Tante. Anne Douglas Sedgwick

Already an awareness and an expectancy was abroad that reminded him of that in the concert hall. The contagion of celebrity had made itself felt even before the celebrity herself was visible; but, in another moment, Madame von Marwitz had appeared upon the platform, surrounded by cohorts of friends. Dressed in a long white cloak and flowing in sables, a white lace veil drooping about her shoulders, a sumptuous white feather curving from her brow to her back, she moved amidst the scene like a splendid, dreamy ship entering some grimy Northern harbour.

      Mrs. Forrester, on heels as high as a fairy-godmother's and wearing a strange velvet cloak and a stranger velvet bonnet, trotted beside her; Sir Alliston was on the other hand, his delicate Vandyke features nipped with the cold; Mr. Claude Drew walked behind and before went Eleanor Scrotton, smiling a tight, stricken smile of triumph and responsibility. As the group passed Gregory, Miss Scrotton caught sight of him.

      "We are in plenty of time, I see," she said. "Dear me! it has been a morning! Mercedes is always late. Could you, I wonder, induce these people to move away. She so detests being stared at."

      Eleanor, as usual, roused a mischievous spirit in Gregory. "I'm afraid I'm helpless," he replied. "We're in a public place, and a cat may look at a king. Besides, who could help looking at those marvellous clothes."

      "It isn't a question of cats but of impertinent human beings," Miss Scrotton returned with displeasure. "Allow me, Madam," she forged a majestic way through a gazing group.

      "Where is Miss Woodruff?" Gregory inquired. He was wondering.

      "Tiresome girl," Miss Scrotton said, watching the ladies with the flowers who gathered around her idol. "She will be late, I'm afraid. She had forgotten Victor."

      "Victor? Is Victor the courier? Why does Miss Woodruff have to remember him?"

      "No, no. Victor is Mercedes's dog, her dearly loved dog," said Miss Scrotton, her impatience with an ignorance that she suspected of wilfulness tempered, as usual, by the satisfaction of giving any and every information about Madame von Marwitz. "It is a sort of superstition with her that he should always be on the platform to see her off. It will be serious, really serious, if Karen doesn't get him here in time. It may depress Mercedes for the whole of the voyage."

      "And where has she gone to get him?"

      "Oh, she turned back nearly at once. She was with us in the carriage and we passed Louise in the omnibus with the boxes and fortunately Karen noticed that Victor wasn't with her. It turned out, when we stopped and asked Louise about him, that she had given him to the footman to take for a walk and she thought he had been brought back to Karen. Karen took a hansom at once and went back. She really ought to have seen to it before starting. I do hope she will get him here in time. Madam, if you please; we really can't get by."

      A little woman, stout but sprightly, in whom Gregory recognized the agitated mother of the pretty girl, evaded Miss Scrotton's extended hand and darted past her to place herself in front of Madame von Marwitz. She wore a large, box-like hat from which a blue veil hung. Her small features, indeterminate in form and incoherent in assemblage, expressed to an extraordinary degree determination and strategy. She faced the great woman.

      "Baroness," she said, in swift yet deliberate tones; "allow me to present myself; Mrs. Hamilton K. Slifer. We have mutual friends; Mrs. Tollman, Mrs. General Tollman of St. Louis, Missouri. She had the pleasure of meeting you in Paris some years ago. An old family friend of ours. My girls, Baroness; Maude and Beatrice. They won't forget this day. We're simply wild about you, Baroness. We were at your concert the other night." Maude, the lean and tawny, and Beatrice, the dark and pretty, had followed deftly in their mother's wake and were smiling, Maude with steely brightness, Beatrice with nonchalant assurance, at Madame von Marwitz.

      "Bon Dieu!" the great woman muttered. She gazed away from the Slifers and about her with helpless consternation. Then, slightly bowing her head and murmuring: "I thank you, Madam," she moved on, her friends closing round her. Miss Scrotton, pale with wrath, put the Slifers aside as she passed them.

