re Gregory had time to reach it or the startled guests to rise from
their places.

CHAPTER XIX

When the time came for going to the drawing-room, Gregory found Betty
entertaining the company there, while Karen, on a distant sofa, was
apparently engaged in showing her guardian a book of photographs. He
took in the situation at a glance, and, as he took it in, he was aware
that part of its significance lay in the fact that it obliged him to a
swift interchange with Betty, an interchange that irked him, defining as
it did a community of understanding from which Karen, in her simplicity,
was shut out.

He went across to the couple on the sofa. Only sudden illness could have
excused Madame von Marwitz's departure from the dining-room, yet he
determined to ask no questions, and to leave any explanations to her.

Karen's eyes, in looking at him, were grave and a little anxious; but
the anxiety, he saw, was not on his account. "Tante wanted to see our
kodaks," she said. "Do sit here with us, Gregory. Betty is talking to
everybody so beautifully."

"But you must go and talk to everybody beautifully, too, now, darling,"
said Gregory. He put his hand on her shoulder and looked down at her
smiling. The gesture, with its marital assurance, the smile that was
almost a caress, were involuntary; yet they expressed more than his
tender pride and solicitude, they defined his possession of her, and
they excluded Tante. "It's been a nice little dinner, hasn't it," he
went on, continuing to look at her and not at Madame von Marwitz. "I saw
that the General was enjoying you immensely. There he is, looking over
at you now; he wants to go on talking about Garibaldi with you. He said
he'd never met a young woman so well up in modern history."

Madame von Marwitz's brooding eyes were on him while he thus spoke. He
ignored them.

Karen looked a little perplexed. "Did you think it went so well, then,
Gregory?"

"Why, didn't you?"

"I am not sure. I don't think I shall ever much like dinners, when I
give them," she addressed herself to her guardian as well as to her
husband. "They make one feel so responsible."

"Well, as far as you were responsible for this one you were responsible
for its being very nice. Everybody enjoyed themselves. Now go and talk
to the General."

"I did enjoy him," said Karen, half closing her book. "But Tante has
rather a headache--I am afraid she is tired. You saw at dinner that she
was tired."

"Y