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diff --git a/42153-0.txt b/42153-0.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..47a0bf2 --- /dev/null +++ b/42153-0.txt @@ -0,0 +1,10661 @@ +*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 42153 *** + +Transcriber's Note: + + Inconsistent hyphenation and spelling in the original document have + been preserved. Obvious typographical errors have been corrected. + + Italic text is denoted by _underscores_ and bold text by =equal + signs=. + + The book uses em-dashes as ellipses at the ends of sentences. These + have been left spaced as in the original text. + + + + +_By the Same Author:_ + + WYMPS: Fairy Tales. With eight coloured illustrations by Mrs. + Percy Dearmer. + + AT THE RELTON ARMS: A Novel. + + THE MAKING OF A SCHOOL-GIRL. + + + + + THE + MAKING OF A PRIG + + BY + EVELYN SHARP + + JOHN LANE: THE BODLEY HEAD + NEW YORK AND LONDON + 1897 + + + + + _Copyright, 1897_, + BY JOHN LANE. + + _All rights reserved._ + + University Press: + JOHN WILSON AND SON, CAMBRIDGE, U.S.A. + + + + +The Making of a Prig + + + + +CHAPTER I + + +It was supper time at the Rectory, and the Rector had not come in. +There were two conflicting elements at the Rectory, the Rector's +disregard of details and his sister's sense of their importance. There +was only one will, however, and that was his sister's. So the meals +were always punctual, and the Rector was always late; a fact that by +its very recurrence would have long ceased to be important, had not +Miss Esther loved to accentuate it by a certain formula of complaint +that varied as little as the offence itself. This evening, however, he +was later than usual; and Miss Esther did not attempt to conceal her +impatience as she glanced from the old clock in the corner down to the +fire-place, where another familiar grievance awaited her. + +"Katharine, how often have I told you not to lie on the rug like a +great boy?" she said querulously, in the tone of one who has not the +courage or the character to be really angry. She added immediately, "I +want you to ring the bell for the soup." + +The girl on the floor rolled over lazily, and shut her book with a +bang. + +"Daddy hasn't come in yet," she said, sitting up on her heels and +shaking the hair out of her eyes. A latent spirit of revolt was in her +tone, although she spoke half absently, as if her thoughts were still +with her book. Miss Esther tapped her foot on the ground impatiently. + +"It is exactly two minutes to eight," she said sharply. "I asked you +to ring the bell, Katharine." + +The girl walked across the room in a leisurely manner, and did as she +was told with a great assumption of doing as she wished. Then she sat +on the arm of the nearest chair, and the rebellious look returned to +her face. + +"How do you know it is daddy's fault, Aunt Esther? The Stoke road is +awfully bad, and it's blowing hard from the north-west. He may have +been kept, and cold soup's beastly. I think it's a shame." + +"I really wish," complained Miss Esther, "that you would try and +control your expressions, Katharine. It all comes of your romping so +much with young Morton. Of course I am a mere cipher in my own house; +but some day your father will be sorry that he did not listen to me in +time. Can you never remember that you are not a boy?" + +"I am not likely to forget," muttered Katharine. "I should not be +sticking in this stupid old place if I were. I should be working hard +for daddy, so that he could live with his books and be happy, instead +of grinding his life away for people who only want to get all they can +out of him. What's the use of being a girl? Things are so stupidly +arranged, it seems to me!" + +"My dear," said Miss Esther, who had only caught the end of her +speech, "it is difficult to believe that your father is one of God's +chosen ministers." + +"But he isn't," objected Katharine. "That's just it. They made him go +into the church because there was a family living; so how on earth +could he have been chosen? Why, you told me so yourself, Aunt Esther! +It's all rubbish about being chosen, isn't it?" + +"Don't chatter so much," said Miss Esther, who was counting her +stitches; and Katharine sighed petulantly. + +"I can't think," she went on to herself, "how he was ever weak enough +to give in. He must have been absent-minded when they ordained him, +and never discovered it until afterwards! Don't you think so, Dorcas?" + +But Dorcas, who had only just brought in the soup, was hardly in a +position to make the necessary reply; and Katharine had to content +herself with laughing softly at her own joke. The meal passed almost +in silence, and they had nearly finished before they heard the sound +of wheels on the wet gravel outside. Miss Esther looked up, and +listened with her chronic air of disapproval. + +"Dear me," she sighed, "your father has driven round to the stable +again by mistake. What are you doing, Katharine? I was just going to +say grace." + +But Katharine had already dispensed with the ceremony by vanishing +through the door that led into the kitchen; and Miss Esther hurried +over it alone, and managed to be seated in her chair near the +reading-lamp, upright and occupied, by the time her brother came into +the room. There was something pathetic in the way she elaborated her +little methods of reproach for the sake of one on whom the small +things in life made no impression at all. And when the Rector entered, +smiling happily, with Katharine hanging on his arm and whispering +eager questions into his ear, it was easy to see that his mind was +occupied by something far more engrossing than the fact that he was +late for supper. But Miss Esther preserved her look of injury, and the +Rector, who was making futile efforts to produce a paper parcel from +the pocket in his coat tails, suddenly gave up the attempt as he +caught sight of her, and began to smooth his sleek white hair with a +nervous hand. + +"Yes, Esther," he said, although she had not spoken a word. + +"We have sent away the soup, but there is some cold meat on the side, +I believe. Katharine, do be seated instead of romping round the room +like that! Your father can see to himself," was all that Miss Esther +said. + +"Yes, Esther," said the Rector submissively; and he helped himself to +some apple pie, and sat thoughtfully with the knife in his hand until +Katharine came and replaced it with a fork. "It is a windy night," he +continued, as no one seemed inclined to say anything. Miss Esther was +waiting for her opportunity, and Katharine had caught the infection +of her mood, and was again absorbed in her book on the hearthrug. + +"Tom Eldridge came up about his dying wife, and Jones's baby is no +better," said Miss Esther, presently. + +"Dear, dear! how very unfortunate!" observed the Rector, smiling. + +"I said you must have been detained unexpectedly," continued Miss +Esther, with more emphasis. "They seemed very much in want of a little +counsel." + +"I'm certain they weren't," said Katharine audibly. "Eldridge wanted +some more port wine, and Mrs. Jones came to see what she could get. +And I don't fancy either of them got it." + +"Very unfortunate!" said the Rector again. "I was certainly detained, +Esther, as you cleverly divined,--unavoidably detained." + +"People," said Miss Esther, very distinctly, "who have spiritual +brothers and sisters depending upon them, have no right to be +detained." + +"I never can think," put in Katharine, "how any one has the courage to +be a clergyman. It simply means having crowds of relations, dull, +sordid, grasping relations, who come and rob you systematically in +the name of the Lord." + +"A spiritual man," continued Miss Esther, without heeding the +interruption, "is not--" + +"Oh, auntie," implored Katharine, "do let daddy eat his supper in +peace." + +"My child," interposed the Rector gently, "I have finished my supper. +Does Eldridge expect me to do anything to-night, Esther? Or Mrs. +Jones?" + +"My dear Cyril," said Miss Esther sternly, "if your own instincts do +not prompt you to do anything, I should say they had better go +untended." + +The Rector sighed, and played with his knife. He was looking like a +schoolboy in disgrace. Katharine gave a scornful little laugh. + +"What _is_ the good of making all that fuss over a trifle? Just as +though the cough of Jones's baby were half as important as the genuine +rat-tail daddy has picked up at Walker's!" + +The murder was out, and Miss Esther put down her knitting and prepared +for a characteristic outburst. But the Rector had already unwrapped +his treasure and placed it on the table before him, and her bitterest +reproaches fell unheeded on his ears. + +"Genuine sixteenth century," he murmured, as he stroked it reverently +with his long, thin fingers. + +"Only yesterday," said the strident voice of his sister, "you were +telling me you had no money for a soup kitchen. It was a poor living, +you said; and now-- How can you set such an example,--you with a +mission in life?" + +"I vow I'll never have a mission in life," said Katharine, "if it +means giving up everything that makes one happy. Poor daddy!" + +"One of Christ's elect," continued Miss Esther, "to be turned aside +for a bit of tawdry pewter! For what you can see in a tarnished, +old-fashioned thing like that, is more than I can understand." + +The Rector looked up for the first time. + +"Indeed, Esther," he said in a hurt tone, "it is a fine piece of +sixteenth century silver." Katharine cast a wrathful look at the stern +figure near the reading-lamp, and came over to her father's side. The +rebellious note had gone from her voice altogether as she spoke to +him. + +"Let me look, daddy, may I?" she asked. Cyril Austen pulled her on to +his knee, and they bent together over the old spoon. Miss Esther +knitted silently. + +"Let me see," said the Rector presently, turning an unruffled +countenance towards his sister, "what were we saying? About some +parishioners, wasn't it?" + +"Parishioners? How can you talk of parishioners, when the first +trivial temptation draws you from the right path and--and makes you +late for meals? Isn't it enough to neglect your sacred duty, without +upsetting the household as well? Coming in at this time of--what is it +now, Cyril?" + +For a worried look had suddenly crossed the Rector's face. He pulled +out his watch, and consulted it with the nervous haste of a man who is +constantly haunted by having forgotten something. + +"Let me see,--how very stupid of me," he said, laughing slightly. "I +fancy there was something else, now; whatever could it have been, I +wonder? It was not the spoon, Esther, that made me late. Kitty, my +child, what did I say to you when I came in, just now?" + +"You said, 'I have picked up a genuine rat-tail at Walker's;' and then +you gave your hat to Jim, and hung up the whip on the hat peg!" + +"Bad child!" said the Rector, still looking uneasily about him. "I +wonder if Jim would know?" + +But here a light was thrown on the matter by the entrance of Dorcas, +who brought the ambiguous message from Jim that the pony was ready to +start again, if the Rector was "going to do anything about the poor +creature down agin the chalk pit." + +"Bless my soul!" exclaimed the Rector. "To be sure, that was it. +Esther, brandy and blankets, my dear,--anything you've got! We must +bring him home at once, of course. I knew there was something. Esther, +will you--? Ah, she always understands." + +For, to do her credit, Miss Esther never wasted her time in reproaches +when there was really something to be done; and in the bustle that +followed, while the pony carriage was being filled with everything +that could be of use in case of an accident, Katharine found herself +left in the hall, with the intolerable feeling of being neglected, and +burning with curiosity as to the cause of it all. + +"Daddy, daddy, what is it? Is any one hurt? Mayn't I come too?" she +pleaded, as the Rector came out to look for his coat. + +"Eh, what? Oh, a poor fellow broken his leg in the chalk pit. Doctor's +with him now. What is he like? Kind of tourist, I should fancy; +evidently didn't see his way in the dark. There, run off to bed, +Kitty; you'll hear all about it in the morning." + +"But I want to hear _now_," said the child, quivering with impatience. +"What sort of man is he, daddy? Shall I like him, do you think? Oh, do +tell, daddy!" + +"My child, I hardly noticed. My hat--ah, thanks! He had a black beard, +I fancy,--quite young though, I should say,--and a sallow face--" + +"How unhealthy it sounds; and I hate unhealthy people! I don't think I +want to go now," said Katharine, in an altered tone. + +Nevertheless, when the unwilling pony was being urged again into the +storm and the darkness, some one slipped through the little group in +the porch, and sprang into the carriage beside the Rector. And the +Rector, who was incapable of a decided action himself and never +disputed one on the part of others, threw the rug over her knees, and +they drove off together to the scene of the accident. It was a wild, +black night; and the Rector shivered as he bent his head to the +furious gusts of wind, and allowed the pony to struggle on feebly at +its own pace. But Katharine sat upright with her head thrown back, +and would have liked to laugh aloud as the wind caught her long loose +hair and lashed it, wet with rain, across her face. + +The chalk pit was situated at the further end of the village; on a +fine day, it might have been reached in a ten minutes' drive, but +to-night it was nearly half an hour before the pony managed to bring +its load to a standstill beside the group of men who had been waiting +there since dusk. Katharine recognised all the village familiars who +came forward at their approach,--the doctor, who had tended her +childish maladies; the schoolmaster, who had taught her to read; the +churchwarden, who still loved to tell her stories that she had long +ago learnt to know by heart. But she had no eyes for any of these +to-night; she looked beyond them all, as she jumped lightly out of the +carriage, at the man who lay on the ground with his eyes closed. A +lantern hung from the branch above, and swung to and fro in the wind, +casting intermittent gleams of light across his face. + +He opened his eyes wearily as the Rector came forward, and they rested +at once upon Katharine, who stood bending over him with the rather +heartless curiosity of a very young girl. + +"Kitty, move out of the way, my child," the Rector's voice was saying. + +"I don't think he looks unhealthy at all," said Katharine dreamily. + + + + +CHAPTER II + + +The sun rose, the following morning, on a scene of devastation. The +storm of the previous night had come at the end of a month's hard +frost, and everything was in a state of partial thaw. Glistening pools +of water lay in the fields on the top of the still frozen ground, +looking like patches of snow in the pale sunshine; and a curious +phenomenon was discernible in the brooks and the ditches, where a +layer of calm water covered the ice that still bound the flowing +stream below. The only trace of last night's gale was a distant +moaning in the tree-tops; while above was a deepening blueness of sky +and a growing warmth in the sunshine. There was winter still on the +ground, and the beginning of spring in the air. + +Two women had met under the beech-trees at the edge of the chalk pit. +Early as it was they had already collected large bundles of sticks; +for the beauty of the morning was nothing to them, and the storm, as +far as they were concerned, merely meant the acquisition of firewood. +They had matter for conversation enough, however; and it was this that +was making them loiter so early in the morning near the scene of +yesterday's accident. + +"Is it the poor thing what fell down yonder, you be a-talkin' of, Mrs. +Jones? 'Cause I see Jim hisself this blessed morning, I did, and you +can't tell me nothing I doan't know already, you can't, Mrs. Jones," +said Widow Priest with fine scorn. + +There was a jealousy of long standing between the two neighbours. Mrs. +Jones was the sturdy wife of the sexton, and her family was both large +and increasing,--a fact which she attributed entirely to Providence; +though, when three of them succumbed to insufficient food and care, +she put down their loss to the same convenient cause, and extracted as +much consolation as she could out of three visits to the churchyard. +Widow Priest, on the other hand, had buried no one in the little +churchyard on the hill. For her husband had committed suicide, and +they had laid him to an uneasy rest without the sedative of a +religious ceremony; and his widow was thus robbed even of the triumph +of alluding to his funeral. So her widowhood did not bring her its +usual compensations; and she felt bitter towards the wife of the +sexton, who had buried her three and kept five others, and would +probably replace the lost ones in time. + +"I bain't so fond o' gossiping nor what you be, Widow Priest," +returned Mrs. Jones in loud, hearty tones. "I got no time for talking +wi' strangers here an' strangers there, wi' my man an' five little +'uns to do for. An' then there's always the three graves of a Saturday +to tidy up, which you ain't got, poor thing; not but what I'm saying +it be your fault, in course, Widow Priest." + +Widow Priest gave a contemptuous sniff as she sat down to tie up her +fagots, and Mrs. Jones remained standing in front of her, with one arm +thrown round her bundle of sticks, and the other placed akimbo, an +effective picture of triumphant woman. + +"Touching the poor thing what broke his back yonder," she continued +cheerfully: "I was putting the baby to bed at the time, I was, and I +see the whole thing happen from my top window, I did. He jumped the +fence, all careless like, jest as though he didn't know the pit were +there for sure. An' straightway he tripped up, he did, an' down he +went. God help him, I says! An' I puts the baby down, an' I says to +our Liz, 'Here, my child,' I says, 'stand by your precious brother +while I goes across to the pit,' I says. An' jest as I says that, up +comes the Rector an' the doctor with him, driving friendly like +together they was. So I says to our Liz, 'It's Providence,' I says, +'what sent they two blessed creatures here this day,' I says. An' I +caught up my shawl, I did, an' went hollerin' after them. 'What is it, +Mrs. Jones?' says the Rector, 'is it the baby again?'--'Baby?' I says, +'no, sir; not but what it racks me to hear that child cough, it do. +There be a man yonder,' I says, 'jest broke his neck down agin the +chalk pit.' Lord! it were a sight to see they two men turn that pony +round! An' the rain were that bad, it give me lumbago all down my +back, that did. Not but what I soon got back to baby again, poor +little angel, with a cough that makes my heart ache, to hear it going +jest like the others did afore they died. But ye didn't see him fall +in, now; did ye, Widow Priest?" + +The widow shouldered her fagots grimly, and stalked off with dignity. +When she reached the bend of the road, she turned round and shouted a +parting word in a tone of unmitigated contempt. + +"It bain't his neck, _nor_ his back, Mrs. Jones. It be both his legs, +an' he be at the Rectory now, in the best bedroom, he be; an' there +he'll likely stop a month or two, Jim says, he do. But Jim didn't give +ye a call perhaps, Mrs. Jones?" + +"Bless ye, Widow Priest, I ain't told ye half what I know," cried Mrs. +Jones. "You be a poor thing, you be, if ye can't stand to hear a +body's tale; an' you that's so lonesome too, an' got no one to do for, +like I have. Lord, what a hurry some folk do be in, for sure! Eh, but +that be Miss Katharine yonder, blest if it ain't; an' Widow Priest be +out o' sight, too! I reckon as Miss Katharine knows more nor Jim, an' +I be going--" + +But a wail from the cottage opposite awakened the mother's sense of +duty, and she hastened across the road and forgot all about the +accident in an immediate necessity for castigation. + +Katharine came over the brow of the hill that sloped down towards the +chalk pit, scaled the wooden fence at the bottom, and skirted the edge +of the little chasm until she came to the line of beech-trees. Here +she paused for a moment, pecked a hole in the soft ground with her +heel, and peered thoughtfully down into the pit. Then she turned +abruptly away again, and struck across the fields to the further side +of the village, where she sped down a grassy lane that was for the +most part under water, and stopped at last before a gap in the hedge +that was hardly large enough to be noticeable. She squeezed adroitly +through it, however, and came in view of an ugly modern house standing +in a neglected looking garden, with an untidy farmyard and some stable +buildings at the back. Here she was careful to keep a clump of +box-trees between herself and the front of the house, until she could +come out with safety into the open and approach the iron fence that +separated the paddock from the lawn. This she vaulted easily, dropping +lightly on the grass beyond, and managed to arrive at last unnoticed, +under a small oriel window at the corner of the house. She picked up a +handful of small stones, and swung them with a sure aim at the little +glass panes, and called, "Coo-ey," as loudly as she dared. + +"Lazy toad!" she muttered impatiently. "On a morning like this, too! +And just when I had got a real adventure to tell him, that he knows +absolutely nothing about, not anything at all!" + +She did not throw up any more stones, but mounted the iron railings +instead, and sat there with her feet dangling and her eyes fixed on +the oriel window. + +"It's the biggest score I've ever had over him," she chuckled to +herself. "I think I shall _explode_ soon, if he doesn't wake up. I'm +getting so awfully hungry, too; it must be eight o'clock." + +She called again presently, without changing her position; and this +time there was a sign of life behind the oriel window, and the +curtains were drawn aside. Katharine forgot all her previous caution, +and gave a loud "whoop" of satisfaction. The lattice flew open, and +some one with rumpled hair and flushed cheeks looked out and yawned. + +"Don't make such a shindy, Kit; you'll wake the mother," he grumbled. +"Why the dickens have you come so beastly early?" + +"Because Aunt Esther was asleep, of course," answered Katharine +promptly. "Hurry up, Ted, and have your bath; it'll make you feel +piles better. And you'll have to get me some food; I could eat my +boots." + +"Don't do that," said Ted. "Last night's steak will do just as well." + +"How is _she_?" asked Katharine, with a jerk of her head towards the +front of the house. + +"Awful. She's getting worse. She docks the pudding course at supper +now. Don't go, Kitty; I'll be down directly." + +He was not long, but she was full of impatient reproaches by the time +he joined her at the fence. + +"I believe you'd like to give the world a shove to make it go round +quicker," he retorted, swinging himself up beside her. + +"Well, you surely don't think it moves very fast now, do you?" she +said. "At all events, Ivingdon doesn't," she added emphatically. + +"Well, what did you come for, old chum?" he asked, smiting her +shoulder with rough friendliness. "Not to complain of this slow old +hole, I bet?" + +"Get me something to eat, and I'll tell you." + +"Oh, hang, Kitty! I can't. Cook will swear, or go to the mother, or +something. Can't you wait till you get home?" + +"No, I can't. And I didn't tell you to go to cook, or to _her_; did I, +stupid? Isn't there a pantry window, and isn't the larder next to the +pantry, and aren't the servants having breakfast in the kitchen, out +of the way? Eh?" + +"Well, I'm bothered! But I can't get up to that window, anyhow." + +"There's a loose brick just below, and you _know_ it, you lazy boy! +What's the use of being exactly six foot, if you can't climb into a +window on the ground floor? _I_ can, and I'm only five foot four. Oh, +you needn't bother, if you're afraid! I can keep my news, for that +matter." + +"I don't believe there is any news. Why, I only saw you yesterday +afternoon. And nothing ever happens in Ivingdon. You are only rotting, +aren't you, Kit?" + +"All right; I don't want to tell you, I'm sure. Good-bye," said +Katharine, without moving a step. + +He called himself a fool, and told her she was a beastly nuisance, and +that of course there wasn't any news, and he didn't want to hear it if +there was. And he finally strolled round to the pantry window, as she +knew he would, and returned with a medley of provisions in his hands. +They laughed together at the odd selection he had made,--at the cold +pie he was balancing on a slice of bread, and the jam tart that +crowned the jug of milk; and they fought over everything like two +young animals, and drank out of the same jug and spilled half its +contents, and ended in chasing one another round the paddock for no +reason whatever. + +"Walk home with me, and I'll tell you the news. Come on, Ted!" she +cried. + +"Guess I will, and chance it. If she doesn't like my being late for +breakfast she'll have to do the other thing. Through with you, Kitty, +and don't make the hole any larger! There's always the chance that she +might have it mended, in a spasm of extravagance, and that would be so +bally awkward for us." + +She told her news as they went swinging along side by side over the +wet fields, leaping the pools of standing water, and switching the wet +twigs in each other's face. But they grew quieter as the interest of +the tale deepened; and by the time Katharine had reached the episode +of the chalk pit, Ted was walking gloomily along with his hands in his +pockets and his eyes bent on the ground. + +"You always have all the luck, Kitty," he said mournfully. "Why wasn't +I there? Think of the use I should have been in helping him into the +carriage; only think of it, Kitty!" + +"You wouldn't have been a bit of good," she returned cruelly. "You're +much too clumsy. They wouldn't even let Jim or daddy help. _I_ held +his head, so there!" + +"Well, I suppose I could have held his beastly head, too, couldn't I?" +roared Ted. + +"It wasn't a beastly head; it was awfully nice,--hair all silky, not +baby's curls like yours," said Katharine scornfully. "And wasn't he +plucky, too! His leg must have hurt frightfully, but he just didn't +say a word or utter a sound. All the way home, whenever the thing +jolted him, he just screwed up his mouth and looked at me, and that +was all. It was the finest thing I've ever seen." + +"But you haven't seen much," said Ted. + +"No, I haven't. But I've seen you squirm when you had toothache. And +you're not fit to speak to if you have an ordinary headache," laughed +Katharine. + +They walked the rest of the way in silence. + +"That is where he lies now," said Katharine, with a dramatic gesture +towards the spare-room window. Her cheeks were red with excitement, +and she never noticed the look on Ted's face as he shrugged his +shoulders and made a great pretence of whistling carelessly. + +"What sort of a chap is he? Some tourist bounder, I suppose," he +condescended to say. + +"He isn't a bounder. He has awfully nice hands,--white, and thin, and +soft. He's rather pale, with a lot of black hair and a curly beard." + +"What a played-out chap to make such a fuss about!" said Ted, turning +away contemptuously. "Sounds more like a monkey than anything else. +Good-bye. I wish you joy of him!" + +"I suppose I'll see you again some time?" she called after him. + +"Oh, yes; I suppose so." + +"And it _was_ news, wasn't it, Ted?" + +"You seem to think so, anyway." + +"Poor Ted!" She laughed, and ran indoors. But he had hardly crossed +the first field before she had caught him up again, breathless and +penitent. + +"I didn't mean it, Ted; I didn't, _really_, old boy. It wasn't news, +and he _is_ a monkey, and I'm a horrid pig. Come up after lunch, won't +you, Ted? I promise not to talk about him once, and I want to show you +something. You will come, Ted, won't you?" + +She flung her arms round him in her impulsive way, and gave him one of +her rough, playful hugs. But for the first time in his life, Ted +shook her off stiffly, and hastened on. + +"What's the matter?" asked Katharine, more perplexed than annoyed. + +"Oh, all right; I'll come. Don't be a fool, Kitty!" he jerked over his +shoulder; and she turned away, only half satisfied, and went slowly +into the house. It was characteristic of her that the smallest lack of +response from some one else would change her mood immediately; and +when she entered the dining-room a few minutes later, her vivacity was +all gone, and the first words she caught of the conversation at the +breakfast-table only helped to irritate her still further. + +"Oh, bother Mr. Wilton!" she said crossly. "The whole house seems to +have gone mad over Mr. Wilton. I am tired of hearing his name." + +The Rector seemed unconscious of her remark, and only pulled her hair +softly as she slipped into the chair beside him. But Miss Esther +stopped abruptly in the middle of a sentence, and cast a meaning +glance towards Katharine which her father did not see, though she of +course did. + +"My dear," said Mr. Austen, in reply to his sister, "I am sure you are +quite competent to do it. Nancy always said you were a born nurse; +and Nancy knew, bless her! Besides, the poor young man has been sent +to us in his affliction, and there is nothing else to be done, is +there? My child, it will not interest you; we were only saying that +Mr.--Wilton, is it?--would require careful nursing; and your aunt--" + +"Really, Katharine, there is no necessity for you to interfere. You +know too much as it is, and this question is not one that concerns you +at all. Perhaps you will keep to the matter in hand until it is +settled, Cyril!" + +"My dear, I thought it was settled," said the old man mildly. "The +poor young fellow has to be nursed, and you are the best person to do +it. So there is nothing else, is there, Esther, that need detain me? I +am rather anxious--that is, I would like to finish my paper on the +antiquities of the county, and it is already ten minutes past--" + +"It is a most extraordinary thing," interrupted Miss Esther irritably, +"that you never will give your attention to anything that really +matters. You totally misunderstand my meaning, Cyril. How can I, your +sister and a single woman, with due propriety--Katharine, you can go +and feed the chickens." + +Katharine did not move, and the Rector got up from his chair. + +"My dear," he remonstrated, "I think you over-estimate the difficulty. +It is the duty of the woman to look after the sufferer, is it not? I +really think there is nothing more to be said about it. Meanwhile--" + +"I don't know why you are in such a hurry, Cyril; it is the day for +the library to be cleaned, so you cannot use it yet. The whole +business is most inopportune; why should he break his leg in Ivingdon, +when he might have done it quite conveniently in the county town, and +been taken to the infirmary like any one else?" + +The Rector wondered vaguely why his room was cleaned more than once a +week; but he sat down again and folded his hands, and said that he was +of the same opinion as before and saw no reason why the unfortunate +young man should not be nursed by Miss Esther. + +"No more do I," said Katharine. "What's the difference between nursing +Shepherd Horne through bronchitis and nursing Mr. Wilton with a broken +leg, except that Mr. Wilton is presumably not so unwashed? I never can +see why the poor people should have the monopoly of impropriety, as +well as of the Scriptures. Besides, you can easily reduce him to the +level of a villager by reading the Psalms to him every day. That would +make you feel quite proper, wouldn't it, auntie? And I dare say he +wouldn't mind it much, when he got used to it." + +"Your profanity," said her aunt severely, "is becoming perfectly +outrageous. If you were sometimes to say a few words of reproof to +your own daughter, Cyril, instead of dreaming your life away--but +there, I must go and look after poor Mr. Wilton! I wonder whether he +likes his eggs boiled or scrambled?" she added doubtfully. For Miss +Esther was one of those women who reserve the best side of their +nature for the people who have no real claim upon them; and she took +little interest in any one who was neither poor nor afflicted. The +unpractical temperament of the Rector both astonished and chafed her, +and she had nothing but a fretful endurance for her high-spirited +niece, in whom a natural longing for action and an inordinate sense of +humour were fast producing a spirit of revolt and cynicism. But an +invalid, who was thus thrown suddenly into her power, appealed +strongly to the Rector's sister; and her diffidence had entirely +disappeared by the time she had gone through all the objections that +propriety impelled her to raise. + +"I feel quite thankful," she said, smiling blandly, "that the poor +fellow has fallen into such good hands." + +"So do I," remarked Katharine, as the door closed. "It will be all the +better for your paper on the local antiquities, won't it, daddy? Daddy +_dear_, just think of all the time we shall have to ourselves, now +that she's got Mr. Wilton on her hands! Poor Mr. Wilton! Let's come +and clear Dorcas out of the library and look at what you've done, +shall we? Come along, daddy, _quick_!" + +The Rector stroked her long hair, with a doubtful look on his face. + +"I am afraid, Kitty, I do not look after you as I should," he said. "I +am a bad old sinner, eh?" + +"That's why I love you so. You are a brick!" exclaimed Katharine. + +And she dragged him impetuously out of the room. + + + + +CHAPTER III + + +Meanwhile, Paul Wilton lay wearily in the old-fashioned guest-room +over the porch. The pain of his broken limb had kept him awake most of +the night; and now that the suffering was less the discomfort +remained, and he felt no more inclined to sleep than before. With a +kind of mechanical interest he had watched the pale light on his +striped blind grow deep and red, and then again pale and bright, as +the sun came up over the hills. His restlessness increased as the time +wore on; the sensation of being unable to move began to grate on his +nerves, and he wished impatiently that something would break the +stillness of the house, and awaken the people in it who were sleeping +so unreasonably. He raised himself on his elbow as a light step came +along the passage outside, and sank back again with a feeling of +disappointment when it passed his door, and went downstairs into the +garden. In reality it was much earlier than he thought; and it was +still some time longer before the usual early morning sounds +testified to the existence of a maid. He heard the stairs being swept, +and suffered silently as the broom was struck clumsily against his +wall in its downward course. Then the front door, was unbolted with a +good deal of noise, and a few mats were banged together in the open +air, and something was done with the door scraper. A conversation, +held across the lawn with Jim, had the effect of an altercation, +though it was in reality only an inquiry on the subject of milk, +shouted shrilly in broad dialect. Later on, came the welcome crackle +of a fire and the clatter of teacups; and a smell of hot bacon began +to pervade the air. + +"At all events, that means breakfast," muttered Paul. "It is not to be +hoped that it will be worth eating, but at least it will bring a human +being into the room. I wonder why ordinary people never have any ideas +for breakfast beyond hot bacon! It is sure to be in thick chunks, too, +and salt, oh, very salt! Don't I know it? It recalls my childhood. +There will be eggs, too,--there always were eggs when we had visitors; +and bad coffee made by unaccustomed hands, also because there is a +visitor. I know that coffee too. On the whole, it is wiser to keep to +tea in strange places of this sort, although one knows beforehand +that it will be thick, and black, and flavourless. I know the tea, +best of all. In quite decent houses, one gets that tea." + +Nobody came to him, although there were other voices about the house +now; and he turned from his dissertation on food to a study of the +pictures on the wall. They were of the class that had also been known +to him in his childhood; and he smiled sardonically as he glanced at +the two texts hidden in a maze of illumination, and the German print +of John the Baptist standing in layers of solid water, and the faded +photograph of a baby girl with tangled curls and a saucy mouth. +Something in the shape of that mouth suggested the shadowy events of +last night to his mind, and brought with them the vague recollection +of a girl's face looking curiously down at him, and the pleasurable +sensation of being supported by two firm, soft hands. He rather liked +dwelling on that part of last night's adventures, until a real twinge +of pain in his leg recalled also the less pleasant episodes, and he +shuddered as he remembered the horrors of his transit from the chalk +pit to the Rectory. + +"I hate being in pain; it is so vulgar," he muttered distastefully; +and a dread crossed his mind lest his suffering should become more +than he could bear with dignity. + +A timid knock came outside the door, and the maid entered to draw up +the blind. She looked clumsy, and Paul sighed. She sidled along the +wall to the door again as soon as she could, and asked shyly when he +would have his breakfast. + +"As soon as you like; and--er--Mary, would you kindly give me that +coat? What's the time? And is it a fine day?" asked Paul hurriedly. He +was almost childish in his anxiety to keep her in the room for another +moment. But to be called by the cook's name so far confused her that +she vanished precipitately; and Paul smiled, a little more cynically +than before, and returned to his observations of the pictures. Just +then he heard the end of the conversation between the boy and girl, +under his window, and was amused at his own share in their quarrel. + +"Anyhow, if that young woman is going to be about, it may not be so +bad, after all," he reflected. + +He was reduced to despondency again, however, by the arrival of the +breakfast, which fully realised his expectations. For one who +professed to have a wide grasp of life, Paul Wilton was singularly +affected by trifles. His spirits were not raised when he found who his +nurse was to be; and, competent as Miss Esther soon proved herself, he +remained convinced that the child with the joyous laugh who made so +much merriment about the house, would have suited him far better. And +again, he was amused at his interest in some one whom he had hardly +seen, and who would probably turn out to be an undeveloped schoolgirl, +some one who would ride roughshod over his susceptibilities, and even +fail to understand his feelings about things. It seemed impossible to +him that he should be able to endure any one who did not understand +his feelings about things. She might be plain, too; women with +fascinating voices were often extremely plain. And if she were neither +mature nor attractive, there could be no object in giving her another +thought; for woman, to Paul Wilton, was merely an interesting +necessity,--like his food; something to fill up the gaps that were not +occupied by work, or art, or any of the real things of life; and +something, therefore, to be taken in as delicate a manner as possible. +He liked to talk to beautiful women in picturesque surroundings,--to +play on their emotions, and to dally with their wit; but the women +had to be beautiful, and their setting had to be appropriate. + +"Please do not trouble to wait," he said to Miss Esther in the +afternoon, when he found her preparing to sit with him. "I shall be +quite happy if you will have the goodness to give me the paper and the +cigarette case. Thanks." + +When she had gone, having lacked the courage to tell him that tobacco +smoke had never yet polluted the sacred mustiness of the best spare +room, Paul lay back with a sense of relief, and began to review his +situation gloomily. + +"How I could have made such an ass of myself, I don't know," he +murmured. "Foisting myself on complete strangers for six or seven +weeks at least! And such strangers, too! Good Lord, how shocked the +dear lady looked when I said I hadn't a relation left who cared a hang +whether I was alive or dead. I must tell her, as an antidote, that my +father was a parson; I have known that to take effect in the most +ungodly circles. Perhaps, if I could swear I should feel better. But I +am not a swearing man; besides, she might leave me to that painfully +dull maid if I did. And that would be a pity," he added reflectively; +"for, at least, she does know how to make a fellow as comfortable as a +fractured leg will let him be." + +A sudden shoot of pain made him turn his head wearily on one side. He +had told the doctor, only that morning, that it was nothing, and that +he did not suffer much; and then had been unreasonably disappointed at +the professional verdict that it was a simple fracture, and presented +no complications. He would have liked to be an interesting case, at +least. + +"I wonder if I am likely to get a glimpse of that jolly little girl," +he went on, looking idly at the faded photograph opposite. "It is +probably the one who steadied my head in the dark, last night; the one +who laughs, too. A Philistine place like this could never produce two +of them. However, I shall never find out as long as I am nursed by +that dragon. And after all, why trouble about it? It shows what a +baleful effect idleness can have upon a man, when an unsophisticated +parson's daughter with a jolly laugh can--hullo!" + +He heard voices on the landing, and listened eagerly. There was the +sound of a scuffle and a stifled laugh, and some one shook the door by +falling clumsily against it. + +"Come in, do!" shouted Paul desperately, and the door opened with a +jerk. + +"I say, did we disturb you, or anything? I'm beastly sorry; but Kitty +would rot so, and I couldn't help it, really. And, I say, I'm awfully +sorry you're so hit up." + +It was Ted, apologetic and self-conscious. Paul smiled encouragingly; +it was at least some one to talk to, even if it was a boy under +twenty, for whose kind he had as a rule little sympathy. He could see +there was some one else too, on the landing outside; so he smiled a +little more. It pleased him to have his curiosity satisfied, though +perhaps he would not have liked it to be called curiosity. + +"You see, Kitty will play so poorly," pursued Ted, plunging his hands +in his pockets to give himself more confidence. "I shouldn't have +dreamt of bothering you like this, if it hadn't been for Kitty." + +"I am quite content to believe that it was the fault of Miss Kitty, +whose acquaintance I have not the honour of possessing," said Paul +gravely. "But won't you come in a little further, and explain +matters?" + +Ted came in a good deal further, just then, assisted by an unexpected +push between his shoulders. + +"It's so poor of Kitty; and it isn't my fault, I swear it isn't!" said +Ted, in an injured tone. "You see, she wants me to say--Oh, hang, Kit, +do let a fellow explain! Well, she says that--that--well, she wants to +come in too, don't you see? She doesn't see why she should have to go +and talk to horrid old men in the village, when they won't let her +come in and talk to you; at least, that's what she says. And she says +it's all rotten humbug-- Well, you know you did! But Miss Esther will +about kill me when she finds it out. Kitty never thinks of that, she's +so poor." + +Paul smiled again, partly at himself for being young enough to +appreciate the childishness of the situation. + +"Where is Miss Esther?" he asked, like a man, wisely. + +"Oh, she's out right enough; but still--" + +"Yes," said Paul reflectively, "I recognise that there are still +difficulties in the way. But don't you think, as I am decidedly as +much afflicted as the other horrid old men you mentioned, and as Miss +Esther is out, that--we might all agree to vote it rotten humbug? Just +for a few minutes, you know!" + +And Katharine, who had been listening anxiously to every word, +slipped into the room at this point of the negotiations, and closed +the door; nodded cheerfully to Paul as though she had known him all +her life, and dropped sideways on the chair at the end of his bed. + +"I knew you wouldn't mind," she said. "Ted declared you would; but +Ted's so awfully dense sometimes, isn't he?" + +Paul was willing to admit that, on this occasion, Ted had been +remarkably dense; but he only murmured some commonplace about the +correctness of her judgment, and the honour he felt at her +discrimination. + +"Oh, I _knew_!" said Katharine confidently. "I am never wrong about +people. Ted is. He makes fearful hashes about people; I always have to +tell him who is to be trusted, and who isn't." + +"I should like to know," observed Paul, "how you manage to know so +much about people whom you have never seen before,--myself, for +instance!" + +"But I have seen you before! Oh, I forgot; of course, you didn't know. +I was with daddy last night when he came to fetch you. Don't you +remember? I suppose you were too bad to notice much." + +"That must have been it," assented Paul. "I just remember some one +supporting my head, or it may have been my shoulders--" + +"It was your head. That was me!" cried Katharine, with animation. +"Wasn't Ted jealous when I told him,--that's all!" + +"I wasn't," said Ted. "But it was just like Kitty. Girls always do +have all the luck." + +"I am glad," said Paul drily, "that at least one of you was fortunate +enough to view my discomfiture." + +Ted laughed, but Katharine became suddenly thoughtful. + +"I was very sorry for you, I was really," she said. + +"Oh, no, excuse me,--merely interested," said Paul. + +Katharine reflected again. + +"Perhaps I was; how caddish of me!" she said, and looked at him +doubtfully. Paul raised his eyebrows; to be taken seriously by a +woman, at such an early stage of her acquaintance, was a new +experience to him. + +"Oh, please," he exclaimed, laughing, "don't be truthful whatever you +are! It's much more charming to think that you _were_ sorry for me." + +Katharine still seemed puzzled. She turned to Ted instinctively, and +he came to her rescue. + +"She thought you were awfully plucky and all that; she told me so. I +was rather sick about it, of course; but, after all, it wasn't really +worth minding because you were hit up so completely, you see." + +"You are a singularly brutal pair of young people," observed Paul, +glancing from one to the other. "I should like you to have the feel of +my leg for half an hour. I fancy you would find yourselves 'hit up,' +as you are pleased to call it." + +"Oh, but we're not a bit brutal," objected Katharine. "Ted never can +help saying what he thinks at the moment,--that's how it is. It's +because he shows all his feelings, don't you see?" + +"You mustn't think Kitty is unfeeling because she doesn't say things," +continued Ted. "She hates spoofing people, and she never says things +she doesn't mean. She doesn't always say them when she does mean them; +it's rather rough on a fellow sometimes, I think," he added feelingly. + +The garden gate swung to, and they sprang to their feet +simultaneously. + +"Shall we scoot?" asked Ted, who seemed the more apprehensive of the +two. + +"I suppose so. Bother!" said Katharine regretfully. Ted was already +gone, but she still lingered. The flying visit to Paul, instead of +satisfying her curiosity about him, had only roused it still more; and +she sauntered half absently towards him, without the least pretence of +being in a hurry to go. + +"Good-bye," she said, and put her hand into his. It was the first time +she had shown any signs of shyness, and Paul began to like her better. + +"Not good-bye," he said lightly. "You will come in again, won't you? +We shall have a good lot to tell each other." + +"Shall we?" + +"Well, don't you think so?" He dropped her hand and laughed. It seemed +absurd that this child, who behaved generally like a charming tomboy, +should persist in taking him seriously when he merely wanted to +frivol. + +"I'll come if it won't bore you," said Katharine shortly. She was +wondering what there was to laugh at. + +"Can you write a tolerable hand?" he asked. + +"I write all daddy's things for him." + +"Then we'll see if something can't be arranged," he began. He +congratulated himself on his tact in helping to gratify her evident +wish to see him again; but she baffled him once more by suddenly +brightening up, and seizing upon his suggestion before he had half +formed it. + +"Could I be your secretary, do you mean? Why, of course I could. What +fun! Aunt Esther? Oh, that's nothing. _I_ will manage Aunt Esther. +Good-bye." + +She managed Aunt Esther very effectually at supper time, by calmly +announcing her intention of becoming Mr. Wilton's secretary. And the +Rector's sister, who was a curious compound of conventional dogma and +worldly ignorance, and knew into the bargain that it was of no use to +withstand her headstrong niece, gave in to her newest whim with a bad +grace. + +"Do as you like; I am no longer the head of the house, I suppose," she +observed fretfully. + +"Oh, yes, you are, Aunt Esther!" retorted Katharine with provoking +cheerfulness. "_I_ only want to be Mr. Wilton's secretary." + +Paul was not so elated as she had expected to find him, when she +walked into his room in Miss Esther's wake on the following day, and +told him that she had gained her point and was ready to become his +secretary. Being such a responsive creature herself, she always +expected every one else to share her emotions. + +"Aren't you glad?" she asked him anxiously. + +Not being able to explain that what he wanted was not so much a +secretary as a pretty girl to amuse him, he said with his usual smile +that he was delighted, and proceeded to dictate various uninteresting +letters of a business-like character. + +"So you live in the Temple," she observed, as she folded up a letter +to his housekeeper. "Isn't it a gloriously romantic place to live in?" + +"It is convenient," said Paul briefly. And that was all the +conversation they had that day. + +He wanted no letters written the next day, and she read the paper to +him instead. But Miss Esther stayed in the room all the time, with her +knitting, and there was no conversation that day either. On the third +day, however, her aunt was wanted in the parish; and she deputed the +Rector to take her place in the sick room. She might have known that +he would forget all about it, directly she was gone; but Miss Esther +always acted on the assumption that her brother possessed all the +excellent qualities she wished him to have, and it never occurred to +her that he would spend the afternoon in finishing his paper on the +antiquities of the county. + +"Aunt Esther has gone to see a poor woman who has lost her baby. I +never can imagine why a woman who has lost her baby should be visited +just because she is poor. Can you?" said Katharine, as she settled +herself on the spare-room window-seat with her writing materials. + +"No," said Paul, concealing his satisfaction that Miss Esther was of a +different opinion. "You needn't bother about writing any letters +to-day, thanks," he continued carelessly; "and I don't think I want to +hear the paper, either." + +"Don't you? oh!" said Katharine, looking disappointed. "Then there's +nothing I can do for you?" + +"Oh, yes. You can talk, if you will," said Paul, smiling. "Come and +sit on the chair at the end of the bed, where you sat the first day +you came in. I can see you, then." + +"It is ever so much nicer to see the person you are talking to, isn't +it?" observed Katharine, as she obeyed his suggestion. + +"Much nicer," assented Paul, though it had never occurred to him to +suggest that Miss Esther should occupy that particular chair. "Now +then, talk, please!" + +Katharine made a sign of dismay. + +"I can't," she said. "You begin." + +"Who is your favourite poet?" asked Paul solemnly. She disconcerted +him by taking his question seriously, and he had to listen to her +enthusiastic eulogies of several favourite poets, before he had an +opportunity of explaining himself. + +She detected him in the act of suppressing a yawn, and she stopped +suddenly, in the middle of a sentence. + +"I believe I am boring you dreadfully. Shall I go?" she asked. The +colour had come into her cheeks, and her voice had a note of distress +in it. + +"I want you to tell me something, first," was his unexpected reply. +"Do you talk about poetry to young Morton?" + +"Ted? Why, no, of course not. What an awful reflection! Ted isn't a +bit poetic, not a little bit; and he would scoff like anything. I have +never talked about the things I really like to anybody before; not +even to daddy, much." + +This was a little dangerous, and the tomboy daughter of the parson was +not the kind of personality that was likely to make the danger +fascinating. And Paul's first impulse was to wince at the unstudied +frankness of her remark; but four days of seclusion had been +exceedingly chastening, and the flattery that underlay her words was +not unpleasing to him. + +"Then what made you suppose _I_ cared about poetry, eh?" he asked +deliberately. + +"Why," said Katharine, staring at him, "you began it, don't you +remember? I thought