"I am not, this morning, in a mood for unconventionalities," Madame von Marwitz returned, meeting his gaze with her mingled severity and softness. And again, with composure, he ignored her severity and returned her smile. It would have been unfair to say that there was effrontery in Mr. Drew's gaze; it merely had its way with you and, if you didn't like its way, passed from you unperturbed. With all his rather sickly grace and ambiguous placidity, Mr. Drew was not lacking in character. He had risen superior to a good many things, the dismal wife at Surbiton and the large-mouthed children perhaps among them, and he had won his detachment. The homage he offered was not unalloyed by humour. To a person of Madame von Marwitz's calibre, he seemed to say, he would not pretend to raptures or reverences they had both long since seen through. It would bore him to be rapturous or reverent, and if you didn't like him, so his whole demeanour mildly demonstrated, you could leave him, or, rather, he could leave you. So that when Madame von Marwitz sought to quell him she found herself met with a gentle unawareness, even a gentle indifference. Cogitation and a certain disquiet were often in her eye when it rested on this devotee. "Does one make conventional speeches to the moon?" he now remarked, taking a chair beside her and turning the brim of his white hat over his eyes so that of his face only the sensual, delicate mouth and chin were in sunlight. "I shouldn't want to make speeches to you if you were conventional. You are done with your letters? I may talk to you?" "Yes, I have done. You may talk, as foolishly as you please, but not unconventionally; whether I am or am not conventional is not a matter that concerns you. I have had good news to-day. My little Karen is to marry." "Your little Karen? Which of all the myriads is this adorer?" "The child you saw with me in London. The one who stays in Cornwall." "You mean the fair, square girl who calls you Tante? I only remember of her that she was fair and square and called you Tante." "That is she. She is to marry an excellent young man, a young man," said Madame von Marwitz, slightly smiling at him, "who would never wish to make speeches to the moon, who is, indeed, not aware of the moon. But he is very much aware of Karen; so much so," and she continued to smile, as if over an amusing if still slightly perplexing memory, "that when she is there he is not aware of me. What do you say to that?" "I say," Mr. Drew replied, "that the barbarians will always be many and the civilized few. Who is this barbarian?" "A Mr. Gregory Jardine." "Jardine? _Connais-pas_," said Mr. Drew.