nd, 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 fo