she +continued, awkwardly, to twist up and fasten her hair. She was +unaccustomed to doing her own hair and even the few days without a maid +had given her no facility. + +Mrs. Talcott watched her for a moment and then remarked: "You're getting +it all screwed round to one side, Mercedes. You'd better let me do it +for you." + +Madame von Marwitz for a moment made no reply. Her eyes fixed upon her +own mirrored eyes, she continued to insert the pins with an air of +stubborn impassivity; but when a large loop fell to her neck she allowed +her arms to drop. She sank upon a chair and, still with unflawed +stateliness, presented the back of her head to Mrs. Talcott's skilful +manipulations. Mrs. Talcott, in silence, wreathed and coiled and pinned +and the beautiful head resumed its usual outlines. + +When this was accomplished Madame von Marwitz rose. "Thank you," she +uttered. She moved towards the door of her room. + +"What are you going to do now, Mercedes?" Mrs. Talcott inquired. Her +eyes, which deepened and darkened, as if all her years of silent +watchfulness opened long vistas in them, were fixed upon Mercedes. + +"I am going to pack and return to my home," Madame von Marwitz replied. + +"Well," said Mrs. Talcott, "you'll want me to pack for you, I expect." + +Madame von Marwitz had opened her door and her hand was on the +door-knob. She paused so and again, for a long moment, she made no +reply. "Thank you," she then repeated. But she turned and looked at Mrs. +Talcott. "You have been a traitor to me," she said after she had +contemplated her for some moments, "you, in whom I completely trusted. +You have ruined me in the eyes of those I love." + +"Yes, I've gone back on you, Mercedes, that's a fact," said Mrs. +Talcott. + +"You have handed Karen over to bondage," Madame von Marwitz went on. +"She and this man are utterly unsuited. I would have freed her and given +her to a more worthy mate." Her voice had the dignity of a disinterested +and deep regret. + +Mrs. Talcott made no reply. The long vistas of her eyes dwelt on +Mercedes. After another moment of this mutual contemplation Madame von +Marwitz closed the door, though she still kept her hand on the +door-knob. + +"May I ask what you have been saying of me to Mrs. Forrester, to Mr. +Jardine?" + +"Well, as to Mr. Jardine, Mercedes," said Mrs. Talcott, "there was no +need of saying anything, was there, if I turned out right in what I told +him I suspected. He sees I'm right. He'd been fed up, along with the +rest of them, on lies, and Karen can help him out with the details if he +wants to ask for them. As for the old lady, I gave her the truth of the +story about Karen running away. I made her see, and see straight, that +your one idea was to keep Karen's husband from getting her back because +you knew that if he did the truth about you would come out. I let you +down as easy as I could and put it that you weren't responsible exactly +for the things you said when you went off your head in a rage and that +you were awful sorry when you found Karen had taken you at your word and +made off. But that old lady feels mighty sick, Mercedes, and I allow +she'll feel sicker when she's seen Mr. Jardine. As for Miss Scrotton, I +saw her, too, and she's come out strong; you've got a friend there, +Mercedes, sure; she won't believe anything against her beloved +Mercedes," a dry smile touched Mrs. Talcott's grave face as she echoed +Miss Scrotton's phraseology, "until she hears from her own lips what she +has to say in explanation of the story. You'll be able to fix her up all +right, Mercedes, and most of the others, too, I expect. I'd advise you +to lie low for a while and let it blow over. People are mighty glad to +be given the chance for forgetting things against anyone like you. It'll +simmer down and work out, I expect, to a bad quarrel you had with Karen +that's parted you. And as for the outside world, why it won't mind a +mite what you do. Why you can murder your grandmother and eat her, I +expect, and the world'll manage to overlook it, if you're a genius." + +"I thank you," said Madame von Marwitz, her hand clasping and unclasping +the door-knob. "I thank you indeed for your reassurance. I have murdered +and eaten my grandmother, but I am to escape hanging because I am a +genius. That is a most gratifying piece of information. You, personally, +I infer, consider that the penalty should be paid, however gifted the +criminal." + +"I don't know, Mercedes, I