e 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