"I may oppress them," said Karen, with the shrewdness that often surprised him. "Who will they take refuge with?"
"Oh, they have all London to fall back upon. They do nothing when they're up but go out. That's my plan; that they should leave you a good deal when they go out, and leave you to me."
"That will be nice," said Karen. "But Mrs. Forrester, you know," she went on, "is not exactly an intimate of mine that I could fall back upon. I am, in her eyes, only a little appendage of Tante's."
"Ah, but you have ceased, now, to be an appendage of Tante's. And Mrs. Forrester is an intimate, an old one, of mine."
"She'll take me in as your appendage," Karen smiled.
"Not at all. It's you, now, who are the person to whom the appendage belongs. I'm your appendage. That quite alters the situation. You will have to stand in the foreground and do all the conventional things."
"Shall I?" smiled Karen, unperturbed. She was, as he knew, not to be disconcerted by any novel social situation. She had witnessed so many situations and such complicated ones that the merely conventional were, in her eyes, relatively insignificant and irrevelant. There would be for her none of the débutante's sense of awkwardness or insufficiency. Again she reminded him of the rustic little princess, unaware of alien customs, and ready to learn and to laugh at her own blunders.
It was arranged, Mrs. Talcott's appearance helping to decisions, that as soon as Karen heard from her guardian, who might have plans to suggest, she should come up to London and stay with Lady Jardine.
Mrs. Talcott, on entering, had grasped Gregory's hand and shaken it vigorously, remarking: "I'm very pleased to see you back again."
"I didn't tell Mrs. Talcott anything, Gregory," said Karen. "But I am sure she guessed."