Only perhaps in this particular section of the British people could this particular effect of cheerful imperviousness have been achieved. They were not of the voracious, cultured hordes who make their way by their well-trained appreciations, nor of the fashionable lion-collecting tribe who do not need to make their way but who need to have their way made amusing. Well-bred, securely stationed, untouched by boredom or anxiety, they were at once too dull and too intelligent to be fluttered by the presence of a celebrity. They wanted nothing of her, except, perhaps, that after their coffee she should give them some music, and they did not want this at all eagerly.
If Madame von Marwitz had come to crush, to subjugate or to enchant, she had failed in every respect and Gregory saw that her failure was not lost upon her. Her manner, as the consciousness grew, became more frankly that of the vain, ill-tempered child, ignored. She ceased to speak; her eyes, fixed on the wall over Sir Oliver's head, enlarged in a sullen despondency.
Lady Montgomery was making her way through a bunch of grapes and Lady Mary had only peeled her peach, when, suddenly, taking upon herself the prerogative of a hostess, Madame von Marwitz caught up her fan and gloves with a gesture of open impatience, and swept to the door almost before Gregory had time to reach it or the startled guests to rise from their places.
CHAPTER XIX
When the time came for going to the drawing-room, Gregory found Betty entertaining the company there, while Karen, on a distant sofa, was apparently engaged in showing her guardian a book of photographs. He took in the situation at a glance, and, as he took it in, he was aware that part of its significance lay in the fact that it obliged him to a swift interchange with Betty, an interchange that irked him, defining as it did a community of understanding from which Karen, in her simplicity, was shut out.
He went across to the couple on the sofa. Only sudden illness could have excused Madame von Marwitz's departure from the dining-room, yet he determined to ask no questions, and to leave any explanations to her.
Karen's eyes, in looking at him, were grave and a little anxious; but the anxiety, he saw, was not on his account. "Tante wanted to see our kodaks," she said. "Do sit here with us, Gregory. Betty is talking to everybody so beautifully."
"But you must go and talk to everybody beautifully, too, now, darling," said Gregory. He put his hand on her shoulder and looked down at her smiling. The gesture, with its marital assurance, the smile that was almost a caress, were involuntary; yet they expressed more than his tender pride and solicitude, they defined his possession of her, and they excluded Tante. "It's been a nice little dinner, hasn't it," he went on, continuing to look at her and not at Madame von Marwitz. "I saw that the General was enjoying you immensely. There he is, looking over at you now; he wants to go on talking about Garibaldi with you. He said he'd never met a young woman so well up in modern history."
Madame von Marwitz's brooding eyes were on him while he thus spoke. He ignored them.