their art.

Such a genius, pre-eminently such a one, was Madame von Marwitz. She was
more than under the chandelier; Mrs. Forrester's house, when she was in
London, was her home. "I am safe with you," she had said to Mrs.
Forrester, "with you I am never pursued and never bored." Where Mrs.
Forrester evaded and relegated bores, Madame von Marwitz sombrely and
helplessly hated them. "What can I do?" she said. "If no one will
protect me I am delivered to them. It is a plague of locusts. They
devour me. Oh their letters! Oh their flowers! Oh their love and their
stupidity! No, the earth is black with them."

Madame von Marwitz was protected from the swarms while she visited her
old friend. The habits of the house were altered to suit hers. She
stayed in her rooms or came down as she chose. She had complete liberty
in everything.

To-day she had not as yet appeared, and everyone had come with the hope
of seeing her. There was Lady Campion, the most tactful and discreet of
admirers; and Sir Alliston, who would be perhaps asked to go up to her
if she did not come down; and Eleanor Scrotton who would certainly go up
unasked; and old Miss Harding, a former governess of Mrs. Forrester's
sons and a person privileged, who had come leading an evident yet
pathetic locust, her brother's widow, little Mrs. Harding, the shy lady
of the platform. Miss Harding had told Mrs. Forrester about this
sister-in-law and of how, since her husband's death, she had lived for
philanthropy, and music in the person of Madame Okraska. She had never
met her. She did not ask to meet her now. She would only sit in a corner
and gaze. Mrs. Forrester had been moved by the account of such humble
faith and had told Miss Harding to bring her sister-in-law.

"I have sent for Karen," Mrs. Forrester said, greeting Gregory Jardine,
who came in after Miss and Mrs. Harding; "she will tell us if our
chances are good. It was your first time, last night, wasn't it,
Gregory? I do hope that she may come down."

Gregory Jardine was not a bore, but Mrs. Forrester suspected him to be
one of the infatuated. He belonged, she imagined, seeing him appear so
promptly after his initiation, to the category of dazzled circlers who
fell into her drawing-room in their myriads while Mercedes was with her,
like frizzled moths into a candle. Mrs. Forrester had sympathy with
moths, and was fond of Gregory, whom she greeted with significant
kindliness.

"I never ask her to come down,