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 sh