"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. CHAPTER XX The first of Madame von Marwitz's great concerts was given on Friday, and Karen spent the whole of that day and of Saturday with her, summoned by an urgent telephone message early in the morning. On Sunday she was still secluded in her rooms, and Miss Scrotton, breaking in determinedly upon her, found her lying prone upon the sofa, Karen beside her. "I cannot see you, my Scrotton," said Madame von Marwitz, with kindly yet listless decision. "Did they not tell you below that I was seeing nobody? Karen is with me to watch over my ill-temper. She is a soothing little milk-poultice and I can bear nothing else. I am worn out." Before poor Miss Scrotton's brow of gloom Karen suggested that she should herself go down to Mrs. Forrester for tea and leave her place to Miss Scrotton, but, with a weary shake of the head, Madame von Marwitz rejected the proposal. "No; Scrotton is too intelligent for me to-day," she said. "You will go down to Mrs. Forrester for your tea, my Scrotton, and wait for another day to see me." Miss Scrotton went down nearly in tears. "She refused to see Sir Alliston," Mrs. Forrester said, soothingly. "She really is fit for nothing. I have never seen her so exhausted." "Yet Karen Jardine always manages to force her way in," said Miss Scrotton, controlling the tears with difficulty. "She has absolutely taken possession of Mercedes. It really is almost absurd, such devotion, and in a married woman. Gregory doesn't like it at all. Oh, I know it. Betty Jardine gave me a hint only yesterday of how matters stand." "Lady Jardine has always seemed to me a rather trivial little person. I should not accept her impression of a situation," said Mrs. Forrester. "Mercedes sends for Karen constantly. And I am sure that Gregory is glad to think that she can be of use to Mercedes."