you wanted me to tell you what I thought." + +"Yes, yes; I am aware of that. But don't you think we have talked +enough about poetry for one day?" said Paul, half closing his eyes. He +was already regretting his stupidity in expecting her to understand +him. + +"How awfully funny you are! First you say--" + +"Yes," said Paul, as patiently as he could, "I know. Don't let us say +any more about it. Supposing you were to talk to me now as you would +talk to young Morton, for instance!" + +Katharine shook her head doubtfully. + +"I don't think I could. You're not like Ted; you don't like the same +sort of things. You're not like me, either." + +Paul smiled grimly. + +"We're both the same in reality, Miss Kitty. Only, you are focussing +it from one end, and I from another. I mean, you are too abominably +young and I am too abominably old, for conversation. We shall have to +keep to the favourite poets, after all." + +Katharine had come round to the side of the bed, and was regarding him +critically, with a very serious look on her face. + +"What is the matter?" she asked abruptly. "I hate people to say they +are old--when they are nice people. It makes me feel horrid; I don't +like it. I never let daddy talk about growing old; it gives me a sort +of cold feel, don't you know? I wish you wouldn't. Besides, I am not +young, either; I am nearly nineteen. I know I look much younger, +because I won't put my hair up; but my skirts are nearly to the +ground. What makes you say I am too young to be talked to?" + +"I said you were too young for conversation. It is not quite the same +thing, is it?" + +"Isn't it?" said Katharine, and she looked away out of the window for +a full minute. What she saw there she could not have told, but it was +something that had never been there before. When she brought her eyes +round again to his face, the serious look had gone out of them, and +they were twinkling with fun. "I know!" she laughed. "Let's talk +without any conversation." + +"She's the same woman, after all," was Paul's reflection. + +They did not mention the favourite poets again; but they had no +difficulty for the rest of the afternoon in finding something to talk +about. It was getting late when the garden gate gave its usual +warning, and Katharine got up with a sigh. + +"When shall I see you again?" he asked. They had not gone through the +formality of shaking hands, this time. + +"When Aunt Esther has _not_ gone to see a poor woman who has lost her +baby," said Katharine, laughing. + +"Nonsense! we will keep the letters and the newspaper for that kind of +visit. Won't some one else die, don't you think, so that we can have +another talk?" + +"I'll see," said Katharine, which could not strictly be called an +answer to his question. But it fully satisfied Paul. + + + + +CHAPTER IV + + +The weeks crept on; and Paul Wilton, from being merely an object of +interest and pity, gradually became the greatest mystery in the +neighbourhood. Such a reputation was entirely unsought on his part, +although, had he been aware of it, the probability is that it would +not have been wholly unpleasing to him. For it had been his pose +through life to mystify people,--not by deliberately assuming to be +what he was not, but by strenuously avoiding any appearance of what he +was; and his indifference, which was what people first noticed in him, +was entirely feigned for the purpose of concealing that his real +attitude towards life was a critical one. It was not unreasonable that +a man of this calibre, suddenly placed in a quiet country parish, +should end in making some sort of a sensation there. Miss Esther from +the beginning had suffered much, and silently; but a man who had a +father in Crockford and a mother in Debrett, was to be forgiven a +good deal, and she felt compelled to overlook even the ash of his +cigarettes, and his French novels, when she found them both on the +chaste counterpane of the best spare-room bed. But there were others +in Ivingdon who, not having much of a pedigree themselves, were +inclined to undervalue the importance of one; and some of these, the +doctor, for instance, and Peter Bunce the churchwarden, came to the +Rector for enlightenment. + +"Eh, but he doan't give hisself away much, do he, now?" said the +churchwarden, jerking his thumb in the direction of the lame man, who +had just swung himself past the window on his crutches. "He be proper +close, I reckon, eh?" + +"He is a very intelligent young man," said the Rector vaguely. "He has +quite an appreciation of Oriental china." + +It was Sunday afternoon, and the Rector was dispensing whiskey and +cigars to his guests, with a prodigality that might have been +attributed to Miss Esther's absence at the Sunday school. There was an +ease, too, about their manners and their conversation, which was to be +traced to the same cause. + +"I suppose he's beastly clever, and all that, isn't he?" asked Ted +morosely. He was sitting on the window ledge, a convenient position +which allowed him to shout occasional answers to the questions that +came from Katharine on the other side of the lawn. Just then, however, +she was joined by Paul; and Ted knew instinctively that he would have +no more questions to answer after that. + +"It is difficult to say what he is," observed the doctor. "You can't +get him to talk; at least, not much. Generally, when I've done all the +professional business, he relapses into total silence, and I just have +to go; but sometimes he is inclined to be chatty, and then he makes a +delightful companion. But the odd thing is, that I know no more about +the man himself at the end of a conversation than I did at the +beginning. A barrister, did you say he was? That accounts for the +judicial manner, then; but the question is, what is there behind it +all?" + +No one seemed to have an answer ready to the doctor's question; but +Peter Bunce took a long pull at the whiskey, and brushed the cigar ash +from his capacious waistcoat, and attacked the subject with fresh +vigour. + +"There ain't no finding out anything about no one, without you take a +bit o' trouble," he remarked wisely. "Mayhap Mr. Austen, yonder, +might know a something more than us folk. Hasn't he got never a +father, now? There's a won'erful lot to be gathered from knowing of a +man's father, there is. Like enough he's one o' they London folk, as +daren't speak aloud for fear of its getting into the newspapers. +London folk is mighty well watched, so I've heard; there's never a +moment's peace or safety in London, some say. Mayhap Mr. Wilton's +father is a London gen'leman, now!" + +"His father?" said the Rector, with sudden enthusiasm. "His father was +something short of a genius, sir! He is the best authority we have on +the numismatics of his neighbourhood. Have you never heard of Wilton's +'Copper Tokens'?" + +"Guess we have, sir, pretty often," laughed Ted. + +The Rector looked pathetic, and handed him another cigar, with an +apprehension that arose from the distant clang of the garden gate. + +"They all laugh at me," he said in a cheery tone that evoked no one's +pity. "I'm an old fool; oh, yes, we know all about that. But if you +had read Wilton's 'Copper Tokens,' you wouldn't want to know who this +man's father was. Let me see,--what did I do with my Crockford?" + +"I expect you thought it was a hymn-book and carted it up to church +this morning," said Ted, in a tone of forced merriment. He still had +one eye on the lawn, and what he saw there did not raise his spirits. + +"Died at the age of fifty-eight, when his son was a lad of eighteen, +he tells me," continued the Rector. "That was the same date that the +fifth edition of the 'Copper Tokens' was issued, some ten or fifteen +years ago now. Bless me, how time flies when we're not growing any +younger!" + +For the space of a moment or two, everybody present was occupied with +a mental calculation. The churchwarden was the first to give up the +attempt, and he returned doggedly to the original topic. + +"Age ain't got nothing to do with it," he began, heaving a sigh of +relief as he substituted his pipe for the unusual cigar. "'Cause why? +Some folk's old when they're young, and other folk's young when +they're old; that's where it lays, you see." + +Nobody did see; but Ted threw in a vicious comment. + +"The Lord only knows how old he is, but he's as played out as they +make them," he said. + +The churchwarden smiled, without understanding, and Cyril Austen was +too deep in his Crockford to hear what was passing; but the doctor had +been young himself, not so long ago, and he understood. + +"Does he talk about leaving?" he asked in a casual manner, directing +his remark to the boy on the window ledge. "There's nothing to keep +him here now, as far as I can see." + +"Don't know anything about him," said Ted, with a studied +indifference. "I should have thought, from the way Kitty speaks of +him, that London couldn't do without him for another moment. What they +all see in him, I don't know. I suppose it's because I'm such a rotten +ass, but he seems just like anybody else to me as far as brains are +concerned. And he can't talk for nuts. But Miss Esther says his family +is all square; and that's enough for the women, I suppose." + +The doctor nodded sympathetically, and Ted laughed as if he were a +little ashamed of taking himself so seriously. + +"He's going to make himself scarce on Wednesday," he continued, rather +more cordially. "He's got a pal of his coming down on business +to-morrow, and they're going off together. Good thing, too, eh? Don't +know anything about the pal--he's not any great shakes, I expect; but +Wilton swears he knows a lot about coins, and of course that will +fetch the Rector. Fact is, this place is getting too clever for me. +There's Kitty, who rots about poetry and things till it makes you +sick. She never used to; and it's no good her trying to spoof you that +she isn't altered, because she is,--and all for the sake of a chap +like Wilton, who hardly ever opens his mouth! It's so poor, isn't it?" + +But here the arrival of Miss Esther postponed any further discussion +of the Rectory guest. The doctor suddenly remembered that he had a +patient to visit, and took an abrupt departure; and the churchwarden +refused a curt invitation to tea, and went hastily after him. Ted +lingered a moment or two, without being noticed at all; and Miss +Esther, having successfully routed her brother's guests, went into the +garden to disturb the conversation on the other side of the lawn. + +Some two days later, Paul Wilton and his friend from London were +pacing up and down the narrow strip of gravel path that skirted the +house on the south side. In the absence of Katharine, who had induced +him to prolong the period of helplessness, as he would have wished to +prolong any other pleasurable sensation, Paul had no reason to play +the invalid; and, except for an occasional limp, there was nothing in +his walk to indicate lameness. There was the usual inexplicable smile +on his face, however, as he listened to the bantering conversation of +the man at his side, and occasionally interrupted it with one of his +dry, terse remarks. His companion was a little elderly man, with small +features and a fresh complexion, whose geniality was the result of +temperament rather than of principle, and whose conversation was toned +with a personal refrain that made it naïvely amusing. + +"That's a pretty child, by the way," he was saying, with the air of a +connoisseur. Katharine had just left them, and they could hear her +laughing with her father indoors. Paul murmured an assent, and went on +smoking. His companion glanced at him sideways, and smiled gently. + +"Very pretty," he repeated, "but ridiculously young. And who is the +charming boy who is so gone on her? She doesn't see it a bit, and he +hasn't the pluck to tell her. I'm quite sorry for that boy; I've been +in his shoes many a time, and I know what it feels like. He's got a +lot to teach her, that's certain, eh? Doesn't interest you, I suppose! +If it had been me, now, chained here with a broken leg and nothing to +do, with an idyllic love story going on under my eyes--ah, well! you +are not made that way, and I am too old, I suppose. Besides, in spite +of her charm, she isn't exactly my style." + +"No," said Paul; "she is not your style." + +"All the same, she's remarkably pretty, and I'm not too old to admire +a pretty woman," chuckled his companion. "'Pon my word, I'm quite +inclined to envy that boy. Just imagine a veritable woman, still +thinking herself a child, with a delightful boy for her only +companion, and no one to stand between them! I'd have given worlds for +such a chance when I was his age." + +"But, you see, you are not his age; so it is no use trying to cut him +out. Besides, you ought to know better, Heaton, at your time of life," +said Paul, in a jesting manner that was a little strained. Heaton took +his remark rather as a compliment than otherwise. + +"You won't alter me, my boy; you'll find me the same to the end of the +chapter,--so make up your mind to that. I'm not ashamed of it either, +not I! Seriously, though, I'm quite interested in our little love +story yonder. I should like to help that boy. Silly ass! why doesn't +he make a plunge for it? He isn't likely to have a rival." + +"Perhaps that is why he doesn't," observed Paul. "But I don't see why +we should trouble ourselves about it." + +"That's where you're so cynical," complained Heaton. "These little +affairs always interest me intensely; they bring back my youth to me, +and remind me of my lost happiness. Oh, life! what you once held for +me! And now it is all gone, buried with my two sweet wives, and I am +left alone with no one to care what becomes of me." + +His eyes were moist as he finished speaking, and Paul walked along at +his side without offering any consolation. He would have found it +difficult to explain why he had chosen Laurence Heaton for a friend. +It would be more correct to say, perhaps, that Heaton had chosen him, +and that he had lacked the energy or the power to shake him off. It +was generally true that his sentimental egotism bored Paul +excessively, and yet he found something to like in a nature that was +so unlike his own; and he was so secretive himself that the artless +confidences of Heaton, if a little wearisome, at least relieved him of +the necessity of adding to the conversation. Besides this, he was a +man who never willingly sought the friendship of others, and the +obvious preference that the good-natured idler, who was so many years +his elder, had shown for him when they first met at a public dinner, +had secretly flattered him not a little, and their acquaintance had +grown after that as a matter of course. + +"All the same," resumed Heaton in his ordinary manner, "an outsider +never can do much in these cases. Perhaps it would be better to leave +them alone; and yet, if the boy were to come to me for the benefit of +my larger experience--" + +"Don't you think," interrupted Paul, "that we have talked about a +couple of children as much as we need? It's all very well for an old +reprobate like yourself to spend your time in reviving your lost +youth, but I haven't so much leisure as you have, and I want to hear +about those shares you mentioned in your letter last week." + +Heaton laughed good-humouredly. + +"You don't realise, my dear fellow, how anything like that always +interests me. But you wait until your time comes; at present you are +too cynical to understand what I mean." + +"Or too romantic," suggested Paul. + +"Oh, no!" said Heaton. "Romance is only an equivalent for +inexperience; I think you're a cold-hearted beggar who lets the best +things in life go by, but I shouldn't call you inexperienced. You've +got a finished way with women that always appeals to them; women love +a little humbug, if it's well done. I'm too obvious for them, too +simple-minded, and that always frightens them off." + +"Does it?" smiled Paul. + +"Now, you ought to marry," continued Heaton briskly. "I believe in +marriage, hanged if I don't! and it's been the making of me. +Everything that is good in me I owe to my married life." + +"Did it really take two marriages?" murmured Paul. His companion +smiled at the joke against himself, and they stood for a moment in +silence, looking over the lawn that had just acquired its fresh bloom +of green. Katharine's voice came out to them again through the open +window, this time raised in indignant dispute with her aunt. + +"She is a curious mixture of hardness and sentiment," said Paul +involuntarily, "and her surroundings have made her a prig; but she +interests me rather." + +"Ah," said Heaton, "I quite agree with you. There _is_ a touch of the +prig about her. But can you wonder? She is the only bit of life and +prettiness about the place, and she never meets her equal. They think +a good lot of her, too. And the parson's daughter generally thinks a +good lot of herself." + +"She does it rather charmingly," said Paul, in a dispassionate tone, +"and she is fairly well read, and knows how to express herself. For a +woman, she has quite a sense of criticism." + +"That's bad," said Heaton decidedly, "very bad. A woman should have no +sense of criticism. That is what makes her a prig. In fact, as I have +often said to you before, a prig is made in three ways. First of all, +she is made by her own people, if she happens to be clever; and +secondly, by the world, if she happens to be successful; and thirdly, +by her lover, if she isn't in love with him. But of course if she _is_ +in love with him he may be the cause of her unmaking." + +Some one in a light-coloured print frock jumped out of a side window +and disappeared in the direction of the summer-house. The two men +stood and looked after her without being noticed. + +"As you say," remarked Heaton blandly, "she does it rather +charmingly." + +Paul roused himself with an effort. + +"Half-past three," he said, looking at his watch. "Didn't you promise +to go and look at the Rector's coins some time this afternoon?" + +And in another five minutes he had joined Katharine in the +summer-house. + + + + +CHAPTER V + + +The summer house was set far back in the shrubbery, and although +hidden from the house by laurels and box-trees, was open at the front +to a stretch of brightly coloured flower beds and trimly cut grass. It +was a glorious day in May, and spring in its fulness was come. The +white fruit blossoms had given place to crumpled green leaves, and the +early summer flowers were in bud. Paul Wilton lay on a low basket +chair, where he had flung himself down after making his escape from +his garrulous friend; and at his feet, with an open book on her lap, +sat Katharine. Obviously, a great many poor women had lost a great +many babies, since the day she had sat on the chair at the end of his +bed and talked about her favourite poets, for the book on her lap was +only a pretence to which neither of them paid the least attention, and +their conversation was of a purely personal nature, the kind of +conversation that has no subject and no epigrams, and is carried on in +half-finished sentences. + +"I am beginning to understand why you don't paint or write or do +things, although you know such a lot about them," observed Katharine, +half closing her eyes and making a picture of the square of sunlit +garden as she saw it framed in the woodwork of the summer-house door. + +Paul smiled. It was very pleasant to be told by this child of Nature +that he knew "such a lot about things." + +"Tell me why," was all he said, however. + +"I think it is because it puts you in a position to criticise every +one else. It makes you so superior, in a sort of way. Oh, bother! I +never can explain things. But don't you see, if you were a painter +yourself, you couldn't say that there was only one painter living, as +you do now. Could you?" + +"Perhaps I could," said Paul, and laughed gently at her look of +surprise. + +"Of course I know you are only laughing at me," she said in an injured +tone. "You never think I am serious about anything." + +"My dear Miss Katharine," he assured her, "on the contrary, I think +you are most terribly serious about everything. I have never had so +much serious conversation since I was nineteen myself. You will have +to grow older, before you learn to be young and frivolous." + +"But _you_ are not frivolous," she protested. "You know you are not. +You only say that to tease me." + +"I only say it to convince you. It is not my fault if you do not +understand, is it?" + +"I do understand, I am certain I do. At least"--she paused suddenly, +and looked at him with one of her long critical looks. "Perhaps you +are right, and I don't understand you a bit. How queer! I don't think +I like the feel of it." She ended with a little gesture of distaste. + +"I shouldn't bother about it, if I were you," said Paul calmly. "You +will understand better when you are older--and younger. Meanwhile, it +is very pleasant, don't you think?" + +She was leaning forward with her hands folded under her chin, and did +not answer him. + +"What made you choose to be a barrister?" she asked suddenly. + +He shrugged his shoulders. + +"Merely because it presented greater opportunities for idleness than +any other profession, I suppose." + +Katharine swung herself round on her low stool, and looked at him +incredulously. + +"But don't you ever want to _do_ anything,--you with all your brains +and your talents?" she cried impatiently. "Surely you must have some +ambition?" + +"Oh, no," replied Paul, arranging the cushions at the back of his head +and sinking down on them again. "I hope I shall always be comfortable, +that's all; and I have enough money for that, thank the Lord!" + +"Supposing you had been poor?" + +"Don't suppose it," rejoined Paul; and her puzzled features relaxed +into a smile. + +"I can't think why you have a face like that, then," she said +reflectively. + +"What's the matter with my face? Does it suggest possibilities? To +think that I might have been a minor poet all these years, without +knowing it!" + +Katharine returned to her examination of the flower beds; and Paul lay +back, and blew rings of smoke into the air, and watched her through +them with an amused look on his face. He recalled some casual words of +Heaton's which had annoyed him very much at the time,--"If I'm not in +love with a woman, I don't want to give her another thought;" and he +glanced at her slim waist as she sat there, and tried lazily to +analyse his own feelings towards her. + +"What are you thinking about?" she asked, turning round again. + +"About you," he said, and brought his feet lightly to the ground and +sat up and stretched himself. + +"What about me?" she asked curiously. + +"I am wondering if you will miss me very much when I am gone," he +said, and slid slowly along the chair until he sat behind her, where +he could just see her rounded profile as she turned her face away from +him. + +"Oh, yes, awfully! I wish, I do wish you were not going!" She was +looking very hard at the flower beds now. + +"So do I, Miss Katharine. It has been quite delightful; I shall never +forget your sweet care of me. But you will soon forget all about me. +And besides, there is Ted." + +"What has that got to do with it?" she asked swiftly. + +"Oh, nothing, surely! It was merely an inconsequent reflection on my +part." + +There was a pause for a few moments. + +"Talk," he said suddenly, and put his hand gently against her cheek. +It warmed under his touch, and he heard the tremor in her voice as +she spoke. + +"I--I can't talk. Oh, please don't!" + +"Can't you? Try." + +She put her hand up to his, and he caught hold of her fingers, and +dropped a light kiss on them as they lay crumpled up on his palm. Then +he pressed them slightly, and let them go, and walked away to the +house without looking at her again. His countenance was as unmoved as +if he had just been talking archæology to the Rector; but his +reflections seemed absorbing, and he hardly roused himself to move +aside when Ted came lounging out of the house and ran against him in +the porch. + +"Hullo!" said Ted. "I'm awfully sorry; I didn't see you, really." + +"Oh, no matter!" said Paul, who, never being guilty of a clumsy action +himself, could afford to remain undisturbed. "Miss Katharine's in the +summer house," he added, in answer to Ted's disconsolate look. "We've +been reading Browning. At least, Miss Katharine out of her goodness +has been trying to make a convert of me. I am afraid I was an +unappreciative listener." + +Ted glanced inquiringly at him. Somehow, it was not so easy to +disapprove of Paul to his face as it was behind his back. + +"How poor!" he said sympathetically. "Kitty does play so cheap, +sometimes, doesn't she? Browning is enough to give you the hump, I +should think. But she never does that to me." + +"Probably," said Paul, disengaging a cigarette paper; "she would not +feel the same necessity in your case. You would have greater +facilities for conversation, I mean. Won't you have a cigarette?" + +Ted looked towards the shrubbery, but lingered as though the +invitation commended itself to him. + +"I think I'll have a pipe, if it's all the same to you. May I try that +'baccy of yours? Thanks, awfully!" + +They sat down on opposite sides of the little porch, and puffed away +in silence. + +"You haven't been over much, lately," observed Paul presently. + +Ted glanced at him again, but was disarmed by his tone of +friendliness. + +"No," he said. "At least, I was over once or twice last week, but I +never got a look in with Kitty. I mean," he added hastily, "she was +out, or something." + +"Ah!" said Paul indifferently; "that was unfortunate." + +"It was a howling nuisance," said Ted, his troubled look returning. +"The truth is," he went on, feeling a desire for a confidant to be +stronger than his distrust of Paul, "there's something I've been +trying to tell Kit for a whole week, and for the life of me I can't +get it out." + +"Going to make a fool of himself at the very start," thought Paul. + +"You see," continued Ted with an effort, "_she_ has been playing up +so, lately." + +"Your mother?" questioned Paul. + +Ted nodded. + +"And now she's got me a confounded berth in some place in the +city,--candles, or grocery, or something beastly. It's the poorest +thing I ever heard. And I've got to start on Thursday, so I must leave +home to-morrow. And Kitty doesn't know; that's the devil, you see." + +"I'm sorry," said Paul gravely. + +"Got it through some cousin of my father's," Ted went on in his +aggrieved voice. "No one but a cousin of one's father ever hears of +such rotten jobs. Said it would be the making of me, or some rot. I've +heard that before; the men who never did a stroke of work themselves +always talk that sort of cheapness. Have to be there at half-past +eight in the morning, too, blow it!" + +"I'm sorry," said Paul again. He began to feel a vague interest in the +boy as he sat opposite and stretched his long legs out to their full +length, and jerked out his complaints with the brier between his +teeth. + +"_She_ thinks it such great shakes, too; just because she won't have +to keep me any longer. She ought never to have had a son like me; I +wasn't meant for such beastly work. Why was I born? Why was I?" + +"The parents of the human animal are never selected," said Paul, for +the sake of saying something. + +"I know I'm a fool,--_she's_ told me that often enough; so I don't +expect to get anything awfully decent. But why did they educate me as +a gentleman? They should have sent me to a board school, and then I +should have been a bounder myself, and nothing would have mattered. +What's the use of being a gentleman and a fool? That's what I am; and +Kit's the only person in the world who doesn't make me feel it, bless +her!" + +Paul threw away his cigarette, and made a sudden resolve. He was +amused, in spite of himself, at the very youthful pessimism in Ted's +remarks; and for a moment he felt almost anxious that the boy should +not spoil his career by a false start. There was something novel, too, +in his playing the part of counsellor, and Paul Wilton was never +averse to a new sensation. So he leaned forward and tapped his +companion on the knee with his long, pointed forefinger. + +"You may send me to the devil, if you like," he said with his placid +smile, "but I should like to give you a word of advice first. May I?" + +Ted looked more depressed than before, but he did not seem surprised. + +"Fire ahead!" he said sadly. "I can stand an awful lot. People have +always given me advice, ever since I was a kid; it's the only thing +they ever have given me." + +"I don't suppose it is my business at all," said Paul, making another +cigarette with the elaborate precision he always spent on trifles; +"but I've seen so many nice chaps ruined through a mistake in early +life, and I know one or two things, and I'm older than you, too. Now, +how do you mean to tell that child over there that you are going +away?" + +Ted started. + +"What do you mean?" he asked. But his lower lip was twitching +nervously, and his colour had deepened. + +"Well, this is what I mean. Given an emotional creature like that, who +has never seen any man but you, and a young, impetuous fellow like +yourself, going to say good-bye to her for an indefinite +period,--well, you are both extremely likely to arrive at one +conclusion; and my advice to you is,--Don't." + +Ted said nothing, but continued to stare at the tesselated floor. The +elder man rose to his feet, and restored the match box to his pocket. + +"I nearly did it myself once," he said; "but I didn't." + +Ted looked him thoughtfully up and down. + +"I shouldn't think you did," he said, with unconscious sarcasm. Then +he too rose slowly to his feet, and stood on the doorstep for a +moment, with his hands in his pockets. "I think you're a confounded +cynical brute," he said rather breathlessly, "but I believe you're +right, and I won't." + +And he walked across the lawn to the shrubbery with the air of a man +on whose decision depends the fate of nations. + +Paul frowned slightly, as he always did when he was thinking deeply, +and then threw off his preoccupation with a laugh. Even when he was +alone, he liked to preserve his attitude of nonchalance. + +"How have I contrived to fall among such an appallingly serious set of +infants?" he muttered. "Hey-day! here's for London and life!" And he +turned indoors to look for a time-table. + +Ted stalked straight into the summer house, with his head in the air +and his mind filled with high-souled resolutions. Any one less +occupied with his own reflections would have seen that Katharine was +sitting with an absent look in her eyes, while the book she held in +her hand was open at the index-page. But Ted only saw in her the woman +he had just sworn within him to respect; and he took the book +reverently out of her hand, and sat down, also just behind her, on the +end of the basket chair. It was the same basket chair. + +"Kitty, I say," he began, clearing his throat, "I've come to tell you +something." + +Katharine glanced at his solemn face, and looked away again. She +wished he had not sat just there. + +"It must have something to do with a funeral, then," she said, with a +flippancy that would have aroused the suspicions of a more observant +person. But Ted was still absorbed in his high-souled resolutions, and +her abstraction failed to make any impression on him. + +"No, it hasn't," he rejoined gloomily. "I wish it had! I shouldn't +mind being dead, not I! It would cure this hump, anyhow. Perhaps some +one would be sorry, then; don't know who would, though! _She_'d only +complain of the expense of burying me." + +"Poor old man, who has been bullying you now?" asked Katharine, in a +dreamy voice that she strove to make interested. "Has _she_ been doing +anything fresh?" + +"Has she, that's all! She's been doing something to some purpose, this +time. Got me a beastly job, in a beastly city place; a pound a week; +soap, or wholesale clothing, or something poor. Says I ought to be +thankful to get anything. Thankful indeed! _She_ never shows a spark +of gratitude for her bally seven hundred a year, I know." + +"Oh, Ted! every one is going away. What shall I do?" The words escaped +her involuntarily. But he was still too full of his own troubles to +notice anything except that she seemed distressed; and this, of +course, was only natural. + +"I knew you'd be cut up," he said, kicking savagely at the leg of the +chair. "You're the only chap who cares; and you'll forget when I've +been gone a week. Oh, yes, you will! I ought never to have been born. +They're sure to be rank outsiders, too; and I can stand anything +sooner than bounders. It's too beastly caddish for words, and I'd like +to kill him for his rotten advice. What does he know about anything, a +played-out chap like that?" + +Ted's conversation was apt to become involved when he was agitated; +but on this occasion Katharine made no attempt to unravel it. + +"Poor Ted," she murmured tonelessly, and continued to think about +something else. + +"I don't know why you are so cut up about it. I'm such a rotten ass, +and you're so infernally smart! I haven't any right to expect you to +care a hang about me; I won't even ask you to write to me, when I'm +gone," cried Ted, making desperate efforts to keep his high-souled +resolutions. "It's a rotten, caddish world, and I'm the rottenest fool +in it." + +He waited for the contradiction that always came from Katharine at +this point of his self-abasement; but when she said nothing, and only +went on staring in the opposite direction, he felt that there was +something unusually wrong, and came hastily round to the front of her +chair and repeated his last remark with emphasis. + +"You may say what you like, but I am. All the same, I would sooner +chuck the whole show than make you unhappy. I'll be hanged if I don't +go away to-morrow without a single--" He stopped abruptly; for she was +looking up at him piteously, and his high-souled resolutions suddenly +melted into oblivion. "Kitty, old chum, don't cry! I'm not worth +it,--on my soul I'm not; blowed if I've ever seen you cry before! Good +old Kit, I say, don't. Oh, the devil! Do you really mind so much?" + +"Please, Ted, go away; you don't understand; go away; it isn't that at +all! Don't, Ted, don't! Oh, dear, whatever made me cry?" gasped +Katharine. But Ted would take no denial: a woman's tears would have +disarmed him, even if he had not been in love with her; and Katharine, +the tomboyish companion of years, appeared to him in a strangely +lovable light as she sobbed into her hands and made the feeblest +efforts to keep him away. His arms were round her in a moment, and +her head was pulled down on his shoulder, and he poured a medley of +broken sentences into her ear. + +"How was I to know you cared, old chum? Of course I have always cared; +but I never thought about it until that played-out London chap turned +up and put it into my head. Dear old Kitty! Why, do you know, I was +half afraid you were going to like him, one time; wasn't I a rotten +ass? But, you see, you're so bally clever, and all that; and I +supposed he was, too, and so I thought,--don't you see? And all the +while, it was me! Buck up, Kit! I won't split that you cried, on my +honour I won't. Oh, I say, I'm the most confoundedly lucky chap-- But, +oh, that infernal office in the city!" + +Katharine disengaged herself at last. His kisses seemed to burn into +her cheeks. She pushed back the basket chair into the corner of the +summer-house, and put her fingers over her eyes to shut out the flower +beds and the sunlight. + +"Stop, Ted! I don't know what you mean. You must not think those +things of me; they are simply not true. I can't let you kiss me like +that. Has the world gone suddenly mad, this afternoon? I don't +understand what has happened to every one. I don't understand +anything. Will you go, please, Ted? If you won't, I--I must." + +She forced out the disjointed sentences in hard, passionless tones. +Ted stood absolutely still where she left him, and watched her stumble +through the doorway and disappear among the laurel bushes and the old +box-trees. Then he rumpled up his thick hair with both his hands, and +laughed aloud. + +"I ought never to have been born," he said, and his voice broke. + + + + +CHAPTER VI + + +On a foggy morning in the beginning of the following January, Ted +Morton strolled out of his bedroom shortly before eight o'clock, and +rang the bell for breakfast. He yawned as though he were only half +awake, and swore gently at the weather as he stirred up the fire to +make a blaze. + +"What an infernal day!" he muttered, and pulled down the blind and +lighted the gas. The housekeeper brought in his breakfast and his +letters, and wisely withdrew without saying anything. Ted took the lid +off the teapot, and examined the three envelopes in turn. His face +brightened a little as he came to the third, and he buttered some +toast and ate it standing. + +"Well, I'm hanged! Not a single bill, and one from Kit, good old Kit! +That'll wait, and that. Well, I can stand hers; it's sure to be funny, +at all events." + +He put on one boot, and then stood up again and read her letter, with +a large cup of tea in his right hand. The smile on his face faded +gradually as he read, and he looked almost thoughtful when he folded +it up again and placed it in his breast-pocket. He was staunch in his +belief that Katharine could do no wrong, but her latest idea went far +to shake his conviction. + +"You see, it is like this," her letter ran. + + "There is plenty of money, really, but we have to behave as + though there were none; so the effect is the same, it seems to + me. I never thought about it before; I only found it out by + accident, when I overheard Aunt Esther abusing daddy for + buying some old architectural books. It seems as though he + really does spend a good lot, without knowing it; but then, + why shouldn't he? I won't have daddy bullied, so that I should + have enough bread and butter to eat; it is sordid and + horrible. They don't say a word about my earning my own + living, but that is what they are driving me to do; it seems + ridiculous that I should make other people uncomfortable by + being here, when there is plenty of money in the world waiting + to be earned by some one. Don't you think so? But when I said + I would come up to London and give lessons, Aunt Esther had + heroics, and said I should kill her. She didn't say how, and + I'm sure I did not feel particularly murderous; I only wanted + to laugh, while she lay on the sofa and said I was undutiful + for trying to save her anxiety! I don't understand parents. + They hide everything from you, and behave as if they were + wealthy; then they abuse you for costing so much to keep; and + then, when you say you will keep yourself, they call you + undutiful. There is no doubt that if we were to send away one + of the servants, I should be able to stay at home; but Aunt + Esther would have a fit at the idea. It seems to me that we + spend half our income in trying to persuade people of the + existence of the other half. Anyhow, I am coming up at once to + look for work. I haven't told daddy yet, and don't know how I + am going to; he will be so dreadfully cut up at losing me. But + I am sure he will understand; he is the one person who always + has understood. And won't it be glorious when I have earned + enough money to give him everything he wants? About rooms: I + saw an advertisement of some, a few doors from you. Do you + know them? I thought it would be rather nice to be near you," + etc., etc. + +Ted answered her letter the same evening. Writing letters was always a +labour to him, but he toiled over this one more than usual. + + "Of course you know what you are playing at," he wrote, "but I + believe it is awfully hard to get anything to do. London is + packed with people trying to find work; and most of them don't + find it. As to the rooms, it would be beastly jolly to have + you so close, but I don't advise your coming here; this street + pals on to Regent Street, you know, and it isn't supposed to + be pleasant for a girl. I will explain more fully when I see + you. Let me know if I can do anything for you. I'm a rotten + ass at expressing myself, as you know; but it will be awfully + decent to have you to take about. Only I don't like the idea + of your grinding away alone; it's rotten enough for a man, but + it's miles worse for a woman. Write again soon. It _is_ a + life, isn't it?" + +It was nearly a fortnight before he heard from her again, and he felt +guiltily conscious of not having encouraged her as much as she +expected. Then came another letter, in her small, firm handwriting; +and he tore it open anxiously. + + "I am coming up by the 4.55 on Wednesday," she wrote. "Will + you meet me? I thought perhaps you might, as it is a late + train. Oh, Ted, I feel so old and different somehow; I don't + believe I _could_ climb into that pantry window now! Daddy + took it so strangely; he hardly said anything at all. Do you + think it is possible that he really does not love me as much + as I love him? And I mind leaving him so much that it quite + hurts every time he asks me to do anything for him. Why was I + made to like people more than they like me? Why, I believe + daddy was rather relieved than otherwise. And I thought he + would never be able to do without me! Am I very conceited, I + wonder? But indeed, I do believe he will miss me dreadfully + when I am gone. Aunt Esther won't speak to me at all; I feel + in disgrace, without having done anything wrong. Parents are + inexplicable; they seem to grow tired of us as we grow up, + just like birds! And they persist in treating us like + children, while they are forcing us to behave as if we were + grown up; I can't understand them, or anything. Things seem to + be going all wrong, everywhere. I have heard of a sort of home + for working gentlewomen, near Edgware Road; it seems + respectable, and it is certainly cheap. They have left me to + arrange everything, just as though I were going to do + something wicked. And I thought all the while I was doing + something so splendid and heroic! You will meet me, won't you? + I feel so forlorn and miserable." + +Ted wrote back immediately:-- + + "It is a beastly rotten world. Neither of us ought to have + been born. I will cut the office and meet you. Buck up." + +And the following Wednesday saw him on the platform at Euston, trying +to find Katharine in the crowd of passengers who were pouring out of +the 4.55 train. It was not long before he discovered her, looking very +unlike her surroundings, and pointing out her luggage, half +apologetically, to a porter who seemed inclined to patronise her. +There was an exaggerated air of self-possession in her bearing, which +did not conceal her provincial look and rather showed that she felt +less composed than she wished to appear. Ted examined her for a moment +doubtfully, and then made his way towards her. He had not seen her +once since she left him in the summer-house, eight months ago; and he +was amazed at himself for not feeling more disturbed at meeting her +again now. Perhaps her prosaic winter clothing helped to rob the +occasion of romance; for, in his mind, he had vaguely expected to find +her wearing the garden hat and print frock in which he had last seen +her. But when she turned round and saw him, the frank pleasure in her +face was the same as it had always been, and the episode that had been +enacted in the summer-house seemed all at once to be blotted out of +their past. + +"You dear old boy, I knew you'd come! I feel so awfully out of it, in +this noise! Do make that porter understand I want to get across to +Gower Street, will you? He seems confused. I don't speak a different +language, do I? Just look at that glorious pair of bays; but, oh, what +a shame to give them bearing-reins! Why, Ted, what a swell you are in +that frock coat; you look just like the vet. at Stoke on Sundays! Oh, +I'm so sorry; I forgot! I want to get to Edgware Road, you see, and I +thought--" + +"Oh, we'll cab it, then! Nonsense! it isn't a bit cheaper, only +nastier. Girls never understand these things. Hadn't you better get +in, instead of examining the points of the horse? It won't stand any +quieter than that, if that's your idea." + +The porter went off with a handsome gratuity, and Katharine settled +herself in her corner of the cab, and began to examine her companion. + +"You've altered a little bit, Ted," she observed. "You're not so +afraid of unimportant people as you used to be. I believe you would go +into the post office at Stoke for your own stamps, now, instead of +sending me because the girl laughed at you. Do you remember? You are +such a swell, too; how you must be getting on at that place!" + +"Oh, I don't think so. I don't want to get on there; no decent chap +would," said Ted, and Katharine changed the conversation. + +"The streets seem very full," she said, as they came to a block in the +traffic. + +"Up to the brim," said Ted laconically. "I always wonder the horses +don't tread on one another's toes, don't you?" + +She laughed in her old joyous manner, and he leaned back contentedly +and looked at her. + +"At all events, you haven't altered much," he observed. + +"I've grown an inch, and my dresses are quite long now. Besides, I +have put up my hair. Didn't you notice?" + +"I thought there was something. Turn your head round. About time you +did, wasn't it? But why don't you make it stick out more? Other girls +do, don't they?" + +Katharine had not seen any other girls, and said so; whereupon Ted +supposed it was all right, if she thought it was, and added +conciliatingly, that at all events her new coat was "all there." They +chattered in the same trivial manner all the rest of the way; it was +like the old days, when they had never thought of making up a quarrel +formally, but had just resumed matters where they had been broken off. + +"Do you feel bad?" he asked, in his sympathetic way, when they stood +at last on the well-worn doorstep of number ten, Queen's Crescent, +Marylebone. + +"Oh, I don't know! I've got to go through with it now, haven't I? It's +just like you and me not to have touched on anything really important +all the way; isn't it? And I've got such a heap of things to tell +you," said Katharine, in a nervous tone; and she gave a little shiver +as an east wind came rushing up the street and blew dirty pieces of +paper against the dingy iron railings, whence they fluttered down into +the area. + +"Never mind; I'll look you up some evening soon. Let me know if you +want bucking up or anything. Good-bye, old chum." + +And she found herself inside a dimly lighted, distempered hall, face +to face with a kindly looking maid, who was greeting her with the air +of conventional welcome she had been told to assume towards strangers. +It was supposed to support the advertisement that this was a home. + +"Miss Jennings? No, miss; she won't be in, not before supper. And the +lady what's in your cubicle ain't cleared out yet, miss, so I can't +take your box up, neither. Will you come and have your tea, miss? This +way, if you please." + +Katharine followed her mechanically. The heroic notions that had +sustained her for weeks were vanishing before this pleasant-faced maid +and the dreary, distempered hall. For the first time in her life a +feeling of shyness suddenly overwhelmed her, as the servant held open +a door, and a hum of voices and clatter of plates came out into the +passage. For the moment, she hardly knew where to look or what to do. +The room into which she had been ushered was a bare-looking one, +though clean enough, and better lighted than the hall outside. Long +tables were placed across it, and around these, on wooden chairs, sat +some twenty or thirty girls of various ages, some of whom were talking +and others reading, as they occupied themselves with their tea. They +all looked up when Katharine came into the room, but the spectacle did +not present enough novelty to interest them long, and they soon looked +away again and went on with their several occupations. "_She_ won't be +here long,--not the sort," Katharine overheard one of them saying to +another, and the casual remark brought the colour to her cheeks, and +made her assume desperately some show of courage. + +"May I take this chair?" she asked, moving towards a vacant place as +she spoke. + +"It isn't anybody's; none of them are unless the plate is turned +upside down," volunteered the girl in the next chair. She was reading +"Pitman's Phonetic Journal," and eating bread and treacle. + +"You have to get your own tea from the urn over there, and collect +your food from all the other tables," she added in the same brusque +manner, as Katharine sat down and looked helplessly about her. +However, by following out the instructions thus thrown at her, she +managed, with a little difficulty, to procure what she wanted from the +food that was scattered incidentally about the room, and then returned +to her seat by the girl who was eating bread and treacle. + +"Isn't it rather late for tea?" she asked of her neighbour, who at +least seemed friendly in a raw sort of way. + +"It always goes on till seven; most of them don't get back from the +office before this, you see." + +"What office?" asked Katharine, who did not see. + +"Any office," returned the girl, staring round at her. "Post office +generally, or a place in the city, or something like that. Some of +them are shorthand clerks, like me,--it's shorter hours and better +paid as a rule; but it's getting overcrowded, like everything else." + +"Do you like it?" asked Katharine. The girl stared again. The +possibility of liking one's work had never occurred to her before. + +"Of course not; but we have to grin and bear it, like the food here +and everything else. I'm sorry for you if you mean to stop here long; +you don't look as though you could stand it. I've seen your sort +before, and they never stop long." + +"Oh, I mean to stop," said Katharine decidedly. But her heroic mood +had been completely dissipated by the leaden atmosphere of the place, +and she could not repress a sigh. + +"Butter bad?" asked her neighbour cheerfully. "Try the treacle; it's +safer. You can't go far wrong with treacle. The jam's always +suspicious; you find plum stones in the strawberries, and so on." + +Katharine was obliged to laugh, and the shorthand clerk, who had not +meant to make a joke, seemed hurt. + +"I beg your pardon," said Katharine, "but your cynical view of the +food is so awfully funny." + +"Wait till you've been here three years, like I have," said the +shorthand clerk, and she returned to her newspaper. + +Katharine tried to stay the sinking at her heart, and made a critical +review of the room. What impressed her most was the twang of the +girls' voices. Not that they were noisy,--for they seemed a quiet set +on the whole; either daily routine or respectability had succeeded in +subduing their spirits; but for all that they did not look unhappy, +and Katharine supposed, as her neighbour had remarked, that it was +possible to get used to it after a time. + +"And the room is certainly clean," she reflected, as she made an +effort to see the brighter side of things; "and the girls don't stare, +or ask questions, or do anything unpleasant. I _couldn't_ tell them +anything about myself if they did. And I do wish, though I know it's +awfully snobbish, that some of them were ladies." + +Her neighbour broke in upon her thoughts, and Katharine came to +herself with a start. + +"Whose cuby are you going to have?" she was asking. + +"I--I don't know. The servant said it was not empty yet. I should +rather like to unpack." + +"I don't suppose you will get a permanent one yet awhile," said the +shorthand clerk, in the cheerful way with which she imparted all her +unpleasant revelations; "they always move you about for a week or two +first. I expect you are coming into our room for the present; Miss +King is going up to Scotland by the night mail. Jenny will tell you +when she comes in. Supper is at nine," she added, pushing back her +chair and folding up her paper, "and there are two reception rooms +upstairs, if you want to sit somewhere till your cubicle is empty." + +Katharine thanked her, and felt more forlorn than ever when the +shorthand clerk had gone. But the servant came to her rescue a few +minutes later, and offered to take her to her room which was now +empty. + +"Is it Miss King's?" asked Katharine, and felt a little happier when +she learned that it was. She would have one acquaintance in the same +room at all events. But her heart sank again, when she found herself +alone with her two boxes in a curtained corner of a dingy room, the +corner that was the farthest from the window and the smallest of the +four compartments. There was hardly room to move; and when she tried +to unpack her boxes, she found that most of the drawers in the tiny +chest were already occupied, and that there were no pegs for her +dresses. + +"Could anything be more dreary?" she said aloud. "And the curtains are +just horribly dirty, and I don't feel as though I _could_ get into +that bed. And what a tiny jug and basin!" + +"Hullo, is that you?" said the voice of the shorthand clerk, who had +come into her part of the room unobserved. "I guessed you'd feel +pretty bad when you saw what it was like. They all do. But you might +as well turn up the gas, and make it as