d 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."

"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 debutante'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."

"Mrs. Talcott and I had our understandings," sa