gly 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 con