"What do you call him?" Gregory inquired.
"Just Strepoff; everybody calls him that. Dear Belot, too," Karen pursued. "He could not fail to interest you. Perhaps you have already met him. He has been in London."
"Belot? Does he write poetry?"
"Poetry? No. Belot is a painter; a great painter. Surely you have heard of Belot?"
"Well, I'm afraid that if I have I've forgotten. You see, as you say, I live so out of the world of art."
"Did you not see his portrait of Susanne Mauret—the great French actress? It has been exhibited through all the world."
"Of course I have. Belot of course. The impressionist painter. It looked to me, I confess, awfully queer; but I could see that it was very clever."
"Impressionist? No; Belot would not rank himself among the impressionists. And he would not like to hear his work called clever; I warn you of that. He has a horror of cleverness. It was not a clever picture, but sober, strange, beautiful. Well, I know Belot and his wife quite intimately. They are great friends of the Lippheims, too, and call themselves the Franco-Prussian alliance. Madame Belot is a dear little woman. You must have often seen his pictures of her and the children. He has numbers of children and adores them. La petite Margot is my special pet and she always sends me a little present on my birthday. Madame Belot was once his model," Karen added, "and is quite du peuple, and I believe that some of his friends were sorry that he married her; but she makes him very happy. That beautiful nude in the Luxembourg by Chantefoy is of her—long before she married, of course. She does not sit for the ensemble now, and indeed I fear it has lost all its beauty, for she is very fat. It would be nice to go to Paris on our wedding-tour and see the Belots," said Karen.
Gregory made an evasive answer. He reflected that once he had married her it would probably be easy to detach Karen from these most undesirable associates. He hoped that she would take to Betty. Betty would be an excellent antidote. "And you think your sister-in-law will want me?" said Karen, when he brought her from the Belots back to Betty. "She doesn't know me."
"She must begin to know you as soon as possible. You will have Mrs. Forrester at hand, you see, if my family should oppress you too much. Barring Betty, who hardly counts as one of them, they aren't interesting, I warn you."