ent makes servants
impertinent."

"I do not care to hear your criticism of my guardian, Gregory."

"I beg your pardon," said Gregory.

Betty Jardine met him on a windy April evening in Queen Anne's Gate. "I
see that you had to sacrifice me, Gregory," she said. She smiled; she
bore no grudge; but her smile was tinged with a shrewd pity.

He felt that he flushed. "You mean that you've not been to see us since
the occasion."

"I've not been asked!" Betty laughed.

"Madame von Marwitz is with us, you know," Gregory proffered rather
lamely.

"Yes; I do know. How do you like having a genius domiciled? I hear that
she is introducing Karen into a very artistic set. After the Bannisters,
Mr. Claude Drew. He is back from America at last, it seems, and is an
assiduous adorer. You have seen a good deal of him?"

"I haven't seen him at all. Has he been back for long?"

"Four or five days only, I believe; but I don't know how often he and
Madame von Marwitz and Karen have been seen together. Don't think me a
cat, Gregory; but if she is engaged in a flirtation with that most
unpleasant young man I hope you will see to it that Karen isn't used as
a screen. There have been some really horrid stories about him, you
know."

Gregory parted from his sister-in-law, perturbed. Indiscreet and naughty
she might be, but Betty was not a cat. The veil of ice was so
impenetrable that no sound of Karen's daily life came to him through it.
He had not an idea of what she did with herself when he wasn't there,
or, rather, of what Madame von Marwitz did with her.

"You've been seeing something of Mr. Claude Drew, I hear," he said to
Karen that evening. "Do you like him better than you used to do?" They
were in the drawing-room before dinner and dinner had been, as usual,
waiting for half an hour for Madame von Marwitz.

Gregory's voice betrayed more than a kindly interest, and Karen answered
coldly, if without suspicion; "No; I do not like him better. But Tante
likes him. It is not I who see him, it is Tante. I am only with them
sometimes."

"And I? Am I to be with them sometimes?" Gregory inquired with an air of
gaiety.

"If you will come back to tea to-morrow, Gregory," she answered gravely,
"you will meet him. He comes to tea then."

For the last few days Gregory had fallen into the habit of only getting
back in time for dinner. "You know it's only because I usually find that
you've gone out with your guardian that I haven't come