cheerful as possible. That's +better. Well, it's not much like the prospectus, is it?" + +Katharine remembered the plausible statements of the prospectus, and +broke into a laugh. There was a grim humour in her situation that +appealed to her, though it seemed to be lost on her companion. + +"Well, I'm glad you can laugh, though I never found it funny myself," +she called out. "But don't stay moping here; come into the +drawing-room until the bell rings for supper, won't you?" + +Katharine followed her advice, and allowed herself to be taken into +another bare looking room, over the dining-room. This was furnished +with a horsehair sofa and three basket chairs, which were all +occupied, several cane chairs, and two square tables, at which some +girls sat writing. One of them looked up as the door opened, and asked +the shorthand clerk to come and help her with her arithmetic. + +"You know I'm no good, Polly. Where's Miss Browne?" asked the +shorthand clerk, pushing a chair towards Katharine, and taking one +herself. + +"She's out; I think you might try," said the girl who had spoken to +her, in a peevish tone. "I have got to finish this paper to-night; and +I'm fagged now." + +"Can I help?" asked Katharine. The other two looked at her, and seemed +surprised. + +"This is some one new," explained her first friend. "Let me introduce +you: Miss Polly Newland, Miss-- Why, I don't even know your name, do +I?" + +"Austen," said Katharine. "Won't you tell me yours?" + +The girl said her name was Hyam,--Phyllis Hyam; and they returned to +the subject of the arithmetic. + +"Let's look at it, Polly," said Phyllis Hyam, and Miss Newland passed +the paper across the table. The two girls bent over it, and Phyllis +shook her head. + +"I never understood stocks,--too badly taught!" she said, and tilted +her chair and began to whistle. + +"Shall I try?" said Katharine, taking out a pencil. She worked out the +sum to the satisfaction of Polly Newland, who then unbent a little, +and explained that she was going up for the Civil Service examination +in March. + +"I say, you're clever, aren't you? Do you teach?" asked Phyllis Hyam, +bringing the front legs of her chair down again with a bang. + +"That is what I want to do; but I never have," replied Katharine. The +other two looked at her pityingly. + +"Any friends in London?" they asked. + +"Only relations; and they won't help me." + +"Of course not. Relations never do. Hope you'll get some work," said +the shorthand clerk dubiously. Katharine changed the conversation, to +hide her own growing apprehension. + +"Where are the newspapers?" she asked, looking round. + +"In the prospectus; never saw them anywhere else!" said Phyllis, with +a short laugh. + +"Did you expect to find any?" asked Polly Newland. "They all do," she +added gravely. "It's like the baths, and the boots, and everything +else." + +"Surely, the bath-room is not a fallacy?" exclaimed Katharine in +dismay. + +"Oh, there is one down in the basement; but all the water has to be +boiled for it, so only three people can have a bath every evening. You +have to put your name down in a book; and your turn comes in about a +fortnight." + +"And the boots?" said Katharine, suppressing a sigh. + +"You have to clean your own, that's all. They are supposed to provide +the blacking and the brushes; but, my eye, what brushes! Of course you +get used to it after a bit. When you get to your worst, you will +probably wear them dirty." + +"When does one get to one's worst?" asked Katharine. + +"That depends," said Polly Newland, sucking the end of her pencil, and +staring across in a curious manner at Katharine. "I should say you +would get to it pretty soon, if you stop long enough." + +"Of course I shall stop!" cried Katharine, a little impatiently. "Why +do you both say that?" + +The two girls glanced at one another. + +"You're not the sort," said Phyllis shortly; and Polly returned to her +arithmetic. + +Katharine relapsed into a dream. All her aspirations, all her hopes of +making her father a rich man, had only landed her in number ten, +Queen's Crescent, Marylebone! She looked round at the silent occupants +of the room,--some of them too tired to do anything but lounge about, +some of them reading novelettes, some of them mending stockings. She +wondered if her existence would simply become like theirs,--a daily +routine, with just enough money to support life, and not enough to buy +its pleasures; enough energy to get through its toil, and not enough +to enjoy its leisure. Ivingdon, with its recent troubles, its more +distant happiness, seemed separated from this rude moment of +disillusionment by a long stretch of years. A passionate instinct of +rebellion against the circumstances that were answerable for her +present situation made her unhappiness seem still more pitiable to +her; and a tragic picture of herself, martyred and forgotten, ten +years hence, brought sympathetic tears to her own eyes. + +A piano began a cheerful accompaniment in the next room, and some one +sang a ballad in a fresh, untrained soprano. The piano was out of +tune, and the song was of the cheapest and most popular nature; but it +made an interruption in the sound of the traffic outside on the +cobble-stones, and Katharine glanced round the room characteristically, +in search of an answering smile. But the other girls were as +unaffected by the music as they had been by the dreariness that +preceded it; and nobody looked up from what she was doing. Only one of +them made a comment; it was Phyllis Hyam. "How that girl does thump!" +she said. + +But on Katharine the effect had been instantaneous. She was not +cultured in music: with her it was an emotion, not an art; and the +little jingling tune had already turned her thoughts into a happier +channel. Her spirits rose insensibly, and the spell that the dingy +surroundings had cast over her was broken. Why should she believe what +these two girls told her? Surely, her conviction that she would make +something of her life was not going to wear itself out in a miserable +struggle to keep alive! She was worth something more than that: she +was intellectual beyond her years; every one had told her so, until +she had come to believe it was true; and her future was in her own +hands. She would be a teacher of a new school; she would make a name +for herself by her lectures; and then, some day, when she had acquired +a fortune, and all the world was talking of her talent, and her +goodness, and her beauty,--she was going to be very beautiful, too, in +her dream,--these girls would remember that they had doubted her +powers of endurance. She was even rehearsing what she would say to +them in the hour of her triumph, when a touch on her shoulder brought +her back abruptly to her present surroundings, and she looked up to +see a little white-haired lady at her side, in a lace cap and a black +silk apron. + +"Miss Austen? Come down with me, and let us have a little chat +together. I was sorry not to be back in time to receive you, my dear." + +It was a sudden awakening; but she was able to smile as she followed +her guide downstairs. + +"She has the captivating manner of an impostor," she reflected. "She +is just like Widow Priest! But it accounts for the prospectus." + + + + +CHAPTER VII + + +The next day, she began a vigorous search for work. She did everything +that is generally done by women who come up from the country and +expect to find employment waiting for them; she answered +advertisements, she visited agents, she walked over the length and +breadth of London, she neglected no opportunity that seemed to offer +possibilities. But she soon found that she had much to learn. She +discovered that she was not the only girl in London, who thought there +was a future before her because she was more intellectually minded +than the rest of her family; and she found that every agent's office +was full of women, with more experience than herself, who had also +passed the Higher Local Examination with honours, and did not think +very much of it. And she had to learn that an apologetic manner is not +the best one to assume towards strangers, and that omnibus conductors +do not mean to be patronising when they say "missy," and that a +policeman is always open to the flattery of being addressed as +"Constable." But what she did not learn was the extravagance of being +economical; and it was some time yet before she discovered that +walking until she was over-tired, and fasting until she could not eat, +were the two most expensive things she could have done. + +But she found no work. Either there was none to be had, or she was too +young; or, as they sometimes implied, too attractive. When this last +objection was made to her by the elderly principal of a girl's school, +Katharine stared in complete bewilderment for a moment or two, and +then broke into an incredulous laugh. + +"But, surely, my looking young and--and inexperienced would not affect +my powers of teaching," she remonstrated. + +"It would prevent my taking you," replied the principal coldly. "I +must have some one about me whom I can trust, and leave safely with +the children. Besides, what do I know of your capabilities? You say +you have never even tried to teach?" + +"But I know I can teach,--I am certain of it; I only want a chance. +Why must I wait until I am old and unsympathetic, and can no longer +feel in touch with the children, before any one will trust me with a +class? It is not reasonable." + +The elderly principal remained unmoved. + +"The teaching market is overcrowded by such as you," she said. "I +should advise your trying something else." + +"I have not been trained to anything else," said Katharine. "That is +where it is so hard. I might have got a secretaryship, if I had known +shorthand. I never knew I should have to earn my own living, or I +should be better qualified to do it. But I know I can teach, if I get +the chance." + +"Are you compelled to earn your living?" asked the principal, a little +less indifferently. "Pardon me, but I have heard your tale so often +before from girls who might, with a little forbearance, have remained +at home." + +"I am compelled," answered Katharine. "At least--" + +A feeling of loyalty to her father, her lovable, faulty old father, +who was so unconscious of her present difficulties, kept her silent +and brought a troubled look into her face. The elderly principal was +not unkindly, when circumstances did not force her to be academic; and +Katharine, when she looked troubled, was very attractive indeed. + +"My dear," she said, with a severity that she assumed in order to +justify her weakness in her own mind, "what are your friends thinking +of? Go home; it is the right place for a child like you." + +Katharine hurried away to conceal her desire to laugh. She did not go +home, however; she went to a cheap milliner's in the Edgware Road, and +ordered them to make her a severely simple bonnet. And when it came +home the next evening, and she put it on, she hardly knew whether to +laugh or to cry at the reflection of herself in the glass. "Whatever +would daddy say?" she thought, and put it hastily back into the box; +and if the other occupants of her room had happened to come in just +then, they would certainly have modified their opinion of her pride +and her coldness. But, after all, she was no better off than before; +for the contrast of youth and age that her new bonnet made in her +appearance was rather conspicuous than otherwise, and she found that +her old countrified hat suited her purpose far better. + +She saw very little of Ted at this time. He asked her to come out with +him, once or twice, but she always refused. She was afraid that he +would ask questions, and she shrank from telling any one, even Ted, +of her failure to get on. On the few occasions that she went down to +speak to him in the hall, she told him that she was getting along +quite well, and would be sure to hear of some work very soon, and that +she would prefer not to come out with him because it unsettled her. +And Ted, in his humble-minded way, thought she had made new friends in +the house and did not care to be bothered with him; and Katharine, who +read him like a book, knew that he thought so, and made fresh efforts +to get on so that she could spend all her leisure time with him. She +wrote home in the same spirit, and said that she was sure of making +her way soon, and that, meanwhile, she had everything she wanted, and +nobody was to be anxious about her. And her father, with the quaint +unworldliness of his nature, wrote back that he was glad to hear she +was happy, and that he had no doubt the ten pounds he had given her +would last until she earned some more, and that he had just picked up +a perfect bargain in an old book shop for thirty shillings. + +"Dear daddy," smiled Katharine, without a trace of bitterness. "Could +any one be more economical for other people, and more extravagant for +himself? I wonder if that is what makes me love him so? But, oh, what +would I give for that thirty shillings!" + +She counted her little store for the twentieth time, and sat thinking. +Doubtless she had spent her money injudiciously at first; but the fact +remained that, if she went on at her present rate of expenditure, she +would have to return home in a fortnight. If she went without her +midday meal, and economised in every possible way, she might manage to +remain another month. + +"That is what I must do," she said. "That will bring me to the middle +of March, and I shall have been in London just nine weeks. And, after +all, the food is so nasty that I sha'n't mind much. Besides, it is +really very romantic to starve a little." + +It grew less romantic as another fortnight went by. The food had never +seemed less nasty than it did now; and she had to take long walks at +dinner time to escape the appetising smell of the hot dishes. She had +never realised before what a very healthy appetite she possessed; and +she remembered with some regret how she had been too dainty, at first, +to touch the food at all, and had lived for days almost entirely on +bread and butter. But now she would have eaten any of it with a +relish,--even a certain dish which was said to be stewed rabbit, but +which she had derisively termed "a cat in a pie dish." + +One day, she read an alluring advertisement of a new agency. She had +lost her faith in agencies, and she had no more money for fees; but at +least it was an object for a walk, and anything was better than +waiting indoors for something to happen. To be idle in a place like +Queen's Crescent was not an enviable position. And by this time she +knew her London pretty well, and it fascinated her, and spoke to her +of life, and work, and the future; and a walk through any part of it +was always exhilarating. As she turned into the park at the Marble +Arch, a carriage and pair rumbled out with two well-dressed women in +it. Katharine stopped and looked after it, with an amused smile on her +face. + +"My aunt and cousin," she murmured aloud. "What would they say, if +they knew? And once they came to stay with us, and they worried daddy +no end, and said I wanted finishing, and ought to go to Paris! It +seems to me that life is always a comedy, but sometimes it drops into +a roaring farce!" + +And pleased with the appositeness of her own remark, she continued her +walk in better spirits than her worldly condition would seem to +justify. The agency turned out to be on the top floor of some flats +near Parliament Street; and the porter looked curiously at her as he +took her up in the lift. + +"Agency, miss? So they says, I'm told. Don't believe in agencies much +myself, I don't; queerish kind of impostory places, I calls 'em. Don't +you let yourself be took in, missy!" + +Katharine remembered the condition of her purse, and felt that it was +not likely. Her destination was marked by a large amount of +information on the wall, headed by the inscription, "Parker's +Universal Scholastic and Commercial Agency." She had not much time to +study it, however, for an office boy hastened to answer her knock, as +though he had been longing for the opportunity to do so for some time, +and said that Mr. Parker was at liberty, if she would kindly step in. +She fancied that he also stared critically at her, and she began to +fear that something was wrong with her personal appearance. This +naturally did not add to her self-possession; and when she found +herself in a small inner room that smelt of stale tobacco and whiskey, +she began to wish she had not come at all. A fair-haired man, with a +moustache and an eyeglass, was sitting with his feet on the +mantel-shelf when she entered the room; but he jumped up with a great +deal of fuss, and offered her a chair, and asked her what he could do +for her. Katharine faltered out her usual inquiry for teaching work; +and the fact that Mr. Parker was adjusting his eyeglass and taking her +in from head to foot all the time, completed her discomfiture. + +"Teaching? To be sure," he said with a supercilious smile, and went at +once to the door and told the boy to bring the books. + +"There ain't no books, and you knows it," retorted the boy, who seemed +disposed to be rebellious; and Mr. Parker vanished precipitately into +the other room. When he returned, his smile was unaltered; and he sat +down again, and twirled his drooping moustache. + +"I have just looked through the books," he said, "and don't see +anything good enough for you. Would you care to take anything else?" + +"I don't quite know what else I could do," said Katharine doubtfully. +She wanted to get away, and did not exactly know how to make a +dignified exit. + +"Book-keeping, for instance, or literary work? Have you ever tried +being a secretary? Ah, I am sure you have! You are not the sort of +young lady to lead the life of a humdrum governess, eh?" + +"I was my father's secretary," said Katharine. Mr. Parker was leaning +across the table and playing with the pens in the ink-stand, so that +his hand almost touched her elbow. + +"Of course you were. So I was right about you, wasn't I? Don't you +think that was very clever of me, now?" + +He leaned a little nearer to her, and Katharine drew back +instinctively and took her elbow off the table. He found the straight +look of her eyes a little disconcerting, and left off playing with the +penholders. + +"Speaking seriously," he said, donning an official air with alacrity, +"would you care to take a post as secretary?" + +He had dropped his eyeglass and his supercilious manner, and Katharine +took courage. + +"I should, immensely. But they are so hard to get." + +"Of course they are not easy to pick up, but in an agency like ours we +often hear of something good. Let me see, would you like to go out to +South Africa? Hardly, I should think." + +Katharine said she would not like to go out to South Africa; +whereupon Mr. Parker offered New Zealand as an alternative. + +"Your connection seems to lie principally in other quarters of the +globe," Katharine felt obliged to remark; and in an unguarded moment +she began to laugh at the absurdity of his suggestions. Mr. Parker at +once ceased to look official, and laughed with her, and began playing +with the pens in the inkstand again. + +"Ah, now we understand each other better," he said, resuming his +familiar tone. "What you want is a snug little berth with some +literary boss, who won't give you too much to do, eh? A nice salary, +and some one charming to play with; isn't that it?" + +The sheer vulgarity of the man exposed the real nature of the +situation to her. Her first impulse was to rush out of his sight, at +any cost; but she restrained herself with an effort, and drew a sharp +breath to gain time to collect her resources. + +"I am afraid, Mr. Parker, that we don't understand each other at all," +she said very slowly, trying to conceal the tremble in her voice; "and +as I don't feel inclined to emigrate, I think I had better--" + +"Now, now, what a hurry you are in, to be sure!" interrupted Mr. +Parker, getting up and lounging round to her side of the table. "You +haven't even heard what I was going to say. I've been looking out for +a secretary myself, for some time, 'pon my oath I have; but never, +until this blessed moment, have I set eyes upon a young lady who +suited me so well as you. Now, what do you say to that, eh?" + +Katharine had risen, too, and was turning imperceptibly towards the +door. She glanced contemptuously round the room, that was so entirely +devoid of the ordinary apparatus of business, and she walked swiftly +to the door and opened it, before he had time to prevent her. + +"You are most kind," she said sarcastically, emboldened by the +presence of the office boy, "but I feel that the work would be very +much too hard for me. A large business like yours must need so much +looking after! Good morning." + +Outside, while she was waiting for the lift, her composure completely +deserted her, and she found she was trembling all over, and had to +lean against the balusters for support. + +"I knowed you wasn't the sort to go a-mixing of yourself up with that +kidney," observed the porter, who detected the tears in her eyes. + +"Why didn't you tell me he was such a horrid man?" asked Katharine. +She was thoroughly unnerved, and even the porter's sympathy was better +than none at all. + +"It wasn't my business to hinterfere," said the porter, who was merely +curious and not sympathetic at all; and Katharine dried her eyes +hastily, and tried to laugh. + +"Of course it is nobody's business," she said drearily, and gave him +twopence for helping her to realise the fact. "And I shouldn't have +cried at all, if I had had any lunch," she added vehemently to +herself. + +Some one was waiting to enter the lift as she stepped out of it. She +looked up by chance and caught his eye, and they uttered each other's +name in the same breath. + +For a moment they stood silent, as they loosed hands again. Katharine +had blushed, hopelessly and irretrievably; but he was standing a +little away from her, with just the necessary amount of interest in +his look, and the necessary amount of pleasure in his smile. Paul was +a man who prided himself on never straining a situation; and directly +he saw her agitation at meeting him, he assumed the conventional +attitude, entirely for purposes of convenience. + +"This is very delightful. Are you staying in town?" + +"Yes. At least--" + +"Your father well, I hope? And Miss Esther? I am charmed to hear it. +Supposing we move out of the draught; yes, cold, isn't it? Thanks, I +won't go up now--" this to the porter, who was still waiting by the +lift. "Which way are you going? Good! I have a call to pay in +Gloucester Place, and we might go in the same cab." + +It was pleasant to be ordered about, after taking care of herself for +seven weeks, and Katharine yielded at once to the masterful tone, +which had always compelled her compliance from the moment she had +first heard it. + +"Now, please, I want to hear all about it," he began briskly, as they +drove westwards. His manner was no longer conventional, and his +familiar voice carried her back over the weary months of last year to +the spring when she had still been a child. Somehow she did not feel, +as with Ted, that she could not tell him about her failures: it seemed +as though this man must know all there was to know about her, whether +it was pleasant for him to hear it or not; though, as she told him +about her coming to town and her subsequent career there, she made +her tale so entertaining that Paul was something more than idly +amused, when she finally brought it to an end. + +"Do you think I ought not to have done it?" she asked him, anxiously, +as he did not speak. He looked at her before he answered. + +"I cannot imagine how they let you do it!" + +"Oh, don't! That is what that horrid old lady principal said. What +could possibly happen to me, I should like to know?" + +He looked at her again, with his provoking serenity. + +"Oh, nothing, of course! At least, not to you." + +"Why not to me, particularly?" she asked half petulantly. She did not +know whether to be pleased or annoyed that he should credit her with +the same infallible quality as every one else. + +"Because things of that nature do not, I believe, happen to girls of +your nature. But of course I may be wrong; I am quite ignorant in +these matters." + +She smiled at his show of humility; it was so characteristic of him to +affect indifference about his own opinions. But she had learnt +something already that day, and she remembered Mr. Parker, and thought +that Paul very possibly was wrong on this occasion. + +"Every one tells me that. I can't see how I am different," she said +thoughtfully. + +"I shouldn't worry about it, if I were you. You could not be expected +to see. But it is just that little difference that has probably +carried you through." + +Katharine remembered Mr. Parker again, and laughed outright. + +"I don't think so," she said. "I think it is more likely to have been +my sense of humour." + +"You used to laugh like that when I first knew you," he said +involuntarily. She knew that he had spoken without reflection, and she +laughed again with pleasure. It was always a triumph to surprise him +into spontaneity. + +"How jolly it was in those days! Do you remember our tea in the +orchard, how we watched Aunt Esther out of the front door, and then +brought the things out through the back door?" + +"Yes; and how you spilt the milk, and cook wouldn't let you have any +more, and our second cups were spoilt?" + +"Rather! And how you shocked Dorcas--" + +"Ah," sighed Paul; "we can never do those delightful things again. We +know one another too well, now." + +They allowed themselves to become almost depressed, for the space of +a moment, because they knew one another so well. "All the same," +observed Katharine, "there is still one joy left to us. We can +quarrel." + +He became conventional again as he rang the bell for her at number +ten, Queen's Crescent, Marylebone. He raised his hat, and gently +pressed her hand, and supposed he should see her again soon. And +Katharine, who was occupied in hoping that he did not notice the +squalor of the area, and would not come inside the dull, distempered +hall, only said that she supposed so too; and then blamed herself +hotly, as he drove away, for not responding more warmly. + +"He will think I don't want to see him again," she thought wearily, as +she dragged herself up the uncarpeted stairs, and went into her dark +and dingy cubicle. It had never seemed so dark or so dingy before; and +she added miserably to herself, "I had better not see him again, +perhaps. It makes it all so much worse afterwards." + +She would have been surprised had she known what Paul really was +thinking about her. + +"She is more of a study than ever," he said to the cab horse. "Still +so much of the innocent pose about her, with just that indication of +added knowledge that is so fascinating to a man. She'll do, now she +has got away from her depressing relations; and the touch of weirdness +in her expression is an improvement. Wonder if Heaton would call her a +schoolgirl now? It was quite finished, the careless way she said +good-bye, as though it were of no consequence to her at all. Yes; she +is a study." + +About a week later, when Katharine came down to breakfast, Phyllis +Hyam threw her a letter, in her unceremonious fashion. + +"Look here!" she said. "I've kept you a chair next to mine, and I've +managed to procure you a clean plate, too; so don't go away to the +other table, as you did yesterday. Polly's gone; and I won't talk +unless you want to. Come on!" + +Katharine sat down absently on the hard wooden chair, and began to +read her letter. She never wanted to talk at breakfast time, a fact +which Phyllis good-naturedly recognised without respecting. To-day she +was more silent than usual. + +"No, I can't eat any of that stuff," she said to the proffered bacon. +"Get me some tea, will you? I'll make myself some toast." + +Phyllis trotted off to the fire instead, and made it herself; and +Katharine returned to her letter without noticing her further. Judging +from the tense look on her face, it was of more than ordinary +interest. + +"Dear Miss Katharine," it ran, + + A school in which I have a little influence is in want of a + junior mistress. I have no idea as to the kind of work you + want, but if it is of this nature, and you would like to + consider it further, come up and see me about it in my + chambers. I shall be in at tea-time, any afternoon this week. + The best way for you to get here is to come to the Temple + Station. Do not think any more about it, if you have already + heard of something else. + + Yours sincerely, + + PAUL WILTON. + +"Of course," said Katharine aloud, "I shall go this very afternoon." +Then she paused, and looked smilingly into Phyllis Hyam's hot face. +"No; I mean to-morrow." + +"What?" said Phyllis, looking perplexed. "I thought you wanted it now, +and I made it on purpose." + +"You dear thing! of course I want it now. You are an angel of +goodness, and I am a cross old bear," exclaimed Katharine, with a +burst of unusual cordiality; and Phyllis was consumed with curiosity +as to the writer of that letter. + +It was not difficult to find Paul Wilton's chambers among the quaint +old buildings of Essex Court; and Katharine, as she toiled up the +massive oak staircase, stopping on every landing to read the names +over the doors, felt that she had reached a delightful oasis of +learning in the middle of commercial London. + +"How splendid to be a man, and to have brains enough to live in a +place like this," she thought enthusiastically; and then, with the +cynicism that always dogged the steps of her enthusiasm, she added, +"It probably only wants money enough, though." + +Paul Wilton opened his own door to her. He looked really glad to see +her, and Katharine flushed with pleasure when he kept hold of her hand +and drew her into his room. + +"This is most good of you," he said; and on the impulse of the moment +Katharine let herself be surprised into an indiscretion. + +"I was so glad to have your letter; I wanted to see you again +dreadfully," she said, without reflection. She meant what she said, +but she saw from his manner that she ought not to have said it. Any +sentiment that was crudely expressed was always distasteful to him; +and he at once dropped her hand, and pulled forward an arm-chair with +a great show of courtesy. + +"Is that comfortable, or do you prefer a high one? I thought you might +come, one day; but I hardly expected you so soon. It is rather wet, +too, isn't it?" + +Something impelled her to meet his irritating self-assurance with +ridicule. + +"Very wet," she replied demurely. "In fact, now I come to think of it, +there are a great many reasons why I should not have come. But the one +that brought me here, in spite of them all, was a matter of business, +if you remember." + +If he minded being laughed at, he certainly did not show it, for his +tone was much more natural when he answered her. + +"Oh, yes, about the school! It is not far from you,--near Paddington, +in fact. It is rather a swagger place, I believe; Mrs. Downing is the +widow of an old friend of mine, who was killed out in Africa, and she +started this concern after his death. She knows nothing about +education, but a great deal about etiquette, and as this is also the +position of the mothers of most of her pupils, she has no difficulty +in convincing them of her capabilities. She is quite flourishing now, +I believe. Can you teach arithmetic?" + +They discussed the vacant appointment solemnly, with the result that +Katharine agreed to accept it if Mrs. Downing approved of her. The +salary was not large, but she had learnt by now not to be too +particular, and it offered her an opening, at all events. + +"I am sure she will like you all right. I told her about your people, +and so on, and a clergyman is always a guarantee in such cases. And +now for tea." + +They talked about the historic associations of the Temple while the +housekeeper was bringing in tea; and they talked very little about +anything after she had left. Paul was in one of his unaccountable +silent moods, and they were never conducive to conversation. He roused +himself a little to show her some of his treasures,--an old bit of +tapestry, some Japanese prints, a Bartolozzi; but the afternoon was +not a success, and his depression soon communicated itself to +Katharine. + +"I must be going," she said at last, after an awkward pause that he +showed no signs of breaking. They stood for a moment in the middle of +the room. + +"It was good of you to come like this," he said, with the slightly +worried look he always wore in his morose moods. "I was afraid, +perhaps, that I ought not to have asked you." + +Her questioning look invited him to continue. + +"Not being sure what day you would come, I was unable to provide a +chaperon, don't you see? But, of course, if you don't mind, that +doesn't matter." + +"Of course I don't mind," she said, with a reassuring smile. "Why +should I? I know you so well, don't I?" + +He continued his explanation, as though he had decided to make it +beforehand, and did not mean to be deterred by her unwillingness to +hear it. + +"Under the circumstances," he said gravely, "you will see that it +would be wiser for you not to come here again." + +Katharine did not see, and she showed it in her face. + +"If I were married," he continued, in a lighter tone, "it would be +different; but there are many reasons which have made it impossible +for me to marry, and there are still more now, which will prevent my +ever doing so. And since I am a bachelor, it is obviously better for +you to keep away." + +In spite of his assumed carelessness, Katharine felt instinctively +that it was to hear this that he had asked her to come and see him +to-day. And, like many another woman who has to face as embarrassing a +disclosure from a man, her great desire at the moment was to conceal +that she had ever entertained the idea of his marrying her at all. + +"But does it matter, so long as I don't mind?" she asked, pulling on +her gloves for the sake of the occupation. He bent down to button them +for her, and their eyes met. "Let me come again," she said +impulsively. "You know I think propriety is all rubbish. Besides, I +want to come. We can go on being friends, can't we? _I_ don't care +what other people think!" + +"I only care for your sake, not for my own. No, child, it is safer +not; you are not the sort. Don't think any more about it. I am old +enough to be your father, and have seen more of the world than you. I +would not allow you, if you did wish it." + +"It is all rubbish," repeated Katharine. "Why am I not the sort? I +don't understand; I am tired of being told that. If that is all, I--I +wish I were!" + +Paul half wished it too, as she stood there in the firelight, with +the glow all over her face and hair; but he laughed away the thought. + +"You are an absurd child; you don't know what you are saying. It is +lucky there is no one else to hear you. There, go away, and make it up +with young Morton! Oh, no, I know nothing whatever about it, I swear I +don't; but he won't do you any harm, and he isn't old, and worn out, +and--" + +"Don't, please don't!" said Katharine, imploringly. "Ted is only like +my brother; I love him, but it is altogether different. Mayn't I +really see you any more?" + +She was threatening to become unpleasantly serious, and Paul switched +on the electric light and fetched his coat hastily. + +"Why, surely, lots of times, I expect. What a desperately solemn +person you are! I believe you work too hard, don't you? Now, I am not +going to let you walk to the station alone, so come along." + +And Katharine realised, with a hot blush, that she had made a second +blunder. + + + + +CHAPTER VIII + + +The lady principal of the school near Paddington had too high an +opinion of her distinguished and influential friend, Mr. Wilton, to +refuse a teacher who was so warmly recommended by him, more especially +as her junior mistress had left her most inconveniently in the middle +of term; so Katharine found herself installed there, about three weeks +before the Easter holidays, with a class of thirty children in her +sole charge. The teaching was only elementary, but there was plenty to +be done; and she soon found that, although she was ostensibly only +wanted in the mornings, she had to spend most of her afternoons also +in correcting exercises. But the work interested her, and she had no +difficulty in managing the children,--a fact which surprised her as +much as it did Mrs. Downing, who had expected very little from her +youthful looking teacher, in spite of her recommendation by Mr. +Wilton. Mrs. Downing was a well-dressed little woman, with charming +manners and an unbounded belief in herself. By resolutely playing on +the weaknesses of others, she concealed her own shallowness of mind; +and she made up for her lack of brains by contriving to have clever +people always about her. She had chatted herself into a fashionable +and paying connection in that part of Bayswater which calls itself +Hyde Park; and if she employed tact and dissimulation in order to +entrap the mothers of the neighbourhood, she was, to do her justice, +genuine in her love of their children. Katharine would have found it +difficult to like such a woman, had not a two months' sojourn with +working gentlewomen taught her to tolerate weaknesses which would +formerly have excited her contempt; and she endured her smiles and her +blandishments with a stoicism that arose from a knowledge of their +harmlessness. But Mrs. Downing remained in ignorance of the fact that +her youngest teacher, with the serious face and the childish manner, +was able to see right through her; and the impenetrability which saved +her from feeling a snub, also spared her the knowledge that Katharine +was laughing at her. + +One morning, about a week after she had begun her work as junior +teacher, Katharine was interrupted in the middle of her first lesson +by the precipitate entrance of the lady principal. + +"My dear Miss Austen," she began effusively, and then paused suddenly; +for there was something about Katharine, in spite of her youthful +look, which warned intruders that she was not to be interrupted so +lightly as the other teachers. On this occasion she finished +explaining to the children that saying Mary Howard was "_in_ the +second piano" did not accurately express the fact that Mary Howard was +practising in the second music-room; and then turned to see who had +come in. + +"My dear Miss Austen," began Mrs. Downing again, "so good of you to +look after their English; they are apt to be so careless! I am always +telling them of it myself, am I not, dear children? Ah, Carry, what an +exquisite rose; such colouring; beautiful, beautiful! For me? Thanks, +my sweet child; that is so dear of you! My dear Miss Austen, you are +so obliging always, and my literature lecturer has suddenly +disappointed me, and the first class will have nothing to do in the +next hour. So tiresome of Mr. Fletcher! His wife is ill, and he is +such a good husband,--quite a model! So I have set them an essay; I +cannot _bear_ to have the ordinary work interrupted; and would you be +so good as to leave the door open between the two rooms, and give them +a little, just a little supervision? That is so dear of you; it has +taken a load off my mind. Dear children, listen with all your might to +everything Miss Austen has to say, and you will soon be so clever and +so wise--I beg your pardon, Miss Austen?" + +"Isn't it rather a pity for them to miss their lecture altogether?" +said Katharine, in the first breathing space. "I mean, I could give +them one if you liked, on something else. My class is being drilled in +the next hour, and I have nothing particular to do." + +"But I should be charmed, delighted; nothing could be more opportune! +My dear Miss Austen, I have found a treasure in you. Children, you +must make the most of your teacher while she is with you, for I shall +have to take her away from you, quite soon! Miss Austen, I shall come +and listen to your lecture myself. I will go and prepare the girls--" + +"I think, perhaps, something quite different would be best," said +Katharine, detaining her with difficulty. "Would you like it to be on +Gothic architecture?" + +Mrs. Downing did not know the difference between a pinnacle and a +buttress, but she hastened to say she would like Gothic architecture +better than anything else in the world, and had, in fact, been on the +point of suggesting it herself; after which, she went to interrupt the +first class also, and Katharine devoted her energies to collecting the +wandering attention of her own pupils. + +At the end of her lecture the lady principal hastened up to her. + +"How extremely interesting, to be sure! I had no idea those vaults, +and pillars, and things, were so beautiful before. Where did you find +out all that? I should like to learn it up myself in the holidays, and +give a course of lessons on it to the first class next term." + +Katharine tried not to smile. + +"I have been learning it all my life, from my father. I don't think I +know any textbooks; it would be difficult to read it up in a hurry, I +should think." But the lady principal never allowed herself to be +thwarted, when she had a fresh idea. Besides, Gothic architecture was +quite new, and would be sure to take in the neighbourhood. + +"Then you must give a course yourself to the whole school, my dear +Miss Austen," she exclaimed. "I insist upon it; and we will begin the +first Wednesday of next term." + +Anything that promised an addition to her salary was sure to be +agreeable to Katharine, and she was only too pleased to agree. But, +meanwhile, her finances were in a deplorable condition. She found +herself with nothing but the change out of half a sovereign, about ten +days before the end of the term; and although she could easily have +asked Miss Jennings to give her credit until she received her salary, +she had all a woman's hyper-sensitiveness of conscience, and all her +disregard of the importance of food as well; and she resolutely set to +work to starve herself during those ten days. Fortunately, she was +constitutionally strong, and she never reached the stage of privation +when food becomes distasteful; but there was little consolation for +her in the fact that she remained healthily hungry all the time, and +had to run past the pastry-cooks' shops to escape their seductive +display. Long walks at supper time did not compensate for a meal that +was satisfying, if it was not very tempting; and the irony of it all +was forced upon her with a somewhat grim significance by something +that occurred, when she came up to bed one evening, tired out and +dispirited. She noticed that the girls stopped talking directly she +entered the room; but this would not have aroused her suspicions, if +Phyllis Hyam had not made a point of conversing vigorously with her +through the curtains, and being more brusque than usual when the +others tried to interrupt her. + +"Good old Phyllis," reflected Katharine. "They have evidently been +abusing me. I wonder what I have done!" + +Phyllis enlightened her somewhat unwillingly, the next morning, when +the others had gone down to breakfast. + +"Don't bother about them; _I_ wouldn't. Mean cats! It's jealousy, of +course. Fact is, Polly saw you in a hansom with a man, some time back; +she came home full of it. Said you were no better than the rest of us, +after all. I said you never pretended to be; it was our own look out, +if we chose to think so. Besides, it was most likely your brother, I +said. Polly said it wasn't; you looked so happy, and he was smiling at +you." + +"Conclusive evidence," murmured Katharine, with her mouth full of +hair-pins. "Did she describe the gentleman in question? It might be +useful for future identification." + +"Oh, yes, she did! Said he was rather like a corpse with a black +beard; had a flavour of dead loves about him, I think she said; but I +don't quite know what she was driving at. And I'm sure I don't care." + +"I do. It is most entertaining. Was that all they said?" + +Phyllis hesitated, said she was not going to tell any more, and +finally told every detail. + +"I said they were mean, despicable liars, especially Polly, +considering how much you have done for her! And I said that if ever I +had the chance--" + +"But what did _they_ say?" interrupted Katharine. + +"Oh, bother! what does it matter? They are a pack of mean sneaks. They +said you were never in to lunch now, or supper either; and Polly was +sure she had seen you walking with some one, only yesterday evening, +and that you went into a restaurant with him; and she declares you see +him every day, and that you are going all wrong. I said I should like +to kill her. And they all said you must have gone wrong, because you +are never in to supper now. I said I should like to kill them all for +telling such a false lie, whether it was true or not! It isn't their +business whether you choose to come in to supper or not, is it? And +then you came in, and-- Why, whatever is the joke now? Mercy me; I +thought you would be furious!" + +For, of course, it was not to be supposed that she should know why +Katharine was rolling on her bed in a paroxysm of laughter. + +But the holidays came at last, and she congratulated herself proudly +on not having given in once. She left school on the last day of the +term with a light heart; everything had made her laugh that morning, +from the children's jubilation at the coming holiday, to Mrs. +Downing's characteristic farewell. "Don't overwork in the holidays, my +dear Miss Austen," she had said, shaking Katharine warmly by both +hands. "You look quite worn out; I am afraid you take things a little +too seriously, do you not? When you have had _my_ experience in school +work, you will think nothing of a class like yours! Perhaps you do not +eat enough? Take my advice, and try maltine; it is an excellent tonic +for the appetite!" And Katharine walked out into the sunshine and the +warm air, with a feeling of joy at the thought of the cheque she was +to receive on the morrow. There was only one more day of privation for +her; and she called herself greedy for thinking about it, and laughed +at her own greediness, all in the same breath. She might easily have +humbled her pride and gone home to lunch like a rational being, now +that she saw her way to paying for it; but such a weakness as that +never entered her head for a moment, and she walked gaily on instead, +weaving a rosy dream of the feast she would have if her pocket were +full of money. But it was nearly empty, and she only found twopence +there when she put her hand in to feel; and she jingled the coppers +together, and laughed again, and hurried on a little faster. At Hyde +Park Corner a beggar pursued her with his studied tale of distress: he +had no home, he whined, and he had eaten nothing for days. "Just my +case," said Katharine cheerfully, and a spirit of recklessness +impelled her to drop the two pennies into his grimy palm, and then +hasten on as before. + +"Well met," said a voice behind her. "But what a hurry you are in, to +be sure! Where are you off to, now?" + +She looked round and saw Paul Wilton, smiling unaffectedly at her in a +way that recalled the old days at Ivingdon. Perhaps, the fine day had +influenced him too; certainly, he had not been starving for a +fortnight, nor would he have seen the humour of it, probably, if he +had. But these reflections did not occur to Katharine; it was enough +for her that he looked more pleased than usual, and that his manner +had lost its constraint. + +"I am not going anywhere. The spring has got into my head, that's all; +and I felt obliged to walk. Besides, it is the first day of my first +holidays!" and she laughed out joyously. + +"Yes? You look very jolly over it, any way. Have you lunched yet?" + +"Yes,--I mean, no. I don't want any lunch to-day," she said hastily. +"Don't let us talk about lunch; it spoils it so." + +"But, my dear child, I really must talk about it. I have had nothing +to eat since supper last night, and I am going to have some lunch now. +You've got to come along, too, so don't make any more objections. I'm +not a healthy young woman like you, and I can't eat my three courses +at breakfast, and then fast until it is time to spoil my digestion by +afternoon tea. Where shall we go? Suppose you stop chuckling for a +moment and make a suggestion." + +"But I don't know any places, and I don't really want anything to +eat," protested Katharine. She would not have been so independent, if +she had been a little less hungry. "There's a confectioner's along +here, that always looks rather nice," she added, remembering one she +had often passed lately with a lingering look, at its attractive +contents. + +"Nonsense! that's only a shop. Have you ever been in here?" + +Katharine confessed that she had never lunched at a restaurant before; +and the savoury smell that greeted them as they entered reminded her +how very hungry she was, and drove away her last impulse to object. + +"Never? Why, what has Ted been up to? Now, you have got to say what +you like; this is your merrymaking, you know, because it is the first +day of the holidays." + +"Oh, but I can't; you must do all that, _please_. You don't know how +beautiful it is to be taken care of again." + +"Is it?" They smiled at each other across the little table, and the +old understanding sprang up between them. + +"You're looking very charming," he said, when he had given the waiter +his preliminary instructions. "You may abuse the food at your place as +much as you like, but it certainly seems to agree with you." + +"I don't think," said Katharine carelessly, "that it has anything to +do with the food." + +"Of course not; my mistake. No doubt it is natural charm triumphing +over difficulties. Try some of this, to begin with; bootlaces or +sardines?" + +Katharine looked perplexed. + +"What a delightful child you are," he laughed. "It's to give you an +appetite for the rest. I advise the bootlaces. Nonsense! you must do +as you are told, for a change. I am not one of your pupils. Besides, +it is the first day of the holidays." + +And Katharine, who had no desire for a larger appetite than she +already possessed, ate the _hors d'oeuvre_ with a relish, and longed +for more, and wondered if she should ever attain to the extreme +culture of her companion, who was playing delicately with the sardine +on his plate. + +"Don't you ever feel hungry?" she asked him. "It seems to add to your +isolation that you have none of the ordinary frailties of the flesh. I +really believe it would quite destroy my illusion of you, if I ever +caught you enjoying a penny bun!" + +"You may preserve the illusion, if you like, and remember that I am +not a woman. It is only women who-- Well, what is it now, child?" + +"Do explain this," she begged him, with a comical expression of +dismay. "Why is it red?" + +"I should say because, fundamentally, it is red mullet. It would never +occur to me to inquire more deeply into it; but the rest is probably +accounted for by the carte, if you understand French. Don't you think +you had better approach it, fasting and with faith?" + +"Go on about your appetite, please; it is so awfully entertaining," +resumed Katharine. "I believe, if you found yourself really hungry one +day, force of habit would still make you eat your lunch as though you +didn't want it a bit. Now, wouldn't it?" + +"My dear Miss Katharine, you have yet to learn that hunger does not +give you a desire for more food, but merely imparts an element of +pleasure to it. Go on with your fish, or else the entrée will catch +you up." + +"I am glad," said Katharine, in the interval between the courses, +"that I'm not a superior person like you. It must be so lonely, isn't +it?" + +"What wine will you drink? White or red?" asked Paul severely. + +"Living with you," continued Katharine, leaning back and looking +mischievously at what was visible of him over the wine list, "must be +exactly like living with Providence." + +"Number five," said Paul to the waiter, laying down the wine list. +Then he looked at her, and shook his head reprovingly. + +"You see you don't live with me, do you?" he said drily. + +"No," retorted Katharine hastily. "I live with sixty-three working +gentlewomen, and that is a very different matter." + +"Very," he assented, looking so searchingly at her that she found +herself beginning to blush. The arrival of the wine made a diversion. + +"Oh," said Katharine, "I am quite sure I can't drink any champagne." + +"If you had not been so occupied in firing off epigrams, you might +have had some choice in the matter. As it is, you have got to do as +you are told." + +He filled her glass, and she felt that it was very pleasant to do as +she was told by him; and her eyes glistened as they met his over the +brimming glasses. + +"I am so happy to-day," she felt obliged to tell him. + +"That's right. Because it is the first day of the holidays?" + +"Because you are so nice to me, I think," she replied softly; and then +was afraid lest she had said too much. But he nodded, and seemed to +understand; and she dropped her eyes suddenly and began crumbling her +bread. + +"What makes you so nice to me, I wonder," she continued in the same +tone. This time he became matter-of-fact. + +"The natural order of the universe, I