Madame von Marwitz also showed oddities of temper which, with all her determination to appear at her best, it did not occur to her to control, oddities that met, from Karen, with a fond tolerance. It startled Gregory when they saw Madame von Marwitz, emerging from her room, administer two smart boxes upon Louise's ears, remarking as she did so, with gravity rather than anger: "_Voilà pour toi, ma fille._" "Is Madame von Marwitz in the habit of slapping her servants?" he asked Karen in their room, aware that his frigid mien required justification. She looked at him through the veil of ice. "Tante's servants adore her." "Well, it seems a pity to take such an advantage of their adoration." "Louise is sometimes very clumsy and impertinent." "I can't help thinking that that sort of treatment makes servants impertinent." "I do not care to hear your criticism of my guardian, Gregory." "I beg your pardon," said Gregory. Betty Jardine met him on a windy April evening in Queen Anne's Gate. "I see that you had to sacrifice me, Gregory," she said. She smiled; she bore no grudge; but her smile was tinged with a shrewd pity. He felt that he flushed. "You mean that you've not been to see us since the occasion." "I've not been asked!" Betty laughed. "Madame von Marwitz is with us, you know," Gregory proffered rather lamely. "Yes; I do know. How do you like having a genius domiciled? I hear that she is introducing Karen into a very artistic set. After the Bannisters, Mr. Claude Drew. He is back from America at last, it seems, and is an assiduous adorer. You have seen a good deal of him?" "I haven't seen him at all. Has he been back for long?" "Four or five days only, I believe; but I don't know how often he and Madame von Marwitz and Karen have been seen together. Don't think me a cat, Gregory; but if she is engaged in a flirtation with that most unpleasant young man I hope you will see to it that Karen isn't used as a screen. There have been some really horrid stories about him, you know." Gregory parted from his sister-in-law, perturbed. Indiscreet and naughty she might be, but Betty was not a cat. The veil of ice was so impenetrable that no sound of Karen's daily life came to him through it. He had not an idea of what she did with herself when he wasn't there, or, rather, of what Madame von Marwitz did with her. "You've been seeing something of Mr. Claude Drew, I hear," he said to Karen that evening. "Do you like him better than you used to do?" They were in the drawing-room before dinner and dinner had been, as usual, waiting for half an hour for Madame von Marwitz. Gregory's voice betrayed more than a kindly interest, and Karen answered coldly, if without suspicion; "No; I do not like him better. But Tante likes him. It is not I who see him, it is Tante. I am only with them sometimes." "And I? Am I to be with them sometimes?" Gregory inquired with an air of gaiety.