Louise, harassed and sallow, hurried from room to room, expostulating, explaining, replying in shrill tones to Madame von Marwitz's sonorous orders. Victor, led by Mrs. Forrester's footman, made his appearance shortly after his mistress, and, set at large, penetrated unerringly to the kitchen where he lapped up a dish of custard; while Mrs. Barker, in the drawing-room, already with signs of resentment on her face, was receiving minute directions from Madame von Marwitz in regard to a cup of chocolate. In the dining-room, Gregory found two strange-looking men, to whom Barker, also clouded, had served whisky and soda; one of these was Madame von Marwitz's secretary, Schultz; the other a concert impresario. They greeted Gregory with a disconcerting affability. In the midst of the confusion Madame von Marwitz moved, weary and benignant, her arm around Karen's shoulders, or seated herself at the piano to run her fingers appraisingly over it in a majestic surge of arpeggios. Gregory found her hat and veil tossed on the bed in his and Karen's room, and when he went into his dressing-room he stumbled over three band-boxes, just arrived from a modiste's, and hastily thrust there by Louise. Victor bounded to greet him as he sought refuge in the library, and overturned a table that stood in the hall with two fine pieces of oriental china upon it. The splintering crash of crockery filled the flat. Mrs. Barker had taken the chocolate to the drawing-room some time since, and Madame von Marwitz, the cup in her hand, appeared upon the threshold with Karen. "Alas! The bad dog!" she said, surveying the wreckage while she sipped her chocolate. Rose was summoned to sweep up the pieces and Karen stooped over them with murmured regret. "Were they wedding-presents, my Karen?" Madame von Marwitz asked. "Console yourself; they were not of a good period--I noticed them. I will give you better." The vases had belonged to Gregory's mother. He was aware that he stood rather blankly looking at the fragments, as Rose collected them. "Oh, Gregory, I am so sorry," said Karen, taking upon herself the responsibility for Victor's mischance. "I am afraid they are broken to bits. See, this is the largest piece of all. They can't be mended. No, Tante, they were not wedding-presents; they belonged to Gregory and we were very fond of them." "Alas!" said Madame von Marwitz above her chocolate, and on a deeper note. Gregory was convinced that she had known they were not wedding-presents. But her manner was flawless and he saw that she intended to keep it so. She dined with them alone and at the table addressed her talk to him, fixing, as ill-luck would have it, on the theatre as her theme, and on _La Gaine d'Or_ as the piece which, in Paris, had particularly interested her. "You and Karen, of course, saw it when you were there," she said. It was the piece of sinister fame to which he had refused to take Karen. He owned that they had not seen it.