Gregory read, and instinctively, while he read, he glanced at Karen, steadying his face lest she should guess from its tremor of contempt how latent antagonisms hardened to a more ironic dislike. But Karen gazed from the window--grave, preoccupied. Such suspicions were far indeed from her. Gregory could give himself to the letter and its intimations undiscovered. Suffering? Perhaps Madame von Marwitz was suffering; but she had no business to say it. Forgive him indeed; well, if those were the terms of forgiveness, he promised himself that he should deserve it. Meanwhile he must conceal his resentment. "I'm so sorry, darling," he said, giving the letter back to Karen. "We shall have to cheer her up, shan't we? When she sees how very happy you are with me I am sure she'll feel happier." He wasn't at all sure. "I don't know, Gregory. I am afraid that my happiness cannot make her less lonely." Karen's griefs were not to be lightly dispersed. But she was not a person to enlarge upon them. After another moment she pointed out something from the window and laughed; but the unshadowed gladness that he had imagined for their meeting was overcast. Betty awaited them with tea in her Pont Street drawing-room, a room of polished, glittering, softly lustrous surfaces. Precious objects stood grouped on little Empire tables or ranged in Empire cabinets. Flat, firm cushions of rose-coloured satin stood against the backs of Empire chairs and sofas. On the walls were French engravings and a delicate portrait of Betty done at the time of her marriage by Boutet de Monvel. The room, like Betty herself, combined elegance and cordiality. "I was there, you know, at the very beginning," she said, taking Karen's hands and scanning her with her jewel-like eyes. "It was love at first sight. He asked who you were at once and I'm pleased to think that it was I who gave him his first information. Now that I look back upon it," said Betty, taking her place at the tea-table and holding Karen still with her bright and friendly gaze, "I remember that he was far more interested in you than in anything else that evening. I don't believe that Madame Okraska existed for him." Betty was drawing on her imagination in a manner that she took for granted to be pleasing. "I should be sorry to think that," Karen observed and Gregory was relieved to see that she did not take Betty's supposition seriously. She watched her pretty hands move among the teacups with an air of pleased interest. "Would you really? You would want him to retain all his æsthetic faculties even while he was falling in love? Do you think one could?" Betty asked her questions smiling. "Or perhaps you think that one would fall in love the more securely from listening to Madame Okraska at the same time. I think perhaps I should. I do admire her so much. I hope now that some day I shall know her. She must be, I am sure, as lovely as she looks."