man she had thought of as a husband for Karen
was not a gentleman. You said that you did not understand how Mercedes
could have chosen such a man for her. You said this with the child
standing between you. Oh, you cannot deny it, Gregory. I have heard in
detail what took place. Mercedes saw that unless she left you Karen's
position was an impossible one. It was to save Karen--and your relation
to Karen--that she went."

Gregory, still standing at the window, was silent, and then asked: "Have
you seen Herr Lippheim?"

"No, Gregory," Mrs. Forrester returned, and now with trenchancy, the
concrete case being easier to deal with openly. "No; I have not seen
him; but Mercedes spoke to me about him last winter, when she hoped for
the match, and told me, moreover, that she was surprised by Karen's
refusal, as the child was much attached to him. I have not seen him; but
I know the type--and intimately. He is a warm-hearted and intelligent
musician."

"Your bootmaker may be warm-hearted and intelligent."

"That is petulant--almost an insolent simile, Gregory. It only reveals,
pitifully, your narrowness and prejudice--and, I will add, your
ignorance. Herr Lippheim is an artist; a man of character and
significance. Many of my dearest friends have been such; hearts of gold;
the salt of the world."

"Would you have allowed a daughter of yours, may I ask, to marry one of
these hearts of gold?"

"Certainly; most certainly," said Mrs. Forrester, but with a haste and
heat somewhat suspicious. "If she loved him."

"If he were personally fit, you mean. Herr Lippheim is undoubtedly
warm-hearted and, in his own way, intelligent, but he is as unfit to be
Karen's husband as your bootmaker to be yours."

They had come now, on this lower, easier level, to one of the points
where temper betrays itself as it cannot do on the heights of contest.
Gregory's reiteration of the bootmaker greatly incensed Mrs. Forrester.

"My dear Gregory," she said, "I yield to no one in my appreciation of
Karen; owing to the education and opportunities that Mercedes has given
her, she is a charming young woman. But, since we are dealing with,
facts, the bare, bald, worldly aspects of things, we must not forget the
facts of Karen's parentage and antecedents. Herr Lippheim is, in these
respects, I imagine, altogether her equal. A rising young musician, the
friend and _protege_ of one of the world's great geniuses, and a
penniless, illegitimate girl. Do not l