But had she kept its power? Mr. Drew's demeanour reminded Karen sometimes of a cat's. Before the glance and voice of authority he would, metaphorically, pace away; pausing to blink up at some object that attracted his attention or to interest himself in the furbishing of flank or chest. At a hint of anger or coercion, he would tranquilly disappear. Tante, controlling indignation, was left to stare after him and to regain the throne as best she might, and at these moments Karen felt that Tante's eye turned on her, gauging her power of interpretation, ready, did she not feign the right degree of unconsciousness, to wreak on her something of the controlled emotion. The fear that had come on the night of her arrival pressed closely on Karen then, but, more closely still, the pain for Tante. Tante's clear dignity was blurred; her image, in its rebuffed and ineffectual autocracy, became hovering, uncertain, piteous. And, in seeing and feeling all these things, as if with a lacerated sensitiveness, Karen was aware that, in this last week of her life, she had grown much older. She felt herself in some ways older than her guardian. It was on the morning of her seventh day at Les Solitudes that she met Mr. Drew walking early in the garden. The sea was glittering blue and gold; the air was melancholy in its sweetness; birds whistled. Karen examined Mr. Drew as he approached her along the sunny upper terrace. With his dense, dark eyes, delicate face and golden hair, his white clothes and loose black tie, she was able to recognize in him an object that might charm and even subjugate. To Karen he seemed but one among the many strange young men she had seen surrounding Tante; yet this morning, clearly, and for the first time, she saw why he subjugated Tante and why she resented her subjugation. There was more in him than mere pose and peculiarity; he had some power; the power of the cat: he was sincerely indifferent to anything that did not attract him. And at the same time he was unimportant; insignificant in all but his sincerity. He was not a great writer; Tante could never make a great writer out of him. And he was, when all was said and done, but one among many strange young men. "Good morning," he said. He doffed his hat. He turned and walked beside her. They were in full view of the house. "I hoped that I might find you. Let us go up to the flagged garden," he suggested; "the sea is glittering like a million scimitars. One has a better view up there." "But it is not so warm," said Karen. "I am walking here to be in the sun." Mr. Drew had also been walking there to be in the sun; but they were in full view of the house and he was aware of a hand at Madame von Marwitz's window-curtain. He continued, however, to walk beside Karen up and down the terrace.