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Tante

<h2>CHAPTER XIX</h2> When the time came for going to the drawing-room, Gregory found Betty entertaining the company there, while Karen, on a distant sofa, was apparently engaged in showing her guardian a book of photographs. He took in the situation at a glance, and, as he took it in, he was aware that part of its significance lay in the fact that it obliged him to a swift interchange with Betty, an interchange that irked him, defining as it did a community of understanding from which Karen, in her simplicity, was shut out. He went across to the couple on the sofa. Only sudden illness could have excused Madame von Marwitz's departure from the dining-room, yet he determined to ask no questions, and to leave any explanations to her. Karen's eyes, in looking at him, were grave and a little anxious; but the anxiety, he saw, was not on his account. "Tante wanted to see our kodaks," she said. "Do sit here with us, Gregory. Betty is talking to everybody so beautifully." "But you must go and talk to everybody beautifully, too, now, darling," said Gregory. He put his hand on her shoulder and looked down at her smiling. The gesture, with its marital assurance, the smile that was almost a caress, were involuntary; yet they expressed more than his tender pride and solicitude, they defined his possession of her, and they excluded Tante. "It's been a nice little dinner, hasn't it," he went on, continuing to look at her and not at Madame von Marwitz. "I saw that the General was enjoying you immensely. There he is, looking over at you now; he wants to go on talking about Garibaldi with you. He said he'd never met a young woman so well up in modern history." Madame von Marwitz's brooding eyes were on him while he thus spoke. He ignored them. Karen looked a little perplexed. "Did you think it went so well, then, Gregory?" "Why, didn't you?" "I am not sure. I don't think I shall ever much like dinners, when I give them," she addressed herself to her guardian as well as to her husband. "They make one feel so responsible." "Well, as far as you were responsible for this one you were responsible for its being very nice. Everybody enjoyed themselves. Now go and talk to the General." "I did enjoy him," said Karen, half closing her book. "But Tante has rather a headache—I am afraid she is tired. You saw at dinner that she was tired." "Yes, oh yes, indeed, I thought that you must be feeling a little ill, perhaps," Gregory observed blandly, turning his eyes now on Madame von Marwitz. "Well, you see, Karen, I will take your place here, and it will give me a chance for a quiet talk with your guardian." "People must not bother her," Karen rose, pleased, he could see, with this arrangement, and hoping, he knew, that the opportunity was a propitious one, and that in it her dear ones might draw together. "You will see that they don't bother her, Gregory, and go on showing her these." "They won't bother a bit, I promise," said Gregory, taking her place as she rose. "They are all very happily engaged, and Madame von Marwitz and I will look at the photographs in perfect peace." Something in these words and in the manner with which her guardian received them, with a deepening of her long, steady glance, arrested Karen's departure. She stood above them, half confident, yet half hesitating. "Go, mon enfant," said Madame von Marwitz, turning the steady glance on her. "Go. Nobody here, as your husband truly says, is thinking of me. I shall be quite untroubled." Still with her look of preoccupation Karen moved away. Cheerfully and deliberately Gregory now proceeded to turn the pages of the kodak album, and to point out with painstaking geniality the charms and associations of each view, "Tu l'as voulu, Georges Dandin," expressed his thought, for he didn't believe that Madame von Marwitz, more than any person not completely self-abnegating, could tolerate looking at other people's kodaks. But since it was her chosen occupation, the best she could find to do with their dinner-party, she should be gratified; should be shown Karen standing on a peak in the Tyrol; Karen feeding the pigeons before St. Mark's; Karen, again—wasn't it rather nice of her?—in a gondola. Madame von Marwitz bent her head with its swinging pearls above the pictures, proffering now and then a low murmur of assent. But in the midst of the Paris pictures she lifted her head and looked at him. It was again the steady, penetrating look, and now it seemed, with the smile that veiled it, to claim some common understanding rather than seek it. "Enough," she said. She dismissed the kodaks with a tap of her fan. "I wish to talk with you. I wish to talk with you of our Karen." Gregory closed the volume. Madame von Marwitz's attitude as she leaned back, her arms lightly folded, affected him in its deliberate grace and power as newly significant. Keeping his frosty, observant eyes upon her, Gregory waited for what she had to say. "I am glad, very glad, that you have given me this opportunity for a quiet conversation," so she took up the threads of her intention. "I have wanted, for long, to consult with you about various matters concerning Karen, and, in especial, about her future life. Tell me—this is what I wish in particular to ask you—you are going, are you not, in time, when she has learned more skill in social arts, to take my Karen into the world—dans le monde," Madame von Marwitz repeated, as though to make her meaning genially clear. "Skill she is as yet