suppose. Man was created to look +after woman, and woman to look after man; don't you think so?" + +She understood him well enough, by now, to know when to take her tone +from him. + +"At all events, it saves Providence a lot of trouble," she said; and +they laughed together. + +Their lunch was a success; and Paul smiled at her woe-begone face when +the black coffee had been brought, and she was beginning slowly to +remember that there was still such a place as number ten, Queen's +Crescent, and that it actually existed in the same metropolis as the +one that contained this superb restaurant. + +"It is nearly over, and it has been so beautiful," she sighed. + +"Nonsense! it has only just begun. It isn't time to be dull yet; I'll +tell you when it is," said Paul briskly; and he called for a daily +paper. + +"What do you mean?" gasped Katharine, opening her eyes wide in +anticipation of new joys to come. + +"We're going to a matinee, of course. Let's see,--have you any +choice?" + +"A theatre? Oh!" cried Katharine. Then she reddened a little. "You +won't laugh if I tell you something?" + +"Tell away, you most childish of children!" + +"I've never been to a theatre before, either." + +They looked at the paper together, and laughed one another's +suggestions to scorn, and then found they had only just time to get to +the theatre before it began. And she sat through the three acts with +her hand lying in his; and to her it was a perfect ending to the most +perfect day in her life. He took her home afterwards, and left her at +the corner of the street. + +"I won't come to the door; better not, perhaps," he said, and his +words sent a sudden feeling of chill through her. They seemed to have +fallen back into the conventional attitude again, the most appropriate +one, probably, for Edgware Road, but none the less depressing on that +account. + +"You are not going to be sad, now?" he added, half guessing her +thoughts. She looked up in his face and made an effort to be bright. + +"It has been beautiful all the time," she said. "I never knew anything +could be so beautiful before." + +"Ah," he said, smiling back; "it is the first day of your first +holidays, you see. We will do it again some day." But she knew as he +spoke that they never could do it again. + +She saw him occasionally during the Easter holidays. He sent for her +once about a pupil he had managed to procure her, and once about some +drawing-room lectures he tried to arrange for her, and which fell +through. But on both these occasions he was in his silent mood, and +she came away infected by his dulness. Then she met him one day in the +neighbourhood of Queen's Crescent, and they had a few minutes +conversation in the noise and bustle of the street, that left her far +happier than she had been after a tête-à-tête in his chambers. + +She went home for a few days at the end of her holidays, but her visit +was not altogether a success. It was a shock to her to find that home +was no longer the same now that she had once left it; and she did not +quite realise that the change was in herself as much as in those she +had left behind her. Her father had grown accustomed to living without +her, and it hurt her pride to find that she was no longer +indispensable to him. Her old occupations seemed gone, and there was +no time to substitute new ones; she told herself bitterly that she had +no place in her own home, and that she had burnt her ships when she +went out to make herself a new place in the world. Ivingdon seemed +narrower in its sympathies and duller than ever; she wondered how +people could go on living with so few ideas in their minds, and so few +topics of conversation; even the Rector irritated her by his want of +interest in her experiences and by his utter absorption in his own +concerns. Miss Esther added to her feeling of strangeness by treating +her with elaborate consideration; she would have given anything to be +scolded instead, for being profane, or for lying on the hearthrug. But +they persisted in regarding her as a child no longer; and she felt +graver and more responsible at home, than she had done all the time +she was working for her living in London. + +On the whole, she was glad when school began again; and she grew much +happier when she found herself once more engrossed in the term's work, +which had now increased very materially, owing to her own efforts as +well as to those of Paul. Of him, she only had occasional glimpses +during the next few weeks; but they were enough to keep their +friendship warm, and she soon found herself scribbling little notes to +him, when she had anything to tell,--generally about some small +success of hers which she felt obliged to confide to some one, and +liked best of all to confide to him. Sometimes he did not answer them; +and she sighed, and took the hint to write no more for a time. And +sometimes he wrote back one of his ceremonious replies, which she had +learnt to welcome as the most characteristic thing he could have sent +her; for, in his letters, Paul never lost his formality. It was a very +satisfactory friendship on both sides, with enough familiarity to give +it warmth, and not enough to make it disquieting. But it received an +unexpected check towards the middle of June, through an incident that +was slight enough in itself, though sufficient to set both of them +thinking. And to stop and think in the course of a friendship, +especially when it is between a man and a woman, is generally the +forerunner of a misunderstanding. + +It was the first hot weather that year. May had been disappointingly +cold and wet, after the promise of the month before, but June came in +with a burst of sunshine that lasted long enough to justify the papers +in talking about the drought. On one of the first fine days, Paul was +lazily smoking in his arm-chair after a late breakfast, when a knock +at his outer door roused him unpleasantly from a reverie that had +threatened to become a nap; and he rose slowly to his feet with +something like a muttered imprecation. Then he remembered that he had +left the door open for the sake of the draught, and he shouted a brief +"Come in," and sank back again into his chair. A light step crossed +the threshold, and paused close behind him. + +"Who's there?" asked Paul, without moving. + +"Well, you _are_ cross. And on a morning like this, too!" + +Paul got up again, with rather more than his usual show of energy, and +turned and stared at his visitor. + +"Really, Katharine," he said, with a slowly dawning smile of +amusement. + +"Oh, I know all that," exclaimed Katharine, with an impatient gesture. +"But the sun was shining, and I had to come, and you'll have to put up +with it." + +Paul looked as though he should have no difficulty in putting up with +it; and he went outside, and sported his oak. + +"Won't you sit down, and tell me why you have come?" he suggested, +when he came back again. Katharine dropped into a chair, and laughed. + +"How can you ask? Why, it is my half-term holiday; and the sun's +shining. Look!" + +"I believe it is, yes," he said, glancing towards the gently flapping +blind. "Has that got anything to do with it?" + +"Of course it has. I believe, I do believe you never would have known +it was a fine day at all, if I had not come to see you!" + +"I can hardly believe that you did come to see me for the purpose of +telling me it was a fine day," said Paul. + +Katharine leaned over the back of her chair, and nodded at him. + +"Guess why I did come," she said. He shook his head lazily. She +imparted the rest of her news in little instalments, to give it more +emphasis. "It's my half-term holiday," she said again, and paused to +watch the effect of her words. + +"I think I heard you say that before," he observed. + +"And I'm going into the country for the whole day." + +"Yes?" said Paul, who did not seem impressed. + +"And I want you to come too. There! don't you think it was worth a +visit?" Her laugh rang out, and filled the little room. Paul was +stroking his beard reflectively, but he did not seem vexed. + +"Really, Katharine," he said once more. + +"Oh, now, don't be musty," she pleaded, resting her chin on her hands. +"I just want to do something jolly to-day; and I've never asked you +anything before, have I? Do, _please_, Mr. Wilton. I won't bother you +again for ever so long; I promise you I won't." + +"Are you aware," said Paul, frowning, "that it is not customary to +come and visit a man in his chambers in this uninvited manner?" + +"You know quite well," retorted Katharine, "that nothing ever matters, +if I do it." + +"Of course I know that you are beyond the taint of scandal, or the--" + +She started up impatiently, and came over to the side of his +arm-chair. + +"Don't begin to be sarcastic. I never can think of the word I want, +when you get sarcastic. I am not beyond anything, and I am certainly +not above asking you a favour. Now, if you were to stop being superior +for a few minutes--" + +"And if you were to stop standing on one leg, and swinging the other +about in that juvenile manner, a catastrophe might be--" + +She seized a cushion and tried to smother him with it; but he was too +quick for her, and the cushion went spinning to the other end of the +room, and she found herself pulled on to his knee. + +"You dreadful child! It is too hot, and I am too old for romping in +this fashion," he observed lazily. + +"Are you coming?" she asked abruptly. She was playing with his watch +chain, and he did not quite know what to make of her face. + +"Do you want me to?" he asked gently. + +"Of course I do," she said, in a swift little whisper; and her fingers +strayed up to his scarf pin, and touched his beard. + +"I am being dreadfully improper," she said. + +"You are being very nice," he replied, and weakly kissed her fingers. +She did not move, and he gave her a little shake. + +"What a solemn child you are," he complained. "It is impossible to +play with you, because you always take one so seriously." + +"I know," said Katharine, rousing herself and looking penitent. "I am +so sorry! I am made that way, I think. It used to annoy Ted. I think +it is because I never had any fun at home, or any one to play with, +except Ted. And then I began to earn my living, and so I never had +time to be frivolous at all. I suppose I am too old to begin, now." + +"Much too old," smiled Paul. + +A knock came at the outer door. Paul put her away from him almost +roughly, and glanced with a disturbed look round the room. + +"You had better stay here," he said shortly, "and keep quiet till I +come back." + +"Who is it?" asked Katharine, in some bewilderment. + +"I don't know. You don't understand," was all he said; and he went out +and spoke for a few minutes to a man on the landing. + +"It was about a brief," he said on his return. He still frowned a +little, and she felt, regretfully, that his genial mood had fled. + +"Was that all? Wouldn't he come in?" she asked. + +Paul looked at her incredulously. + +"It wasn't likely that I should ask him," he said, turning his back to +her, and rummaging among the papers on his desk. The colour came into +her face, and she was conscious of having said something tactless, +without exactly knowing what. + +"Shall I go away again?" she asked slowly. The joy seemed suddenly to +have been taken out of her half-term holiday. + +"You see, it is not for myself that I mind," he tried to explain +quietly; "but if you were to be seen in here alone, it would do for +your reputation at once, don't you see?" + +Katharine looked as though she did not see. + +"But, surely, there is no harm in my coming here?" she protested. + +"Of course not; no harm at all. It isn't that," said Paul hastily. + +"Then," said Katharine, "if there is no harm in it, why should I not +come? It is all rubbish, isn't it? I won't come any more if it bothers +you; but that is another matter." + +"My dear child, do be reasonable! It is not a question of my feelings +at all. I like you to come, but I don't want other people to know that +you do, because of what they might say. It is for your sake entirely +that I wish you to be careful. That is why I don't come to see you at +your place. Do you see now?" + +Katharine shook her head. + +"It is either wrong, or it isn't wrong," she said obstinately. "I +never dreamed that there could be any harm in my coming to see you, or +I should not have come. And it was so pleasant, and you have always +been so nice to me. Why did you not tell me before? I don't see how it +can be wrong, and yet it can't be right, if I have got to pretend to +other people that I don't come. I hate hiding things; I don't like the +feel of it. I wish I could understand what you mean." + +"It is quite easy to understand," said Paul, beginning to realise that +his case, as stated baldly by Katharine, was a very lame one. "It is +not wrong, as far as you and I are concerned; but it is a hell of a +world, and people will talk." + +It was strong language for him to use; and she felt again that it was +her stupidity that was annoying him. She sighed, and her voice +trembled a little. + +"I don't see what it has to do with other people at all. It is quite +enough for me, if you like me to come; and as for my reputation, it +seems to exist solely for the sake of the other people, so they may +as well say what they like about it. _I_ don't care. It is horrible of +you to suggest such a lot of horrible ideas. According to you, I ought +to be feeling ashamed of myself; but-- I don't." + +"Of course you don't," said Paul, smiling in spite of himself; and he +put his hand out and drew her towards him. She was only a child, he +told himself, and he was old enough to be her father. + +"My dear little puritan," he added softly, "you were never made to +live in the world as it is. If all women were like you, good heavens! +there wouldn't be any sin left." + +"And I believe you would be sorry for it, wouldn't you?" said +Katharine suddenly. But when, instead of contradicting her, he tried +to make her explain her meaning, she only shook her head resolutely. + +"I don't think I could; I hardly know myself. It was only something +that came into my head at the moment. It was something horrid; don't +let us talk about it any more. Are you coming out with me, or not? Ah, +I know you are not coming, now!" + +She was swift to notice the least change in his expression, and it had +grown very dark in the last ten minutes. He held her out at arms' +length, by her two elbows, and smiled rather uncomfortably. + +"I think I won't to-day, dear. Another time, eh? This brief must be +looked to at once; and I have some other work, too. Go and enjoy your +holiday, without me for a discordant element." + +Katharine flushed up hotly, and loosed herself from his grasp. "I +don't mind your not coming," she said, looking steadily on the ground, +"but I don't think you need bother to invent excuses for _me_." + +Paul shrugged his shoulders with an indifference that maddened her. +"All right; I won't, then. Go and find some one else for a companion, +and don't be a young silly. Can't Ted get off for to-day?" + +"You have never said so many horrid things to me before," cried +Katharine passionately. + +"You have never been so difficult to please before," observed Paul +coolly. "Besides, I was under the impression that I was making rather +a good suggestion." + +"You always drag up Ted when you are being particularly unkind! If I +had wanted to go out with Ted, I shouldn't have come to you first." + +Paul began to fear a scene; and he had more than a man's horror of +scenes. But he could not help seeing the tears in her eyes as she +walked away to the door, and he caught her up just as she was opening +it. + +"Aren't you going to say good-bye? It may be some time before I see +you again." He determined, as he spoke, that it should certainly be a +very long time before he saw her again. But she disarmed him by +turning round swiftly without a trace of her anger left. + +"Oh, why must it be some time? You don't mean it, do you? Say you +don't mean it, Mr. Wilton," she implored. + +"No, no; I was only joking," he said reassuringly. "Quite soon, of +course." And he dropped a kiss on the little pink ear that was nearest +to him. But when he saw the look on her face, and the quick way in +which her breath was coming and going, he blamed himself for his +indiscretion, and pushed her playfully outside the door. + +When Phyllis Hyam came home from the office, that evening, she found +Katharine on the floor of her cubicle, mending stockings; while the +rest of her wardrobe occupied all the available space to be seen. +Katharine never did things by halves, and she very rarely had the +impulse to mend her clothes. + +"Hullo! do you mean to say you are back already?" cried Phyllis, +tripping clumsily over the dresses on the floor. + +"That hardly demands an answer, does it?" said Katharine, without +looking up. She threaded her needle, and added more graciously, "I +didn't go, after all." + +"Oh," said Phyllis wonderingly. "I'm sorry." + +"You needn't bother, thanks. I didn't want to go. I stayed at home +instead, and mended my clothes; they seemed to want it, rather. I +shall be quite respectable, now." + +"Oh!" said Phyllis again. "I should have left it for a wet day, I +think." + +"Perhaps your work allows you to select your holidays according to the +weather. Mine doesn't," said Katharine sarcastically. + +Phyllis cleared the chair, and sat down upon it. + +"You've been crying," she said, with the bluntness that estranged all +her friends in time. Katharine never minded it; it rather appealed to +her love of truth than otherwise. + +"Oh, yes! I was disappointed, that's all. There was nothing really to +cry about. I don't know why I did. Don't sit there and stare, +Phyllis; I know I have made a sight of myself." + +"No, you haven't. Poor old dear!" said Phyllis, with ill-timed +affection. "I should like to tell him what I think of him, I know!" +she added emphatically. + +"What are you muttering about?" asked Katharine. + +"Oh, nothing," said Phyllis. "Have you had any tea?" + +"I don't want any tea, thank you. I wish you wouldn't bother. Go down +and have your own." + +"Guess I shall bring it up here instead, and then we can talk," said +Phyllis. In about ten minutes she returned, very much out of breath, +with a large tray. + +Katharine looked up and frowned. "I said I didn't want any," she said +crossly. However, she added that she believed there was some +shortbread on the book-case, which Phyllis at once annexed; and her +temper began slowly to improve. + +"Phyllis," she asked abruptly, after a long pause, "what do you think +of men?" + +"That they are luxuries," returned Phyllis, without hesitation. "If +you've nothing to do all day but to play about, you can afford to +have a man or two around you; but if you're busy, you can't do with +them, anyhow." + +"Why not?" demanded Katharine. "Don't you think they help one along, +rather?" + +"Not a bit of it! First, they draw you on, because you seem to hold +off; and then, when you begin to warm up, they come down with a +quencher, and you feel you've been a sight too bold. And all that kind +of thing is distracting; and it affects your work after a time." + +"But surely," said Katharine, "a girl can have a man for a friend +without going through all that!" + +"Don't believe in it; never did; it doesn't work." + +"I think it does, sometimes," observed Katharine. "Of course it +depends on the girl." + +"Entirely," said Phyllis cheerfully. "The man would always spoil it, +if he could--without being found out." + +Katharine leaned back on the pillow, with her arms behind her head, +and her eyes fixed on the ceiling. + +"That's just it," she said thoughtfully; "men are so much more +conventional than women. I am glad I am not a man, after all. There +is no need for a woman to be conventional, is there? She isn't afraid +of being suspected, all the time. I'm certain conventionality was made +for man, and not man for conventionality, and that woman never had a +hand in it at all." + +"I don't know about that, though it sounds very fine," said Phyllis. +"But of course men have to be more conventional than we are. It helps +them to make some show of respectability, I guess." + +"It is very horrible, if one analyses it," murmured Katharine. +"According to that, the man who is openly bad is preferable to the man +who is conventionally good. Of course Paul is not bad at all; but, oh! +I do wish I didn't see through people, when they try to pretend +things,--it always annoys them." + +"Eh?" said Phyllis, looking up. "Your tea is getting cold." + +"Never mind about the tea! Tell me, Phyllis, do you think any woman +can attract any man, if she likes?" + +"Of course she can, if she is not in love with him." + +Katharine winced, and brought her eyes down to look at her unconscious +friend, who was still munching shortbread with an expression of +complete contentment on her face. + +"I mean if she _is_ in love with him, very much in love with him." + +"Can't say; never was, myself. But I don't believe you can do +anything, if you've got it badly; you have to let yourself go, and +hope for the best." + +"I don't believe you know any more about it than I do, Phyllis. I'll +tell you what it is that is attractive to a man in a woman: it is her +imperfections. He likes her to be jealous, and vain, and full of small +deceptions. He hates her to be tolerant, and large-minded, and +truthful; above all, he hates her to be truthful. I don't know why it +is so, but it is." + +"It is because she isn't too mighty big to worship him, then; nor cute +enough to see through him," said Phyllis. + +"If you can see through a man, you should never fall in love with +him," added Katharine. + +"Oh, I don't know!" said Phyllis. "You can always pretend not to see; +they never know." + +"A nice man does," said Katharine, smiling for the first time. The tea +had made her feel more charitable; and she took up her pen, and wrote +to her mother's connections, the Keeleys, who did not know she was in +town, to ask them when she could call and see them. + +She felt the need of knowing some one, now that she had made up her +mind not to know Paul any more. For he had taught her the desire for +companionship, and she shrank from being left entirely friendless. + + + + +CHAPTER IX + + +At first she was surprised to find that it was so easy to get on +without him. She persuaded herself that her indifference arose from +her annoyance at his having imposed the conventional view of things +upon her; but, in reality, it was due to her conviction that he would +be the first to give in, and would soon write and ask her to go and +see him. And she longed for an opportunity to write and refuse him. +But when a fortnight passed by and no letter came from him, her +righteous scorn deserted her and she became merely angry. The flatness +of being completely ignored was unendurable; and she longed more than +ever for a chance of showing him that her dignity was equal to his, +although she was beginning to fear that he was not going to give her +the necessary occasion. Then came days when she felt reckless, and +determined to cease thinking about him at any cost; and she threw +herself into any distraction that offered itself, and tried to think +that she was quite getting over her desire to see him. It was in one +of these moods that she went to call on the Keeleys, who had written +to tell her that they were always at home on Thursdays. The fact of +putting on her best clothes was in itself some satisfaction; it was a +step towards restoring her self-respect, at all events, and she felt +happier than she had been for some time past as she walked down Park +Lane and found her way to their house in Curzon Street. + +The Honourable Mrs. Keeley was the widow of a peer's son who had been +a cabinet minister and had signalised his political career by +supporting every bill for the emancipation of women, and his domestic +one by impressing upon his wife that her true sphere was the home. The +natural reaction followed after his death, when Mrs. Keeley broke +loose from the restraint his presence had put upon her, and practised +the precepts he had loved to expound in public. She became the most +active of political women; she spoke upon platforms; she harried the +rate-payers until they elected her favourite county councillor; she +canvassed in the slums for the candidate who would vote for woman's +suffrage. She had a passion for everything that was modern, +irrespective of its value; and she spent the time that was not +occupied by her public duties in trying to force her principles upon +her only daughter. But Marion Keeley refused to be modern, except in +her amusements; she accepted the bicycle and the cigarette with +equanimity, but she had no desires to reform anything or anybody; she +merely wanted to enjoy herself as much as possible, and she looked +forward to making a wealthy marriage in the future. Her greatest +ambition was to avoid being bored, and her greatest trial was the +energy of her mother. She never pretended to be advanced; and she felt +that she had been wasted on the wrong mother when she saw most of the +girls of her acquaintance burning to do things in defiance of their +old-fashioned parents. She chose her own friends from the idle world +of Mayfair; and so it was that two distinct sets of people met in the +Keeleys' drawing-room on Thursday afternoons and disapproved of each +other. + +Katharine received a warm reception from her hostess. The fact that +she belonged to the class of working gentlewomen, about whom Mrs. +Keeley had many theories but little knowledge, was a sufficient +evidence of her right to be encouraged; and she found herself seated +on an uncomfortable stool, and introduced to an East-end clergyman +and a lady inspector of factories within five minutes of her entry +into the room. She glanced rather longingly towards the back +drawing-room, where her cousin Marion was looking very pretty and was +flirting very charmingly with three smart-looking boys; but it was +evident that her aunt had labelled her as one of her own set, and she +resigned herself to her fate, and agreed with the East-end clergyman +that the want of rain was becoming serious. + +"My niece lectures, you know; strikingly clever, and _so_ young," said +Mrs. Keeley in a breathless aside to the lady inspector, as she came +back from the opposite side of the room, where she had just coupled a +socialist and a guardian of the poor. + +"Indeed!" said the lady inspector; and Katharine began to lose her +diffidence when she found that she smiled quite like an ordinary +person. "Do you lecture on hygiene? Because Mr. Hodgson-Pemberton is +getting up some popular lectures in his parish, and we are trying to +find a lecturer for hygiene?" + +Mr. Hodgson-Pemberton became animated for a moment; but when Katharine +said, apologetically, that her subjects were merely literary, he took +no further interest in her and resumed his conversation with the lady +inspector of factories. Katharine was left alone again, and relapsed +into one of her dreams, until Marion recognised her and came and +fetched her into the back drawing-room. + +"Isn't it refreshing?" she said to the boys, who had now increased in +number: "Kitty doesn't know anything about politics, and she doesn't +want to be with the fogies at all, do you, Kitty? And, for all that, +she is dreadfully clever, and gives lectures on all sorts of things to +all sorts of people. Oh, dear, I do wish I were clever!" + +"Oh, please don't be clever, Miss Keeley! you won't know me any longer +if you are," said her favourite boy, imploringly. + +"You are far too charming to be clever," added another boy, who had +been her favourite last week, and was trying to regain his position by +elaborate compliments. + +"That's rubbish," said Marion crushingly; "and not very polite to my +cousin, either." + +The dethroned favourite did his best to repair his blunder by assuring +Katharine that he would never have supposed her to be clever, if he +had not been told so. And when she laughed uncontrollably at his +remark, he chose to be offended, and withdrew altogether. + +"You shouldn't laugh at him. He can't help it," said Marion, and she +introduced a third admirer to Katharine to get rid of him. He had very +little to say, and when she had confessed that she did not bicycle, +and never went in the park because she was too busy, he stared a +little without speaking at all, and then contrived to join again in +the conversation that was buzzing around Marion. Most of the other +people had left now, and Katharine was trying to summon up courage to +do the same, when her aunt came up to her again, and presented her to +a weary-looking girl in a big hat. + +"You ought to know each other," she said, effusively, "because you are +both workers. Miss Martin does gesso work, and has a studio of her +own; and my niece gives lectures, you know." + +They looked at one another rather hopelessly, and Katharine resisted +another impulse to laugh. + +"The knowledge of our mutual occupations doesn't seem to help the +conversation much, does it?" she said; and the weary-looking girl +tried to smile. + +"That's right," said Mrs. Keeley, resting for a moment in a chair near +them. "I knew you two would have plenty to say to each other. That's +the best of you working-women; there is such a bond of sympathy +between you." + +"Is there?" said Katharine, remembering the sixty-three working-women +at Queen's Crescent, and her feelings towards them. But Mrs. Keeley +had ideas about women who worked, and meant to air them. + +"It is so splendid to think that women can really do men's work, in +spite of everything that is said to the contrary," she continued. + +The weary-looking girl made no attempt to contradict her, but +Katharine was less docile. + +"I don't think they can," she objected. "They might, perhaps, if they +had a fair chance; but they haven't." + +"But they are getting it every day," cried Mrs. Keeley, waxing +enthusiastic. "Think of the progress that has been made, even in my +time; and in another ten years there will be nothing that women will +not be able to do in common with men! Isn't it a glorious reflection?" + +"I don't think it will be so," persisted Katharine. "It has nothing to +do with education, or any of those things. A woman is handicapped, +just because she is a woman, and has to go on living like a woman. +There is always home work to be done, or some one to be nursed, or +clothes to be mended. A man has nothing to do but his work; but a +woman is expected to do a woman's work as well as a man's. It is too +much for any one to do well. I am a working-woman myself, and I don't +find it so pleasant as it is painted." + +"I'm _so_ glad you think so," murmured Marion, who had come up +unobserved, with her favourite in close attendance. "I was afraid you +would be on mamma's side, and I believe you are on mine, after all." + +At this point the weary-looking girl got up to leave, as though she +could not bear it another minute, and Katharine tried to do the same; +but she was not to be let off so easily. + +"Tell me," said her aunt earnestly, "do you not think that women are +happier if they have work to do for their living?" + +"I suppose it is possible, but I haven't met any who are," answered +Katharine. "I think it is because they feel they have sacrificed all +the pleasures of life. Men don't like women who work, do they?" + +The eyes of Marion met those of her favourite admirer; and Marion +blushed. But Mrs. Keeley returned to the charge. + +"Indeed, there are many in my own acquaintance who have the greatest +admiration for working-women." + +"Oh, yes," laughed Katharine, "they have lots of admiration for us; +but they don't fall in love with us, that's all. I think it is because +it is the elusive quality in woman that fascinates men; and directly +they begin to understand her, they cease to be fascinated by her. And +woman is growing less mysterious every day, now; she is chiefly +occupied in explaining herself, and that is why men don't find her +such good fun. At least, I think so." + +"You know us remarkably well, Miss Austen, you do, really," drawled +the favourite boy. + +"Oh, no," said Katharine, really getting up this time, "I don't +pretend to. But I do know the working gentlewoman very well indeed, +and I don't think she is a bit like the popular idea of her." + +She was much pleased with herself as she walked home; and even the +bustle of Edgware Road and the squalor of Queen's Crescent failed to +remove the pleasant impression that her excursion into the fashionable +world had left with her. It comforted her wounded feelings to +discover that she could hold her own in a room full of people, +although the only man whose opinion she valued held her of no more +account than a child. + +"Hullo! you seem pleased with yourself," said Polly Newland, as she +entered the house. The cockney twang of her voice struck un-musically +on Katharine's ear, and she murmured some sort of ungracious reply and +turned to rummage in the box for letters. There was one for her, and +the sight of the precise, upright handwriting drove every thought of +Polly, and the Keeleys, and her pleasant afternoon out of her head. +Even then something kept her from reading it at once, and she took it +upstairs into her cubicle, and laid it on the table while she changed +her clothes and elaborately folded up her best ones and put them away. +Then she sat down on the bed and tore it open with trembling fingers, +and tried to cheat herself into the belief that she was perfectly +indifferent as to its contents. + +"Dear child," it ran:-- + + What has become of you? Come round and have tea with me + to-morrow afternoon. I have some new books to show you. + + Yours ever, + + PAUL WILTON. + +Here at last was the opportunity she had wanted. He should know now +that she was not a child, to be laughed at because she was cross, to +be ignored when she was hurt, and to be coaxed back into good humour +again by a bribe. She would be able to show him now that she was not +the sort of woman he seemed to consider her, and she told herself +several times that she was overjoyed at being given the chance of +telling him so. But when it came to the point, she found that the +cold, dignified letter she had been composing for weeks was not so +easy to write; and she spent the rest of the evening in thinking of +new ones. First of all, it was to be very short, and very stiff; but +that was not obvious enough to gratify her injured feelings, and she +set to work on another one that was mainly sarcastic. But sarcasm +seemed a sorry weapon to use when she had reached such a crisis in her +life as this; and she thought of another one in bed, after the light +was out, in which she determined that he should know she was unhappy +as well. And this one was so pathetic that it even roused her own +pity, and she felt that it would be positively inhuman to send such a +letter as that to any one, however badly he had behaved. + +In the end, she did not write to him at all. It was more effective, +she thought, to remain silent. So she went to school the next morning +as usual, and gave her lessons as usual; though she looked in the +glass at intervals to see if she were pale and had a sad expression, +which certainly ought to have been the case. But even her head did not +ache, which it did sometimes; and Nature obstinately refused to come +to her assistance. She reached home again about four o'clock, and the +aspect of the doorsteps and the area completed her discomfiture. If +they had only been a little less squalid, a little more free from the +domination of cats, she might have retained her dignified attitude to +the end. But there was something about them to-day that recalled the +cosy little room in the Temple by vivid contrast; and she flung her +pile of exercise books recklessly upon the hall table, and hastened +out of the house again, without allowing herself time to think. + +"I was afraid you were not coming," he said, and he greeted her with +both hands. She never remembered seeing him so unreserved in his +welcome before; and she marvelled at herself for having attempted to +keep away from him any longer. + +"It was because of the cats," she said, laughing to hide her emotion. +But she could not hide anything from him; he knew something of what +she was thinking, and he bent down and deliberately kissed her. + +"Why did you do that?" she asked, trying to free her hands to cover +her burning face. + +"Because you didn't stop me, I suppose," he replied, lightly. + +"But I didn't know you were going to." + +"Because I knew you wouldn't mind, then." + +She did not speak, and her eyes were lowered. + +"Did you mind, Katharine?" + +"No," she whispered. + +"Now, tell me why I am indebted to the cats," he said, as he rang the +bell for tea; and for the rest of the afternoon they talked, as +Katharine laughingly said, "without any conversation." + +There was no explanation on either side, no attempt at facing the +situation; and she felt when she left him that she had thrown away her +last chance of controlling their friendship. There had been a tacit +struggle between their two wills, and his had triumphed. She could +never put him out of her life now, unless he broke with her of his +own accord; and she realised bitterly, even while she was glad, that +he did not care enough for her to do that. + +She saw him constantly all through the hot months of July and August. +She gave up her original intention of going home for the summer +holidays, on the pretext of reading for her next term's lectures at +the British Museum; but she did very little work in reality, and she +spent whole days in the reading-room, regardless of the people around +her, sometimes even of the book before her, and dreamed long hours +away, making visions in which only two people played any prominent +part,--and those two people were Paul and herself. Her whole life +seemed to be a kind of dream just then, with a vivid incident here and +there when she met him or went to see him, and the rest a vague +nebula, in which something outside herself made her do what was +expected of her. Sometimes she felt impelled to work furiously hard +for a day or two, or to take long walks by herself, as though nothing +else would tire her restless energy; and then she would relapse into +her lethargic mood again, and do nothing but watch vigilantly for the +post, or haunt the streets where she had sometimes met him. And all +the while she thought she was happy, with a kind of weird, passionate +happiness she had never known before; and it seemed to compensate for +the hours of suspense and anxiety she went through when he took no +notice of her. For his conduct was as inexplicable as ever; and for +one day that he was demonstrative and even affectionate, she had to +endure many of indifference that almost amounted to cruelty. + +"We are horribly alike; it hurts me sometimes when I suddenly find +myself in you," she said to him one day, when he was in an expansive +mood. + +"I am much honoured by the discovery, but I fail to see where the +likeness lies," was his reply. + +"It is not very definite," she said, thoughtfully. "I think it must be +because I feel your changes of mood so quickly. We laugh together at +something, and everything seems so fearfully nice; and then, suddenly, +I feel that something has sprung up between us, and I look up and I +see that you feel it too, and all at once there is nothing to talk +about. Haven't you ever noticed it?" + +"I think you are an absurdly sensitive little girl," he said, smiling. + +"Of course," she continued, without heeding his remark, "on the +surface, no two people could be more unlike than we are. You are so +awfully afraid of showing what you feel, for instance; but I always +tell you everything, don't I?" + +"My dear child, what nonsense! I am of the most artless and confiding +nature; while you, on the contrary, never give yourself away at all. +Why, you never tell me anything I really want to know! Whatever put +such an idea into that curious head of yours?" + +"Oh, don't!" she cried. "You make me feel quite hysterical! You have +no right to upset all my views on my own character, as well as on +yours. I _know_ I am stupidly demonstrative. I have often blushed all +over because I have told you things I never meant to tell any one. How +can you say I am reserved? I only wish I were!" + +"The few confidences of a reserved person are always rash ones," +observed Paul. "The same might be said of the reflections of an +impulsive person, or the impulses of a reflective one. It all comes +from want of habit. You can't alter your temperament, that's all." + +"But I can't believe that I am reserved," she persisted; "it seems +incredible. And it makes us more alike than ever." + +"Really, Katharine, I beg you to rid your mind of that exceedingly +fallacious notion," said Paul, laughing. "I assure you I am to be read +like a book." + +"A book in a strange language, then. I don't think I shall ever be +able to read it," said Katharine, shaking her head. And she drew down +a rebuke upon herself for being solemn. + +They had a tacit unwillingness to become serious, about this time; +their conversation was made up of trivialities, and he never kissed +her except on the tips of her fingers. They avoided any demonstration +of feeling that might have revealed to them the anomaly of their +position, and they mutually shrank from defining their relations +towards one another. + +They were standing together at the window, one day, looking down into +Fountain Court, which was as hot and as dusty as ever in spite of the +water that was playing into the basin in the middle. + +"What are you thinking about?" he asked her, so suddenly that she was +surprised into an answer. + +"I was thinking how queer it is that you and I should be friends like +this," she replied, truthfully. + +"What's the matter with our friendship, then?" he asked, in the +prosaic manner he always assumed when she showed any sentiment. She +laughed. + +"There's nothing the matter with it, of course. You are the most +unromantic person I ever knew. You seem to delight in divesting every +little trivial incident of its sentiment. What makes you such a +Vandal?" + +"But, surely, you are not supposing that there _is_ any romance in our +knowing each other, are you?" + +"I never dreamed of such a thing," retorted Katharine. "I think there +is more romance in your cigarette holder than in the whole of you!" + +Sometimes she wondered if he were capable of deep feeling at all, or +if his indifference were really assumed. + +"I envy you your utter disregard of circumstance," she once exclaimed +to him. "How did you learn it? Do you really never feel things, or is +it only an easy way of getting through life?" + +"I'm afraid I don't see what you are driving at. I dare say you are +being very brilliant, but I fail to discern what I am expected to +say." + +"You are not expected to say anything," she said, playfully. "That is +the best of being a gigantic fraud like yourself; nobody ever does +expect you to fulfil the ordinary requirements of every-day life. You +might be a heathen god, who grins heartlessly while people try to +propitiate him with the best they have to offer, and who eats up their +gifts greedily when they are not looking." + +"Has all this any reference to me, might I ask?" + +"I don't believe you've got any ordinary human feeling," pursued +Katharine. "I don't believe you care for anybody or anything, so long +as you are left alone. Why don't you say something, instead of staring +at me as though I were a curiosity?" + +"If you reflect, you will see that there has not been a single pause +since you began to speak. Besides, why shouldn't you be catechised as +well as myself? Where do you keep all your deep feeling, please? I +haven't seen much of it, but perhaps I have no right to expect such a +thing. No doubt you keep it all for some luckier person than myself." + +His tone was one of raillery, as hers had been when she began to talk. +But she startled him, as she did sometimes, by a sudden change of +mood; and she flashed round upon him indignantly. + +"It is horrible of you to laugh at me. You know you don't mean what +you say; you know I have any amount of deep feeling. I hide it on +purpose, because you don't like me to show it, you know you don't! +I--I think you are very unkind to me." + +He reached out his hand and stroked her hair gently; she was sitting a +little away from him, and he could see the sensitive curve of her +lower lip. + +"Don't, child! One never knows how to take you. Another time you would +have seen that I was only joking." + +"You have no right to joke about such a serious matter. You know it +was a serious matter, now; wasn't it?" + +"The most serious in the universe," he assured her; and he brought his +hand gently down her cheek, and laid it against her throat. + +"You are only laughing; you always laugh at me," she complained; but +she bent her head, and kissed his hand softly. "I feel like a wolf, +sometimes," she added, impetuously. + +"Didn't you have enough tea?" he said. But she knew by his tone that +he was not laughing at her now, and she went on recklessly. + +"I am certain I could not love any one very much, without hating him +too. It is a horrible dual feeling that tears one to pieces. Is it the +badness in me, I wonder? Other people don't seem to feel like that +when they are in love. Why is it?" + +"Because it is the same emotion, or set of emotions, that inspires +both love and hatred," said Paul. "Circumstance does the rest, or +temperament." + +"It is inexplicable," said Katharine solemnly. "I can understand +killing a man, because he could not understand my love for him; or +casting off my own child, because it was bored by my affection. I am +quite sure," she added, quaintly, "that I should bore any one in a +week, if I really loved him." + +"Oh, no," said Paul politely; and they again laughed away a crisis. + + + + +CHAPTER X + + +At the beginning of October Paul went abroad. She had thought that +life without him would be unendurable, and she could not analyse her +own feelings when she found that she could laugh with as much +enjoyment as ever, and that her fits of depression were less frequent +than before. In fact, she had often been far more unsettled if a +letter from him had failed to arrive when it was due; and a new +sensation of freedom went far to cure her of the restlessness that had +possessed her all the summer. She began to probe into her truth-loving +soul, to try and discover whether her feeling for him was not an +illusion after all; but she found no satisfactory explanation of the +problem that was puzzling her, and she put it voluntarily away from +her, and turned to her work as a healthy antidote. And she had a good +deal of work just then. Thanks to the influence of the Honourable Mrs. +Keeley, her private pupils were increasing in number, and these, with +her lectures at the school, were producing a salary that relieved her +of all financial worry for the present. She was making new friends +too, and it added to her contentment to find that people asked her to +go and see them because they liked her. For the first time since her +arrival in town, she felt sure of being on the way to success; and the +sensation was a very thrilling one. Phyllis asked her, one day, why +she was looking so happy. Katharine laughed, and pondered for a +moment; then answered frankly that she did not know why. "I only know +that I have never been so gloriously happy in my whole life," she +added; and she wondered, as she spoke, whether the mad, feverish +happiness of the summer months had really been happiness at all. But +Phyllis, who felt that she had no share in this strange new life of +hers, looked back regretfully on the earlier days when Katharine had +been lonely and in need of her sympathy. Even Ted told her she was +looking "very fit," and this was the highest term of praise in his +vocabulary. For, since the beginning of October, she had seen a good +deal of Ted. It was very restful to come back to him, after the state +of high pressure in which she had been living lately; and when she +grew accustomed to his being a West-end young man, instead of an +easy-going schoolboy, she found him the same delightful companion as +of old. He did not allude to her many weeks of silence, nor ask her +how she had spent them; he came at her bidding, and when he found that +she liked him to come he came again. He was as humble as ever, except +in matters of worldly knowledge, and there he showed a youthful +superiority over her which amused her immensely. His laziness, which +had always been more or less an assumption with him, had developed +into the fashionable pose of indifference; and she tried in vain to +spur him on to doing something definite with his life, instead of +letting it drift away in a city office. + +"Girls don't understand these things," he would say with good-natured +obstinacy. "Of course I loathe the beastly hole; any decent chap +would. But I may as well stop there. It's not my fault that I was ever +born, is it? I get enough to live on, with what my cousin allows me; +and I'm not going to grind all I know, to get a rise of five bob a +week. It isn't good enough. I'm sure I'm very easily contented, and my +wants are few enough. Oh, rats! I must have a frock coat; every decent +chap has. And you couldn't possibly call that extravagant, because I +sha'n't think of squaring it for a year at least. Of course I don't +expect you to understand these things, Kitty; it's impossible for a +man to do the cheap, like a woman." + +And Katharine, who always wanted to reconstitute society, with a very +limited knowledge of its first principles, would strike in with a +vigorous denunciation of his comfortable philosophy; and he would +listen and laugh at her, and make no effort to support his own opinion +which he continued to hold, nevertheless. He was the best companion +she could have had just then; he never varied, whatever her mood was, +and he kept her from thinking too much about herself, which was a +habit she had acquired since she last saw him. Besides, he was a link +with her childhood, that period of vague existence which had held no +problems to be solved, and had never inspired her with a wish to +reform human nature. So they spent many evenings and half-holidays +together, and they went frequently to the theatre and sat in the +gallery, which often entertained them as much as the play itself; and +he loved to pay for her, with a manly air, at the box office, and +always made the same kind of weak resistance afterwards, when +Katharine insisted on refunding her share, under the lamp at the +corner of Queen's Crescent, Marylebone. Sometimes, when they were +unusually well off, they would dine at an Italian restaurant first, +where they could have many wonderful dishes for two shillings, and a +bottle of tenpenny claret. On one occasion--it was Ted's birthday, and +his cousin had sent him a five-pound note--they had more than an +ordinary jubilation. + +"Buck up, and get ready!" he had rushed into the little distempered +hall to say. "We'll go to a new place, where the waiters aren't dirty, +and the wine isn't like sulphuric acid. And, Kitty, put on that hat +with the pink roses, won't you?" + +They did their best, on that memorable evening, to reduce the five +pound-note, and to behave as though they were millionaires. They drove +in a hansom to the restaurant in question, which was a very brilliant +little one close to the theatres, where they had a waiter to +themselves instead of the fifth part of a very distracted and +breathless one. The state of Ted's pockets could always be estimated +by the amount of attention he exacted from the waiter; and this +evening there was absolutely nothing he would do for himself, from the +disposal of his walking stick to the choice of the wine. + +"It's a very good tip to start by taking the waiter into your +confidence," he assured Kitty, when it had just been settled for them +that they were to have _bisque_ soup. + +"It's convenient, sometimes, when everything is written in French," +observed Katharine. Ted changed the conversation. On his twenty-second +birthday he felt inclined, for once in a way, to assert himself. + +"I'm rather gone on this place; pretty, isn't it?" he continued. "All +the candle-shades are red, white, and blue; mean to say you didn't +twig that? You're getting less alive every day, Kit! Awfully +up-to-date place, this! I don't suppose there is a single decent woman +in the room, bar yourself." + +He said this with such pride in the knowledge, that she would not have +robbed him of his satisfaction for the world. + +"They look much the same as other women to me," she observed, after a +quick survey of the little tables. + +"That's because you don't know. How should you? Women never do, bless +them! Do you like fizz?" + +"Oh, Ted, don't! Isn't it a pity to spend such a lot just for +nothing?" she remonstrated. She had visions of all the unpaid bills he +had disclosed to her in one of his recent pessimistic moods. + +"My dear Kitty, you really must learn to enjoy life. Don't be so +beastly serious over everything. Bills? What bills? There aren't any +to-night. The art of living is knowing when to be extravagant." + +And she had to acknowledge, for the rest of the evening, that he had +certainly mastered the art of living. They went to a music