en
replied.

When Gregory and his wife were left alone together, they stood for some
moments without speaking on either side of the fire, and, as Karen's
eyes were on the flames, Gregory, looking at her carefully, read on her
face the signs of stress and self-command. The irony, the irritation and
the oppression that Madame von Marwitz had aroused in him this evening
merged suddenly, as he looked at Karen into intense anger. What had she
not done to them already, sinister woman? It was because of her that
constraint, reticence and uncertainty were rising again between him and
Karen.

"Darling," he said, putting out his hand and drawing her to him; "you
look very tired."

She came, he fancied, with at first a little reluctance, but, as he put
his arm around her, she leaned her head against his shoulder with a
sigh. "I am tired, Gregory."

They stood thus for some moments and then, as if the confident
tenderness their attitude expressed forced her to face with him their
difficulty, she said carefully: "Gregory, dear, did you say anything to
depress Tante this evening?"

"Why do you ask, darling?" Gregory, after a slight pause, also carefully
inquired.

"Only that she seemed depressed, very much depressed. I thought, I hoped
that you and she were talking so nicely, so happily."

There was another little pause and then Gregory said: "She rather
depressed me, I think."

"Depressed you? But how, Gregory?"

He must indeed be very careful. It was far too late, now, for simple
frankness; simple frankness had, perhaps, from the beginning been
impossible and in that fact lay the insecurity of his position, and the
immense advantage of Madame von Marwitz's. And as he paused and sought
his words it was as if, in the image of the Bouddha, looking down upon
him and Karen, Madame von Marwitz were with them now, a tranquil and
ironic witness of his discomfiture. "Well," he said, "she made me feel
that I had only a very dingy sort of life to offer you and that my
friends were all very tiresome--_borne_ was the word she used. That did
rather--well--dash my spirits."

Standing there within his arm, of her face, seen from above, only the
brow, the eyelashes, the cheek visible, she was very still for a long
moment. Then, gently, she said--and in the gentleness he felt that she
put aside the too natural suspicion that he was complaining of Tante
behind her back: "She doesn't realise that I don't care at all about
people. And th