"He is a cousin of our Scrotton's," said Madame von Marwitz, "and a man of law. Very stiff and clean like a roll of expensive paper. He has asked me very nicely if he may inscribe the name of Mrs. Jardine upon a page of it. He is the sort of young man of law, I think I distinguish," Madame von Marwitz mused, her eyes on the landscape, "who does not smoke a briar wood pipe and ride on an omnibus, but who keeps good cigars in a silver box and always takes a hansom. He will make Karen comfortable and, I gather from her letter, happy. It will be a strange change of _milieu_ for the child, but I have, I think, made her independent of _milieus_. She will write more than Mrs. Jardine on his scroll. It is a child of character." "And she will no longer be in Cornwall," Mr. Drew observed. "I am glad of that." "Why, pray? I am not glad of it. I shall miss my Karen at Les Solitudes." "But I, you see, don't want to have other worshippers there when I go to stay with you," said Mr. Drew; "for, you know, you are going to let me stay a great deal with you in Cornwall. You will play to me, and I will write something that you will, perhaps, care to read. And the moon will be very kind and listen to many speeches. You know," he added, with a change of tone, "that I am in love with you. I must be alone with you at Les Solitudes." "Let us have none of that, if you please," said Madame von Marwitz. She looked away from him along the sunny stretches of the terrace and she frowned slightly, though smiling on, as if with tolerant affection. And in her look was something half dazed and half resentful like the look of a fierce wild bird, subdued by the warmth and firmness of an enclosing hand. CHAPTER XIII Gregory went down to Cornwall again only nine days after he had left it. He and Karen met as if under an arch of infinite blessings. He had his cable to show her and she hers to show him, and, although Gregory did not see them as the exquisite documents that Karen felt them to be, they did for him all that he asked Madame von Marwitz to do. "I give her to you. Be worthy of my trust. Mercedes von Marwitz"--his read. And Karen's: "I could only yield you to a greater joy than you can find with me--but it could not be to a greater love. Do not forget me in your happiness. You are mine, my beloved child, not less but more than ever.--Tante."