hall, and +sat in the stalls; and Katharine enjoyed it because Ted was there, and +because he was so funny all through,--first, in his fear of being +asked by the conjurer for his hat which was a new one, or his watch +which was only represented by his watch chain; and secondly, because +he tried so hard to distract her attention from the songs that were +inclined to be risky. And Ted enjoyed it because it was the thing to +do, and because there would be hardly any of that fiver left by the +time he got home. + +"Then you'll look me up at the office at five to-morrow; you won't +forget?" he asked rather wistfully, when they parted on the doorstep. + +"Of course I won't forget," she answered, hastily. "Dear old Ted, I +have enjoyed it so much!" + +"Good-night, dear," he said, as he turned away. And his tone haunted +her rather, as she groped her way up to bed in the dark. She began to +feel half afraid, with some annoyance at the thought, that this +pleasant state of things could not go on for ever, and that Ted was +going to spoil it all again as he had done once before, by taking +their relationship seriously. So she prepared to meet him, the next +afternoon, with a reserve of manner that was meant to indicate her +displeasure; but he disconcerted her very much by asking her bluntly +why the dickens she was playing so poorly; and she felt unreasonably +annoyed to find that her fears were groundless. So for some time +longer they went on as before, in the same happy-go-lucky kind of way +that had always characterised them. She learned to know several of his +friends, most of them genuine boyish fellows, who appealed to her more +by their affection for Ted than by any qualities they possessed +themselves. They seemed very much alike, though she was bound to +acknowledge that this impression may have been conveyed by the cut of +their clothes and the shape of their hats, which did not differ by so +much as a hair's breadth. But Ted always shone by comparison with the +best of them. He was the only one of his set who did not take himself +seriously; he had a sense of humour, too, and this compensated for the +exhausted manner which he felt obliged to assume as a mark of +fellowship with them. + +He asked her, one night, with some diffidence, if she would mind +coming to tea in his chambers on the following Sunday. + +"I shouldn't think of asking you to come alone," he hastened to add; +"but Monty is going to bring his sister along, so that's all square as +long as you don't mind." + +"Mind! Why, of course not," said Katharine, in frank astonishment. +"What is there to mind? I want to see your chambers very much. I have +often wondered why you never asked me before." + +Ted stared at her for a moment, and then began tracing what remained +of the pattern in the linoleum with his walking stick. They were +standing, as usual, in the hall of number ten, Queen's Crescent. + +"What a babe you are, Kitty!" he said, without looking up; and +Katharine reddened as she suddenly realised his meaning. Of course Ted +was no longer a boy, and she was no longer a child; and she was on +precisely the same footing with him in the eyes of the world as she +was with Paul Wilton. Unconsciously, she compared the attitude of the +two men under similar circumstances; Paul, who was unscrupulous in +letting her visit him as long as no one knew of it; and Ted, who had +no views on the matter at all but merely wished to spare her any +annoyance. + +"I see," she said. "Who is Monty?" She always felt nervous when he +offered to introduce her to any of his friends; because she knew very +well that he warned them all beforehand that she had "ideas," and this +put her at a distinct disadvantage to begin with. + +"Oh, Monty's awfully smart! He knows no end. You'll like Monty, I +expect. He wants to meet you, awfully; says he likes the look of your +photograph. I told him how bally clever you were, and all that. +Monty's clever, too; he reads Ibsen." + +Katharine received this proof of Monty's intellectual ability with +some cynicism which, however, she was careful to conceal. + +"I shall be delighted to meet him," she said. "What time shall I +come?" + +"Oh, any time; four will do. And, I say, Kit, I suppose I must have +cream, mustn't I? You can't give Monty milk that's been sitting for +hours, and spoof him that it's cream. I've done that sometimes, but +you can't spoof Monty." + +"Oh, I'll bring the cream. I know a shop where they'll let me have it +on Sunday," said Katharine confidently; and Ted left comforted. + +After all, Monty's sister could not come; but Ted's sense of the +fitness of things was satisfied by his having asked her, and, as Monty +himself came and did not seem afraid of Katharine as all his other +friends were, he felt that his tea-party was a success. The only thing +that marred his enjoyment was the fact that Katharine, for some +unaccountable caprice, refused to be intellectual in spite of the +efforts of Monty, whose real name proved to be Montague, to draw her +out. Monty was a young man with a gentlemanly view of life, tempered +by a great desire to be thought advanced; and he began the +conversation with a will. + +"Awfully clever new thing at the Royalty! Suppose you've seen it, Miss +Austen?" he began. "Awfully plucky of the Independent Theatre to put +it on, it is really." + +"Is it?" smiled Katharine. "I haven't seen it yet. Ted and I hate +those advanced plays,--they're so slow as a rule. Comic operas, we +like best." + +Monty seemed surprised; and Ted was a little disconcerted by this +frank avowal of his own ordinary tastes. + +"You see, Kit only goes to those things to please me," he said, +apologetically. "She's just as keen on all those humpy plays as you +are, don't you know?" + +Monty was not sure that he knew, but he turned to another branch of +art. + +"Talking about posters," he said,--which was only his favourite method +of opening a conversation, for nobody was talking about posters at +all,--"have you seen that awfully clever one of the new paper, 'The +Future'? It's by quite a new man, in the French style, so bold and yet +so subtle. But of course you must have seen it." + +"Oh, yes," laughed Katharine, "I should think I had! You mean the red +one, don't you, with a black sun and a cactus thing, and a lot of +spots all over it? Ted and I were laughing at it, only yesterday. Do +you really think it is good?" + +Monty said he really did think so; and Ted, who was torn in two by his +admiration for both of them, came to his rescue. + +"You had better be careful, Kitty," he said, anxiously. "Monty does +know." + +"Of course," said Katharine politely, "it is only a matter of taste, +isn't it, Mr. Montague?" + +"Quite so," replied Monty, concealing his feelings of superiority as +well as he could. "By the way, talking of taste, what do you think of +the new Danish poet? Rather strong, don't you think?" + +Katharine sighed, and glanced nervously at Ted. + +"Oh, I suppose he's all right," she said, with the exaggerated +solemnity that would have betrayed to any one who knew her well how +close she was to laughter; "but he isn't a bit new, is he? I mean, he +only says the same things over again that the old poets said ever so +much better. Don't you think so?" + +"They all give you the hump, any way," put in Ted. But Monty ignored +his remark, and said that he never read any of the old poets; he +preferred the new ones because they went so much deeper. + +"Hang it all, Kitty; what a rum girl you are!" said Ted, in a +disappointed tone. "A chap never knows where to have you. I did think +you were advanced, if you couldn't be anything else." + +At this point, Katharine yielded to an irresistible desire to laugh; +and Ted looked anxiously at the friend to whom he had given such a +false impression of her "ideas." But, to his surprise, the great Monty +himself joined in her laughter, and seemed inexpressibly relieved to +find that she was not nearly so intellectual as she had been painted, +and it was therefore no longer incumbent on him to sustain the +conversation at such a high pitch. + +"Now that we have settled I am not advanced," said Katharine, turning +up her veil, "supposing we have some tea." And for the rest of the +afternoon they behaved like rational beings, and discussed the low +comedians and the comic papers. + +"All the same," Ted complained, when Monty had gone, "he's awfully +clever, really. You may rot as much as you like, but Monty does know +about things. You don't know what a fool he makes _me_ feel." + +"He needn't do that," said Katharine. "It would be the kindest thing +in the world not to let him read another magazine or newspaper for six +months. I think he is very nice, though, when he lets himself go." + +Ted looked at her a little sadly. + +"You seemed to be getting on beastly well, I thought," he said. + +"He is certainly very amusing, and it was nice of you to ask me to +meet him," continued Katharine, innocently. Ted walked to the +fire-place, and studied himself silently in the looking-glass. + +"I wish I wasn't such a damned fool," he burst out savagely. Katharine +stood still with amazement. + +"Ted!" she cried. "Ted! What do you mean?" + +Ted planted his elbows on the mantel-shelf, and buried his face in his +hands. + +"Ted!" she said again, with distress in her voice. "What do you mean, +Ted? As if I--oh, Ted! And a man like _that_! You know piles more than +he does, old boy, ever so much more. You don't put on any side, that's +all; and he does. You mustn't say that any more, Ted; oh, you mustn't! +It hurts." + +"You know you are spoofing me," he said, in muffled tones. "You know +you only say that just to please me. You think I am a fool all the +time, only you are a good old brick and pretend not to see it. As if I +didn't twig! I ought never to have been born." + +Katharine walked swiftly over to him, and laid her hand on his arm. +She did not reason with herself; she only knew that she wanted to +comfort him at any price. + +"Ted," she said, earnestly, "_I_ am glad you were born." + +He turned round suddenly, and looked at her; and she started nervously +at the eagerness of his expression. He had not looked like that when +he made love to her in the summer-house. + +"Do you mean that, dear?" + +"Oh, don't be so serious, Ted! Of course I mean it; of course I am +glad you were born. Think how forlorn I should have been without you; +it would have been awful if I had been alone." He looked only half +satisfied; and she went on desperately, caring for nothing but to +charm away the miserable look from his face. "Dear Ted, you know what +you are to me; you know I don't care a little bit for Monty, or +anybody else, either." + +"Do you mean that, Kitty?" he asked again, in a voice that he could +not steady. "Not anybody else, dear?" + +Something indefinable, something that made her long for another man's +voice to be trembling for love of her, as his was trembling now, +seemed to come between them and to strike her dumb. He looked at her +searchingly for a moment, then shook off her hand and pushed her away +from him. She shivered as the suspicion crossed her mind that he had +guessed her thoughts, though she knew quite well that the renewal of +her friendship with Paul was unknown to him. She went up to him again, +and let him seize her two hands and crush them until she could have +cried out with the pain. + +"You are the best fellow in the world, Ted," she said. "But you +mustn't look like that; oh, don't! I am not worth it, Ted; I am not +nearly good enough for you, dear,--you know I am not. I am never going +to marry any one; I am not the sort to marry; I am hard, and cold, and +bitter. Sometimes, I think I shall just work and fight my way to the +end. I know I shall never be happy in the way most women are happy. +But I will be your chum, and stick to you always, Ted. May I?" + +"Oh, shut up!" said Ted, almost in a whisper; and the tears sprang to +her eyes. She stood on tiptoe, and impetuously kissed the only place +on his cheek she could reach. At the moment, it seemed the only right +and proper thing to be done. + +"I couldn't help it. I had to; and I don't care," she said, defiantly. +And Ted wrung her hands again, and let them go. + +"I suppose none of it is your fault, Kit, but--" + +There was a pause, and Katharine avoided his eyes, for the first time +in her life. + +"It's time to go," she said. "Will you see me home?" + +She fetched him his hat and coat, and Ted gave himself a shake. + +"He didn't take cream, after all," he said, with a poor attempt at a +laugh. + + + + +CHAPTER XI + + +A letter came from Paul, just before Christmas, to say that he was +going to remain at Monte Carlo for another month. Knowing his passion +for warmth and sunshine, she was not surprised; she was hardly even +disappointed. She began to wonder what her feelings would have been if +he had decided to remain another year instead of another month; and +again she was obliged to own that the solution of her own state of +mind was beyond her. The Keeleys went abroad about the same time, +which took away her chief centre of amusement; and her former mood of +satisfaction was succeeded by one of serene indifference, in which she +continued until she went home for the holidays. At Ivingdon the +dulness of four weeks, passed almost entirely in the company of her +father and Miss Esther, caused the old unsatisfied feeling to return +to her; and she longed for a vent for the restless energy that wore +her out as long as there was no work to be done. She grew impatient +once more for a glimpse of Paul Wilton, for the touch of his thin, +nervous hand, and the sound of his quiet, unemotional voice; and she +acted over and over again, in her mind, how they would meet once more +in the little room overlooking Fountain Court, what he would be sure +to say to her, and what she knew she would say to him. No letter came +from Paul all through those weary days, and she only wrote to him +once. The pathetic note was very prominent in that one letter, and she +consoled herself with her own unhappiness while she awaited the answer +to it; but when no answer came her pride revolted, and she wished +passionately that she had never sent it. + +"Can't you stay another week, child?" said Miss Esther, as the end of +the holidays drew near. "You don't look much better than when you +came, though it's not to be expected you should, working away as you +do. I never heard such nonsense, and all to no purpose! When I was a +girl-- But there, what's the use?" + +And Katharine, who had heard it all before, explained over again with +increasing impatience that her work was a definite thing and required +her presence on a certain day. She had never felt less pleased with +herself than on the day of her departure, when she left the home that +had once been the whole world to her, and took leave of the people who +no longer believed in her. But as she neared London a sensation of +coming events dispelled the atmosphere of disapproval which had been +stifling her for a whole month, and she once more felt the mistress of +her own situation and her own future. Here was life and activity, work +and success, and some of it was going to be hers. And Paul Wilton +would soon be coming home again. They told her at Queen's Crescent how +well she was looking, when she appeared in the dining-room at +tea-time; and she laughed back in reply as she contrasted their +greeting with her aunt's farewell words. + +"Just a year since I first came," she said to Phyllis. "What a lot has +happened since then! I don't believe it was myself at all; it must +have been somebody else. Oh, I am glad I am different now!" + +"I remember," said Phyllis, who never rhapsodised. "Your face was +smutty after your journey, and you looked as though you would kill any +one who spoke to you." + +"And you were eating bread and treacle," retorted Katharine. "Let's +have some now, shall we?" + +"By the way," said Phyllis presently, "there's a letter for you +upstairs. It came about a week ago, and I clean forgot to forward it. +I'm awfully sorry, but I don't suppose it matters much because it's +got a foreign post-mark." + +The laughter died out of Katharine's face, as she put down her teacup +and stared speechlessly at her friend. + +"Shall I go and fetch it?" continued the unconscious Phyllis, as she +deluged her last morsel of bread with more treacle than any force of +cohesion would allow it to hold. "Perhaps you're ready to come up +yourself, though? I've prepared a glorification for you--Hullo! what +are you in such a desperate hurry about?" + +When she arrived breathless at the top of the house, Katharine was +already in her cubicle, turning everything over in a wild and +fruitless search. + +"Go away!" she said shortly, when Phyllis came in. "It was the only +thing I asked you to do, and I thought I could trust you. I shall know +better another time. What are all these things doing here?" + +She knocked her head, as she spoke, against a string of Chinese +lanterns. There were flowers on the mantel-shelf, and a look of +festivity in the dingy little room; but it was all lost on Katharine, +who continued to open and shut the drawers with trembling hands, and +to search in every likely place for her letter, until Phyllis put an +end to her aimless task by bringing it to her in eloquent silence. +Then she stole away again; and Katharine sat down in the midst of the +confusion she had created, and became absorbed in its contents. It was +very short, and there was hardly any news in it that could not have +been extracted from a guide-book; but she spent quite half an hour in +reading it and pondering over it, until she knew every one of its +stilted phrases by heart. He was very well and it was very hot, and he +was sitting by the open window looking down on the orange groves, and +the sea was a splendid colour, and there were some very decent people +in the hotel, and amongst them her relations the Keeleys. It was hard +to look up at last, with dazed eyes, and to discover that she was in +Queen's Crescent, Marylebone, instead of being where her thoughts +were, in the sunny South of France. + +"Hullo," said Phyllis, who was standing at the end of the bed. + +"Yes?" said Katharine, smiling. "Do you want anything?" + +"Oh, no," said Phyllis, and crept away again. Katharine sat and +pondered a little while longer. Presently, she shivered and made the +discovery that she was cold, and she jumped up and stretched herself. + +"I suppose I must unpack," she said, still smiling contentedly. "Where +has Phyllis gone, I wonder?" + +She went to the door and made the passage ring with her voice, until +Phyllis hurried out of a neighbouring room and apologised for not +being there when she was wanted. + +"I believe you were there when I didn't want you," said Katharine +candidly. "Wasn't I cross to you or something?" Her foot touched one +of the discarded Chinese lanterns. + +"Hullo! I thought there were some lanterns somewhere. Where are they +gone?" + +"Oh, no!" said Phyllis, going down on her knees before the box. "You +must have been dreaming." + +"I wasn't dreaming, and you're a foolish old dear, and I am a selfish +pig," cried Katharine penitently. + +"Oh, no!" said Phyllis again. "I was the pig, you see, because I +forgot your letter. You'll rumple my hair, if you do that again." + +Katharine did hug her again, nevertheless, and accused herself of all +the offences she could remember, whether they related to the present +occasion or not; and Phyllis silenced her in a gruff voice, and the +unpacking proceeded by degrees. + +"Don't you think," said Katharine irrelevantly, "that women are much +more selfish than men, in some ways?" + +"What ways?" + +"I mean when they are absorbed in anything. Now, a man wouldn't behave +like a cad to his best friend, just because he happened to be in love +with a girl, would he? But a woman would. She would betray her nearest +and dearest for the sake of a man. I am certain I should. Women are so +wolfish, directly they feel things; and they seem to lose their sense +of honour when they fall in love. Don't they?" + +"Where do the stockings go?" was all Phyllis said. + +"Perhaps," continued Katharine, "it is because a woman really has +stronger feelings than a man." + +"I shouldn't wonder," said Phyllis. "Who packed the sponge bag next +to your best hat?" + +"I don't think it matters," said Katharine mildly. "I was saying-- +What are you laughing at?" + +"Nothing. Only, it is so delightful to have you back again, moralising +away while I do all the work," laughed Phyllis. + +Katharine owned humbly that Phyllis always did all the work, and +Phyllis bluntly repudiated the charge, and insisted that Katharine was +the most unselfish person in the world, and Katharine ended in +allowing herself to be persuaded that she was; and the rest of the +evening passed in an amicable exchange of news. Even the "cat in the +pie dish" seemed appetising that evening. + +Her feeling of satisfaction was increased when she arrived at school +the next morning and found that Mrs. Downing was anxious to speak to +her. An interview with the lady principal at the beginning of term +generally foreboded some good. + +"I want you to give up the junior teaching this term, my dear Miss +Austen," she began, after greeting her warmly. "You are really too +good for it, far too good. Mr. Wilton was quite right when he told me +how cultured you were, quite right. At the time, I must confess to +feeling very doubtful; you seemed so inexperienced,--so very young, in +fact. But I have come to think that in your case it is no drawback to +be young; indeed, the dear children seem to prefer it. Their +attachment for you is extraordinary; pardon me, I should have said +phenomenal. And the way you manage them is perfect, quite +perfect,--just the touch of firmness to show that your kindness is not +weakness. Admirable! I am most grateful to Mr. Wilton for introducing +you to me, most grateful. Such a charming man, is he not? So +distinguished!" + +She paused for breath, and Katharine murmured an acknowledgment of Mr. +Wilton's distinction. + +"To come to the point, my dear Miss Austen, I should be charmed, quite +charmed, if you would take the senior work this term,--English in all +its branches, French translation, Latin, and drawing. I think you know +the curriculum, do you not? Thank you very much; that is so good of +you! Did you have a pleasant holiday? There is no need to ask how you +are,--the very picture of health, I am sure! And the architecture +lectures, too; I should be more than grateful if you would continue +them as before. Thank you so much-- Ah, I beg your pardon?" + +Katharine here made a desperate inroad into the torrent of words, and +mentioned that she knew no Latin and had never taught any drawing. + +"Indeed? But you are too modest, my dear Miss Austen; it is your one +failing, if I may say so. Of course, if you wish--then let it be so. +But I am convinced you would do both as well as Miss Smithson, quite +convinced. However, that can easily be arranged. The salary I think +you know, and the lectures will be as before. Indeed, we are most +fortunate to have so delightful a lecturer, most fortunate. Ah, there +is one more thing," continued Mrs. Downing, leading her towards the +door. The rest of her speech was said on the landing which happened, +fortunately, to be empty. "This is between ourselves, my dear Miss +Austen,--quite between ourselves. I should be more than grateful if +you would act as chaperon to the music master this term. It may appear +strange that I should ask you to do this,--indeed, I may say peculiar; +but I do so in the conviction that I can trust you better than any one +else. Of course you will not mention what I have said! I am sure you +understand what I mean. That is so charming of you! Thank you so +much!" + +And the lady principal returned to say very much the same thing over +again to the next teacher whom she summoned. But Katharine, who had +long since learnt to regard her insincerity as inevitable, merely +congratulated herself on the practical results of her interview, and +thoroughly enjoyed the contest that ensued when her new pupils found +they were going to be taught by a junior mistress. She felt very +elated when she came out of it victorious; and for the next week or +two everything seemed to go well with her. She had made a position for +herself, although every one had told her it would be impossible; there +were people who believed in her thoroughly, and there were others, +like Ted and Phyllis Hyam, who did not understand her but worshipped +her blindly. It was all very gratifying to her, after the dull month +she had spent at home; and for the first time she threw off the +reserve she usually showed, though unconsciously, towards the working +gentlewomen of Queen's Crescent, and talked about herself in a way +that astonished them not a little. Work to them was a sordid +necessity, and they were a little jealous of this brilliant girl, with +the youth and the talent, who found no difficulty in winning success +where they had barely earned a living, and who seemed to enjoy her +life into the bargain. + +"Who is that girl with the jolly laugh and the untidy hair?" she +overheard a stranger asking Polly Newland one day. + +"That one?" was the reply, given in a contemptuous tone. "Oh, she's a +caution, I can tell you! Nice? Oh, I dare say! She's a prig, though. +Phyllis Hyam--that's the other girl in our room--thinks all the world +of her; but I can't stand prigs, myself." + +It was a little shock to her self-esteem to hear herself described so +baldly, though she consoled herself by the reflection that Polly had +never liked her, and there was consequently very little value to be +attached to her opinion. But she was careful to remain silent about +her own affairs for the next day or two; and she startled Ted, one +evening, by asking him suddenly, between the acts of a melodrama, what +was meant by a "prig." + +"A prig? Oh, I don't know! It's the same thing as a smug, isn't it?" + +"But what is a smug?" + +"Well, of course, a smug is--well, he's a smug, I suppose. He hasn't +got to be anything else, has he? He's a played-out sort of bounder, +who wants to have a good time and hasn't the pluck, don't you know?" + +"Are all prigs bounders?" asked Katharine, in a voice of dismay. + +"Oh, I expect so! It doesn't matter, does it? At least, there's a chap +in our office who is a bit of a prig, and he isn't a bounder exactly. +He's a very decent sort of chap, really; I don't half mind him, +myself. But they always call him a prig because he goes in for being +so mighty saintly; at least, that's what they say. I don't think he is +so bad as all that, myself." + +"Is it priggish to be good, then? I thought one ought to try." + +"My dear Kit, of course you are a girl; don't worry yourself about it. +It's altogether different for a girl, don't you see?" + +"Then girls are never prigs?" said Katharine eagerly. + +"Bless their hearts," said Ted vaguely; and she did not get any +further definition from him that evening. + +And so the days grew into weeks, and her life became filled with new +interests, and she told herself she was learning to live at last. But +she had her bad days, as well; and on these she felt that something +was still wanting in her life. And the end of February came, and Paul +Wilton had not yet returned to his chambers in Essex Court. + + + + +CHAPTER XII + + +The courts had just risen, and the barristers in their wigs and gowns +were hastening through the Temple on the way to their various +chambers. It was not a day on which to linger, for a pitiless east +wind swept across Fountain Court, making little eddies in the basin of +water where the goldfish swam, and swirling the dust into little +sandstorms to blind the shivering people who were using the +thoroughfare down to the Embankment. The city clocks were chiming the +quarter after four, as Paul Wilton came along with the precise and +measured step that never varied whatever the weather might be, and +mounted the wooden staircase that led to his rooms. A man rose from +his easiest chair as he walked into his sitting-room, and they greeted +one another in the cordial though restrained manner of men who had not +met for some time. + +"Sorry you've been waiting, Heaton. Been here long?" said Paul, +throwing off his gown with more rapidity than he usually showed. + +"Oh, no matter; my fault for getting here too early," returned Heaton +cheerily, as he sat down again and pulled his chair closer to the +fire. He never entered anybody's house without making elaborate +preparations to stay a long while. + +"Fact is," he continued, "it's so long since I saw you that, directly +I heard you were back, I felt I must come round and look you up. It +was young Linton who told me,--you remember Linton? Ran across him in +the club, last night; he knows some friends of yours,--Kerry, or +Keeley, or some such name as that; just been calling on them, +apparently, and they told him you had travelled back with them. +Suppose you know the people I mean?" + +Paul admitted that he knew the people he had been travelling with, and +Heaton rattled on afresh. + +"We were talking about you at the club, only the other afternoon; +coincidence, wasn't it? Two or three of us,--Marston, and Hallett, and +old Pryor. You remember old Pryor, don't you? Stock Exchange, and +swears a lot--ah, you know; he wanted to know what had become of you +and your damned career; it was a damned pity for the most brilliant +man at the bar, and the only one with a conscience, to be wasted on a +lot of damned foreigners, and so on. You know old Pryor. Of course I +agreed with him, but it wasn't my business to say so." + +He paused a little wistfully, as though he expected Paul to say +something to explain his long absence; but the latter only smiled +slightly, and walked across to his cupboard in the corner. + +"I'm going to have some tea," he observed, "but I don't expect you to +join me in that, Heaton. There's some vermuth here, Italian vermuth; +or, of course, you can have whiskey if you prefer it." + +"Thanks, my boy," laughed the other. "I'm glad to see that five months +in the infernal regions haven't spoilt your memory. Claret for boys, +brandy for heroes, eh?" + +He helped himself to whiskey, and then leaned back in his chair to +survey Paul, who was making a cigarette while the water boiled. There +was one of the long silences that were inevitable with Paul, unless +his companion took the initiative; and for the next five minutes the +only sounds to be heard were the singing of the kettle, the rise and +fall of footsteps in the court below, and the occasional rattle of the +window sash as the wind wrestled with it. Paul made the tea, and +brought his cup to the table, and flung himself at full length on the +sofa beside it. + +"Well," he said at last, "haven't you any news to tell me? Who is the +last charming lady you have been trotting round to all the picture +galleries,--the one who is more beautiful, and more intellectual, and +more sympathetic than any woman you have ever met?" + +Heaton laughed consciously. + +"Now, it's odd you should happen to say that," he said in his simple +manner. "Of course I know it's only your chaff, confound you, but +there _is_ just a smattering of truth in it. By Jove, Wilton, you must +come and meet her; you never saw such a figure, and she's the wittiest +creature I ever ran across! I'm nowhere, when it comes to talk; but +she's so kind to me, Wilton,--you can't think; I never met such a +sympathetic woman. Really, she has the most extraordinary effect upon +me; I haven't been so influenced by any woman since poor little May +died, 'pon my word I haven't. I can't think how it's all going to end, +I tell you I can't. It's giving me a lot of worry, I know." + +"Ah," said Paul gravely. "Widow?" + +"Her husband was a brute," said Heaton energetically. "Colonel in the +army, drank, used her villainously I expect, though she doesn't say +much; she's awfully staunch to the chap. Women are, you know; I can't +think why, when we treat them so badly. That's where they get their +hold over us, I suppose. But her influence over me is wonderful. I +wouldn't do anything to lose her respect, for the world." + +He blinked his eyes, and drank some more whiskey. Perhaps it occurred +to him that his companion was even less responsive than usual, for +there was more vigour and less sentiment in his tone when he resumed +the conversation. + +"You never tell me anything about yourself," he complained, rather +pathetically. "You draw me out, and I'm ass enough to be drawn; and +then you sit and smile cynically, while I make a fool of myself. How +about _your_ experiences, eh? 'Pon my word, I don't remember a single +instance of your giving me your confidence! You're such a rum, +reserved sort of chap. Well, I dare say you're right to keep it all to +yourself. It does me good to tell things; but then, I'm different." + +"My dear fellow, I've nothing to tell," replied Paul, smiling. "You +forget that my life is not full of the charming experiences that seem +to fall so continually to your lot. And your conversation is so much +more interesting than mine would be, that I prefer to listen; that's +all. I'm not secretive; I have merely nothing to secrete." + +"That's all very well," said Heaton, shaking his head; "but I'm older +than you, so that won't wash. You should have heard what those fellows +at the club were saying about you." + +"Yes? It doesn't interest me in the least," said Paul coldly. But tact +was not the strong point of his friend's character, and he went on, +notwithstanding. + +"Of course I didn't say much,--it isn't my way; besides, you know I +think you're always right in the main. But it's enough to make fellows +talk, when a man like you, who always sets his career before his +pleasure, goes away out of the vacation, and stays away all these +months. You must own it's reasonable to speculate a little; it's only +in man's nature." + +"Some men's," said Paul, as coldly as before. "I should never dream of +speculating about anybody's course of action, myself." + +"No, no, of course not; I quite agree with you, quite," said Heaton. +"By the way," he added, with bland innocence in his expression, "what +sort of people are these Kerrys you have been travelling with? An old +married couple of sorts, I suppose!" + +Paul raised himself on his elbow and drank his tea straight off, as +though he had not heard the question. He was always divided, in his +conversations with Heaton, between a desire to snub him and a fear of +wounding his sensitiveness. + +"You haven't told me the charming widow's name," he said, dropping +back into his former position. The other man's face brightened, and +the conversation again became a monologue until even Heaton's +prosiness was exhausted, and silence fell upon them both. And then, +very characteristically, as soon as he was quite sure he was not +expected to say anything, Paul suddenly became communicative. + +"The Keeleys are rather nice people," he observed, taking his +cigarette out of his mouth and staring fixedly at the lighted end of +it. "Mother and daughter, you know, just abroad for the winter. Nice +little place in Herefordshire, I believe, but they come to town for +the season,--Curzon Street." + +Heaton was wise enough to remain silent; and Paul went on, after a +pause. + +"Sat next to them at table d'hôte, and that sort of thing. One is +always glad of a compatriot abroad, don't you know! And the mother was +really rather nice," he added, as an afterthought. + +"And what was the daughter like?" asked Heaton. + +"Oh, just an ordinary amusing sort of girl! She's pretty, too, in a +sort of way, but I don't admire that kind of thing much, myself. And I +think she found me very dull." He paused, and looked thoughtful. "I +must take you there when they come up to town, Heaton. You'd get on +with them, and the girl is just your style, I fancy. She is really +very pretty," he added, becoming thoughtful again. + +"Nothing I should like better! Delightful of you to think of it!" +exclaimed Heaton, with a warmth that was a little overdone. His want +of a sense of proportion was always an annoyance to Paul. "You take me +there, that's all," he said, chuckling; "and let me have my head--" + +"Which is precisely what you wouldn't have," said Paul drily. "And I'm +sure I don't know why you want to know them; they are quite ordinary +people, and don't possess every grace and virtue and talent, like all +your other lady friends. However, I shall be very pleased if you +really care about it. But you'll be disappointed." + +Heaton agreed to be disappointed, and as another pause seemed +imminent, he began to think about taking his departure. But Paul did +not notice his intention, and seized the occasion to start a new +subject. + +"Look here, Heaton," he began, so suddenly that the elder man sat down +again with precision; "you say I never tell you anything about my +experiences. Does that mean that you really think I have anything to +tell?" + +Heaton looked at him dubiously. + +"I'm hanged if I know," he said. + +Paul smiled, a little regretfully. + +"After years of renunciation," he murmured, "to be merely accounted a +riddle! Then you think," he continued, with an interested expression, +"that I am not the sort of man women would care about, eh? Well, I +dare say you're right. But then, why do they ever care for any of us? +I never expect them to, personally." + +Heaton was looking at him in a perplexed manner. + +"Perhaps I didn't express myself quite clearly," he hastened to say, +with his usual wish to compromise. "I only meant that I sometimes +think you never can have cared for any one seriously. But I've no +doubt I'm wrong. And I never said that nobody had ever cared for +_you_; I think that's extremely unlikely. In fact-- Do you really want +me to say what I think?" + +"It would be most interesting," said Paul, still smiling. + +"Well," said Heaton decidedly, "I think you're the sort of man who +would break a woman's heart and spare her reputation, and perhaps not +discover that she liked you at all. I know what women are, and they +just love to pine away for a man like you who would never dream of +giving them any encouragement. And you have such a fascinating way +with you that you just lead them on, without meaning to in the least. +You can curse, if you like, Wilton; it's great impertinence on my +part, eh?" + +"My dear fellow," was all Paul said. As a matter of fact, he had never +liked him better than he did at that moment, and his words had set him +thinking. But Heaton's next remark undid the good impression he had +unwittingly made. + +"The fact is," he said, "a woman's reputation is worth only half as +much to her as her happiness." + +And his worldly wisdom jarred on Paul's nerves, and sounded +unnecessarily coarse to him in his present mood; and he did not try to +detain him again, when Heaton rose for the second time to take his +leave. When he had gone, Paul strolled to the window-seat and smoked +another cigarette, looking down into the wind-swept court. And his +thoughts deliberately turned to Katharine Austen. He had not seen her +for five months, he had not written to her for two, and her last +letter to him was dated six weeks back. It had not occurred to him, +until he drew it from his pocket now and looked at it, that it was +really so long as that since she had written to him; and he became +suddenly possessed of a wish to know what those six weeks had held for +her. Out there in the orange groves of the South, walking by the side +of the beautiful Marion Keeley, with the rustle of her skirts so close +to him and the shallow levity of her conversation in his ears, it had +been easy to forget the desperately earnest child who was toiling away +to earn her living in the dullest quarter of a dull city. But here, +where she had so often sat and talked to him, where they had loved to +quarrel and to make it up again, where she had given him rare +glimpses of her quaint self and then hastily hidden it from him again, +where she had been whimsical and serious by turns, where he had +sometimes kissed her and felt her cheek warm at his touch,--here, all +sorts of memories rushed back into his mind, and made him wonder why +he had yielded so easily to the persuasions of the Keeleys, and +remained so long away from England. It was impossible to name Marion +Keeley in the same breath with this curiously lovable child who had +held him in her sway all last summer, who had never used an art to +draw him to her, and yet had succeeded, by force of qualities that she +did not know she possessed, in gaining his sincere affection. Yet he +had hardly thought of her for two months, and she had not written to +him for six weeks. What had she been doing in those six weeks? It had +not seemed to matter, when he walked by the side of Marion Keeley, how +Katharine was passing her time in London; but now that Marion was no +longer near him, now that he was free from her fascination and the +necessity of replying to her banalities, it suddenly became of the +first importance to him to know what had happened to Katharine in +those six weeks. He had gone away, he told himself, because he had +taken fright at the situation, because he could not analyse his own +feelings for her, because everything, in the eyes of the world, was +hurrying them on to marriage,--and of marriage he had the profoundest +dread. And he had allowed himself to be captivated almost immediately, +by the ordinary beauty of an ordinary girl, someone who knew how to +play upon a certain set of his emotions which Katharine had never +learnt to touch. An expression of distaste crossed his face as he +threw away his cigarette only half smoked, and looked down at the +fountain as he had so often stood and looked with her in the hot days +of last July. Heaton's words returned to his mind with a new +significance: "Their reputation is worth only half as much to them as +their happiness." He remembered how he had parted from Katharine in +this very room, before he went abroad; and how he had congratulated +himself afterwards on having refrained from kissing her. But he had a +sudden recollection now of the look on her face as she turned away +from him; and, for the first time, he thought he understood its +meaning. + +He had never acted on an impulse in his life, before, nor yielded to a +wish he could not analyse; but this afternoon he did both. It was +about an hour later that Phyllis Hyam strolled into Katharine's +cubicle with the announcement that a gentleman was in the hall, +waiting to speak to her. + +"Bother!" grumbled Katharine, who was correcting exercises on the bed. +"He never said he was coming to-night." + +"It isn't Mr. Morton," volunteered Phyllis, from behind her own +curtain. "I've never seen him before. He's tall, and thin, and serious +looking, with a leathery sort of face, and a dear little fizzly +beard." + +She made a few more gratuitous remarks on the gentleman in the hall, +until she began to wonder why she received no reply to them, and then +made the discovery that the occupant of the neighbouring cubicle was +no longer there. + +Paul was already regretting his impulse. He had never been inside the +little distempered hall before, and it struck a feeling of chill into +him. A good many girls came in at the door while he was waiting, and +they all stared at him inquiringly, and most of them were dull +looking. He remembered the sumptuous house in Mayfair that would soon +contain Marion Keeley, and he shuddered a little. + +"I don't think I should like to live with working-women much," he +said, when Katharine came running down the wooden stairs. + +It was the only remark that came easily to him, when he felt the warm +clasp of her hand and saw the glad look in her eyes. + + + + +CHAPTER XIII + + +She was looking rather tired, he thought, when he examined her more +critically; her eyes seemed larger, and her expression had grown +restless, and she had lost some of the roundness of her face. But she +had gained a good deal in repose of manner; and her voice, when she +answered him, was more under control at the moment than his own. + +"I shouldn't think you would," she laughed. "I shocked them all at +breakfast, this morning, by saying I should like to try idle men for a +change!" + +It struck him that she would not have made such a remark when he left +her last autumn; and again he would have liked to possess a chronicle +of the last six weeks. But her laugh was the same as ever, and her +hand was still grasping his with a reassuring fervour. + +"Come back with me," he said, spontaneously. "We can't talk here, can +we? I dare say I can knock up some sort of a supper for you, if you +don't mind a very primitive arrangement." + +"It will be beautiful," she said; and the throb of pleasure in her +voice allayed his last feeling of suspicion. + +They found that, after all, they had very little to say to one +another; and they were both glad of the occupation of preparing +supper, when they arrived at the Temple and found that the housekeeper +had gone out for the evening. They made as much fun as they could over +the difficulties of procuring a meal, and avoided personal topics with +a scrupulous care, and did not once run the risk of looking each other +in the face. And afterwards, when they had made themselves comfortable +in two chairs near the lamp and conversation became inevitable, an +awkward embarrassment seized them both. + +"It's very odd," said Katharine, frowning a little; "but I have been +bottling up things to tell you for weeks, and now they seem to have +got congested in my brain and I can't get one of them out. Why is it, +I wonder? I can't have grown suddenly shy of you; but we seem to have +lost touch, somehow. Oh, it's queer; I don't like it!" + +She gave herself a little shake. Paul laughed slightly. + +"What an absurd child you are! It is only because we have not been +together lately, and so we've lost the trick of it. You are always +turning yourself inside out, and then sitting down a little way off to +look at it." + +"I believe I do," owned Katharine. "I always want to know why certain +things affect me in certain ways." + +"Did you want to know why you were glad to see me, this evening?" + +She looked up quickly at him for the first time. + +"No," she said, frankly. "At least, I don't think I thought about it." + +"Good child!" he said. "Don't think about it." And she wondered why he +looked so pleased. + +"Why not?" she asked him. "Please tell me." + +"Oh, because it isn't good for you to be always turning yourself +inside out; certainly not on my account. Besides, it spoils things. +Don't you think so?" + +"What things?" + +"Oh, please! I'm not here to answer such a lot of puzzling questions. +Who has been getting you into such bad habits, while I have been +away?" + +"Nobody who could answer any of my puzzling questions," she replied, +softly; and Paul asked hastily if she would make the coffee. He had +fetched her here as an experiment, a kind of test of his own feelings +and of hers; and he had a sudden fear lest it should succeed too +effectually. She went obediently and did as she was told, and brought +him his coffee when it was ready; and he submitted to having sugar in +it, since it compelled her to brush his hair with her sleeve as she +bent over him with the sugar basin. + +"Well?" he asked, in the next pause. She was balancing her spoon on +the edge of her cup, with a curious smile on her face. + +"Oh, nothing!" + +"Nothing must be very interesting, then. But I don't suppose I have +any right to know. Have I?" + +The spoon dropped on the floor with a clatter. + +"Of course you have! I wish you wouldn't say those things! They hurt +so. I was only thinking,--it wasn't anything important, but--I'm so +awfully happy to-night." + +"But that is surely of the very first importance. Might one know why? +Or is that some one else's secret, too?" + +She disturbed his composure by suddenly pushing her coffee away from +her; and there was an angry light in her eyes, as she sprang to her +feet and stood looking down at him. + +"Sometimes I think I hate you," she said; and the words struck him as +being strangely inadequate to the occasion. They might have been +spoken by a petulant child, and the moment before he had felt that she +was a woman. He put his cup down too, and went towards her. + +"Does sometimes mean now?" he asked jestingly. He was trying, +impotently, to prevent her from going any farther. But she took a step +backward, and did not heed his intention. + +"Yes, it does," she said, angrily. "I am tired of being treated like a +child; I am tired of letting you do what you like with me. One day you +spoil me; and another, you hurt me cruelly. And you don't care a +little bit. I am a kind of amusement to you, an interesting puzzle, a +toy that doesn't seem to break easily; that's all. And I just let you +do it,--it is my own fault; when you hurt me I hide what I feel, and +when you are nice to me I forget everything else. Oh, yes, of course I +am a fool; do you think I don't know it? You have only to touch my +face, or to look at me, or to smile, and you know I am in your hands. +I despise myself for it; I would give all I know to be strong enough +to put you out of my life. But I can't do it, I can't! And you know I +can't; you know I am bound up in you. Everything I feel seems to be +yours; all my thoughts seem to belong to you, directly they come into +my head; I can't take the smallest step without wondering what you +will think of it. Oh, I hate myself for it; you don't know how I hate +myself! But I can't help it." + +"Stop," said Paul, putting out his hand. But she waved him away, and +went on talking rapidly. + +"I must say it all now; it has been driving me mad lately. At first, +it seemed so easy to get on without you; but it grew much harder as it +went on, and when you stopped writing to me, I--I thought I should go +mad. It was so awful, too, when I had got used to telling you things; +there was no one else I could tell things to, and the loneliness of it +was so terrible! I wanted to kill myself, those days; but I was too +big a coward. So I got along somehow; and some days it was easier than +others, but it was always hard. Only, nobody ever guessed. Oh, if you +knew how I have learnt to deceive people! And there was always my work +to get through, as well; it has been horrible. And I could no more +help it than I could help breathing. I wanted to kill myself!" + +"Don't," half whispered Paul, and he came a little nearer to her. But +she turned and leaned against the mantel-shelf for support, and +clasped the cold marble with her fingers. + +"I must say it, Paul. If you like, I will go away afterwards and never +see you again. But I cannot let it spoil my life any longer; I feel as +though you had got to hear it _now_. When I wrote you that last +letter, I said that if you did not answer it I would not write to you +again, or think about you, or come and see you any more. And you +didn't answer it. I got to loathe the postman's knock, because it made +my face hot, and I was afraid people would find out. But they never +did! I came down to breakfast every day, in the hope of finding a +letter from you; and when there wasn't one, and everything seemed a +blank,--oh, don't I know the awful look of that dining-room when +there isn't a letter from you!