mmer with the Aspreys and Madame von Marwitz, and
was now writing a book on that. In a corner a vast, though youthful,
German Jew, with finely crisped red-gold hair, large lips and small,
kind eyes blinking near-sightedly behind gold-rimmed spectacles, sat
with another young man, his hands on his widely parted knees, in an
attitude suggesting a capacity to cope with the most unwieldy
instruments of an orchestra; his companion, black and emaciated, talked
in German, with violent gestures and a strange accent, jerking
constantly a lock of hair out of his eyes. A squat, fat little woman,
bundled up, clasping her knees with her joined hands, sat on a footstool
at Madame von Marwitz's feet, gazing at her and listening to her with a
smile of obsequious attention, and now and then, suddenly, and as if
irrelevantly, breaking into a jubilant laugh. Her dusty hair looked as
though, like the White Queen's, a comb and brush might be entangled in
its masses; the low cut neck of her bodice displayed a ruddy throat
wreathed in many strings of dirty seed-pearls, and her grey satin dress
was garnished with dirty lace.

Gregory had stood for an appreciable moment at the door surveying the
scene, before either Karen or her guardian saw him, and it was then the
latter who did the honours of the occasion, naming him to the bundled
lady, who was an English poetess, and to Mlle. Suzanne Mauret, the
French actress. The inky-locked youth turned out to be a famous Russian
violinist, and the vast young German Jew none other than Herr Franz
Lippheim, to whom--this was the fact that at once, violently, engaged
Gregory's attention--Madame von Marwitz had destined Karen.

Franz Lippheim, after Gregory had spoken to everybody and when he at
last was introduced, sprang to his feet and came forward, beaming so
intently from behind his spectacles that Gregory, fearing that he might,
conceivably, be about to kiss him, made an involuntary gesture of
withdrawal. But Herr Lippheim, all unaware, grasped his hand the more
vigorously. "Our little Karen's husband!" "Unserer kleinen Karen's
Mann!" he uttered in a deeply moved German.

In the driest of tones Gregory asked Karen for some tea, and while he
stood above her Herr Lippheim's beam continued to include them both.

"Sit down here, Franz, near me," said Karen. She, too, had smiled
joyously as Herr Lippheim greeted her husband. The expression of her
face now had changed.

Herr Lippheim obeyed, placing,