too young to have mastered—or cared to master. But she had always been at ease on the largest stage, and she will do you credit, I assure you." It was rather, to Gregory's imagination—always quick at similes—as though she had struck a well-aimed blow right in the centre of a huge gong hanging between them. There she was, the blow said. It was this she meant. No open avowal of hostility could have been more reverberating or purposeful, and no open avowal of hostility would have been so sinister. But Gregory, though his ears seemed to ring with the clang of it, was ready for her. He, too, with folded arms, sat leaning back and he, too, smiled genially. "That's rather crushing, you know," he made reply, "or didn't you? Karen is in my world. This is my world." Madame von Marwitz gazed at him for a moment as if to gauge his seriousness. And then she turned her eyes on his world and gazed at that. It was mildly chatting. It was placid, cheerful, unaware of deficiency. It thought that it was enjoying itself. It was, indeed, enjoying itself, if with the slightest of materials. Betty and Bertram Fraser laughed together; Lady Mary and Oliver ever so slowly conversed. Constance Byng and Mr. Overton discussed the latest opera, young Byng had joined Karen and the General, and a comfortable drone of politics came from Mrs. Overton and Mr. Canning-Thompson. Removed a little from these groups Lady Montgomery, very much like a turtle, sat with her head erect and her eyes half closed, evidently sleepy. It was upon Lady Montgomery that Madame von Marwitz's gaze dwelt longest. "You are contented," she then said to Gregory, "with these good people; for yourself and for your wife?" "Perfectly," said Gregory. "You see, Karen has married a commonplace person." Madame von Marwitz paused again, and again her eyes dwelt on Lady Montgomery, whose pink feathers had given a sudden nod and then serenely righted themselves. "I see," she then remarked. "But she is not contented." "Ah, come," said Gregory. "You can't shatter the conceit of a happy husband so easily, Madame von Marwitz. You ask too much of me if you ask me to believe that Karen makes confidences to you that she doesn't to me. I can't take it on, you know," he continued to smile. He had already felt that the loveliness of Madame von Marwitz's face was a veil for its coldness, and hints had come to him that it masked, also, some more sinister quality. And now, for a moment, as if a primeval creature peeped at him from among delicate woodlands, a racial savagery crossed her face with a strange, distorting tremor. The blood mounted to her brow; her skin darkened curiously, and her eyes became hot and heavy as though the very irises felt the glow. "You do not accept my word, Mr. Jardine?" she said. Her voice was controlled, but he had a disagreeable sensation of scorching, as though a hot iron had been passed slowly before his face. Gregory shook his foot a little, clasping his ankle. "I don't say that, of course. But I'm glad to think you're mistaken." "Let me tell you, Mr. Jardine," she returned, still with the curbed elemental fury colouring her face and voice, "that even a happy husband's conceit is no match for a mother's intuition. Karen is like my child to me; and to its mother a child makes confidences that it is unaware of making. Karen finds your world narrow; borné; it does not afford her the wide life she has known." "You mean," said Gregory, "the life she led with Mrs. Talcott?" He had not meant to say it. If he had paused to think it over he would have seen that it exposed him to her as consciously hostile and also as almost feminine in his malice. And, as if this recognition of his false move restored to her her full self-mastery, she met his irony with a masculine sincerity, putting him, as on the occasion of their first encounter, lamentably in the wrong. "Ah," she commented, her eyes dwelling on him. "Ah, I see. You have wondered. You have criticized. You have, I think, Mr. Jardine, misunderstood my life and its capacities. Allow me to explain. Your wife is the creature dearest to me in the world, and if you misread my devotion to her you endanger our relation. You would not, I am sure, wish to do that; is it not so? Allow me therefore to exculpate myself. I am a woman who, since childhood, has had to labour for my livelihood and for that of those I love. You can know nothing of what that labour of the artist's life entails,—interminable journeys, suffocating ennui, the unwholesome monotony and publicity of a life passed in hotels and trains. It was not fit that a young and growing girl should share that life. As much as has been possible I have guarded Karen from its dust and weariness. I have had, of necessity, to leave her much alone, and she has needed protection, stability, peace. I could have placed her in no lovelier spot than my Cornish home, nor in safer hands than those of the guardian and companion of my own youth. Do you not feel it a little unworthy, Mr. Jardine, when you have all the present and all the future, to grudge me even my past with my child?" She spoke slowly, with a noble dignity, all hint of sultry menace passed; willing, for Karen's sake, to stoop to this self-justification before Karen's husband. And, for Karen's sake, she had the air of holding in steady hands their relation, hers and his, assailed so gracelessly by his taunting words. Gregory, for the first time in his knowledge of her, felt a little bewildered. It was she who had opened hostilities, yet she