--I just had to pretend that I hadn't +expected to find one at all." She paused expectantly, but this time +Paul made no attempt to speak. "I was never any good at pretending, +before," she went on in a gentler tone, "but I believe I could deceive +any one now. Only, I never succeeded in cheating myself! I used to +find out new ways to school, because the old ones reminded me of you; +and I had to do all my crying in omnibuses, at the far end up by the +horses, because I dare not do it at Queen's Crescent, where I might +have been seen. For I did cry sometimes." Her voice trembled, and she +ended with a little sob. She buried her face in her hands. + +"So that is what you have been doing for these six weeks?" said Paul, +involuntarily. + +"Do you find it so amusing, then?" asked Katharine in a stifled tone. +He stepped up behind her, and twisted her round gently by the +shoulders, so that she was obliged to look at him. The hardness went +from her face, and she held out her hands to him instinctively. +"Paul," she said, piteously, "I couldn't help it. Aren't you a little +bit sorry for me? What have I done that I should like the wrong +person? Other girls don't do these things. Am I awfully wicked, or +awfully unlucky? Paul, say something to me! Are you very angry with +me? But I couldn't help it, I couldn't indeed! I have tried so hard to +make myself different, and I can't!" + +He bit his lip and tried to say something, but failed. + +"And after all," she added in a low tone, "when I had been schooling +myself to hate you for six weeks, I nearly went mad with joy when +Phyllis came and told me you were in the hall. Oh, Paul, I know I am +dreadfully foolish! Will you ever respect me again, I wonder?" + +There was a quaint mixture of humour and pathos in her tone; and he +gathered her into his arms and kissed her tenderly, without finding +any words with which to answer her. She clung to him, and kissed him +for the first time in return, and forgot that she had once thought it +wrong to be caressed by him; just now, it seemed the most natural +thing in the world that he should be comforting her for the suffering +of which he himself was the cause. And her passionate wish to rouse +him from his apathy had ended in a weak desire to regain his tolerance +at any cost. + +"You are not angry with me? I haven't made you angry?" she asked him +in an anxious whisper. + +"No, no, you foolish child!" was all he said as he drew her closer. + +"But it was dreadful of me to say all those things to you, wasn't it?" + +"I like you to say dreadful things to me, dear." + +She swayed back from him at that, with her two hands on his shoulders. + +"Do you mean that, really? But--you _must_ think it dreadfully wicked +of me to let you kiss me, and to come and see you like this? It is +dreadfully wicked, isn't it? Oh, I know it is; everybody would say +so." + +"I can't imagine what you mean. You are a dear little Puritan to me. +You don't know what you are saying. Come, there are all those things +you have got to tell me. I want to hear everything, please; whom you +have been flirting with, and all sorts of things. Now, it is no use +your pretending that you are going to hide anything from me, because +you know you can't!" + +He had resumed his former manner with a rather conscious effort, and +drew her down beside him on the sofa. She tried to obey him, but she +could think of very little to say; and towards ten o'clock, Paul +looked at his watch. + +"My child, you must go," he said. Katharine rose to her feet with a +sigh. + +"I don't want to go," she said, reluctantly. + +"Has it been nice, then?" he asked, smiling at her dejected face. + +"It has been the happiest evening I have ever spent," she said, +looking away from him. + +"Surely not!" laughed Paul. "Think of all the other evenings at the +theatre, with Ted and Monty and all the rest of them!" + +"You know quite well," she said indignantly, "that I like being with +you better than with any one else in the world. You know I do, don't +you?" she repeated, anxiously. + +"It is enough for me that you say so," replied Paul; and they stood +silent for a moment or two. "Come, you really must go, child," he said +again. Katharine still remained motionless, while he put on his coat. + +"Must I?" she said, dreamily. He came back to her and gave her a +gentle shake. + +"What is it, you strange little person? I believe you would have been +much happier if I had not come back to bother you, eh?" + +She denied it vehemently, and exerted herself to talk to him all the +way home in the cab. She was solemn again, however, when the time +came to say good-bye. + +"May I see you again soon?" she asked him wistfully. + +"Why, surely! We are going to have lots of larks together, aren't we? +Well, what is it now?" + +"Oh, I was only thinking!" + +"What about?" + +She unlocked the door with her latch-key before she replied. + +"It seems so odd," she said, "that I care more about your opinion than +about anybody else's in the whole world; and yet I have given you the +most reason to think badly of me. Isn't it awfully queer?" + +She shut the door before he had time to answer her. And Paul walked +home, reflecting on the futility of experiments. + + + + +CHAPTER XIV + + +The Sunday afternoon on which the Honourable Mrs. Keeley gave her +first reception, that season, was a singularly dull and sultry one. +The room was filled with celebrities and their satellites; and +Katharine's head was aching badly, as she struggled with difficulty +through the crowd and managed to squeeze herself into a corner by the +open window. She was always affected by the weather; and to-day, she +felt unusually depressed by the absence of sunshine. A voice from the +balcony uttered her name, and she turned round with a sigh, to be met +by the complacent features of Laurence Heaton. For a moment she did +not recognise him; and then, the sound of his voice carried her back +to Ivingdon, and she smiled back at him for the sake of the +associations he brought to her mind. + +"Is it really two years?" he was saying. "Seems impossible when I look +at your face, Miss Austen. Two years! And what have you been doing +with yourself all this time, eh? And how do you contrive to look so +fresh on a day like this? I am quite charmed to have this opportunity +of renewing so pleasant an acquaintance." + +He forgot that, when he had known her before, she had annoyed him by +not being in his style. And Katharine answered him vaguely, while her +eyes wandered over the crowd of faces; for Paul had told her he was +going to be there, and she felt restless. + +"Small place the world is, to be sure," continued Heaton, with the air +of a man who says something that has not been said before. "Who would +have expected you to turn up at my old friends', the Keeleys'? Most +curious coincidence, I must say!" Katharine, who knew of his very +recent introduction to the house, explained her own relationship +demurely. But her companion was quite unabashed, and changed the +conversation skilfully. + +"Wilton often comes here, he tells me. You remember Wilton, don't you? +Ah, of course you do, since it is to him that I owe your charming +acquaintance," he said, gallantly. "He met them at Nice, or somewhere. +Astonishing how many people one meets at Nice! Wilton always meets +every one, though, and every one likes him; he's so brilliant, don't +you think? Yes, brilliant exactly describes him. Ever seen him since +he stayed in your delightful rural home?" + +"Oh, I see him here sometimes. And my aunt is expecting him to-day, I +believe." + +"I have no doubt of it, no doubt of it whatever!" smiled Heaton, +nodding his head wisely. "If I'm not very much mistaken, Wilton is +often the guest of Mrs. Keeley, is he not?" + +The meaning in his remarks was wasted on Katharine, for most of her +attention was still concentrated on the doorway. But Heaton, to whom +she was more of an excuse than a reason for conversation, rambled on +contentedly. + +"Nice fellow, Wilton, to bring me here, pretending he wanted me to +know her! Not much chance of that, I fancy! I haven't had two words +with her since I first called here with him, three weeks ago. Ah, +well, I mustn't be surprised at that,--an old fellow like me; though I +would have you know, Miss Austen, that I am still young enough to +admire the charms of a beautiful woman! But it is amusing, all the +same, to watch how a serious fellow like Wilton suddenly forgets all +his prejudices against marriage, and behaves like every one else. If +it had been me, now--but then, I'm a marrying man, and I've had two of +the sweetest wives God ever gave to erring man-- Ah, I beg your +pardon?" + +"I--I don't quite understand," said Katharine. + +"Nobody does, my dear young lady; nobody does. It is impossible to +understand a clever, quiet sort of chap like Wilton. To begin with, he +doesn't mean you to. But I'm heartily glad he has made such a +fortunate choice; he is an old friend of mine, and my friends' +happiness is always my happiness. He is lucky, for all that; beauty +and money and influence, all combined in one charming person, are not +to be despised, are they? She is so sweet, too; and sweetness in a +woman is worth all the virtues put together, don't you agree with me? +Now, tell me,--woman's opinion is always worth having,--do you +consider her so very pretty?" + +"I don't know whom you mean," said Katharine. She was wishing he would +take his idle chatter away to some one else. But Heaton was accustomed +to inattention on the part of his hearers, and he was not disconcerted +by hers. + +"Why, the beautiful Miss Keeley, to be sure," he replied. "For all +that," he added, hastily, "I think she is rather overrated, don't +you?" This was meant to be very cunning, for he prided himself on +being an accomplished lady's man. But Katharine's reply baffled him. + +"Do you mean Marion? I think she is beautiful," she said, warmly. "I +am not surprised that every one should admire her." + +"Just so, just so; quite my view of the case!" exclaimed Heaton, at +once. "I call her unique, don't you? 'Pon my word, I never felt more +pleased at anything in my life! What a future for Wilton, with the +Honourable Mrs. Keeley for a mother-in-law, and her beautiful daughter +for a wife; why, we shall see him in Parliament before long! The +Attorney-General of the future,--there's no doubt about it. Ah, I see +you are smiling at my enthusiasm, Miss Austen. That is because you do +not know me well enough to realise how much my friends are to me. All +the real happiness in my life comes from my friends, it does indeed. +But I am boring you with this dull conversation about myself. Come +along with me, and I'll see where the ices are to be found. Young +people always like ices, eh?" + +And she yielded to his kindly good-nature, even while she felt +indignant with him for spreading such an absurd piece of gossip. And +what had Paul been doing, to allow such an idea to take root in his +foolish old head? He had known nothing of the rumour on Wednesday, for +she had been to a concert with him then, and he had never once alluded +to her cousin. Of course, it was ridiculous to give it another +thought, and she roused herself to chatter gaily to her companion as +they slowly made their way downstairs. + +But, as she stood in the crowded dining-room, wedged between the table +and Heaton who was occupied for the moment in seeking for champagne +cup, she became again the unwilling hearer of that same absurd piece +of gossip. It sounded less blatant, perhaps, from the lips of the two +magnificent dowagers who were lightly discussing it, but it was hardly +less vulgar in its essence; and Katharine ceased to be gay, and shrank +instinctively away from them. + +"Who is he? I seem to know the name, but I never remember meeting him +anywhere. Surely her mother would not throw her away on a nobody? She +expects such great things from Marion, one is always led to believe; +though she is just the sort of girl to end in being a disappointment, +don't you think so?" + +"My dear, it is a _fait accompli_, and he is not a nobody at all. He +would not visit here if he were; at least, not seriously. His name is +Wilton,--something Wilton, Peter or Paul or one of the apostles, I +forget which. He belongs to a very good Yorkshire family, I am told. +His father was a bishop, or it may have been a canon; at all events, +he was not an ordinary person. Mr. Wilton, this one, is one of our +rising men, I believe,--a lawyer, or a barrister, or something of that +sort. He defended the plaintiff in the Christopher case, don't you +remember? And with Mrs. Keeley to back him up, he will soon be in the +front rank,--there is no doubt about that. They always ice the coffee +too much here, don't they? Have you seen Marion to-day?" + +"Yes. She's over there in the same green silk. Wonderful hair, isn't +it? A little too red for my taste, but any one can see it is +wonderful. He's over there too, but you can't see him from here. He is +much older than Marion, and delicate looking. I shouldn't like a child +of mine to marry him, but that's another matter. And, of course, all +_my_ girls were so particular about looks. How insufferably hot it +is! Shall we go upstairs?" + +Laurence Heaton had a second glass of champagne cup, and when he had +drunk it he found that Katharine was gone. He dismissed her from his +mind without any difficulty, however, and fought his way upstairs to +find some one who was more to his taste. He certainly did not connect +her disappearance with his gossip, nor yet with his old friend, Paul +Wilton. + +And Katharine could not have told him herself why she had slipped away +so abruptly. Of course, the rumour was not true; she did not believe a +word of it; and it was disloyal to Paul even to be annoyed by it. But +it was disquieting, all the same, to hear his name so persistently +coupled with her cousin's; and she wondered if her aunt knew any of +his views against marriage, to which she had been so often a humble +listener. And it was equally certain that he was one of the most +rising men of the day; she did not want to be told that by a number of +society gossips, who had never even heard of him until he paid his +attentions to one of their set,--just the ordinary attentions of a +courteous man to a beautiful woman. Had he not repeatedly told her +that she knew more about his real life and his real self, more about +his ambition and his work, than any one else in the world? He had +chosen her out of all his friends for a confidant; and yet, she might +not even acknowledge her friendship for him. He only trifled with +Marion, teased her about the number of her admirers, talked to her +about the colour of her hair, and the daintiness of her appearance; he +had told her that, too. Marion knew nothing of his aspirations; she +would not understand them, if she did. And yet it was common talk that +he admired Marion, while _she_ was to make a secret of her intimacy +with him. Something of the old feeling of rebellion against him, which +had been dead ever since the evening they had supped together in his +chambers, was in her mind as she left the house where he was sitting +with Marion, and walked aimlessly towards the park. The sun had +completely vanished in a dull red mist; and the intense heat and lurid +atmosphere did not tend to raise her spirits. A nameless feeling of +impending trouble crept over her, and she felt powerless to shake it +off. She wandered along the edge of the crowds as they listened to the +labour agitators, past groups of children playing on the grass, past +endless pairs of lovers in their Sunday garments, until the noisy +tramp of footsteps began to grate upon her nerves; and she turned and +fled from the park, as she had fled from Curzon Street. Something at +last took her towards the Temple, and an hour later she was knocking +furtively at the door of Paul's chambers. She had never been there on +a Sunday before, and the deserted look of the courts, and the silk +dress of the housekeeper whom she met on the stairs, depressed her +still further. Would she come in and wait, the housekeeper suggested, +as Mr. Wilton was out, and had not said when he would be back? But +Katharine shook her head wearily, and turned her face homewards. Even +the solitude of Queen's Crescent could not be worse than the +unfriendliness of the deserted London streets. She went out of her way +to walk down Curzon Street, without knowing why she did so, and took +the trouble to cross over to the side opposite her aunt's house, also +without a definite purpose in her mind. It was not much after eight, +but the storm was still gathering, and there was only just enough +daylight left to show the figure of a girl on the balcony. It was +Marion, beyond any doubt Marion, who was leaning forward and looking +down into the street as though she expected to see some one come out +of the house. The front door opened, and a man came down the steps; +he looked up and raised his hat, and lingered; and Marion glanced +hastily around, kissed her fingers to him, and vanished indoors. The +man walked away down the street with a leisurely step, and Katharine +stepped back into the shadow of the portico. But her caution was quite +unnecessary, for neither of them had noticed her. + +For the second time that evening Katharine knocked gently at the door +of Paul's chambers in the Temple. This time, he opened to her himself. + +"Good heavens!" he was startled into exclaiming. "What in the name of +wonder has brought you here at this time of night? It is to be hoped +you didn't meet any one on the stairs, did you?" + +He motioned her in as he spoke, and shut the door. Katharine walked +past him in a half-dazed kind of way. There had been only two feelings +expressed in his face, and one was surprise, and the other annoyance. + +"What is it, Katharine? Has anything gone wrong?" he demanded in his +low, masterful tone. Katharine turned cold; she had never realised +before how pitilessly masterful his tone was. + +"I couldn't help coming,--I was so miserable! They were all saying +things about you, things that were not true. And I wanted to hear you +say they were not true. I couldn't rest; so I came. Are you angry with +me for coming, Paul?" + +She faltered out the words, without looking at him. Paul shrugged his +shoulders, but she did not see the movement. + +"It was hardly worth while, was it, to risk your reputation merely to +confirm what you had already settled in your own mind?" + +She opened her eyes, and stared at him hopelessly. Paul walked away to +look for some cigarette papers in the pocket of a coat. + +"Was it?" he repeated, with his back turned to her. Katharine +struggled to answer him. + +"You have never spoken to me like that, before," she stammered at +last. + +"You have never given me any cause, have you?" said Paul, rather +awkwardly. + +"But what have I done?" she asked, taking a step towards him. "I +didn't know you would mind. I always come to you when I am unhappy; +you told me I might. And I was unhappy this evening; so I came. Why +should it be different this evening? I don't understand what you mean. +Why are you angry with me? You have never been angry before. What have +I done?" + +"My dear child, there is no occasion for heroics," said Paul, speaking +very gently. "I am not angry with you at all. But you must own that it +is at least unusual to call upon a man, uninvited, at this unearthly +hour. And hadn't you better sit down, now you have come?" + +Katharine did not move. + +"What does it matter if it is unusual?" she asked. "You know I have +been here sometimes, as late as this, before. There is no harm in it, +is there? Paul! tell me what I have done to annoy you?" + +Paul gave up rummaging in his coat pocket, and came and sat on the +edge of the table, and made a cigarette. + +"I seem to remember having this same argument with you before," he +observed. "Don't you think it is rather futile to go all through it +again? You know quite well that it is entirely for your sake that I +wish to be careful. Hadn't we better change the subject? If you are +going to stop, you might be more comfortable in a chair." + +Katharine clenched her hands in the effort to keep back her tears. + +"I am not going to stay," she cried, miserably. "I can't understand +why you are so cruel to me; I think it must amuse you to hurt me. Why +do you ask me to come and see you sometimes, quite as late as this, +and then object to my coming to-night? I don't know what you mean." + +Paul lighted his cigarette before he answered her. + +"You have quite a talent, Katharine, for asking uncomfortable +questions. If you cannot see the difference between coming when you +are asked, and coming uninvited, I am afraid I cannot help you. Would +you like any coffee or anything?" + +All at once her brain began to clear. For two hours she had been +wandering aimlessly through the streets, in a strange bewilderment of +mind, not knowing why she was there nor where she was going. Then she +had found herself in Fleet Street; and habit, rather than intention, +had brought her to the Temple. And now his maddening indifference had +touched her pride, and her deadened faculties began slowly to revive +under the shock. She put her fingers over her eyes, and tried to +think. The blood rushed to her face, and she thrilled all over with a +passionate instinct of resistance. He did not know what to make of +her, when she stepped suddenly in front of him and faced him +unflinchingly. + +"You must not expect me to see the difference," she said, proudly. "I +shall never understand why I have to make a secret of what is not +wrong, nor why you allow me to do it at all if it is wrong. I think +you have been playing with my friendship all the time; I can see now +that you have not valued it, because I gave it you so freely. But I +didn't know that; I wasn't clever enough; and I had never liked +anybody but you. I didn't know that I ought to hide it, and pretend +that I didn't like you. Perhaps, if I had done that you would have +gone on liking me." + +He was going to interrupt her, but she did not give him time. + +"Would you ask Marion Keeley to come and see you, as you have asked +me?" + +Paul's face grew dark, and she trembled suddenly at her own boldness. + +"I fail to see how such a question can interest either of us," he +said, coldly. + +"But would you ask her?" she repeated. + +"I am perfectly assured," he replied, quietly, "that if I were to +forget myself so far as to do so, Miss Keeley would certainly not +come." + +"Then you mean to say that it has always been dreadfully wrong of _me_ +to come?" + +"Really, Katharine, you are very quarrelsome this evening," said Paul, +with a forced laugh. "I have repeatedly pointed out to you that a man +chooses some of his friends for pleasure, and others for business. I +really fail to see why I should be subjected to this minute catechism +at your hands." + +"Then you chose Marion--for business? It is true, then, what they +said! I wish--oh, I wish you had never chosen me--for pleasure!" + +The anger had died out of her voice; he could hardly hear what she +said; but he made a last attempt to treat the matter lightly. + +"I really think, my child, that any comparison between you and your +cousin is unnecessary," he began in a conciliating manner. + +"I thought so too, until to-day," she replied, piteously. + +"But what has happened to-day to put you in this uncomfortable frame +of mind?" + +"It is what every one is saying about you and Marion,--all those +horrid people, and Mr. Heaton, and everybody. I want to know if it is +true. Everything is going wrong, everywhere. I wish I were dead! I +came to ask you if it is true; I thought I might do that; I thought I +knew you well enough. I didn't know you would mind. If you like, I +will go away now, and never come and see you any more, or bother you, +or let you know that I care for you so awfully. Only, tell me first, +Paul, whether it is true or not?" + +Her voice had risen, as she went on, and it ended full of passionate +entreaty. The stern look on his face deepened, but he did not speak. + +"I wish I knew the meaning of it all," she continued, relentlessly as +it seemed to him. "I wish it were easier to like the right people, and +to hate all the others. Why was I made the wrong way? If I had never +wanted to like you, it would have been so simple. It would not have +mattered, then, that you did not really care for me. But I wish I +understood you better. Why did you tell me that you wanted me for your +friend, always; and that you didn't believe in marriage, and those +things? I believed you so, Paul; and I was content to be your friend; +you know I was, don't you? And now you have met Marion, and she is +beautiful, and she can help you to get on, to become one of the first +men in the country, they said. And you have forgotten all about your +views against marriage; and you allow people to talk as though you +were making a kind of bargain. Oh, it is horrible! But it isn't true, +Paul, is it?" + +"Who has been telling you all these things?" he asked. + +"Then it is true? You are going to marry her, because of the position, +and all that? I wish it wasn't so difficult to understand. Is it a +crime, I wonder, to like any one so desperately as I like you? But I +can't help it, can I? Oh, Paul, do tell me what to do?" + +He winced as she turned to him so naturally for protection, even +though it was against himself that she asked it. + +"Don't talk like that, child," he said, harshly. And the hand she had +held out to him appealingly fell down limply at her side. + +"I can't expect you to think anything of me, after what I have just +said to you," she went on in the same hopeless voice. "Girls are never +supposed to tell those things, are they? It doesn't seem to me to +matter much, now that it has all got to stop, for always. I only +wish--I wish it had stopped before. I--I am going now, Paul." + +Although she turned away from him, she still half expected him to +come and comfort her. For a couple of seconds she stood quite still, +possessed with a terrible longing to be comforted by him. But he sat +motionless and silent on the table; even his foot had ceased swinging. +She walked unsteadily to the door. + +"Stop," said Paul. "You cannot go out in this storm." + +A peal of thunder broke over the house as he spoke. She had not +noticed the rain until then. + +"I must go," she said dully, and fumbled at the fastening of the door. +Paul came and took her by the arm, and led her back gently. + +"I want to explain, first," he said. + +"There is nothing to explain," said Katharine. "I understand." + +"Not quite, I think," said Paul. They were standing together by the +table, and he was nervously caressing the hand he held between his +own. "You have only been talking from your own point of view; you have +forgotten mine altogether. You do not seem to think that I, too, may +have had something to suffer." + +"You? But you do not care--as I do." + +He did not heed the interruption. + +"It is the system that is at fault," he said. "A man has to get on at +the sacrifice of his happiness; or he has to be happy at the +sacrifice of his position. It is difficult for a woman to realise +this. She never has to choose between love and ambition." + +"And you have chosen--ambition," said Katharine bitterly. + +"My child, when you are older you will understand that the very +qualities you affect to despise in man now, are the qualities that +endear him to you in reality. You are far too fine a woman, Katharine, +to love a man who has no ambition. Is it not so?" + +She quivered, and lowered her eyes. + +"I don't know," she said. "It seems so hard." + +"It is terribly hard for both of us," continued Paul, looking down +too. "But believe me, there would be nothing but unhappiness before us +if it were otherwise. I am thinking of you, child, as much as of +myself. Marriage for love alone is a ghastly mistake. There, I have +said more to you than I have ever said to any woman; I felt you would +understand, Katharine." + +He mistook her silence for indifference, and put his arms round her. +But she clung to him closely, and lifted her face to his and broke out +into a desperate appeal. + +"Paul, don't say those horrid, bitter things! They are not true; I +will never believe they are true. Why must you marry for anything so +sordid as ambition? Why must you marry at all? Can't we go on being +friends? I want to go on being your friend. Paul, don't send me away +for ever. I can't go, Paul; I can't! I will work for you, I will be +your slave, I will do anything; only don't let it all stop like this. +I can't bear it; I can't! Won't you go on being nice to me, Paul?" + +He threw back his head and compressed his lips. He had grown quite +white in the last few moments. She sobbed out her entreaties with her +face hidden on his shoulder, and wondered why he did not speak to her. + +"Why did you never look like that before?" he asked in a hoarse +whisper. She raised her head and stared at him with large, frightened +eyes. + +"Like what, Paul? What do you mean?" + +He flung her away from him almost roughly. + +"You must go," he said, "at once." + +She laid her hand on his arm, and looked into his face. + +"Why are you so angry?" she asked, wonderingly. "Is it because I have +told you all these things?" + +"My God, no! You must go," he repeated, vehemently, and pushed her +towards the door. She stumbled as she went, and he thought he heard +her sob. He sprang to her side instantly, and took her in his arms +again. + +"Why didn't you go quickly?" he gasped, as he crushed her against him. + +His sudden change of manner terrified her. None of the tenderness or +the indifference, or any of the expressions she was accustomed to see +on his face were there now, and his violence repelled her. She +struggled to free herself from his grasp. + +"Let me go, Paul!" she pleaded. "I don't want to stop any more. What +is the good of it all? You know I have got to go; don't make it so +difficult. Paul, I--I _want_ to go." + +He looked searchingly into her eyes, as though he would have read her +inmost thoughts; but he did not see the understanding he had almost +hoped to find there, and he laughed shortly and relinquished his hold +of her. + +"There, go!" he said in an uncertain tone. "Why did I expect you to +know? Your day hasn't come yet. Meanwhile-- Ah! what am I saying?" + +"I have annoyed you again," said Katharine sorrowfully. "What ought I +to have known?" + +"Oh, nothing," said Paul, flinging open the door. "You can't help it. +Now and again Nature makes woman a prig, and it is only the right man +who can regenerate her. Unfortunately, circumstances prevent me from +being the right man. Are you ready to come, now?" + +He spoke rapidly, hardly knowing what he said. But Katharine walked +past him without speaking, with a set look on her face. He talked +mechanically about the storm and anything else that occurred to him, +as they went downstairs, but she did not utter a word, and he did not +seem to notice her silence. She held out her hand to him as they stood +in the doorway. + +"You will let me see you to a cab?" he said. "Oh, very well, as you +like; but, at least, take an umbrella with you." + +She shook her head mutely, and plunged out into the rain and the +storm. It was on just such a night as this, more than two years ago, +that she had first gone out to meet him. Paul called after her to come +back and take shelter; and some one, who was walking swiftly by, +turned round at the sound of his voice. The dim lamp above shed its +uncertain light for a moment on the faces of the three, whom +circumstances had thus strangely brought together in the fury of that +June thunder-storm. It was only for a moment. Paul drew back again +into the doorway, and Katharine stumbled blindly against the man +outside. + +"Ted!" she cried, with a sob of relief. "Take me home, Ted, will you? +Something terrible has happened to me; I can't tell you now. Oh, I am +so glad it is you!" + +She clung to his arm convulsively. Some clock in the neighbourhood was +striking the hour, and it struck twelve times before Ted spoke. + +"Kitty!" he said. + +She waited, but not another word came. Exhaustion prevented her from +resisting, as he led her to a hansom, and paid the driver, and left +her. Then she remembered dimly that he had not spoken to her, except +for that one startled exclamation. + +It seemed to Katharine as though nothing could be wanting to complete +her wretchedness. + + + + +CHAPTER XV + + +But, humiliated as she was, the predominant feeling in her mind was +astonishment. Could it be true that she was a prig? Was that the final +definition of the pride and the strength in which she had gloried +until now? Was that all that people meant when they told her she was +not like other girls? It was an odious revelation, and for the moment +her self-respect was stunned by it. She had boasted of her success; +and to be successful was merely to be priggish. She had been proud of +her virtue; and virtue, again, was only an equivalent for +priggishness. She wondered vaguely whether there was a single +aspiration left that did not lead to the paths of priggishness. A +prig! He had called her a prig! She had thought it such a fine thing +to be content with his friendship, and this was the end of it all. All +the wretchedness of her solitary drive home was centred in those last +cruel words of his; all the bitterness of that long, miserable Sunday +was concentrated in that covert insult. She could have borne his +indifference, or even his displeasure; but she could have killed him +for his contempt. + +And Ted? She did not give a thought to Ted. Even the reason for his +curious behaviour had not fully dawned upon her yet. It had only +seemed in keeping with the rest of her misfortunes, just like the +rain, which she allowed to beat in upon her, with a kind of reckless +satisfaction. In the fulness of her more absorbing personal trouble, +Ted would have to wait. It had been her experience that Ted always +could wait. It was not until she stood once more within the familiar +hall of number ten, Queen's Crescent, that the recollection of Ted's +astonished look returned to her mind; and then she put it hastily away +from her, as something that would have to be faced presently. + +As she walked into her room, too weary to think any more, and longing +for the temporary oblivion of a night's rest, the first thing that met +her eye was the unmade condition of her bed. The desolate look of the +tiny compartment was the crowning point of her day of woe; and the +tears, which she had kept back until now, rushed to her eyes. It +seemed a little hard that, on this day of all others, Phyllis should +have neglected to make her bed. She gave it an impatient push, and it +scraped loudly over the bare boards. + +"Stop that row!" said Polly's sharp voice from the other end of the +room. "You might be quiet, now you _have_ come in." + +"Is Phyllis asleep?" asked Katharine shortly. + +"Can't you be quiet?" growled Polly. "Haven't you heard she is worse? +Don't see how you should, though,--coming in at this hour of the +night!" + +"Worse?" With an effort, Katharine's thoughts travelled back over the +absorbing events of the day, to the early morning; and she remembered +that Phyllis had stayed in bed with a headache. "What is the matter +with her?" she asked, faintly. Everything seemed to be conspiring +against her happiness to-day. + +"Influenza. A lot you care! Nothing but my cousin's funeral would have +taken me out to-day, I know. I had to show up for that. Of course, I +thought you would look after her; I asked you to." + +Katharine had pushed aside the curtain, and was looking at the +flushed, unconscious face of her friend. She dimly remembered saying +she would stop with her; and then a letter had come from Paul, asking +her to meet him in the park, and she had thought no more of Phyllis. +She had not even succeeded in meeting him; and again her eyes filled +with tears at her own misfortunes. + +"I couldn't help it," she said, miserably. "How was I to know she was +so bad? Have you taken her temperature?" + +"Hundred and three, when I last took it. It's no use standing there +and pulling a long face. She doesn't know you; so it's rather late in +the day to be cut up. You'd better go to bed, I should say; you look +as though you'd been out all day, and half the night, too!" + +She ended with a contemptuous sniff. Katharine rubbed the tears out of +her eyes. The weariness had temporarily left her. + +"Let me sit up with her," she said. + +"You? What could you do? Why, you'd fall asleep, or think of something +else in the middle, and she might die for all you cared," returned +Polly contemptuously. "Can you make a poultice?" + +Katharine shook her head dumbly, and crept away. Her self-abasement +seemed complete. She lay down on her untidy bed, and drew the clothes +over her, and gave way to her grief. There did not seem a bright spot +in her existence, now that Phyllis was not able to comfort her. She +hoped, with a desperate fervour, that she would catch influenza too, +and die, so that remorse should consume the hearts of all those who +had so cruelly misunderstood her. + +A hand shook her by the shoulder, not unkindly. + +"Look here! you must stop that row, or else you will disturb her. +What's the good of it? Besides, she isn't as bad as all that either; +you can't have seen much illness, I'm thinking." + +"It isn't that," gasped Katharine truthfully. "At least, not entirely. +I was dreadfully unhappy about something else, and I wanted to die; +and then, when I found Phyllis was ill, it all seemed so hopeless. I +didn't mean to disturb any one; it was dreadfully foolish of me; I +haven't cried for years." + +Polly gave a kind of grunt, and sat down on the bed. It was more or +less interesting to have reduced the brilliant Miss Austen to this +state of submission. + +"Got yourself into trouble?" she asked, and refrained from adding that +she had expected it all along. + +Katharine began to cry again. There was so little sympathy, and so +much curiosity, in the curt question. But she had reached the point +when to confide in some one was an absolute necessity; and there was +no one else. + +"I haven't done anything wrong," she sobbed. "Why should one suffer so +awfully, just because one didn't _know_! We were only friends, and it +was so pleasant, and I was so happy! It might have gone on for ever, +only there was another girl." + +"Of course," said Polly. "There always is. How did she get hold of +him?" + +Katharine shrank back into herself. + +"You don't understand," she complained. "He isn't like that at all. He +is clever, and refined, and very reserved. He doesn't flirt a bit, or +anything of that sort." + +"Oh, I see," said Polly, with her expressive sniff. "I suppose the +other girl thought herself a toff, eh?" + +"She is the most beautiful girl I have ever seen," said Katharine +simply. "But I never knew he cared about that. He had views against +marriage, he always said; and he wasn't always talking about women, +like some men. I did not think he would end in marrying, just like +every one else." + +"More innocent you, then! I always said you ought to have stopped at +home; girls like you generally do come the worst cropper. You surely +didn't suppose he would go on for ever, and be content merely with +your friendship, did you?" + +"Yes, I did," said Katharine wearily. "Why not? I was content with +his." + +Polly gave vent to a stifled laugh. + +"My dear, you're not a man," she said in a superior tone. It added +considerably to the piquancy of the conversation that the subject was +one on which she was a greater authority than her clever companion. + +"But he really cared for me, I am certain he did," Katharine went on +plaintively; and her eyes filled with tears again. + +"Then why is he marrying the other girl instead of you? If she is so +beautiful, you're surely very good-looking too, eh? That won't wash +anyhow, will it?" + +Katharine was silent. She felt she could not reveal the full extent of +his infamy just then; there was something so particularly sordid in +having been weighed against the advantages of a worldly marriage and +found wanting; and she felt a sudden disinclination to expose the +whole of the truth to the sharp criticism of Polly Newland. + +"I haven't done anything wrong," she said again. "I don't understand +why things are so unfairly arranged. Why should I suffer for it like +this?" + +"Don't know about that," retorted the uncompromising Polly. "I expect +you've been foolish, and that's a worse game than being bad. Going +about town with a man after dark, when you're not engaged to him, +isn't considered respectable by most, even if it's always the same +man. I'm not so particular as some, but you must draw the line +somewhere." + +"I didn't go about with him much," said Katharine, making a feeble +attempt to justify herself. "He didn't care about it; he was always so +particular not to give people anything to talk about. He didn't care +for himself, he said; it was only for me. So I used to go to his +chambers instead. I couldn't be more careful than that, could I? And I +should have gone in the daytime, if I had had more time; but there was +all my work to get through,--so what else could I do? There wasn't any +harm in it." + +She could not see her companion's face, and was so full of her own +reflections that she failed to notice her silence. Polly did not even +sniff. + +"Then there's Ted," Katharine continued presently. "Even Ted was +strange to-night; and Ted has never been like that to me before. I +can't think what has come over everybody. What have I done to deserve +it all?" + +"Mercy me!" cried Polly suddenly. "Is there another of them? Who on +earth is Ted?" + +"Ted? Why, you must have seen him in the hall sometimes; he often +comes to take me out. I have known him all my life; he is only a +little older than I am, and I am devoted to him. I would not quarrel +with Ted for anything in the whole world; it would be like quarrelling +with myself. And to-night I ran into him, just as I came out of--of +the other one's chambers; and I was so glad to see him, because Ted is +always so sweet to me when I am in trouble; and--and Ted was quite +funny, and he wouldn't speak to me at all, and he just put me into a +hansom and left me to come home alone. I can't think why he behaved so +oddly. I know he used not to get on with--with the other one, and that +is why I never told him I had met him again up here in London; and I +suppose he caught sight of him to-night in the doorway,--there was a +lamp just above,--but still, he need not have been hurt until he had +heard my explanation, need he? Why has every one turned against me at +once?" + +Polly remained silent no longer. She turned and stared at the +prostrate figure on the bed, with all the power of her small, watery +blue eyes. + +"I really think you beat everything I ever knew," she exclaimed. + +"What?" said Katharine, who had turned her face to the wall, and was +occupied in meditating miserably on the problem of her existence. +"What do you mean?" + +Polly lost all control over herself. + +"Do you mean to tell me that you never saw any harm in all this?" she +cried emphatically. "Do you really mean to say that you have been +carrying on anyhow with two men at once, going to their chambers late +at night, and letting yourself be seen in public with them, without +knowing that it was unusual? Didn't you ever see the danger in it? You +are either the biggest fool in creation or the biggest humbug! One man +at a time would be bad enough; but two! My eye!" + +"But--there wasn't any harm," pleaded Katharine. "Why does no one +understand? It seemed quite natural to me. They were so different, +and I liked them in such opposite ways, don't you see? I have known +Ted all my life; he is a dear boy, and that is all. But Paul is clever +and strong; he is a man, and he knows about things. And I never knew +it was wrong; I didn't _feel_ wicked, somehow. I wonder if that was +what Paul was thinking, when he said I was a prig? Oh, dear! oh, dear! +I have never been so wretched in my whole life!" + +"Did he say that about you? Well, I don't wonder." + +Katharine looked hopelessly at her unsympathetic profile, with the +snub nose and the small chin, and the hair twisted up into tight +plaits and the ends tied with white tape; and her eyes wandered down +the red flannel dressing-gown to the large slippered feet that emerged +from beneath it. + +"You called me a prig, too," she said, humbly. "I overheard you." + +"I thought so then," said Polly gruffly. + +"Do you think so now? Is it true? Am I a prig?" She awaited the answer +anxiously. Polly gave her another pitiless stare. + +"I'm bothered if I know," she said. "But if you're not, you ought to +be in the nursery. Only don't go telling people the things you've +been telling me to-night, or you might get yourself into worse +trouble. You'd better go to sleep now, and leave it till to-morrow. My +conscience! you'd make some people sit up, you would!" + +Katharine felt she had endured as much contempt as she could bear that +evening; but she made a last attempt to recover some of her +self-respect. + +"I wish you would tell me why it is wrong to do things that are not +really wrong in themselves, just because people say they are wrong?" +she asked, rather sleepily. + +"Because people can make it so jolly unpleasant for you if you don't +agree with them," said Polly bluntly. "And if you fancy you're going +to alter all that, you must make up your mind to be called a prig. You +can't have a good time and defy convention as you've been doing, and +then expect to get off scot free without being called a prig; it isn't +likely. Most people are content to take things as they are; it's a +jolly sight more comfortable, and it's good enough for them. +Good-night." + +"I sha'n't sleep," Katharine called after her. And Polly sniffed. + +And the next thing that Katharine remembered was being awakened by her +in the early morning, and told in a gruff voice that she might sit +with Phyllis if she liked, until some one came to relieve her. + +"All right," she replied, drowsily. "How tired you look; didn't you +sleep well?" + +"Sleep? There wasn't much chance of that, when she was talking +gibberish all the time. She's quieter now, and you can fetch Jenny if +you want anything. I must be off; I shall be late as it is. Just like +my luck to get my early week when she is ill!" + +And there by the bedside of Phyllis Hyam, before any one else in the +house was astir, Katharine sat and pondered again over the events of +the day before. They seemed just as tragic as ever, separated as they +were from her by a few hours of forgetfulness; and she wondered +miserably how she was going to take up her life as usual, and go about +her work as though nothing had happened. "That is why it is so hard to +be a woman," she murmured, full of pity for her own troubles. And yet, +when Miss Jennings came and took her post in the sick-room, and she +was free to go to school, she found that it was a relief to be +compelled to do something, and her work seemed easier to her than she +had ever found it before. She had never given a better lecture than +she gave that morning; and something that was outside herself seemed +to come to her assistance all day, and remained with her until her +work was done. But when she returned home in the evening, the full +significance of her unfortunate situation stared her again in the +face; and the news that Phyllis was worse and was not allowed to see +any one was so in keeping with her feelings, that she felt unable even +to make a comment upon it. + +"I always said that Miss Austen hadn't a spark of feeling in her," +observed the girl who had given her the information; and Katharine +overheard her, and began to wonder mechanically if it were true. Every +faculty she possessed seemed deadened at that moment; she had no +longer the inclination even to rebel against her fate. She sat on the +stairs, outside the bedroom she was not allowed to enter, and took a +strange delicious pleasure in dwelling upon the whole of her +intercourse with Paul. There was not a conversation or a chance +meeting with him, that she did not go through in her mind with a +scrupulous accuracy; the pain of it became almost unendurable at +moments, and yet it was an exquisite torture that brought her some +measure of relief. She even forced herself to recall her last meeting +with him, and was surprised in an apathetic sort of way when she +found that she did not want to cry any more. + +And from thinking of Paul, she naturally fell to thinking of Ted too. +And it slowly dawned upon her, as she considered it in the light of +her present mood, that what Polly had said in her vulgar, +uncompromising manner, was the truth. For a whole year she had been +living in a false atmosphere of contentment; she had deluded herself +into the belief that she was superior to convention and human nature +combined, and she had ended in proving herself a complete failure. +Paul had seen through her self-righteousness, he had nothing but +contempt for her, and he had found it a relief to turn from her to the +human and faulty Marion Keeley. In the depths of her self-abasement, +she had even ceased to feel angry with Marion. + +And Ted had found her out. That was the worst of all. On the impulse +of the moment, she fetched some paper and wrote to him at once, +sitting there on the uncarpeted stairs, while the people passed up and +down unheeded by her. It was a very humble letter, full of pleading +confession and self-accusation,--such a letter as she had never sent +him before, and written from a standpoint she had never yet been +obliged to assume towards him. It was a relief at the moment to be +doing something; but she regretted her action the whole of the +following day, and hardly knew how to open his reply when she found it +awaiting her, on her return home in the evening. It was very short. + +"Dear Kitty," it ran:-- + + Don't mind about me. It's a rotten world, and I'm the + rottenest fool in it. I was only hit up the other night + because I was so surprised. Of course you're all right, and I + ought never to have been born. I knew all the time that you + were spoofing me when you pretended to care for me; but I + didn't know you cared for any one else, least of all Wilton. + He always seemed so played to me, but then I'm not clever. + Only, I advise you not to go hanging round his chambers at + night; people are so poor, and they might talk. Let me know if + you want me or anything. I won't bother you otherwise. + + TED. + +He still believed in her, then; only it was more from habit than +conviction. But she had destroyed his love for her. She realised these +two facts in the same breath, and she rebelled passionately at the +loss of the affection that had been hers for so long, though she had +valued it so lightly. + +"I do want you, now," she scribbled to him in pencil. "Will you come +here to-morrow evening? Miss Jennings has promised me the use of her +sitting-room. I shall expect you about seven." + +It seemed quite in harmony with the general wretchedness of those few +days that Phyllis should be seriously ill all the time. The +sixty-three working gentlewomen, who had never pretended to care for +the brusque shorthand clerk when she was in good health and trampled +without a scruple on their tenderest susceptibilities, now went about +on tiptoe, and conversed in whispers on all the landings, and got in +the way of the doctor when he came downstairs. And they one and all +condemned Katharine for her indifference, because she refused to +enlarge on the subject at every meal. + +"The conversation is never very exhilarating, at the best of times; +but when all those women take to gloating over a tragedy, it simply +isn't bearable," she was heard to exclaim; and the unlucky remark cost +her the last shred of her popularity at Queen's Crescent. + +She was waiting at her usual post on the stairs, when they came to +tell her that Ted was downstairs. He had come at her bidding; that +was consoling, at all events. But when she walked into Miss Jennings' +private room and saw his face as he stood on the hearthrug, her heart +sank again, and she knew that she was not to find consolation yet. He +held out his hand to her silently, and pulled forward a slender, +white-wood chair tied up with yellow ribbons, and imperilled a bamboo +screen crowded with cheap crockery, and finally sat down himself on +the edge of the chintz-covered sofa. Neither of them spoke for a +moment or two, and Ted cleared his throat uncomfortably, and stared at +the ferrule of his walking-stick. + +"I got your letter," he said at last, "and I've come." + +"Yes," said Katharine, "you've come." + +Having delivered themselves of these two very obvious remarks, they +again relapsed into silence; and Katharine glanced at the cuckoo +clock, and marvelled that so much concentrated wretchedness could be +crowded into something under five minutes. + +"Ted," she forced herself to say, in a voice that did not seem to be +hers, "Ted, will you never come and see me any more?" + +He lifted his head and looked at her; then looked away again. + +"Not unless you want me to do anything for you," he said. "I don't +want to bother, you see." + +She longed to cry out and tell him that he never bothered her; that +she wanted to see him more than she wanted anything in the whole +world. But something new and strange in his face, that told her he was +no longer a boy and no longer her willing slave, seemed to paralyse +her. To be proved inferior to the man she had always considered +inferior to her, was the hardest blow she had yet had to endure. + +"I don't know what you mean," she said, lamely. + +Ted hastened to be apologetic. + +"I'm beastly sorry," he said, and cleared his throat again. + +"I--I wish you would explain," she went on. + +"Oh, that's all right, isn't it?" said Ted vaguely. + +"It isn't all right; you know it isn't," she cried. "What makes you so +strange to me? You've never looked like that before. Is it I who have +changed you so, Ted?" + +"Oh, it's nothing," he said. "You've hit me up rather, that's all. +Don't bother about me. Did you want me for anything particular?" + +She looked in vain for any signs of relenting in his manner; but he +sat on the edge of the sofa, and played with his walking-stick, and +cleared his throat at intervals. In spite of the changed conditions of +their attitude towards one another, she felt that she was expected, as +usual, to take the initiative. + +"I wanted to tell you all about it, to explain," she faltered. "I +thought you would help me." + +"If it's all the same to you, I would rather not hear," said Ted, with +unexpected promptitude. "I know as much about it as I care to know, +thanks. _He_ wrote to me this morning, too." + +"He wrote to you? Paul?" + +"Wilton, yes," he replied, shortly, and glanced at her again. His +under lip was twitching, as it always did when he was hurt or +embarrassed. + +"What for?" she asked, wonderingly. + +"Oh, to explain, and all that! Hang the explanation! I didn't want him +to tell me he hadn't been a blackguard; I knew you,--so that was all +square. But I don't understand it now, and I don't want to. I can't +see any great shakes, myself, in playing about with a girl when you're +engaged to some one else. But I suppose that's because I'm such a +rotten ass. It's none of my business, any way; only, I think you'd +better be careful. But you know best, so that's all right." + +Again she longed to tell him that she was not so bad as he thought +her, and yet, much worse than he thought her; but the words would not +come, and she sat self-condemned. + +"You don't understand," she stammered presently. "I didn't know he was +engaged till yesterday. I saw no harm in it all; I only liked him very +much, as a friend. I liked you in quite a different way, I--" + +"You didn't know he was engaged?" said Ted, rousing himself suddenly. +"Do you mean to say he has been playing fast and loose with you, the +blackguard? If I had thought that--" + +"No, no!" she cried, in alarm at the fierceness of his expression. "He +never treated me badly; he made everything quite clear from the +beginning. It was my fault if I misunderstood him. But I never did; I +always knew we were just friends, and it was pleasant, and I let it go +on. Haven't you and I been friends, too, Ted? There was no harm in +that, was there?" + +"Oh, no," he said, bitterly. "There was no fear of any harm in it!" + +She realised his meaning, and blushed painfully as she felt that he +had spoken the truth. + +"Ted, do you hate me, I wonder?" she murmured. + +"What? Oh, that's all right. Don't bother about me. I was a rotten ass +ever to expect anything else." + +"But, I mean, because--because of the other?" she went on anxiously. + +Ted bit his lip, but did not speak. + +"Do you think it was wrong of me?" she pleaded. "Ted, tell me! I +didn't know; I didn't really. It seemed quite right to me; I couldn't +see that it mattered, just because of what people said. Would you +think it wrong of a girl to come and see you, if she liked coming, and +didn't care what people said?" + +Ted rose from his seat hurriedly, and picked up his hat. + +"I never said you were wrong, did I?" he said, gently. "You see, +you're clever, and I'm not, and it's altogether different. I was only +sorry, that was all; I didn't think you went in for that sort of +thing, and I was hit up, rather. But it was my fault entirely; and of +course you're right,--you always are. I sha'n't bother you any more, +now I know." + +"Ted, don't go," she said, imploringly, as he touched her hand again +and turned towards the door. "Don't you understand, Ted, that--that +_he_ only appealed to half of me, and-- I do care, Ted, and I want you +to come and see me again; I do really, Ted, I--" + +But he only smiled as incredulously as before, and spoke again in the +same gentle tone. + +"Thanks, awfully. But don't bother to spoof yourself about me; I shall +be all right, really. It was always my fault; I won't bother you any +more. Good-bye." + +And, haunted by his changed manner and his joyless smile, she went +back to her seat on the stairs, and sat with her hands clasped over +her knees and her eyes staring vacantly into space, as she tried in +vain to discover what her real feelings were. "Perhaps I haven't got +any," she thought to herself. "Perhaps I am incapable of loving any +one, or of feeling anything. And I have sent away the best fellow in +the whole world, and it doesn't seem to matter a bit. I wonder if +_anything_ could make me cry now?" And she took a gloomy pleasure in +conjuring up all the incidents of the last unhappy week, and laughed +cynically when she found that none of them had any effect upon her. + +"Why don't they light the gas?" complained the working gentlewomen, +when they came downstairs to supper. And when Katharine explained that +she had promised to light it herself and had forgotten to do so, they +passed on their way, marvelling that any one with so little feeling +should have her moments of abstraction like every one else. After they +had all gone down, she had a restless fit, and paced up and down the +landing until Polly Newland came out of the sick room, and stopped +her. + +"You might choose another landing, if you want to do that," she said, +crossly. "You've woke her up now; but you can come in if you like. She +has just asked for you." + +Katharine followed her in, rather awkwardly, and sat down on the chair +that was pointed out to her, and tried to think of something +appropriate to say. It was difficult to know how to begin, when she +looked round the room, and noted all the objects that seemed to have +belonged to some distant period in her life, before the world had +become so hard and cheerless. But Phyllis was looking the same as +ever, except that she was rather white, and her hair was strangely +tidy. She was the first to speak. + +"Hullo," she said. "I've been wanting to see you. What's the matter +with you, child?" + +The incongruity of being asked by the invalid for the cause of her own +malady did not immediately occur to Katharine. But the familiar tone +of sympathy went straight to her heart, and she broke down completely. +She had a dim notion that Polly remonstrated angrily, and that Polly +was sent out of the room; and after that she was conscious of nothing +except of the comfort of being able to cry undisturbed, until Phyllis +said something about red eyes, and they joined in a spasmodic laugh. + +"Poor old girl, what have they been doing to you?" she asked. + +"Everything has been horrid," gasped Katharine. "And you were ill, and +nobody understood, and oh, Phyllis!