Tante's claims and justifications?
how could she hear but with dismay the half threat of his last words,
the intimation that from her he would accept what he would not accept
from Tante? The sudden compunction of his comprehension almost brought
the tears to his eyes. Karen saw that his resistance melted and the
sternness fell from her look. "But Gregory," she said, her voice a
little trembling, "Tante did not say that. Please don't make mistakes.
It is so dreadful to misunderstand; nothing frightens me so much. I say
it; that our best isn't good enough, and I am thinking of Tante; only of
Tante; but she--too sweetly and mistakenly--was thinking of me. Tante
doesn't care, for herself, about our world; why should she? And she is
mistaken to care about it for me; because it makes no difference, none
at all, to me, if it is _borne_. All that I care about, you know that,
Gregory, is you and Tante."

Gregory had his arms around her. "Do forgive me, darling," he said.

"But was I horrid?" Karen asked.

"No. It was I who was stupid," he said. "Do you know, I believe we were
almost quarrelling, Karen."

"And we can quarrel safely--you and I, Gregory, can't we?" Karen said,
her voice still trembling.

He leaned his head against her hair. "Of course we can. Only--don't let
us quarrel--ever. It is so dreadful."

"Isn't it dreadful, Gregory. But we must not let it frighten us, ever,
because of course we must quarrel now and then. And we often have
already, haven't we," she went on, reassuring him, and herself. "Do you
remember, in the Tyrol, about the black bread!--And I was right that
time.--And the terrible conflict in Paris, about _La Gaine d'Or_; when I
said you were a Philistine."

"Well, you owned afterwards, after you read about the beastly thing,
that you were glad we hadn't gone."

"Yes; I was glad. You were right there. Sometimes it is you and
sometimes I," Karen declared, as if that were the happy solution.

So, in their mutual love, they put aside the menacing difference.
Something had happened, they could but be aware of that; but their love
tided them over. They did not argue further as to who was right and who
wrong that evening.

CHAPTER XX

The first of Madame von Marwitz's great concerts was given on Friday,
and Karen spent the whole of that day and of Saturday with her, summoned
by an urgent telephone message early in the morning. On Sunday she was
still secluded in her rooms, and Miss Scro