      "Well, girls, I knew I could do it!" Mrs. Slifer ejaculated, drawing a deep breath. They stood near Gregory, and Beatrice, who had adjusted her camera, was taking a series of snaps of the retreating celebrity. "We've met her, anyway, and perhaps if she ever comes on deck we'll get another chance. That's a real impertinent woman she's got with her. Did you see her try and shove me back?"

      "Never mind, mother," said Beatrice, who was evidently easy-going; "I snapped her as she did it and she looked ugly enough to turn milk sour. My! do look at that girl with the queer cap and the big dog. She's a freak and no mistake! Stand back, Maude, and let me have a shot at her."

      "Why, I believe it's the adopted daughter!" Maude exclaimed. "Don't you remember. She was in the front row and we heard those people talking about her. I think she's distinguée myself. She looks like a Russian countess."

      It was indeed Miss Woodruff who had arrived and Gregory, whose eyes followed the Slifers', was aware of a sudden emotion on seeing her. It was the emotion of his dream, touched and startled and sweet, and even more than in his dream she made him think of a Hans Andersen heroine with the little sealskin cap on her fair hair, and a long furred coat reaching to her ankles. She stood holding Victor by a leash, looking about her with a certain anxiety.

      Gregory made his way to her and when she saw him she started to meet him, gladly, but without surprise. "Where is Tante?" she said, "Is she already in the train? Did she send you for me?"

      "You are in very good time," he reassured her. "She is over there—you see her feather now, don't you. I'll take you to her."

      "Thank you so much. It has been a great rush. You have heard of the misfortunes? By good chance I found the quickest cab."

      She was walking beside him, her eyes fixed before them on the group where she saw her guardian's plume and veil. "I don't know what Tante would have done if Victor had not been here in time to say good-bye to her."

      Madame von Marwitz was holding a parting reception before the open door of her saloon carriage. Flowers and fruits lay on the tables. Louise and Miss Scrotton's maid piled rugs and cushions on the chairs and divans. One of the Jewish gentlemen stood with his hat pushed off his forehead talking in low, important tones to a pallid young newspaper man who made rapid notes.

      Madame von Marwitz at once caught sight of Karen and Victor. Past the intervening heads she beckoned Karen to come to her and she and Gregory exchanged salutes. In her swift smile on seeing him he read a mild amusement; she could only think that, like everybody else, he had come to see her off.

      The cohorts opened to receive Miss Woodruff and Madame von Marwitz enfolded her and stooped to kiss Victor's head.

      Gregory watched the little scene, which was evidently touching to all who witnessed it, and then turned to find Professor Blackburn at his elbow. He, too, it appeared, had been watching Madame von Marwitz. "Yes; I heard her two years ago in Oxford," he said; "and even my antique blood was stirred, as much by her personality as by her music. A most romantic, most pathetic woman. What eyes and what a smile!"

      "I see that you are one of the stricken," said Gregory. "Shall I introduce you to my old friend, Mrs. Forrester? She'll no doubt be able to get you a word with Madame Okraska, if you want to hear her speak."

      No, the professor said, he preferred to keep his idols remote and vaguely blurred with incense. "Who is the young Norse maiden?" he inquired; "the one you were with. Those singular ladies are accosting her now."

      Karen Woodruff, on the outskirts of the group, had been gazing at her guardian with a constrained smile in which Gregory detected self-mastery, and turned her eyes upon the Slifers as the professor asked his question. Mrs. Slifer, marshalling her girls, and stooping to pat Victor, was introducing herself, and while Gregory told the professor that that was Miss Woodruff, Madame Okraska's ward, she bent to expound to the Slifers the inscription on Victor's collar, speaking, it was evident, with kindness. Gregory was touched by the tolerance with which, in the midst of her own sad thoughts, she satisfied the Slifers' curiosity.

      "Then she really is Norse," said