"Darling--I'm only teasing you," said Gregory. "I'll like the thing if you want me to, and make offerings to him every morning--he looks in need of sacrifices and offerings, doesn't he? And what a queer Oriental scent is in the air. Rather nice, that." "Please don't call it the 'thing,'" said Karen. He saw into her divided loyalty. And his comfort was to know that she didn't like the Bouddha either. "I won't," he promised. "It isn't a thing, but a duty, a privilege, a responsibility. He shall stay here, where he is. He really won't crowd us too impossibly, and that sofa can go." "You see," said Karen, and tears now came to her eyes, "it would hurt her so dreadfully if she could dream that we did not love it very, very much." "I know," said Gregory, kissing her. "I perfectly understand. We will love it very, very much. Come now, you must be hungry; let us have our tea." CHAPTER XVII Madame von Marwitz sat in the deep chintz sofa with Karen beside her, and while she talked to the young couple, Karen's hand in hers, her eyes continually went about the room with an expression that did not seem to match her alert, if rather mechanical, conversation. Karen had already seen her, the day before, when she had gone to the station to meet her and had driven with her to Mrs. Forrester's. But Miss Scrotton had been there, too, almost tearful in her welcoming back of her great friend, and there had been little opportunity for talk in the carriage. Tante had smiled upon her, deeply, had held her hand, closely, and had asked, with the playful air which forestalls gratitude, how she liked her present. "You will see it, my Scrotton; a Bouddha in his shrine--of the best period; a thing really rare and beautiful. Mr. Asprey told me of it, at a sale in New York; and I was able to secure it. _Hein, ma petite_; you were pleased?" "Oh, Tante, my letter told you that," said Karen. "And your husband? He was pleased?" "He thought that it was gorgeous," said Karen, but after a momentary hesitation not lost upon her guardian. "I was sorely tempted to keep it myself," said Madame von Marwitz. "I could see it in the music-room at Les Solitudes. But at once I felt--it is Karen's. My only anxiety was for its background. I have never seen Mr. Jardine's flat. But I knew that I could trust the man my child had chosen to have beauty about him." "It isn't exactly a beautiful room," Karen confessed, smiling. "It isn't like the music-room; you won't expect that from a London flat--or from us. But it is very bright and comfortable and, yes, pretty. I hope that you will like my home."