"I'm not at all rich; but I want you to have pretty things—layers and layers of the nice, white, soft things brides always have, and a great many new hats and dresses. Couldn't I give you a little tip—to begin the trousseau?"
"Ah, it can wait, can't it?" said Karen easily. "No; you can't give me a tip. Tante, I am sure, will see that I have a nice trousseau. She may even give me a little dot when I marry. I have no money at all; not one penny, you know. Do you mind?"
"I'd far rather have you without a penny because I want to give you everything. If Tante doesn't give you the little dot, I shall."
Karen was pondering a little seriously. "I don't know what Tante will feel since you have enough for us both. It was when she wished me to marry Franz that she spoke of a dot. And Franz is of course very poor and has a great family of brothers and sisters to help support. You will know Franz one day. You did not speak very nicely of Franz that time, you know; that was another reason why I thought you were so angry. And it made me angry, too," said Karen, smiling at him.
"Wasn't I nice? I am sure Franz is."
"Oh, so good and kind and true. And very talented. And his mother would be a wonderful musician if she had not so many children to take care of; that has harmed her music. And she, too, is a golden-hearted person; she used often to help me with my dresses. Do you remember that little white silk dress of mine? perhaps so; I wore it at the concert, such a pretty dress, I think. Frau Lippheim helped me with that—she and a little German seamstress in Leipsig. I see us now, all bending over the rustling silk, round the table with the lamp on it. We had to make it so quickly. Tante had sent for me to come to her in Vienna and I had nothing to wear at the great concert she was to give. We sat up till twelve to finish it. Franz and Lotta cooked our supper for us and we only stopped long enough to eat. Dear Frau Lippheim. Some day you will know all the Lippheims."
He listened to her with dreamy, amused delight, seeing her bending in the ugly German room over the little white silk dress and only vaguely aware of the queer figures she put before him. He had no inclination to know Franz and his mother, and no curiosity about them. But Karen continued. "That is the one, the only thing I can give you," she said, reflecting. "You know so few artists, don't you; so few people of talent. As to people, your life is narrow, isn't it so? I have met so many great people in my life, first through my father and then through Tante. Painters, poets, musicians. You will probably know them now, too; some of them certainly, for some are also friends of mine. Strepoff, for example; oh—how I shall like you to meet him. You have read him, of course, and about his escape from Siberia and his long exile."
"Strepoff? Yes, I think so. A dismal sort of fellow, isn't he?"
Gregory's delight was merging now in a more definite amusement, tinged, it may be confessed, with alarm. He remembered to have seen a photograph of this celebrity, very turbulently haired and very fixed and fiery of eye. He remembered a large bare throat and a defiant neck-tie. He had no wish to make Strepoff's acquaintance. It was quite enough to read about him in the magazines and admire his exploits from a distance.
"Dismal?" Karen had repeated, with a touch of severity. "Who would not be after such a life? Yes, he is a sad man, and the thought of Russia never leaves him. But he is full of gaiety, too. He spent some months with us two years ago at the Italian lakes and I grew so fond of him. We had great jokes together, he and I. And he sometimes writes to me now, such teasing, funny letters. The last was from San Francisco. He is giving lectures out there, raising money; for he never ceases the struggle. He calls me Liebchen. He is very fond of me."