almost made him forget it; she almost made him feel that he alone had been graceless. "I do beg your pardon," he said. "Yes; I had wondered a little about it; and I understand better now." But he gathered his wits together sufficiently to add, on a fairer foothold: "I am sure you gave Karen all you could. What I meant was, I think, that you should be generous enough to believe that I am giving her all I can." Madame von Marwitz rose as he said this and he also got up. It was not so much, Gregory was aware, that they had fought to a truce as that they had openly crossed swords. Her eyes still dwelt on him, and now as if in a sad wonder. "But you are young. You are a man. You have ambition. You wish to give more to the loved woman." "I don't really quite know what you mean by more, Madame von Marwitz," said Gregory. "If it applies to my world, I don't expect, or wish, to give Karen a better one." They stood and confronted each other for a moment of silence. "Bien," Madame von Marwitz then said, unemphatically, mildly. "Bien. I must see what I can do." She turned her eyes on Karen, who, immediately aware of her glance, hastened to her. Madame von Marwitz laid an arm about her neck. "I must bid you good-night, ma chérie. I am very tired." "Tante, dear, I saw that you were so tired, I am so sorry. It has all been a weariness to you," Karen murmured. "No, my child; no," Madame von Marwitz smiled down into her eyes, passing her hand lightly over the little white-rose wreath. "I have seen you, and seen you happy; that is happiness enough for me. Good-night, Mr. Jardine. Karen will come with me." Pausing for no further farewells, Madame von Marwitz passed from the room with a majestic, generalized bending of the head. Betty joined her brother-in-law. "Dear me, Gregory," she said. "We've had the tragic muse to supper, haven't we. What is the matter, what has been the matter with Madame von Marwitz? Is she ill?" "She says she's tired," said Gregory. "It was disconcerting, wasn't it, her trailing suddenly out of the dining-room in that singular fashion," said Betty. "Do you know, Gregory, that I'm getting quite vexed with Madame von Marwitz." "Really? Why, Betty?" "Well, it has been accumulating. I'm a very easy-going person, you know; but I've been noticing that whenever I want Karen, Madame von Marwitz always nips in and cuts me out, so that I have hardly seen her at all since her guardian came to London. And then it did rather rile me, I confess, to find that the one hat in Karen's trousseau that I specially chose for her is the one—the only one—that Madame von Marwitz objects to. Karen never wears it now. She certainly behaved very absurdly to-night, Gregory. I suppose she expected us to sit round in a circle and stare." "Perhaps she did," Gregory acquiesced. "Perhaps we should have." He was anxious to maintain the appearance of bland lightness before Betty. Karen had re-entered as they spoke and Betty called her to them. "Tell me, Karen dear, is Madame von Marwitz ill? She didn't give me a chance to say good-night to her." Betty had the air of wishing to exonerate herself. "She isn't ill," said Karen, whose face was grave. "But very tired." "Now what made her tired, I wonder?" Betty mused. "She looks such a robust person." It was bad of Betty, and as Karen stood before them, looking from one to the other, Gregory saw that she suspected them. Her face hardened. "A great artist needs to be robust," she said. "My guardian works every day at her piano for five or six hours." "Dear me," Betty murmured. "How splendid. I'd no idea the big ones had to keep it up like that." "There is great ignorance about an artist's life," Karen continued coldly to inform her. "Do you not know what von Bulow said: If I miss my practising for one day I notice it; if for two days my friends notice it; if I miss it for three days the public notices it. The artist is like an acrobat, juggling always, intent always on his three golden balls kept flying in the air. That is what it is like. Every atom of their strength is used. People, like my guardian, literally give their lives for the world." "Oh, yes, it is wonderful, of course," Betty assented. "But of course they must enjoy it; it can hardly be called a sacrifice." "Enjoy is a very small word to apply to such a great thing," said Karen. "You may say also, if you like, that the saint enjoys his life of suffering for others. It is his life to give himself to goodness; it is the artist's life to give himself to beauty. But it is beauty and goodness they seek, not enjoyment; we must not try to measure these great people by our standards." Before this arraignment Betty showed a tact for which Gregory was grateful to her. He, as so often, found Karen, in her innocent sententiousness, at once absurd and adorable, but he could grant that to Betty she might seem absurd only. "Don't be cross with me, Karen," she said. "I suppose I am feeling sore at being snubbed by Madame von Marwitz." "But indeed she did not mean to snub you, Betty," said Karen earnestly. "And I am not cross; please do not think that. Only I cannot bear to hear some of the things that are said of artists." "Well, prove that you're not cross," said Betty, smiling, "by at last giving me an afternoon when we can do something together. Will you come and see the pictures at Burlington House with me to-morrow and have tea with me afterwards? I've really seen nothing of you for so long." "To-morrow is promised to Tante, Betty. I'm so sorry. Her great concert is to be on