don't know," said Mrs. Talcott in a voice of +profound sadness. "I don't know who deserves penalties and who don't, if +you begin to argue it out to yourself." Mrs. Talcott, who had seated +herself at the other side of the table, laid an arm upon it, looking +before her and not at Mercedes, as she spoke. "You're a bad woman; that +ain't to be denied. You're a bad, dangerous woman, and perhaps what +you've been trying to do now is the worst thing you've ever done. But I +guess I'm way past feeling angry at anything you do. I guess I'm way +past wanting you to get come up with. I can't make out how to think +about a person like you. Maybe you figured it all out to yourself +different from the way it looks. Maybe you persuaded yourself to believe +that Karen would be better off apart from her husband. I guess that's +the way with most criminals, don't you? They figure things out different +from the way other people do. I expect you can't help it. I expect you +were born so. And I guess you can't change. Some bad folks seem to +manage to get religion and that brings 'em round; but I expect you ain't +that kind." + +Madame von Marwitz, while Mrs. Talcott thus shared her psychological +musings with her, was not looking at the old woman: her eyes were fixed +on the floor and she seemed to consider. + +"No," she said presently. "I am not that kind." + +She raised her eyes and they met Mrs. Talcott's. "What are you going to +do now?" she asked. + +"Well," said Mrs. Talcott, drawing a long sigh of fatigue, "I've been +thinking that over and I guess I'll stay over here. There ain't any +place for me in America now; all my folks are dead. You know that money +my Uncle Adam left me a long time ago that I bought the annuity with. +Well, I've saved most of that annuity; I'd always intended that Karen +should have what I'd saved when I died. But Karen don't need it now. +It'll buy me a nice little cottage somewhere and I can settle down and +have a garden and chickens and live on what I've got." + +"How much was it, the annuity?" Madame von Marwitz asked after a moment. + +"A hundred and ten pounds a year," said Mrs. Talcott. + +"But you cannot live on that," Madame von Marwitz, after another moment, +said. + +"Why, gracious sakes, of course I can, Mercedes," Mrs. Talcott replied, +smiling dimly. + +Again there was silence and then Madame von Marwitz said, in a voice a +little forced: "You have not got much out of life, have you, Tallie?" + +"Well, no; I don't expect you would say as I had," Mrs. Talcott +acquiesced, showing a slight surprise. + +"You haven't even got me--now--have you," Madame von Marwitz went on, +looking down at her door-knob and running her hand slowly round it while +she spoke. "Not even the criminal. But that is a gain, you feel, no +doubt, rather than a loss." + +"No, Mercedes," said Mrs. Talcott mildly; "I don't feel that way. I feel +it's a loss, I guess. You see you're all the family I've got left." + +"And you," said Madame von Marwitz, still looking down at her knob, "are +all the family I have left." + +Mrs. Talcott now looked at her. Mercedes did not raise her eyes. Her +face was sad and very pale and it had not lost its stateliness. Mrs. +Talcott looked at her for what seemed to be a long time and the vistas +of her eyes deepened with a new acceptance. + +It was without any elation and yet without any regret that she said in +her mild voice: "Do you want me to come back with you, Mercedes?" + +"Will you?" Madame von Marwitz asked in a low voice. + +"Why, yes, of course I'll come if you want me, Mercedes," said Mrs. +Talcott. + +Madame von Marwitz now opened her door. "Thank you, Tallie," she said. + +"You look pretty tired," Mrs. Talcott, following her into the bedroom, +remarked. "You'd better lie down and take a rest while I do the packing. +Let's clear out as soon as we can." + + + +***END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK TANTE*** + + +******* This file should be named 30115.txt or 30115.zip ******* + + +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: +http://www.gutenberg.org/dirs/3/0/1/1/30115 + + + +Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions +will be renamed. + +Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no +one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation +(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without +permission and without paying copyright royalties. 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