him in its deliberate grace and
power as newly significant. Keeping his frosty, observant eyes upon her,
Gregory waited for what she had to say. "I am glad, very glad, that you
have given me this opportunity for a quiet conversation," so she took up
the threads of her intention. "I have wanted, for long, to consult with
you about various matters concerning Karen, and, in especial, about her
future life. Tell me--this is what I wish in particular to ask you--you
are going, are you not, in time, when she has learned more skill in
social arts, to take my Karen into the world--_dans le monde_," Madame
von Marwitz repeated, as though to make her meaning genially clear.
"Skill she is as yet too young to have mastered--or cared to master. But
she had always been at ease on the largest stage, and she will do you
credit, I assure you."

It was rather, to Gregory's imagination--always quick at similes--as
though she had struck a well-aimed blow right in the centre of a huge
gong hanging between them. There she was, the blow said. It was this she
meant. No open avowal of hostility could have been more reverberating or
purposeful, and no open avowal of hostility would have been so sinister.
But Gregory, though his ears seemed to ring with the clang of it, was
ready for her. He, too, with folded arms, sat leaning back and he, too,
smiled genially. "That's rather crushing, you know," he made reply, "or
didn't you? Karen is in my world. This is my world."

Madame von Marwitz gazed at him for a moment as if to gauge his
seriousness. And then she turned her eyes on his world and gazed at
that. It was mildly chatting. It was placid, cheerful, unaware of
deficiency. It thought that it was enjoying itself. It was, indeed,
enjoying itself, if with the slightest of materials. Betty and Bertram
Fraser laughed together; Lady Mary and Oliver ever so slowly conversed.
Constance Byng and Mr. Overton discussed the latest opera, young Byng
had joined Karen and the General, and a comfortable drone of politics
came from Mrs. Overton and Mr. Canning-Thompson. Removed a little from
these groups Lady Montgomery, very much like a turtle, sat with her head
erect and her eyes half closed, evidently sleepy. It was upon Lady
Montgomery that Madame von Marwitz's gaze dwelt longest.

"You are contented," she then said to Gregory, "with these good people;
for yourself and for your wife?"

"Perfectly," said Gregory. "You see, Karen has married a commonplace