ounded to greet him as he sought refuge in the library, and
overturned a table that stood in the hall with two fine pieces of
oriental china upon it. The splintering crash of crockery filled the
flat. Mrs. Barker had taken the chocolate to the drawing-room some time
since, and Madame von Marwitz, the cup in her hand, appeared upon the
threshold with Karen. "Alas! The bad dog!" she said, surveying the
wreckage while she sipped her chocolate.

Rose was summoned to sweep up the pieces and Karen stooped over them
with murmured regret.

"Were they wedding-presents, my Karen?" Madame von Marwitz asked.
"Console yourself; they were not of a good period--I noticed them. I
will give you better."

The vases had belonged to Gregory's mother. He was aware that he stood
rather blankly looking at the fragments, as Rose collected them. "Oh,
Gregory, I am so sorry," said Karen, taking upon herself the
responsibility for Victor's mischance. "I am afraid they are broken to
bits. See, this is the largest piece of all. They can't be mended. No,
Tante, they were not wedding-presents; they belonged to Gregory and we
were very fond of them."

"Alas!" said Madame von Marwitz above her chocolate, and on a deeper
note.

Gregory was convinced that she had known they were not wedding-presents.
But her manner was flawless and he saw that she intended to keep it so.
She dined with them alone and at the table addressed her talk to him,
fixing, as ill-luck would have it, on the theatre as her theme, and on
_La Gaine d'Or_ as the piece which, in Paris, had particularly
interested her. "You and Karen, of course, saw it when you were there,"
she said.

It was the piece of sinister fame to which he had refused to take Karen.
He owned that they had not seen it.

"Ah, but that is a pity, truly a pity," said Madame von Marwitz. "How
did it happen? You cannot have failed to hear of it."

Unable to plead Karen as the cause for his abstention since Madame von
Marwitz regretted that Karen had missed the piece, Gregory said that he
had heard too much perhaps. "I don't believe I should care for anything
the man wrote," he confessed.

"_Tiens!_" said Madame von Marwitz, opening her eyes. "You know him?"

"Heaven forbid!" Gregory ejaculated, smiling with some tartness.

"But why this rigour? What have you against M. Saumier?"

It was difficult for a young Englishman of conventional tastes to
formulate what he had against M. Saumier. Gregory took refug