Friday, you know; and till then, and on the Saturday, I have said that I will be with her. She gets so very tired. And I know how to take care of her when she is tired like that." "Oh, dear!" Betty sighed. "There is no hope for us poor little people, is there, while Madame von Marwitz is in London. Well, on Monday, then, Karen. Will you promise me Monday afternoon?" "Monday is free, and I shall like so very much to come, Betty," Karen replied. When Gregory and his wife were left alone together, they stood for some moments without speaking on either side of the fire, and, as Karen's eyes were on the flames, Gregory, looking at her carefully, read on her face the signs of stress and self-command. The irony, the irritation and the oppression that Madame von Marwitz had aroused in him this evening merged suddenly, as he looked at Karen into intense anger. What had she not done to them already, sinister woman? It was because of her that constraint, reticence and uncertainty were rising again between him and Karen. "Darling," he said, putting out his hand and drawing her to him; "you look very tired." She came, he fancied, with at first a little reluctance, but, as he put his arm around her, she leaned her head against his shoulder with a sigh. "I am tired, Gregory." They stood thus for some moments and then, as if the confident tenderness their attitude expressed forced her to face with him their difficulty, she said carefully: "Gregory, dear, did you say anything to depress Tante this evening?" "Why do you ask, darling?" Gregory, after a slight pause, also carefully inquired. "Only that she seemed depressed, very much depressed. I thought, I hoped that you and she were talking so nicely, so happily." There was another little pause and then Gregory said: "She rather depressed me, I think." "Depressed you? But how, Gregory?" He must indeed be very careful. It was far too late, now, for simple frankness; simple frankness had, perhaps, from the beginning been impossible and in that fact lay the insecurity of his position, and the immense advantage of Madame von Marwitz's. And as he paused and sought his words it was as if, in the image of the Bouddha, looking down upon him and Karen, Madame von Marwitz were with them now, a tranquil and ironic witness of his discomfiture. "Well," he said, "she made me feel that I had only a very dingy sort of life to offer you and that my friends were all very tiresome—borné was the word she used. That did rather—well—dash my spirits." Standing there within his arm, of her face, seen from above, only the brow, the eyelashes, the cheek visible, she was very still for a long moment. Then, gently, she said—and in the gentleness he felt that she put aside the too natural suspicion that he was complaining of Tante behind her back: "She doesn't realise that I don't care at all about people. And they are rather bornés, aren't they, Gregory." "I don't find them so," said Gregory, reasonably. "They aren't geniuses, of course, or acrobats, or saints, or anything of that sort; but they seem to me, on the whole, a very nice lot of people." "Very nice indeed, Gregory. But I don't think it is saints and geniuses that Tante misses here; she misses minds that are able to recognise genius." Her quick ear had caught the involuntary irony of his quotation. "Ah, but, dear, you mustn't expect to find the average nice person able to pay homage at a dinner-party. There is a time and a place for everything, isn't there." "It was not that I meant, Gregory, or that Tante meant. There is always a place for intelligence. It wasn't an interesting dinner, you must have felt that as well as I, not the sort of dinner Tante would naturally expect. They were only interested in their own things, weren't they? And quite apart from homage, there is such a thing as realisation. Mr. Fraser talked to Tante—I saw it all quite well—as he might have talked to the next dowager he met. Tante isn't used to being talked to as if she were toute comme une autre; she isn't toute comme une autre." "But one must pretend to be, at a dinner-party," Gregory returned. To have to defend his friends when it was Tante who stood so lamentably in need of defence had begun to work upon his nerves. "And some dowagers are as interesting as anybody. There are all sorts of ways of being interesting. Dowagers are as intelligent as geniuses sometimes." His lightness was not unprovocative. "It isn't funny, Gregory, to see Tante put into a false position." "But, my dear, we did the best we could for her." "I know that we did; and our best isn't good enough for her. That is all that I ask you to realise," said Karen. She was angry, and from the depths of his anger against Madame von Marwitz Gregory felt a little gush of anger against Karen rise. "You are telling me what she told me," he said; "that my best isn't good enough for her. You may say it and think it, of course; but it's a thing that Madame von Marwitz has no right to say." Karen moved away from his arm. Something more than the old girlish sternness was in the look with which she faced him, though that flashed at him, a shield rather than a weapon. He recognised the hidden pain and astonishment and his anger faded in tenderness. How could she but resent and repell any hint that belittled 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 borné. 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. <hr style="width: 65%;" /> <div style="break-after:column;"></div>

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