y 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