Madame von Marwitz looked up presently at a wonderful little clock of gold and enamel that stood before her and then struck, not impatiently, but with an intensification of the air of melancholy, an antique silver bell that stood beside the clock. Louise entered.
"Where is Mademoiselle?" Madame von Marwitz asked, speaking in French. Louise answered that Mademoiselle had gone out to take Victor for his walk, Victor being Madame von Marwitz's St. Bernard who remained in England during his mistress's absences.
"You should have taken Victor yourself, Louise," said Madame von Marwitz, not at all unkindly, but with decisive condemnation. "You know that I like Mademoiselle to help me with my letters in the morning."
Louise, her permanent plaintiveness enhanced, murmured that she had a bad headache and that Mademoiselle had kindly offered to take Victor, had said that she would enjoy taking him.
"Moreover," Madame von Marwitz pursued, as though these excuses were not worthy of reply, "I do not care for Mademoiselle to be out alone in such a fog. You should have known that, too. As for the dress, don't fail to send it back this morning—as you should have done last night."
"Mademoiselle thought we might arrange it to please Madame."
"You should have known better, if Mademoiselle did not. Mademoiselle has very little taste in such matters, as you are well aware. Do my feet now; I think that the nails need a little polishing; but very little; I do not wish you to make them look as though they had been varnished; it is a trick of yours."
Madame von Marwitz then resumed her cigarette and her letters while Louise, fetching files and scissors, powders and polishers, mournfully knelt before her mistress, and, drawing the mule from a beautifully undeformed white foot, began to bring each nail to a state of perfected art. In the midst of this ceremony Karen Woodruff appeared. She led the great dog by a leash and was still wearing her cap and coat.
"I hope I am not late, Tante," she said, speaking in English and going to kiss her guardian's cheek, while Victor stood by, majestically benignant.
"You are late, my Karen, and you had no business to take out Victor at this hour. If you want to walk with him let it be in the afternoon. Aïe! aïe! Louise! what are you doing? Have mercy I beg of you!" Louise had used the file awkwardly. "What is that you have, Karen?" Madame von Marwitz went on. Miss Woodruff held in her hand a large bouquet enveloped in white paper.
"An offering, Tante; they just arrived as I came in. Roses, I think."
"I have already sent half a dozen boxes downstairs for Mrs. Forrester to dispose of in the drawing-room. You will take off your things now, child, and help me, please, with all these weary people. Bon Dieu! do they really imagine that I am going to answer their inept effusions?"
Miss Woodruff had unwrapped a magnificent bunch of pink roses and laid them beside her guardian. "From that good little dark-faced lady of yesterday, Tante."
Madame von Marwitz, pausing meditatively over a note, glanced at them. "The dark-faced lady?"
"Don't you remember? Mrs. Harding. Here is her card. She sat and gazed at you, so devoutly, while you talked to Mr. Drew and Lady Campion. And she looked very poor. It must mean a great deal for her to buy roses in January—un suprême effort," Miss Woodruff quoted, she and her guardian having a host of such playful allusions.
"I see her now," said Madame von Marwitz. "I see her face; congestionnée d'émotion, n'est-ce-pas." She read the card that Karen presented.
"Silly woman. Take them away, child."
"But no, Tante, it is not silly; it is very touching, I think; and you have liked pink roses sometimes. It makes me sorry for that good little lady that you shouldn't even look at her roses."
"No. I see her. Dark red and very foolish. I do not like her or her flowers. They look stupid flowers—thick and pink, like fat, smiling cheeks. Take them away."
"You have read what she says, Tante, here on the back? I call that very pretty."
"I see it. I see it too often. No. Go now, and take your hat off. Good heavens, child, why did you wear that ancient sealskin cap?"
Karen paused at the door, the rejected roses in her arms. "Why, Tante, it was snowing a little; I didn't want to wear my best hat for a morning walk."
"Have you no other hat beside the best?"
"No, Tante. And I like my little cap. You gave it to me—years ago—don't you remember; the first time that we went to Russia together."
"Years ago, indeed, I should imagine from its appearance. Well; it makes no difference; you will soon be leaving town and it will do for Cornwall and Tallie."
When Karen returned, Madame von Marwitz, whose feet were now finished, took her place in an easy chair and said: "Now to work. Leave the accounts for Schultz. I've glanced at some of them this morning and, as usual, I seem to be spending twice as much as I make. How the money runs away I cannot imagine. And Tallie sends me a great batch of bills from Cornwall, bon Dieu!" Bon Dieu was a frequent ejaculation with Madame von Marwitz, often half sighed, and with the stress laid on the first word.
"Never mind, you will soon be making a great deal more money," said Karen.
"It would be more to the point if I could manage to keep a little of what I make. Schultz tells me that my investments in the Chinese railroads are going badly, too. Put aside the bills. We will go through the rest of the letters."
For some time they worked at the pile of correspondence. Karen would open each letter and read the signature; letters from those known to Madame von Marwitz, or from her friends, were handed to her; the letters signed by unknown names Karen read aloud:—begging letters; letters requesting an autograph; letters recommending to the great woman's kindly notice some budding genius, and letters of sheer adulation, listened to, these last, sometimes with a dreamy indifference to the end, interrupted sometimes with a sudden "Assez."
There were a dozen such letters this morning and when Karen read the signature of the last: "Your two little adorers Gladys and Ethel Bocock," Madame von Marwitz remarked: "We need not have that. Put it into the basket."
"But, Tante," Karen protested, looking round at her with a smile, "you must hear it; it is so funny and so nice."
"So stupid I call it, my dear. They should not be encouraged."
"But you must be kind, you will be kind, even to the stupid. See, here are two of your photographs, they ask you to sign them. There is a stamped and addressed envelope to return them in. Such love, Tante! such torrents of love! You must listen."
Madame von Marwitz resigned herself, her eyes fixed absently on the smoke curling from her cigarette as if, in its fluctuating evanescence, she saw a symbol of human folly. Gladys and Ethel lived in Clapham and told her that they came in to all her concerts and sat for hours waiting on the stairs. Their letter ended: "Everyone adores you, but no one can adore you like we do. Oh, would you tell us the colour of your eyes? Gladys thinks deep, dark grey, but I think velvety brown; we talk and talk about it and can't decide. We mustn't take up any more of your precious time.—Your two little adorers, Gladys and Ethel Bocock."
"Bocock," Madame von Marwitz commented. "No one can adore me like they do. Let us hope not. Petites sottes."
"You will sign the photographs, Tante—and you will say, yes, you must—'To my kind little admirers.' Now be merciful."
"Bocock," Madame von Marwitz mused, holding out an indulgent hand for the pen that Karen gave her and allowing the blotter with the photographs upon it to be placed upon her knee. "And they care for music, parbleu! How many of such appreciators are there, do you think, among my adorers? I do this to please you, Karen. It is against my principles to encourage the schwärmerei of schoolgirls. There," she signed quickly across each picture in a large, graceful and