--I am a _prig_!" + + + + +CHAPTER XVI + + +Marion Keeley lay in an indolent attitude on the sofa by the window. +Her mother was addressing circulars at the writing-table, with the +anxious haste of the fashionable woman of business. Both of them +looked as though the London season, which a royal wedding had +prolonged this year, had been too much for them. + +"He is coming again to-night," said Marion, throwing down a letter she +had been reading. Her tone was one of dissatisfaction. + +"I know," replied her mother. "I asked him to come." + +Marion made a gesture of impatience. + +"Don't you think," she said, "that you might occasionally, for the +sake of variety, wait until his own inclination prompted him to come?" + +"I don't understand you," said Mrs. Keeley, absently. "I asked him +because I wanted to make final arrangements with him about Lady +Suffolk's drawing-room meeting, at which he has promised to speak +to-morrow." + +"It seems to me," observed Marion sarcastically, "that it would save a +lot of trouble if you were to marry him yourself." + +"It is very surprising," complained her mother, "how you persist in +dragging the frivolous element into everything. If you were only like +your cousin, now,--so earnest and so sympathetic! How is it that you +are really my daughter?" + +"I'm sure I don't know; in fact, I think it is the only subject on +which you have allowed me to remain ignorant," returned Marion, +calmly. "But you needn't bother about me; I am going out to dinner in +any case to-night, so you will be able to make your arrangements with +Paul without the distraction of the frivolous element. Meanwhile, +can't we have some tea?" + +The Honourable Mrs. Keeley returned to her circulars with a sigh. + +"One might almost think, to hear you talk, that you did not want to +marry him at all," she exclaimed. + +"One almost might," assented Marion; and she tore her letter into +little pieces, and threw them deftly into the waste-paper basket. Her +mother looked at her a little apprehensively. + +"How you can, even in fun, pretend to ignore the merits of a +character like Paul Wilton's is beyond my comprehension," she +grumbled. "What more can you want in a man, I should like to know?" + +"More? I don't want any more; I want a good deal less. I'm not +ignoring his merits; I only wish I could. I would give anything to +find a few honest human imperfections in him. It is his eternal +excellence that is driving me to distraction. What a fool I was ever +to let him take me seriously! Of course I never should have done, if +he had not provoked me by being so difficult to fascinate. He is one +of those awful people who are going to make heaven unbearable!" + +"Judging by your aggravating behaviour in this world, you won't be +there to help him," said her mother, who was losing her patience +rapidly after having wrongly addressed two wrappers. + +"I hope I sha'n't. If all the people go to heaven who are popularly +supposed to be _en route_, I should think even the saints would be too +bored to stop there. As for Paul, I grant you that he is eminently +fitted for a son-in-law, but I don't see why I should be the victim of +his heaven-sent vocation." + +"You are not married to him yet; and if you continue in this strain +much longer, I doubt if you ever will be." + +"Oh," said Marion, with sudden animation, "do you really think there +_is_ a chance of his breaking it off?" + +The opportune arrival of Katharine at this moment restored some of +Mrs. Keeley's good-humour. She approved very decidedly of Katharine, +not only because she was a working-woman, but also on account of her +patience as a listener. Katharine, she felt, would have made an ideal +daughter; Katharine understood the serious aspect of the political +situation, and she showed no signs of being bored when people gave her +their opinion of things. So she received her with genuine cordiality. + +"I am so glad you have come," said Marion, offering her a perfunctory +embrace. "You have interrupted mamma, and made tea inevitable. It is +quite providential." + +"I am glad to be the unwitting cause of so many blessings," said +Katharine drily. "I really came to say good-bye. I am going home +to-morrow." + +"Holidays already?" exclaimed Mrs. Keeley, as though she grudged even +the working gentlewoman her moments of relaxation. + +"They have not come too soon for me," observed Katharine, to whom the +last six weeks had seemed an endless period of waiting. "But I am +leaving town for good; so I suppose I shall not see you again for some +time. I mean to say, I have given up my teaching, and--" + +"How charming of you!" exclaimed Marion, who felt that the last +barrier to a warm friendship with her cousin was now removed. "Are you +really going to be like everybody else, now?" + +But the Honourable Mrs. Keeley was bitterly disappointed. + +"It is incredible," she said. "Do you mean to say that you are going +to throw up your life's work, just as you are on the point of being a +brilliant success?" + +"I think, on the contrary, I have merely been a failure," said +Katharine, with a patient smile. "You see, there are hundreds of +people who can do just what I am doing. But I am wanted at home, and I +am going back to my father; I ought never to have left him." + +"Oh, these girls!" sighed Mrs. Keeley. "What is the use of trying to +make them independent? And I thought you were so different; I held you +up as an example to my own daughter--" + +"I am so sorry," murmured Katharine, in parenthesis. Marion only +laughed. + +"I was proud to own you as my niece," pursued Mrs. Keeley, increasing +in fervour as she went on. "You were doing what so few women succeed +in doing, and I had the keenest admiration for your courage and your +talent. And to give it all up like this! Surely, you have some +excellent reason for such an extraordinary course of action?" + +"It seems to me quite sufficient reason that I am more wanted at home +than here," replied Katharine, with the same air of gentle endurance. +She had gone through a similar explanation more than once lately, and +it was beginning to blunt the edge of her newly made resolutions. It +also took away most of the picturesqueness of being good. + +"But, indeed, you are very much mistaken," her aunt continued to urge. +"Who has been putting this effete notion of _duty_ into your head? I +thought we working-women had buried it for ever! Consider what you are +doing in throwing up the position you have carved out for yourself; +consider the bad effect it will have upon others, the example,--everything! +Your place is the world, Kitty, the great world! There cannot be any +work for you to do in a home like yours." + +"There is always plenty to do in the village, and nobody to do it," +said Katharine. "I have considered the matter thoroughly, Aunt Alicia, +and my mind is quite made up. Anybody can do my work up here in +London; you know that is so." + +"Indeed, you are mistaken," said her aunt, vehemently. It seemed +particularly hard that her favourite protégée should have deserted her +principles, just as she had been driven to the last limit of endurance +by her own daughter. "Every woman must do her own work, and no one +else can do it for her." + +"Then why do you always say the labour market is so overcrowded?" +asked Marion, making a mischievous application of the knowledge she +had so unwillingly absorbed. But she was not heeded. + +"It is the mass we have to consider, not the individual," continued +the Honourable Mrs. Keeley, as though she were addressing the room +from a platform. "It is for lesser women than ourselves to look after +the home and the parish; there is a far wider sphere reserved for such +as you and I. It would be a perfect scandal if you were to throw +yourself away on the narrowness of the domestic circle." + +Katharine felt a hysterical desire to laugh, which she controlled with +difficulty. She spoke very humbly, instead. + +"It must be my own fault, if I have allowed you to think all these +things about me," she said. "There is nothing great reserved for me; I +am just a complete failure, and that is the end of all my ambition and +all my conceit. I wish some one had told me I was conceited, before I +got so bad." + +The Honourable Mrs. Keeley was silenced at last. None of her +experience of working gentlewomen helped her to meet the present +situation. A woman with a great future before her had obviously no +right to be humble. But Marion realised gleefully that she had gained +a new and unexpected ally. + +"I always said you were much too jolly to belong to mamma's set," she +observed; at which the angered feelings of her mother compelled her to +seek comfort in solitude, and she made some excuse for retiring to her +boudoir, and left the two rebels together. They looked at one another +and broke into mutual merriment. But Marion laughed the loudest,--a +fact that she herself was the first to appreciate. + +"Kitty," she said suddenly, growing grave, "I am so sorry, dear! +What's up, and who has been treating you badly?" + +She strolled away immediately to pour out tea, and Katharine had time +to recover from surprise at her unusual penetration. + +"How did you know?" she asked, slowly. + +"I guessed, because--oh, you looked like it, or something! Don't ask +me to give a reason for anything I say, _please_. It isn't my +business, of course, and I don't want to know a thing about it if you +would rather not tell; only, I'm sorry if you're cut up, that's all. +Did you chuck him, or did it never get so far as that? There, I really +don't want you to tell me about it. Of course, he was much older than +you, and much wickeder, and he flirted atrociously with you and you +were taken in by him, you poor little innocent dear! I know all about +it, and the way they get hold of girls like you who are not up to +their wiles. He was married, too, of course? They always are, the +worst ones." + +It was too much trouble to correct her assumptions, and Katharine +allowed her to go on. After all, her sympathy was genuine, if it was a +little crudely expressed. + +"I shouldn't think any more about him, if I were you," continued +Marion. "They're not worth it, any of them; go and get another, and +snap your fingers at the first. You're not tied to one, as I am." + +"No," said Katharine, scalding herself with mouthfuls of boiling tea. +"I'm not." + +"I know I would give anything to get rid of mine," said Marion +sorrowfully. "May you never know the awful monotony of being engaged!" + +"I don't fancy I ever shall," observed Katharine. + +"Always the same writing on the breakfast table," sighed Marion; +"always the same face on the back seat of the carriage; always the +same photograph all over the house,--oh, it's maddening! You wouldn't +be able to stand it for a day, Kitty!" + +"Perhaps not," said Katharine. "Then your engagement is publicly +announced now?" + +"I should rather think so! I am tired of being congratulated by a lot +of idiots, who don't even take the trouble to find out whether I want +to be married or not. And then, the boys! Bobby is going to shoot +himself, he says; but of course Bobby always says that. And Jack has +gone to South Africa; I don't exactly know why, except that every one +goes to South Africa when there isn't any particular reason for +staying in town. And Tommy--you remember Tommy, don't you? He was my +best boy for ever so long; I rather liked Tommy. Well, he has gone and +married that stupid Ethel Humphreys, and he always said she _pinched_. +I know why he did it, too. He was being objectionably serious, one +day, and said he would do anything on earth for me; so I asked him to +go and marry mamma, because then I should get eight hundred a year. +And he didn't like it a bit; Tommy always was ridiculously +hot-tempered. Oh, dear, I'm sick of it all! I believe you're the only +person I know, who hasn't congratulated me." + +"Apparently, you do not consider yourself a subject for +congratulation," said Katharine, smiling faintly. + +"Oh, you're not like all the others, and I should like to be +congratulated by you. You would mean what you said, anyhow." + +"I certainly should," exclaimed Katharine. + +"How earnestly you said that! It's frightfully nice of you to care so +much, though. I was telling Paul what a good sort you were, the other +day, and he quite agreed." + +"Wasn't it rather dull for him?" + +"Oh, no, I'm sure it wasn't; he takes a tremendous interest in you; he +says you are the cleverest woman he knows, and the pluckiest. He does, +really!" + +"I have no doubt of it. He has always thought me clever and plucky," +said Katharine. + +"Well, it's more than he thinks about me, anyhow," said Marion +ruefully. "He doesn't think I am good for anything, except to play +with." + +"And to fall in love with," added Katharine softly. + +"Why didn't you come and meet him the other evening?" continued +Marion. "He seemed so disappointed. So was I; I wanted you to come, +for lots of reasons. I get so bored when I am left alone with him! I +like him ever so much better if there is some one else there; and you +are the only girl I know who would be safe not to flirt with him. +Bobby said, only the other day, that you were much too nice to flirt +with. And girls are so mean, sometimes,--aren't they? I was really +sorry when you refused." + +"If you had told me the real reason for your invitation, instead of +the conventional one, I might have made more effort to come," said +Katharine. + +"You old dear, don't be sarcastic; I never can endure sarcasm. But you +will come next time, won't you? Oh, dear, I am forgetting all about +your own trouble; what a selfish wretch I am! Are you sure there is +nothing I can do for you?" + +"Nothing, thanks; at least, nothing I would let you do." + +"Sure? Well, let me know if there is. Are you really very gone on him, +Kitty?" + +"Please don't," said Katharine. + +"All right, I won't. But I wish you would try a course of boys for a +time; it would make you feel so much happier. They're so fresh and +harmless." + +"Even when they shoot themselves?" said Katharine. + +"Oh, that's only Bobby. Must you really go? You old dear, you have +done me such a lot of good. What is it, Williams?" + +Mr. Wilton was in the library, the man announced, and would be glad to +see either Mrs. Keeley or her daughter for a moment, and he would +rather not come upstairs, as he was in a hurry. Marion gave a petulant +little stamp. + +"Oh, send mamma to him! How like Paul, not to care which of us he +sees! Just fancy, if it were Tommy, now! Stop, though, show him up +here, Williams. You will be able to congratulate him, Kitty; it will +put him in a good humour. Oh, nonsense! you can wait just for that, +and I haven't anything to say to him that he hasn't heard hundreds of +times before." + +So Katharine found herself shaking hands with him once more, and +congratulating him on being engaged to her cousin, Marion Keeley. She +had not seen him since the night of the thunderstorm, when he had +stood in the old doorway in Essex Court, with the lamplight on his +face. + +"You are very good; it is kind of you to take so much interest," he +was saying with frigid politeness. + +They were silent after that, and Marion said she was sure they must +have crowds to talk about, and she would go upstairs and ask her +mother about Lady Suffolk's drawing-room meeting; and they both made +perfectly futile efforts to keep her in the room, and were ashamed of +having made them when she had gone, and they were left to face the +situation alone. + +"I suppose," said Paul, with an effort, "that your holidays will soon +be beginning?" + +"They have begun to-day," said Katharine. "This is the first day--of +my last holidays." + +"Your--last holidays?" She felt, without seeing, that he had looked up +sharply at her. + +"I don't suppose it will interest you," she went on, rousing herself +to be more explicit; "but I am giving up my work in London, and going +home for good." + +There was the slightest perceptible pause before he spoke. + +"Would you care to tell me why?" + +"Because," said Katharine slowly, "I happened to find out, through a +friend, that I was a prig; and I am going home to try and learn not to +be a prig any more." She was looking straight at him as she finished +speaking. His face was quite incomprehensible just then. + +"Was that a true friend?" he asked. + +"People who tell us unpleasant things about ourselves are always said +to be our true friends, are they not?" she said, evasively. + +"That is not an answer to my question; I was not dealing in +generalities when I asked it. But of course, you have every right to +withhold the answer, if it pleases you--" + +"I don't think I know the answer," said Katharine. "I have always +found your questions too difficult to answer; and as to this one,--I +wish I could be sure that it was a friend at all." He moved his chair, +involuntarily, a little nearer hers. + +"Can I do anything to make you feel more sure?" he asked. + +She shook her head, and he moved away again. "Of course, you are the +best judge in the matter," he resumed, more naturally; "but it is +rather a serious step to take at the outset of your career, is it +not?" + +"Perhaps," she said, indifferently; "but then, I am not a man, you +see. There is no career possible for a woman, because her feelings are +always more important to her than all the ambition in the world. A man +only draws on his feelings for his recreation; but a woman makes them +the whole business of her life, and that is why she never gets on. I +don't suppose you can realise this, because it is so different for +you. Everybody expects a man to get on; it is made comparatively easy +for him, and nobody ever disputes his way of doing it. A man can have +as much fun as he likes, as long as he isn't found out,--and it's easy +for a man not to be found out," she added, with a sigh. + +"Easier than for a woman?" He spoke in the bantering tone that was so +familiar to her. + +"Oh, a woman is dogged by detectives from her cradle, mostly drawn +from the ranks of her own sex. It is a compliment we pay ourselves, in +one sense. We dare not inquire into the private life of a man, because +of the iniquities he is supposed to practise; but there is so little +scandal attached to a woman's name, that we are anxious not to miss +any of it." She laughed at her small attempt to be frivolous, and Paul +brightened considerably. He could understand her when she was in this +mood, and his peace of mind was undisturbed by it. + +"I suppose the man is still unborn who will take the trouble to +champion his sex, and explain that men are not all profligates before +they are married," he observed. "I wonder why women always think of us +as cads, and then take us for husbands. I can't think why they want to +marry us at all, though." + +"And we can't think what reason there is for you to offer _us_ +marriage, unless you do it for position or something like that," +retorted Katharine, and then bit her lip and stopped short, as she +realised what she had said. In the embarrassing pause that followed, +Marion came back into the room. + +"Well, you two don't look as though you'd had much conversation," she +remarked. + +"We haven't," said Katharine, getting up to leave. "Mr. Wilton's +conversation, you see, is all bespoken already." + +"Miss Austen is a little hard on me," said Paul. "I have had so little +practice in conversation with brilliant and learned young lecturers, +that--" + +"That I will leave you to a less dismal companion," interrupted +Katharine, a little abruptly. + +"Will you allow me to suggest," he went on, as he held her hand for a +moment, "that you should try and think more kindly of the particular +friend who was so unpleasantly frank to you?" + +"If I thought that the friend in question were likely to be affected +by my opinion of him, perhaps I might," she said, as she turned away. + +When she had gone, Marion asked him what he had meant. + +"Merely a passing reflection on something she had been telling me," +was his reply. + +"Oh," said Marion, "did she tell you about her love affair?" + +"My dear girl, Miss Austen is not likely to favour me with these +interesting disclosures, is she? I didn't know she had a love affair, +as you rather frankly express it." + +"She isn't a bit the sort, is she? I only found it out this afternoon; +he's an awful beast, I should think,--led her on, and treated her +villainously, poor old Kitty! Isn't it a shame?" + +"Did she tell you all that?" + +"Don't look so surprised! Of course she did; at least, I guessed, +because she looked so miserable. I always know; I've had so much +experience, you see. But it's much worse for Kitty, don't you know, +because she takes things so seriously. It's a mistake, isn't it? I +would give a good lot to meet the man who has ill treated her, +though!" + +"Yes? What would you do to him?" + +"I would tell him he was a horrid little bounder, and that Kitty was +well rid of him." + +"In which case there is no occasion to pity her, is there?" + +"Oh, how unsympathetic you are! Of course it's just as bad, whatever +the man is like. It's always the saints like Kitty who break their +hearts for the most worthless men. I'm not made like that; I should +soon console myself with some one else, and make the first one mad. +But then, I'm not clever." + +"Your cousin is a most interesting psychological study," said Paul +vaguely. + +"What do you mean? She is a very nice girl indeed," cried Marion +indignantly; and Paul silently condemned the whole sex, without +reservation. + +It was a particularly bright and sunny evening when Katharine returned +to her home,--a failure. She felt that, to be appropriate, it should +have been dull and dreary; but it was on the contrary quite at +variance with her feelings, and she grew unaccountably happier in +spite of herself, as the train sped past the familiar landmarks on the +way and brought her nearer every minute to the home of her childhood. +For there was a sneaking consideration for herself in her sudden +desire to serve others; she had felt out of tune with the world since +it had been the means of revealing her deficiencies to herself, and +she longed for the panacea of home sympathy, which was still connected +in her mind with the days when she had been supreme in a small circle, +a circle that believed in her if it did not precisely understand her. +She had found something wanting in the sympathies and interests which +had absorbed her for the last two years, and she turned instinctively +to those earlier ones which may have offered her no great allurements +at the time, but which at least contained no rude awakenings. She +forgot the petty discomforts and frequent annoyances of her life at +home, in her present desire for rest and peace; she was tired of +fighting hard for her happiness and gaining nothing but a moiety of +pleasure in return; and the weary condition of mind and body in which +she found herself at the end of it all, probably helped her to +exaggerate the advantages of that former existence of hers, and to +mistake its monotony for restfulness. + +She had her first disillusionment as she hastened out of the station. +It was no one's fault that the Rector had been obliged to attend a +meeting of the archæological society, and that Miss Esther had been +detained in the village; but they had never omitted to meet her +before, and that they should have done so on this particular occasion +which was of so much import to her, appeared in the light of a bad +omen, and she set it down sadly as another penalty that she was to pay +for having neglected her real duty so long. But she had yet to learn +that her ardent desire to sacrifice herself for somebody did not bring +with it the necessary opportunity, and it was not encouraging to +discover that no one was particularly anxious to be the recipient of +her good works, and that her effort at well-doing was more resented by +those in authority than her previous and undisguised course of +self-indulgence. Even Miss Esther mistrusted her enthusiasm, and +evidently looked upon it as another freak on the part of her +capricious niece, which would probably prove as transient as the last; +and Katharine felt that she was touching the extreme limits of her +endurance in the first few days she spent at the Rectory. + +"It is very hard," she complained to herself when she had been home +about a week, "that they should make it so much easier for me to be +bad than good. All the same," she added, with a touch of her old +defiant spirit, "I am going to be good, whether they like it or not!" + + + + +CHAPTER XVII + + +Ivingdon was one of those villages, common to the chalk district, that +cease to possess any charm in the wet weather. The small ranges of +round-topped hills which formed the only feature in the flat green +stretches of country entirely lost the few characteristics they +possessed, in the absence of sunshine, and presented neither charm nor +majesty in the heavy grey atmosphere that surrounded them. The +landscape appeared even less inspiriting than usual to Katharine, on a +rainy day in the late autumn, as she plodded through the most squalid +part of the village, and prepared to walk home through a kind of mist +that had none of the exhilarating qualities of the stormy rain that +always appealed to her. After four months of dull and virtuous +renunciation, such a day as this was likely to hasten the reaction +that had become inevitable. It was tea time when she reached the +Rectory; and the aspect of the precisely arranged table, with its +rigid erection of double dahlias in the middle, and the starched +figure of Miss Esther at the head of it, completed the feeling of +revulsion in her mind. + +"My dear," said her aunt, as Katharine flung herself into a chair, +"have you no intention of making yourself tidy before we begin?" + +"My only intention is that of having tea as speedily as possible," +replied Katharine. "If Peter Bunce, or any other depressing personage +is likely to turn up, he may as well see me in my wet weather hat as +in anything else. Besides, I rather like myself in my wet weather hat, +in spite of the disapproval it has excited among the gods of the +neighbourhood." + +She waited instinctively for the reproof that usually came as an +accompaniment to her criticism of the neighbourhood; but Miss Esther +for once was preoccupied, and allowed her to go on undisturbed. "Mrs. +Jones has got another baby," continued Katharine. "That's the seventh. +And Farmer Rickard seems to have seized the opportunity to turn her +husband off for the winter. There positively isn't another scrap of +news,--so may I have some tea?" + +"Talking of babies," observed the Rector, looking up from his book, +"I heard this morning that some one was going to be married. Now, +whoever could it have been, I wonder!" + +"I didn't know," said Katharine, "that any one was left to be married +in this village, above the age of sixteen." + +"Ah, to be sure," continued the Rector, smiling at his unusual effort +of memory, "it was your cousin Marion. You remember Alicia Keeley, do +you not, Esther? Well, this is her daughter; they both came to stay +with us some years ago, if you remember; and she is to be married to a +barrister, whose name--my child, that is the third time I have passed +you the butter, and you have already helped yourself twice--whose name +is Paul Wilton. It's very odd," he added, with his nervous laugh, +"but, although the name is perfectly familiar to me, I do not seem to +recollect the man in the least. The only Wilton I can recall with +certainty is the exceedingly able and scholarly author of our best +work on copper tokens; but--" + +"Well, this is his son, of course, Cyril," interrupted Miss Esther +impatiently. "I should not have thought it required much effort to +remember the man who enjoyed your hospitality for at least two +months. A very nice young man he was, too,--of an excellent family, +and with a delicate regard for propriety which was most fortunate +considering the embarrassing circumstances in which we were placed at +the time. So he is going to marry into the family? What a coincidence! +I don't remember much about Marion, she was so young when she stayed +here; but if she has grown up at all like that terribly advanced +mother of hers, poor Mr. Wilton will have his hands full. How did he +meet her, I wonder? Did you ever see him in Curzon street, Katharine?" + +"Sometimes; they were engaged early in the summer. But it isn't a bit +important, is it?" said Katharine. + +"You knew they were engaged, and you have kept it to yourself all this +time?" exclaimed her aunt. "I really think you are the most +exasperating girl, Katharine!" + +"Why? I suppose it is rather cruel, though, to rob any one of the +smallest piece of gossip, in a place like this," observed Katharine +sarcastically. + +"To be sure! to be sure! I remember him perfectly," the Rector was +chuckling gleefully. "A delightful young fellow, with some knowledge +of Oriental china. We must send them a little present, my +dear,--something he would be able to appreciate. There is a delightful +Elizabethan chest at Walker's--" + +"I see no necessity for a wedding present at all," interrupted Miss +Esther. "We only know him very slightly, and we haven't seen the +Keeleys for years. If Katharine likes to send her cousin a little +remembrance, that is her own affair and she can do as she likes," she +added, with a princely condescension. "I really wonder, Cyril, that +you can make such an extravagant suggestion, with the poor crying out +at your very doors!" + +The Rector reflected on the beauty of the old oak chest he had coveted +for weeks, and sighed deeply. Katharine roused herself, and laughed in +a distinctly forced manner. + +"Send them your blessing, auntie," she said; "and congratulate Mr. +Wilton on his good fortune in entering our particular family. I am +sure it must be an alliance he has coveted ever since he first made +our acquaintance! It will only cost a penny stamp, and I am sure the +poor of the village will not grudge that for such a laudable object. +Hey-day, do let us talk about something else! Do you know the Grange +is put up for sale?" + +"You don't say so!" exclaimed Miss Esther, who was as easily diverted +as a child. "Dear me! and poor Mrs. Morton hardly laid to her last +rest! The want of feeling that that young Edward has shown throughout +is almost incredible. To requite the lifelong devotion of his mother +by selling her old home a month after her death! Ah, well, I suppose +we have all done our work here, and it is time for us to follow her!" + +"What rubbish!" cried Katharine hotly. "Why should he pretend to be +fond of his mother just because she is dead? She was never a bit fond +of him, when she was alive, and he wanted her affection badly enough +then. Besides, it can't matter to her whether the house is sold or +not, and I expect he wants the money." + +"Money? Why, she has left him every penny she had,--so what more can +he want? I know she did, for a fact, because the housekeeper told me +so." + +"I shouldn't dream of disputing such an excellent authority, but I do +know her generosity was purely accidental, and that she would have +made another will if she had not been taken ill so suddenly," said +Katharine, getting up and walking to the window. The view outside, +with the sodden lawn and the dripping trees, was as cheerless as the +conversation within. + +"The house ought not to be allowed to stand," said the Rector, with an +indignation that he never bestowed on the human imperfections so +bitterly deplored by his sister. "A wretched modern thing, belonging +to the very worst period of domestic art!" + +"They are doing it up," said Katharine from the window. "I wonder," +she added softly to the sodden lawn and the dripping trees, "if he +knows that they have mended the gap in the hedge?" Perhaps it was only +the dulness of the weather that was depressing her, but her eyes, as +she laid her cheek against the window-pane, were full of tears. Miss +Esther continued her speculations unconsciously. + +"I suppose he will travel," she said. "It amounts to seven hundred a +year, the housekeeper told me; and I'm sure it's seven hundred more +than he deserves, the unfeeling fellow!" + +"It isn't his fault that he didn't get on with his mother," said +Katharine. "People can't choose their relations, can they? And I'm +sure, under the present system, every obstacle is put in the way of +our hitting it off with our own people." + +She was almost surprised at her own vehemence in Ted's defence. She +had never seen him since the day he had called on her in Queen's +Crescent and rejected the affection she so tardily offered him, and +the smart of that rejection was still present with her, gently as he +had expressed it; but she could no more suppress her old instinct of +protection for him than she could control her thoughts. + +"I find it quite impossible to understand you, when you are in these +heartless moods," said her aunt crossly. + +"Am I heartless?" said Katharine, with her eyes still full of tears. +"I suppose that must be it; I wondered what was the matter with me +this afternoon. Of course I am in one of my heartless moods. Oh, dear, +how stupid it all is!" She sighed desperately, and turned away from +the dreary outlook. "I'm sorry I didn't gather any more news in my +excursion to the village," she went on presently, with an obvious +effort to be agreeable. "Oh, I forgot,--I met the doctor." + +"Yes? What had he to say for himself?" asked Miss Esther, whose +dignity was always subject to her curiosity. + +"He asked me to marry him, and I refused," answered Katharine; and she +broke into a peal of laughter at the immediate effect of her words. + +"What? Really, Katharine, you are perfectly incorrigible," said Miss +Esther, in a tone that was expressive rather of incredulity than of +disapproval. + +"It's very odd," observed Katharine, "that one has only to tell the +truth to be disbelieved. And I'm sure I was very sorry to be obliged +to refuse him, because I felt there was no one else in the place he +could possibly ask. Poor doctor!" + +Miss Esther said a rapid grace to show how outraged she felt, and +walked out of the room without another word. Katharine sighed once +more and looked across at her father, who was apparently absorbed in +his book and oblivious of what had been passing. But Katharine's +acquaintance with the world, short as it had been, had considerably +widened her vision, and she knew somehow as she looked at him that he +was not reading at that moment. + +"Daddy, dear daddy!" she cried, impetuously, "I couldn't help it this +afternoon, I couldn't, really! I believe I have a devil in me some +days, and this is one of them. Daddy, forgive me for being so selfish +and horrid; I hate myself for my abominable temper, I do indeed. I +think I have never been so miserable in my whole life before!" + +"My child, what is it? I don't think I quite understand," said the +Rector gently. She came and sat on the arm of his chair, and he +stroked her hair mechanically. + +"Of course you don't,--how should you?" she exclaimed, half laughing +to hide the shake in her voice. "But I wish I knew why I have these +bad fits; I would do just anything to get better, but _I can't_! When +I don't feel wretched I feel absurd, and that's ever so much worse. +Why is it that I feel like this, daddy?" + +"Shall we send for the doctor?" asked the Rector innocently; and he +wondered why she seemed amused. + +"I don't fancy he would care to come just yet," she said, demurely. +They were silent for a few moments. The Rector asked her presently if +she would like to go away again. + +"I don't know; I don't seem to want anything. Ivingdon is intolerable; +but I said I would endure it for your sake, and it seems so feeble +merely to have failed again. After all, I haven't done the least atom +of good by giving up my work and coming home, have I?" + +The Rector remembered many incidents in the last four months, and did +not contradict her; but his silence was so habitual to him that she +hardly noticed it. + +"Self-sacrifice is all very well in theory," she went on +disconsolately, "but if nobody wants you to sacrifice yourself, what's +the good of it? I don't believe there is a single Christian virtue +that works properly, when you come to practise it; and I've wasted +four good months in finding it out. Oh, dear, what a mortal idiot I've +been! I wish you understood, daddy," she added wistfully. + +"I'm not sure that I don't, Kitty," he said tentatively, and waited to +be contradicted. + +"I believe you do; I believe you always have understood!" she cried. +"But I always expect too much from people, and I never can take any +one on trust. How I can be so unlike you is a mystery to me." + +"You are like your dear mother, bless her," said the Rector with +unconscious humour; and they became silent again. + +"Do you know," she went on presently, "if you'd promise not to mind, +daddy, I half think I'd like to go away again, for a while. I've still +got some money, you know, and I might try Paris, or some new place. +It seems hopeless to stay on here, and worry Aunt Esther by +everything I do or say; I know she considers me the cross she has to +bear, but it seems a waste of Christian resignation, doesn't it?" + +"Paris?" said the Rector with animation. "By all means go to +Paris,--the most delightful place in the world! When I was a boy in +Paris-- Dear, dear, how it all comes back to me! That was before I was +ordained, to be sure; ah, those were days to be remembered! I can give +you an introduction to a friend of mine in Paris, Monsieur--Monsieur-- +Ah, it's gone now. But I can tell you the names of all his books. A +charming fellow; knew everything and did everything; there was nothing +too daring for him in those days. You'll get on with him, Kitty; the +most delightful companion a man could have, in fact!" The old Rector +was laughing like a schoolboy at his reminiscences. + +"That's all very well," said Katharine rather cruelly; "but what will +Aunt Esther say?" + +"Ah," said the Rector, looking about him apprehensively, "there is +certainly Esther to be considered." + +"Yes, there is!" sighed Katharine. And she added impetuously, "Poor +daddy! what a saint you must have been all these years! I wonder why I +never realised it before?" + +"Oh, no," said the Rector, smiling. "I'm nothing but an old fool, who +was never fit to have a daughter at all. Your mother ought to have +left me to vegetate among my books, bless her heart!" + +Katharine looked at him reflectively. + +"I am beginning to understand," she said, in her quaint, thoughtful +manner. "It has puzzled me all these months, but you have made it come +quite clear at last. I see now what they meant by calling me a prig: +it is because I have none of the qualities that would prevent you from +ever becoming one." + +"A prig?" said her father inquiringly. + +"Ah," said Katharine, "it is something of too modern a growth to have +come within your ken." She slipped off her seat, and began pacing +restlessly up and down the room. + +"A prig," she continued, more to herself than to her father, who was +watching her narrowly nevertheless, "a prig is one who tries to break +what the ordinary person is pleased to call the law of Nature, and to +substitute the law of his own reason instead. It doesn't matter that +this is what we are brought up to do, for the ordinary person insists +on our forgetting that we are intelligent beings, and only wants us to +run in the same rut as himself. And the ordinary person is very happy, +so perhaps he is right. Education makes us all prigs, and we have to +sit and wait for the particular experience that is to undo the effects +of our education. It is great waste of time to be educated, isn't it? +We are told that it is priggish to have ideals, and that is why being +young is generally equivalent to being priggish. The world won't +tolerate ideals; it sneers at us for trying to find out new ways of +being good, and it likes to see us for ever grubbing among the same +old ways of being bad. Did you know all this before, daddy? But you +never told me, did you? Do parents ever tell their children anything +useful, I wonder? Oh, I don't think so; we just have to go on until we +find it all out, and break our hearts over it, most likely!" She +paused to give a little bitter laugh. The Rector had an intent look on +his face that was foreign to it. "I should like to know," she went on, +more gently, "if it isn't possible to be brave, or steadfast, or true, +without being a prig; it simply means that we have got to go on trying +to be better than we are, and pretending that we don't know it all +the while. It is such an anomalous position for a thinking person, +isn't it? And yet, if we are honest about it we proclaim ourselves +prigs at once. _I_ am a prig, daddy. Did you know that too? I have +gloried all my life in being above the ordinary littlenesses of +womanhood; and then, when my hour came, I just learned that I was the +same old woman after all. I was proud of knowing so much, and all the +time I did not know what every ignorant woman in the world could have +told me. Oh, the world is right, after all; I know it! But it has such +uncomfortable ways of convincing us, hasn't it? I'm not bothering you, +daddy, am I?" She stopped, and looked at him anxiously. The Rector did +not speak. "Nothing will ever make you a prig," continued Katharine as +she resumed her restless walk, "or Ted either, or Marion Keeley. +Lovable people are never priggish, are they? Oh, I am never going to +try to be anything, again. I shall become as much like the ordinary +person as I can; I will let boys like Monty make love to me, and +pretend that I like it; I will let myself go, and hide away my old +feelings which were real ones, and invent a whole set of new ones for +everyday use. Oh, dear, how absurd it all is! To make one's life a +long course of deception, in order to prove to the world that we are +real! And yet, that is the only way to avoid being called a prig. It +is ridiculous to pretend that we care for what the big people think of +us. We don't. It is the little, commonplace, ordinary folk, with the +commonplace minds and the commonplace views, who make up our audience; +and we acknowledge it all our lives by being afraid of their +criticism. We play to them, and to them only, from the moment we begin +to think for ourselves, until Providence is good enough to ring down +the curtain. We make a wretched compromise with our real selves, in +order to get through life without being laughed at for taking it +seriously. And the end of it all is that we have to suffer our own +contempt, instead of the commonplace person's. But everybody does the +same, so it must be right, mustn't it? Daddy," she added suddenly, as +she came to a standstill before him, "daddy, do you think, if I don't +try to be good any more, that I shall ever become just an ordinary +pleasant person,--someone whom people will care to fall in love with? +It would be so comforting to feel that people cared to fall in love +with me. I am so tired of being thought clever and nothing else; +cleverness seems like a kind of blight that helps one to miss the +biggest thing in life. At least, I have missed it, and everybody says +I am clever. Why don't you answer me, daddy? Why, daddy! I--I do +believe you're crying!" + +"No, my child, you are mistaken," said Cyril Austen hastily. "I have +been overworking my eyes lately, that is all. You mustn't talk like +that, little girl; it--it makes me unhappy. I should never have +allowed you to go away by yourself, should I? I'm a useless old-- But +there, it is too late now. Let us talk about this Paris plan of yours. +What if I were to come too, eh?" + +"It would be beautiful!" cried Katharine. "But there is still Aunt +Esther, isn't there?" + +"Ah, yes!" said the Rector ruefully. "So stupid of me to forget!" + +They made themselves very happy for a day or two over the Paris plan. +They met like guilty conspirators when Miss Esther was out of the way, +and amused themselves by arranging a scheme which they knew quite well +she would never allow them to carry out. Katharine's spirits recovered +something of their old vigour; and Miss Esther felt more bewildered +than ever when she suddenly appeared in this new mood, and refused to +have anything more to do with the parish. + +"I am tired of good works," she announced vigorously. "They don't +answer, and they destroy one's self-respect. Some people are cut out +for that sort of thing, but I am not, and I am going to leave it to +those who are. I am never again going to make myself uncomfortable by +visiting people in their unpleasant homes. I don't want to go, for one +thing; and it isn't good for them to be patronised, for another. +Besides, they can't refuse to see me in any case, and I don't like +forcing myself upon people in that uninvited manner. I am going to be +happy in my own way, and that will give them a much fairer chance of +being happy in theirs. I've done with the whole thing." And she +returned cheerfully to the map of Paris. + +But her new-found contentment was not to be allowed a long duration. A +letter came for her a few days later, which altered the whole aspect +of affairs, and finally quenched the Paris plan. The writing was +unfamiliar to her, and she had to turn to the end of the closely +written pages to discover who had sent it to her. + +"Dear Miss Austen," it ran:-- + + "It may be a matter of great surprise to you to hear from me + in this unexpected manner. Nothing but the deep interest I + feel in one who is, I have reason to believe, as great a + friend of yours as of mine would give me the courage to take + up my pen and write to you. I have for some time past been + observing Ted's career with distress, if not with the deepest + concern. You probably know that he gave up his work in the + city on the death of Mrs. Morton, so I will not trouble you + with more details than necessity compels you to hear. Of + course you will understand the diffidence with which I + approach you on so delicate a matter; but my great friendship, + or what I might call our _mutual_ friendship, for Ted Morton + has given me the requisite courage. I do not know the reason + for what I am about to break to you; in fact, to be explicit, + I have not the slightest idea of what led him to take such a + step, but I have my own conjectures about the matter, and + these I will lay before you as briefly as the occasion + demands. For some time past, indeed, I may say for months, he + has been very depressed, and has tried to drown his trouble, + whatever it might be, in distractions of various kinds. Do not + for one moment suppose that I am making any insinuation + detrimental to Ted's reputation; far from it! But there is no + doubt that he has grown somewhat reckless in disposition, + owing possibly to this same mysterious trouble of his, and + this has hurried on the crisis which it is now my business to + communicate to you. But to avoid unnecessary details, let me + at once tell you in plain language what has happened to him. + Three days ago I met him in the Strand about seven o'clock, + and asked him to come and dine with me. He refused, with none + of the punctilious courtesy that usually characterises him, + and I left him thinking, strange as it might seem, that he + preferred to be alone. But on going to look him up at his + chambers last night, I found him in the condition which it has + become my obvious duty to describe to you. Fortunately, the + ingenuous disposition, which has made him feel his trouble + much longer than most men, has also saved him from this last + and worst step of all; for, in his ignorance, he took too + large a dose of laudanum, and the effect has mercifully been + injurious instead of fatal. He is now--" + +Katharine read no more. Nothing further could be of importance after +she had learnt so much. Ted had tried to destroy himself, and it was +on her account. + +"Whatever is the matter, Katharine? I have asked you the same question +three times," Miss Esther was saying crossly. Katharine stared at her +in reply, with large, terrified eyes. Her aunt repeated her question, +and tried to possess herself of the letter. Katharine came to herself +with a start, and snatched it back again, and thrust it into her +father's hand. + +"Read it, daddy," she tried to say, but no sound came; she seemed +possessed of a great horror that robbed her of every faculty. The +Rector smoothed out the letter silently, glanced at the florid +signature, "Barrington Montague," and began to read it without waiting +to put on his glasses. Miss Esther looked from one to the other, and +was divided between her curiosity and her annoyance. + +"Really, Katharine, you are quite devoid of manners. Am I not to have +the right to ask a simple question in my own house? Who is the letter +from, and what is it all about?" + +Dorcas lingered by the door as long as she dared, under pretence of +being wanted; but Miss Esther, who never relaxed her vigilance even in +a crisis, detected the subterfuge and ordered her sharply out of the +room. The accustomed tone of reproof helped Katharine to recover +herself. She drew a deep breath, and made an effort to speak. + +"Ted is dying," she said. "They are afraid to tell me, but I know it +is so. And it is I who have killed him, _I_! I am going to him at +once." + +The Rector was blinking his eyes as he finished reading the letter. +Miss Esther held out her hand again. + +"I insist upon your giving me that letter, Cyril," she said in her +discordant voice. Katharine struck down her hand fiercely. Her +numbness was giving way to a kind of passionate frenzy. + +"Leave it alone, Aunt Esther!" she cried vehemently. "It is no +business of yours; you don't understand; nobody understands. I have +made Ted take his life. I am going to him _now_." + +The last sentence was the only one that reached Miss Esther's +comprehension; she at once took up her usual attitude of disapproval. + +"Indeed, Katharine, you will do nothing of the kind," she exclaimed +querulously. "What are we coming to next, I wonder? I sincerely trust, +Cyril, that you will point out to your daughter that it is quite +impossible for her to visit a young man in his chambers. I really wish +that tiresome young Edward would emigrate, or marry, or do something +that would put him out of the way. What has he been doing now, I +wonder?" + +Katharine paid no heed; her eyes were fixed feverishly on her father's +face. + +"Ted is ill, and he wants me. You will let me go, daddy, won't you?" +she said imploringly. + +"I beg you to assert your authority, Cyril, by forbidding such a mad +piece of folly," cried the shrill tones of Miss Esther. Katharine +turned upon her furiously. + +"_You_, what can _you_ know about it? You have never known what it is +to want to protect some one; you don't know the awful emptiness of +having no one to care for. Daddy! you understand, don't you? I may go, +mayn't I?" + +The Rector glanced from one to the other. He had not put on his +glasses, but he did not seem to want them just then. Slowly the +tyranny of twenty years was losing its terrors for him; he even forgot +to laugh nervously as the two women stood awaiting his answer; and +although there was a smile on his face as he looked at them, it had +only been called there by a reflection on his folly in the past. He +marvelled at himself, as his eyes rested on the glowing features of +his daughter, for ever having hesitated to support her. + +"The child is in the right, Esther," he said, mildly. "I--I am fond of +the dear boy myself, and he must not be left in the hour of his need. +We will go together, eh, Kitty?" + +Miss Esther stared at him dumbly. She had never heard him speak like +that before. After all, nothing is so convincing as the sudden +assumption of power by the oppressed; and few things are more +complete than the humiliation of the oppressor. + +"Let me see," continued the Rector: "we cannot catch anything before +the 1.28. That will give us time for an early lunch, if you will +kindly see to it, Esther. Kitty, my child, do not fret over the boy; +we will soon put him to rights, eh?" + +Katharine remained immovable, with Monty's letter crunched in her +hand. "Ted has tried to kill himself--for _me_," were the words that +ran remorselessly in her mind. + +Cyril Austen walked out of the room with a firm step. Miss Esther +rattled her keys, muttered something to herself, and followed him +almost immediately. + +She was dethroned at last. + + + + +CHAPTER XVIII + + +The landlady had gone out of the room and closed the door. Katharine +stepped softly to the side of the bed, and looked at the sleeping +face. It was just the same as she had always known it, rounded and +beardless, without a line or a wrinkle, and with the hair as loose and +rumpled as it had been in the days before manhood had claimed its +submission. "Dear old Ted," she murmured to herself with a half smile, +"I don't believe he _could_ look ill, however much he tried." She +stole about the room, putting flowers in the vases, and lightening +some of its London dinginess, until the sound of her name brought her +back again to the bedside. + +"Dear old man, don't look so scared," she laughed. "We heard you were +ill, and we came up to look after you, daddy and I. Daddy is still +downstairs; he discovered an old print in the hall, and he hasn't got +any further yet. There are a lot of old prints in the hall, so I +suppose it will be ever so long before he does get any further. Isn't +it like daddy?" + +She smoothed his hair gently, and he laughed contentedly in reply. He +did not seem at all surprised to see her; Kitty always had turned up, +all his life, when he had got himself into a scrape; and it did not +occur to him at the moment that she was more or less answerable for +his present scrape. + +"Just see how hit up I am!" he said. "So poor, isn't it?" + +Her face clouded. + +"Oh, Ted, how could you do it? Ought I to have stayed in London and +looked after you?" she said reproachfully; and he saw that it was +useless to try to conceal anything from her. + +"It's all right, Kit," he hastened to explain in his humble manner. +"Don't swear, old chum! I couldn't help it, on my honour I couldn't. I +got so sick, and I just had to. And after all I played so poorly, you +see, that it didn't come off." + +Except for the subject of their conversation, they might have been +back again in the lanes at Ivingdon. They had dropped naturally into +their old boy and girl attitude, and hers was as before the stronger +personality. But there was a subtle difference in their relations +which she was the first to feel. + +"I--I am glad it didn't come off, Ted," she said, trying to speak +lightly. Ted gripped her hand for a moment, and then let it go again, +as though he were half ashamed of his momentary show of sentiment. + +"You see," he went on, in a very gruff voice, "that was the only part +I left to Providence, and Providence muffed it. I'm such a rotten +ass,-- I always was, don't you know? If it had been you, now, you +wouldn't have bungled it at all, would you?" + +"Providence never has any sense of humour," said Katharine; and she +got up hurriedly, so that he should not see her face. She poured out +some medicine, and brought it to him. + +"I say, it's awfully ripping to have you to look after me like this," +he observed. "What did Miss Esther say?" + +"She seemed upset," said Katharine, smiling slightly. "But you can +always square Aunt Esther, when it's a question of illness; there are +such a lot of texts in the Bible about illness, don't you know? By the +way, when did you last have something to eat?" + +Ted had no idea, beyond a vague notion that some one had brought him +something on a tray in the morning, which he had not looked at. So +she left him to interview the landlady, whom she found in the middle +of a long history of the print in the hall and of the part it had +played in the history of her own family as well, to which the Rector +was listening patiently though with obvious inattention. Katharine +managed to procure what she wanted, and returned with it to the sick +room. The invalid was looking more flourishing than ever. + +"You see," he explained, between the spoonfuls with which she fed him, +"he's such an awfully snide doctor. He won't let me get up, and of +course, I'm as right as rain, really. So cheap of him, isn't it?" + +In spite of his assertion, however, he was very glad to play the +invalid when she brought him some warm water, and proceeded to bathe +his hands and face. It was pleasant, after the desolation of his life +for the past six months, to lie back in a lazy attitude without +feeling particularly ill, and allow the girl he liked best in the +world to do things for him. + +"It's so rum," he remarked, "that our hands never wear out with being +washed so often. I can't think why they don't want soling and heeling +after a time, like boots." + +"I think you are right, and that your doctor _is_ rather 'snide,'" was +all Katharine said, as she carried away the basin, and looked for his +hair brushes. Ted's toilet table was characterised by a luxurious +confusion, and she lingered for a moment to arrange the silver-topped +bottles in some kind of order. "You never used to care for this sort +of thing," she remarked, holding up a bottle of _eau de toilette_; "I +remember how you teased me once, when I told you I put lavender water +in my cold bath." + +"Oh, well, of course it's beastly rot and all that," owned Ted; "but +it's the thing to do, and one must, don't you know? Hullo, what are +you playing at now?" + +"I wish you would not be quite so languid," retorted Katharine. "How +am I to brush your hair if you persist in behaving as though you were +dying? I believe you are putting it on." + +"It's not my fault if I'm not so beastly energetic as you," grumbled +Ted. "Don't play about any more, Kit; come over here and talk. And you +needn't fold up those towels; they're not used to it, really." + +"I shouldn't think they were, from the look of them. Well, what have I +got to talk about?" + +She came and sat down on the chair by his side, and he shifted his +position so that he could see her face. She could have laughed aloud +at his expression of utter contentment. + +"Oh, some rot; anything you like. You've always got lots to gas about, +haven't you? How is Ivingdon, and the Grange; and does Peter Bunce +still come in on Sunday afternoons; and has the doctor got any new +dogs? Fire ahead, Kit! you've been down there doing nothing all this +time, and you must know all there is to know, unless you're as half +alive as you used to be. Hasn't anything happened to the old place?" + +"Yes," said Katharine, smiling back at him frankly. "They have mended +the gap in the hedge." + +"The devil they have!" cried Ted. "We'll have it broken open again at +once, won't we? Why didn't you stop them? You knew I wasn't there to +tell them myself. Just like their confounded impertinence!" + +"Hush," interrupted Katharine. "You mustn't get excited, old man; it +isn't good for you." + +She smoothed his pillows and arranged his coverlet with nervous +rapidity, and Ted, submitting happily to her services, wondered +innocently what she was blushing about. But he did not trouble +himself to find out. + +"I am beastly glad I poisoned myself," he murmured, with lazy +satisfaction. + +She was glad of the diversion when the Rector arrived at last, and she +was allowed to escape into the next room. + +"Well, my boy, and how has the world gone with you?" she heard her +father say in his genial tones. + +"It's a beastly jolly world, and I'm the jolliest brute in it," was +Ted's reply. + +They took rooms in the next street, and came in every day to look +after him; and when neither the conscience of the "snide" doctor, nor +the desire of the invalid to be nursed proved sufficient to preserve +the farce of his illness any longer, they still lingered on under +pretence of being wanted, and sent carefully worded letters to Miss +Esther from which she was forced to conclude that their presence in +town was urgently required, much as they would have wished it +otherwise. What really happened was, that Ted and Katharine regularly +conducted the old Rector to the British Museum every morning, and +passed the day alone together until it was time to fetch him away +again in the afternoon. And in the evenings they initiated him into +the joys of a music hall, or introduced him to a new comedian; and the +Rector was happier than he had ever been since the well-remembered +days in Paris. As for Katharine, her feelings defied her own powers of +description; she only knew that she had the sensation of waking up +from a long, bad dream. Perhaps Ted felt the same. "You've cured the +biggest hump I ever had in my life," was the way he expressed it. + +Looking back on the even tenor of those few weeks, afterwards, +Katharine was at a loss to remember what she had talked about to Ted +in the many hours they had spent together. Perhaps they had not talked +at all; at the time it never seemed to matter whether they did or not; +at all events, their conversation usually lacked the personal element +that alone makes conversation distinctive. There was nothing +surprising to Katharine in this: as long as she could remember Ted had +been the one person in the world to whom it was impossible to talk +about one's self; and his sympathy for her was as completely +superficial as her love for him was mainly protective. + +Once or twice she was led inadvertently into making a confidant of +him. + +"I wonder why I never seem to feel things acutely now," she said to +him one day as they were strolling along the Embankment. "I don't seem +to care a bit what happens next, except that I have a sort of +conviction it is going to be pleasant. I seem to want waking up again. +Do you know what I mean, Ted?" + +"Oh, it's nothing; you're feeling played, that's all," answered Ted, +reassuringly. "My experience is that you're either played, or you're +not played; and when you are, you'd better have a drink to buck you +up. We'll have a cab, and lunch somewhere. Where shall we go to-day?" + +And Katharine laughed at his practical view of things, and wondered +why she had expected him to understand. Another time, it was Ted +himself who gave the conversation a personal turn. + +"Humps are deuced odd things," he observed, rather suddenly. It was a +dull, warm afternoon in December, and they had been sitting idly for +some minutes on one of the benches in the park, overlooking the +Serpentine. "You feel that everything is awfully decent, and bills be +hanged, and all that; and you curse your tailor and have a good time, +and it doesn't matter if it snows. And then, when it's rather a bore +to be under an obligation to a rotten little tradesman, or you want a +new coat or something, and you pay up and feel awfully virtuous and +don't owe a blessed halfpenny in the world, except for shirts and +things that never expect to be paid for,--_then_, you go and get the +very deuce of a hump." + +"Whole books might be written on the psychological aspect of the +hump," murmured Katharine. + +"Look at those bounders, now," said Ted, who had not heard her. "It +doesn't matter to _them_ that rowing on the Serpentine on Saturday +afternoon isn't the thing to do, especially in frock coats and +bowlers. It makes one quite sorry for them, to see how little they +know; they don't even know they are bounders, poor devils! But _they_ +never get the hump, confound them!" + +"All the same," said Katharine, "it is a big price to pay for an +immunity from humps, isn't it?" + +"Life must be awfully easy, if you're a bounder," continued Ted. "You +haven't got to be in good form, and you can walk about with any sort +of girl you please, and you needn't worry about the shape of your +hat, and it doesn't matter if you are seen on a green Brixton 'bus. It +saves so much thinking, doesn't it?" + +"Yes," said Katharine. "But you have to be a bounder all the same, and +you know you can't even contemplate such a possibility, or +impossibility, without shuddering. By the way, is all this intended to +convey that you have got the hump this afternoon?" + +"Oh, no," said Ted, with restored cheerfulness. "I ought never to have +been born, of course; but that's quite another matter." + +Late that evening the Rector proposed returning to Ivingdon. They had +just been to the theatre, and Ted had asked them in to supper +afterwards. Every trace of his mood of that afternoon had disappeared, +and he was wrangling with Katharine over the strength of the Rector's +toddy with all the energy of which his languid nature was capable. +Katharine put down the tumbler she was holding and looked swiftly +round at her father. + +"Oh, daddy, not yet!" she cried impetuously. "I am happy now; don't +let us spoil it all by going home. I feel as though something horrible +would happen if we went home now. Can't we wait a little longer? I +have never been happy like this before." + +The Rector murmured something about its being three weeks to +Christmas, but his sense of duty was obviously a perfunctory one, and +he soon found he was not being listened to. And Ted's hand closed over +her fingers as he took the hot glass from her, and his face shone with +pleasure and his voice trembled, as he whispered, "Thank you for that, +dear." + +She did not shrink from him as she had done once before when he had +looked at her with that same eager expression in his eyes. + +"I don't know a bit whether I love him in the real way," she told her +mirror that night. "I don't know anything about myself at all. I +believe the prig is inborn in me, after all, and that it would suit me +far better to fight for a living in the world, than to stay at home +and just make Ted happy. But all the same, if he asks me again I shall +marry him. It has been so peaceful lately, and I have felt so happy, +and marriage with Ted will mean peace if it doesn't mean anything more +thrilling than that. Dear old Ted; why isn't he my brother, or my son, +or some one I could just mother, and go on living my own life the +while? Ah, well, he is going to be my husband; how strange it sounds! +I wonder if women like me are ever allowed to be happy in their own +way, gloriously and completely happy as I know I could be? But I +suppose it is only the prig in me that thinks so. And Ted shall never +know that I want more than he can possibly give me. Oh, Ted, old chum, +I do love you so for loving me!" + +A visit to Queen's Crescent slightly unsettled her. She took her +father with her and introduced him to Phyllis Hyam, and tried to +convince herself that she was glad she was not coming back any more; +but in spite of the unfamiliarity of being there as a visitor, and the +difficulty of finding topics of conversation for the Rector and Miss +Jennings, who obviously misunderstood each other's attempts to be +friendly, the sight of the dingy little hall and of Phyllis's round, +good-humoured face, brought enough reminiscences to her mind to make +her a little regretful as well. + +"Do you still have bread and treacle, and is Polly Newland glad I have +gone, and does any one ever talk about me?" she asked with interest. +Even Phyllis looked strange, as though her best dress had been thrown +on hurriedly and the distinction of being admitted to "Jenny's" room +were rather too much for her; but there was a familiarity about her +style of conversation that was consoling. + +"Oh, yes," she replied in her off-hand way; "when we have a new one +put into our room we always remember how blue you looked the first +night you came. We haven't had a 'permanent' in our room since you +left; and there have been some cheerful specimens, too! One was a +nurse, who made the place smell eternally of disinfectants; and +another kept bits of food in her drawer, and encouraged mice; and a +third insisted on having the window shut. The curtains haven't been +washed, either, since you made that row about them. I say, when are +you coming back again?" + +"You don't offer much inducement," laughed Katharine. "But I am not +coming back, in any case." + +"Going to get married?" asked Phyllis sharply. Katharine smiled, and +did not contradict her. It was not an insinuation that one would be +anxious to contradict in a place like Queen's Crescent, however +diffident one might feel about it elsewhere. Phyllis shrugged her +shoulders. "Well, don't go and make a hash of it," she said. "You're +not the sort to be happy with any one, especially if it's made too +easy for you. Well off? Of course; and worships the ground you tread +on, I suppose! Oh, well, it's none of my business, and I only hope you +haven't made a mistake. It's a risky thing at the best; and you were +very happy here most of the time, and you've got to better that, you +know. I wish you luck, I'm sure, but it takes a woman to understand +any one like you, and I should like to see the man who thinks he does +it as well." + +"I hope you will some day," said Katharine, politely. But Phyllis did +not respond with any warmth, and Katharine was glad to return to the +masculine indifference of Ted. It was difficult to worry about the +future in Ted's company; even the fact that he had not yet formally +proposed to her did not seem to cause him any anxiety. It certainly +made no difference in the freedom of their intercourse; and, as long +as there was no immediate necessity for action, Ted was not the one to +take the initiative. "I believe I shall have to propose to him +myself," was the thought that sometimes crossed her mind as she +studied his placid, good-looking face. But after her visit to Queen's +Crescent, she began to wish he would not be quite so casual about it; +for, without allowing even to herself that Phyllis's want of +encouragement had in any way affected her decision, she had a +lingering feeling that the present state of things could not go on for +ever, and that it would be better for her, at all events, to have the +matter definitely settled. So she made a kind of attempt, a day or two +later, to rouse his apprehensions. + +"Phyllis was wondering if I was ever coming back again to my work," +she said to him abruptly. + +"Oh, was she? Rather a nice girl, Phyllis, if she didn't dress so +badly," observed Ted unconsciously. They were at a Wagner concert in +the Queen's Hall, and the Siegfried Idyll had just drawn to a close. +It seemed to her an auspicious moment. + +"I said I was never coming back," pursued Katharine, studying his +profile critically. + +"Of course not," said Ted, humming the refrain they had just heard. + +For once, Katharine felt faintly annoyed with him for his want of +proper sentiment. + +"I don't believe you care whether I do or not," she said in a piqued +tone. + +"Eh, what?" said Ted, staring round at her in blank amazement. "Ought +I to have said anything else? But you settled that long ago, Kit, +didn't you? There is nothing more to be said about it, is there?" + +"Oh, no, of course not," said Katharine, in what seemed to him a most +unreasonable manner; "but all the same, I'm not at all sure that I +sha'n't go back when the term begins again." + +Ted stared more than ever. + +"Oh, rats!" he exclaimed, heartily. "What's wrong, Kitty? Have you +been hit up to-day, or anything? I'm such a rotten ass, I never know. +Of course you're never going to grind any more; what an idea!" + +"Why not?" asked Katharine, with uncomfortable persistence. Ted began +to make fresh assertions, but paused in the middle and hesitated. He +suddenly realised that there was only one answer to her question, and +that he would have to make it now. He looked down and made havoc with +his programme, and stammered hopelessly until Katharine took pity on +him and came to his assistance with a laugh. + +"It's all right, old man; I am never going back, of course," she said; +and Ted brightened up again when he found that he need not propose to +her yet, and was obviously relieved at the establishment of their old +relations. She did nothing more to change them, and the only result of +her abortive attempt was, that Ted was more attentive to her than +before, and constantly made little plans for taking her to some +unfrequented museum or picture gallery, evidently with some design in +his mind which he had not the courage to carry out. + +"Poor old Ted," she thought to herself, after they had spent a dull +and silent afternoon at the Royal Institute among the colonial +produce; "I wonder if he will ever get it out!" + +Curiously enough, through all the weeks she spent in town, the thought +of Paul Wilton rarely crossed her mind; and when it did she felt that +it referred to some former life of hers, with which this present calm +existence had no connection. Sometimes she wondered idly whether he +were married yet, and if so, whether he ever gave a thought to her; +but she could think of Marion as his wife without a regret, and she +was glad to find that she had no desire whatever to see him again. The +impression he seemed to have left in her mind, after all these months, +was that of a disturbing element which had brought the greatest +unhappiness into her life she had ever been forced to endure. It was +inconsequent, perhaps, that, thinking thus, she should have been +emphatic in her refusal to go and see the Keeleys; but although she +was incapable of explaining why she felt so strongly about such a +small matter, she was at least genuine in her belief that he had no +further place in her thoughts. + +And then, two days before they left town, she met him at last. + +It was in Bury Street, late on a foggy afternoon, as she was on her +way to the Museum with Ted. She had stopped with an exclamation of +delight in front of an old book shop, and the owner, who was talking +to an intending purchaser inside, came out good-naturedly and offered +to light the gas jet over the tray of dusty volumes. "I shall have to +stop now," whispered Katharine; "supposing you go on for daddy and +bring him back here?" + +The light flared up, and made a bright semicircle in the gloom that +was fast closing up round the shop. The customer who was inside +concluded his purchase, and came out just as Ted was strolling off. +Apparently they did not see each other, and the fog soon swallowed up +the retreating form; but Katharine turned round at this moment from +the book she was examining, and met the stranger face to face. + +"Ah," he said, quietly; "at last!" + +"Yes," she repeated; "at last!" + +It did not strike her until afterwards that it was not at all the mode +of address with which she would have greeted him had she been more +prepared; but at the time it came quite naturally to her lips. He +still held her hand as he went on speaking. + +"And Ted? Where have you sent him? Will he be long?" + +She resented the implication in his words. + +"I have not sent him anywhere. He has gone to fetch my father from the +Museum; they will be back directly. Do you mean to say you recognised +Ted in that instant?" + +"Why, surely! Did you not recognise me, although I was standing back +there in the shadow?" + +"Of course I didn't," cried Katharine hotly, as she pulled away her +hand. "I never saw you until you came out into the light. I should +have stopped Ted if I had." + +"Oh, to be sure; pardon my mistake. Of course you would have detained +Ted in that case." And he smiled as though he were faintly amused at +something. + +She had noticed his glad look of recognition, and she hated him for +it. What right had he to be glad to see her? And now that he was +laughing at her and making insinuations about Ted, true insinuations +moreover, she hated him still more for his acuteness. + +"So you are back in town?" he was saying, with what appeared to be +meant for a kindly interest. "I am not surprised, though. I always +knew you would have to come back." + +"What do you mean?" she asked, feeling more annoyed than ever. It was +so like him to know everything about her without being told, and then +to put a complexion upon it that he gave her no opportunity of +contradicting. "We came up, daddy and I, because Ted was ill; and we +are going back again on Wednesday." + +"Really? My mistake again. It is difficult to imagine Ted except in +the complete enjoyment of his health. Not seriously ill, I hope?" + +"Oh, no," she said, with an uncomfortable conviction that she was +being made to expose herself in all her weakness; "but there was no +one to nurse him, so I came. He is all right now." + +"So I should judge from the brief glimpse I had of him just now. Lucky +fellow, Ted! He looked very jolly, I thought; no doubt he has good +cause for his happiness. You are looking well too, if I may say so. It +is very delightful to be young, is it not?" + +She felt a wild rage against him for detecting the situation so +absolutely, and for making it merely a subject for his raillery. She +did not know how she would have wished him to take it, but she hated +him all the same for so calmly accepting it. + +"I don't understand you," she said, speaking rapidly. "It isn't a bit +delightful; you know it isn't. You know I hate you; you know I am the +most miserable person in the whole world. You know everything there is +to know about me; and I hate you! Why did you come back to spoil it +all, when I was trying so hard to be happy?" + +Her own words amazed her. She knew they were true as she spoke them; +but she had not known it ten minutes ago. + +"I'm sorry," he said, gravely. "Shall I go?" + +He had completely dropped his jesting tone, but she hated him for his +pity even more than she had hated him for his ridicule; she tried to +speak, but her anger choked her utterance. + +"When will you be at Ivingdon again?" he asked. "Did you say +Wednesday? And you are going to leave Ted in town?" + +She asked herself why he did not go, instead of standing there and +making conversation by inventing questions to which he could not +possibly want to know the answers. But she mechanically made a +gesture in the affirmative to both of them; and he repeated his former +inquiry with gentle insistence. + +"Shall I go now?" + +"Yes, go!" she cried fiercely, and ignored the hand he proffered her, +and let him go without another word. + +The fog swallowed him up, and she stood and gazed at the place where +he had stood, and wondered vaguely if he had been there at all or if +she had not dreamt the whole incident. For one moment the wild impulse +seized her to rush after him into the fog and the darkness, and to +implore him to take her with him anywhere, so long as she might be +with him. And then a smile flickered across her face as the bookseller +came out and spoke to her; and she paid for the first volume she +picked up; and the Rector and Ted emerged from the fog into the +semicircle of light, and life resumed its ordinary aspect again. + +"Has he gone?" asked Ted. + +"Who? Mr. Wilton? I did not know you saw him. Oh, yes; he went some +time ago. Isn't this a jolly little thing I have picked up?" said +Katharine lightly; and Ted apparently thought no more about it. + +That evening she was almost feverishly gay. The Rector sat and smiled +happily as she turned everything that occurred into ridicule, and made +every passer-by a subject for her wit. They did not go to a theatre, +on account of the bad weather; and when Monty dropped in to coffee +later on, she kept him in a perpetual condition of adoring approval +until the fact of Ted's gloomy silence was gradually forced upon her, +and she blamed herself hotly for her stupidity. She was very cool to +Monty after she had realised her blunder; and the poor fellow, who was +quite ignorant of his offence, took the first opportunity to depart. +Even then, in spite of her efforts to be kind to him, Ted did not +wholly recover his spirits; and she sighed inwardly as she reflected +that she could not even be sure of accomplishing the one task she had +set herself to perform. + +And the next day her old restlessness possessed her again. All the +work of the past six weeks seemed to have been suddenly undone; +nothing brought her any happiness, she reflected bitterly; she was +incapable of happiness and it was absurd of her to have expected to +find it. All the same, perhaps if Ted were to say something to +her--but Ted still said nothing, and went about making plans for her +enjoyment on this her last day in town, as though their coming +separation were of no matter at all; and he seemed as unconscious of +her change of mood as he had been all along of her unusual +contentment. The day was not a success; their little improvised +amusements had been far more satisfactory than the carefully planned +ones of to-day, and Ted's silence on the one subject of interest grew +more marked as the time wore on, and ended in raising an uncomfortable +barrier between them. Once she felt sure that he would have spoken if +the Rector had not come in unexpectedly; and once, he startled her by +suddenly taking both her hands in his and looking into her eyes for a +full minute, while she waited passively for him to speak. But he +turned very red instead, and called himself a fool and hurried out of +the room, and left her half amused and half regretful. She felt very +tender towards him after that; and the old desire to mother him was +very strong within her when they stood together at last on the +platform at Euston, and had only a few moments left in which to say +what was in their minds. + +"God bless you, dear! I shall see you again soon?" was all she could +bring herself to say in that last moment. + +"No--yes--perhaps. I am going to write to you quite soon. I'm a rotten +ass, as you know, but--you will try and understand, won't you, Kitty?" + +The train went on, and she leaned out of the window and laughed. + +"I am sure I shall understand," she said. + + + + +CHAPTER XIX + + +She waited in vain during the next two days for Ted's letter. His +parting words to her, however, seemed to have again restored her peace +of mind; and the virtuous mood in which she returned to Ivingdon was +so unprecedented as to rouse surprise rather than the admiration it +deserved. The climax was reached when Miss Esther insisted on giving +her a tonic. + +"It is very ridiculous," she remonstrated, "that one is never allowed +to drop one's characteristic attitude for a moment. If I had come home +and behaved as childishly as I usually do, you would have been quite +satisfied; but just because I am inclined to be civilised for a +change, you choose to resent it. One would think you had taken out a +patent for all the virtues." + +"My dear, that is doubtless very clever, but I wish you would drink up +this and not keep me standing," returned her aunt, who was, as ever, +occupied with actions and not with theories about them; and Katharine +had to seek consolation for her temporary discomfort in the absurdity +of the situation. + +She wondered slightly why Ted had not written to her at once, but +after the vacillation he had already shown she was not unprepared for +a further delay; it was more than likely that he found the +complexities of writing what he could not speak to be greater than he +supposed, and it amused her to conjecture that he would probably end +in coming to her for the help he had learnt to expect from her in all +the crises of his life. Meanwhile, there was a whole lifetime before +them in which they could work out the effects of their action, and in +her present mood she saw no satisfactory reason for hurrying it; she +did not realise how persistently she was recalling every instance of +Ted's kindness to her, as if to strengthen her resolution, and she was +unconscious of the doggedness with which she avoided dwelling on a +certain episode in the London visit which she had never even mentioned +to her father. She had cheated herself, by degrees, into a complacency +that she mistook for resignation. + +At last, by the mid-day post on Saturday morning, she received her +letter. It came with another one, written in a hand that brought +association without distinct recollection to her mind; and she opened +the latter first, principally because it was the one that interested +her least. The first page revealed its identity; it was from Mrs. +Downing, and was characteristically full of underlined words and +barely legible interpolations, and she was obliged to read it through +twice before she was able to grasp its meaning. The drift of it was +that the enterprising lady principal was about to open a branch of her +school in Paris, where everything was to be French, "_quite_ French, +you know, my dear Miss Austen,--staff, conversation, cooking, games, +_everything_; a place to which I can send on the dear children from +here when they want finishing. The French are such _delicious_ people, +are they not? _So_ unique, and _so_ French!" The morals, however, were +to be English; so, in spite of the unique French element in the French +character, there was to be an English head to the establishment, and +it was this position that she proceeded in a maze of extravagant +compliments to offer to her former junior mistress. "Not a duenna, of +_course_, for that will be supplied in the person of the excellent +Miss Smithson, who will act nominally as housekeeper, and make an +_exquisite_ background to the whole. There are always some of those +dear foolish mammas who will insist on placing propriety before +education,--so benighted, is it not? But Miss Smithson was intended by +Nature, I am sure, to propitiate that kind of mamma; while _you_, my +dear Miss Austen, I intend to be something more than a background. I +look to you to give a _tone_ to the school, to manage the working of +it all,--the amusements, the lectures, indeed, the whole _régime_; to +be responsible for the dear children's happiness, and to see that they +write happy letters home every week,--to take _my_ place, in fact. I +could tell you _all_ in two minutes, etc., etc." + +Katharine laid down the letter with an involuntary sigh; the position +it offered was full of attractions to her, and the salary would have +been more than she had ever hoped to demand. "I wish she had asked me +six weeks ago," she said aloud, and then accused herself fiercely of +disloyalty and picked up Ted's letter, and studied the boyish +handwriting on the envelope as though to give herself courage to open +it. She had wanted to be alone with his letter, and had carefully +watched her father out of the house before shutting herself into the +study; so the sound of a footstep on the gravel path outside brought a +frown to her face, and she remained purposely with her back to the +window so that the intruder, whoever he was, should see that she did +not mean to be disturbed. But the voice in which she heard her name +spoken through the open window arrested her attention. + +She dropped the unopened letter on the table, and turned slowly round +to face the speaker. The strangeness of his coming, when she had been +obstinately putting him out of her thoughts since last Monday, had a +paralysing effect upon her nerves; and Paul swung himself over the low +window seat, and reached her side in time to save her from falling. +She recovered herself immediately, however, and shrank back from his +touch. + +"I do not understand why you are here," she found herself saying with +difficulty. + +"That is what I have come to explain," he replied. "I could hardly +expect you to understand." + +His tone was curiously gentle. It struck her, as she looked at him +again, that he was very much altered. She had not noticed his +appearance much as he stood outside the book shop, with the dark fog +at his back; but now, as the light from the window behind fell full +on his head she saw the fresh streaks of white in the black hair, and +the sight affected her strangely. Perhaps, while she in her arrogance +had believed him to be living in an ill-gotten contentment, he, too, +had had something to suffer. + +"Won't you sit down?" she said, and took a chair herself, and waited +for him to begin. The one idea in her mind was that he should not +suspect her of nervousness. + +"You were kind enough, when we last met in the summer," began Paul, +"to congratulate me on my engagement to your cousin. I am going to ask +you to extend your kindness now, and to congratulate us both on being +released from that engagement." + +Katharine looked wonderingly at him. But there was nothing to be +gathered from his face. She smiled rather sadly. + +"Poor Marion!" she said, softly. "Isn't anybody to be allowed to +remain happy?" + +"You mistake me," he corrected her carefully. "Your cousin took the +initiative in the matter; she is obviously the one to be +congratulated." + +"And you?" + +"I? Oh, I suppose I have only my own ignorance to blame. If I had had +more knowledge of women, I should have known better what was expected +of me. As it is, my engagement has proved a complete failure." + +There was a pause, till Katharine roused herself to speak in a +lifeless kind of voice that did not seem to belong to her. + +"I am sorry if it has made you unhappy," she said. Paul looked at her +critically. + +"Are you sure?" he asked, smiling. + +Katharine folded and unfolded her hands uneasily, and wished he would +go away and remove his disquieting presence from her life for ever. + +"Oh, yes," she said. "One is always sorry when people are unhappy, of +course." + +"Only that?" His voice had a touch of disappointment in it, and she +began to tremble for her composure. He got up and walked to the window +and looked across the lawn, where the wintry sun was struggling +through the bare branches of the elm trees and making faint intricate +patterns on the whitened grass below. "This is where I first met you, +three years ago," he went on as though he were talking to himself. +"You were only a child then, and you interested me. I used to wonder +what there was about you that interested me so much, a mere child like +you! You were very sweet to me in those days, Katharine." + +"I--I wish you wouldn't," said Katharine. But he did not seem to hear +her. + +"Most men would have behaved differently, I suppose," he went on, +still looking away from her. "It is very fatal to admit the +possibility, even to ourselves, of making a new system for an effete +civilisation like ours; and I was a fool to suppose that women could +be dealt with by any but the obvious methods. It is my own fault, of +course, that in my anxiety to keep your respect I managed to destroy +your affection." + +She wanted to vindicate herself, to protest against what seemed to her +his confident self-righteousness; but the old influence was creeping +over her again, and it numbed her. + +"I wish you would not say those things," she said, weakly. The +unopened letter lying on the red table-cloth seemed like a protest +against the futility of the scene that was passing, and she found +herself controlling a desire to laugh at the mockery of it all. + +He turned round again with a half-suppressed sigh, and took out his +watch. + +"Just twelve," he said, reflectively. "I must be off if I mean to +walk to the station. You will forgive me for having worried you with +all this? I had a sort of feeling that I should like to tell you about +it myself; our old friendship seemed to demand that little amount of +frankness, though I suppose you will think I have no right to talk +about friendship any longer. I acknowledge that I have given you every +reason to be vexed with me; if I can ever do anything to remove the +disagreeable impression from your mind, I hope you will let me know. +Good-bye." + +"You--you are not going?" She had risen too, and was standing between +him and the door. She did not know why she wished to keep him, but she +knew she could not let him go. + +"Unless you can show me a satisfactory reason for remaining," was his +reply. She was trembling violently from head to foot. + +"I cannot bear that you should leave me like this," she said in a low +voice. + +"It rests with you to say whether I am to go or not," said Paul in the +same tone. She was looking straight into his eyes; but what she saw, +for all that, was the unopened letter on the red table-cloth. She put +out her hands as if to push him away from her, but he mistook her +movement and grasped them both in his own. + +"Don't, oh, don't!" she cried, struggling feebly to release herself. +"I want you to go away, please. I thought it was all over and that I +should never see you again, and I was beginning to feel happy, just a +little happy; and now you have come back, and you want it to begin all +over again, and I can't let it,--I am not strong enough! Oh, won't you +go, please?" + +"If you send me, I will go," said Paul, and waited for her answer. But +none came, and he laughed out triumphantly. She had never heard him +laugh so thoroughly before. + +"I knew you couldn't, you proud little person," he said, with a sudden +tenderness in his smile. "The woman in you is so strong, is it not, +Katharine? Ah, I know far more about you than you know yourself; but +you don't believe that, do you? Shall I tell you why I came to you +to-day? It was just to say to you that I could not live without you +any longer. Isn't that strange? I have been brutally frank with you +to-day, Katharine, there is not another woman in the world who would +have taken it as you have done. I knew you would, before I came to +you; and the knowledge gives me courage to tell you one thing more. +You know the failure of my attempt to marry for ambition; will you, in +your sweetness, help me to marry for love?" + +He dropped her hands and moved away from her. The delicacy of his +action, slight though it was, appealed to her strongly. She turned her +back to the table to avoid seeing the white letter on the red +table-cloth. + +"I cannot marry you," she said, hurriedly. "I would have been your +slave a few months ago, but I cannot be your wife now." + +Except for a tightening of his lips, he did not move a feature. + +"That is not true; I cannot believe it," he said shortly. + +"Why not?" she asked in a tired voice. She hoped he would not guess +how near she was to submission. + +"Because it is not possible. You are not the kind of woman who +changes. You must love me now, because you loved me then. You cannot +deny that you loved me then?" + +"No," said Katharine, "I cannot deny it." + +"Then why do you pretend that you do not love me still? I do not +believe it is because of my engagement to your cousin. You are made of +finer clay than others, and--" + +"Oh, no; that is not the reason," she said, interrupting him +impatiently. + +"Will you not tell me why it is?" he asked, approaching her again. +There was no mistaking the tenderness in his tone now, and she cast +about in her mind for some excuse to dismiss him before she completely +lost her power of resistance. "Have I made you so angry that you will +never forgive me?" + +"No, no; you never made me angry," she protested. "But you made me +feel absurd, and that is ever so much worse. I cannot be sure, now, +that you are not merely laughing at me. Have you forgotten that you +once thought me a prig? I have not altered; I am still a prig. How can +you want to marry me when you have that image of me in your mind? It +is hopeless to think of our marrying,--you with a secret contempt for +me, and I with a perpetual fear of you!" + +The man in him alone spoke when he answered her. + +"Surely, it is enough that we love each other?" + +She shook her head. + +"Ah, you know it is not," she replied, with the strange little smile +that had so often baffled him. "I--I do so wish you would +understand--and go. Or shall I find my father and tell him that you +are here?" + +He laid his hand against her cheek, and watched her closely. + +"Is it all over,--our friendship, your love for me, everything?" he +whispered. "Do you remember how sweetly you nursed me three years ago? +Have you forgotten the jolly talks we had together in the Temple? And +all the fun we had together in London? Is it all to come to an end +like this?" + +"I can't marry you; I don't love you enough for that," she said, +moving restively under his touch. He stroked her cheek gently. + +"Then why do you thrill when I touch you?" he asked. "Why do you not +send me away?" It was his last move, and he watched its effect +anxiously. She looked at him helplessly. + +"I--I do send you away," she said faintly, and he made her join feebly +in the laugh against herself. There was something contemptible in her +surrender, she felt, as he folded her in his arms and looked down at +her with a manly air of possession. + +"If this is not love what is it, you solemn little Puritan?" he +murmured. + +"I don't know," said Katharine dully. She submitted passively to his +embrace, and allowed him to kiss her more than once. + +"Of course you don't know," he smiled. "What a woman you are, and how +I love you for it! Don't be so serious, sweetheart; tell me what you +are thinking about so deeply?" + +It was pity for him, her old genuine love for him reawakening, that +made her at last rouse herself to tell him the truth. + +"Will you please let me go, Paul?" she asked submissively. And as he +loosened his arms and allowed her to go, she took one of his hands and +led him with feverish haste round to the table, where Ted's letter +still lay like a silent witness against herself. They stood side by +side and looked at it, the white envelope on the red table-cloth, and +it was quite a minute before the silence was broken. Then Katharine +pulled him away again and covered up the letter with her hand and +looked up in his face. + +"Do you know what is in that letter?" she asked, and without waiting +for a reply went on almost immediately. "It is from Ted, to ask me to +be his wife." + +"And you are going to say--" + +"Yes." + +Paul smiled incredulously. + +"It is impossible," he said. "I decline to believe what you say now, +after what you said to me on Monday afternoon." + +"Ah," she cried, "I was mad then. You always make me mad when I am +with you. You must not talk any more of Monday afternoon; you must +forget what I said to you then, and what I have said to you to-day; +you must forget that I have allowed you to kiss me--" + +"Forget?" interrupted Paul. "Are _you_ going to forget all this?" + +She turned away with a little cry. + +"You make it so hard for me, Paul; and it seemed so easy before you +came!" + +"Then it doesn't seem so easy now?" + +She evaded his question. "I know I am right, because I thought it all +out when you were not here," she went on piteously. "I cannot trust +myself even to think properly when you are there; you make me quite +unlike myself. That is why I am going to marry Ted. Ted is the sanest +person I know; he leaves me my individuality; he doesn't paralyse me +as you do; and I am simply myself when I am with him." + +"Simply yourself!" echoed Paul. "My dear little girl, whatever in +heaven or earth has allowed such a misapprehension to creep into your +head?" + +"I know what you mean," she said. "I have thought that out, too. You +know more about me than anybody in the whole world; Ted will never +know as much as you know, although I am going to be his wife. You are +the only person I could ever talk to about myself; you are the only +person who understands. I know all that. But one does not want that in +a husband; one wants some one who will be content with half of one's +self, and allow the other half to develop as it pleases. You would +never be content with less than the whole, would you, Paul? Ah, that +is why I loved you so madly! It is so queer, isn't it, that the very +things that make us fall in love are the very things that make +marriage impossible?" + +He did not speak, and she put her arms round his neck impulsively and +drew his head down to hers. + +"Don't you understand, dear?" she said. "It is impossible to find +everything we want in one person, so we have to be content with +satisfying one side of ourselves, or accept the alternative and not +marry at all. Ted wants me badly, or I would rather choose not to +marry at all. But he must have some one to look after him,--he can't +live alone like some men; and I have always looked after him all my +life. He has come in my way again now, so I am going to look after him +to the end. I am very fond of Ted, and we have learnt to be chums, so +I don't think it will be a failure. Oh, do say you understand, Paul?" + +"Do you love him?" asked Paul. + +"Yes," she replied. + +"As you loved me?" + +"No," said Katharine, simply. "I could never love any one again like +that. I wore myself out, I think, in my love for you. Oh, I know I am +spoiled; I know I have only the second best of myself to give to Ted; +but if he is content with that, ought I not to be glad to give it?" + +"But _you_, your own happiness," he urged brokenly. "Have you no +thought for your own happiness?" + +"Happiness?" she said, smiling again. "Oh, I do not expect to find +happiness. Women like me, who ask for more than life can possibly give +them, have no right to expect the same happiness as the people who +have found out that it is better to make a compromise and to take +what they can get! Oh, I shall never be greatly happy, I know that. +But I do not mind much; it is enough for me that I did once taste the +real, glorious happiness, if it was only in snatches." + +"Won't you taste it again?" he said, drawing her suddenly to him. +"Won't you give up this impossible scheme of yours, and come to me? We +will be married over there by your father,--now,--this very day. We +will go abroad, travel, do what you will. Only come with me, +Katharine. You belong to me, and to me only; you dare not deny it. +Come with me, Katharine." + +"No," she said, shaking her head. "I am not going to spoil your life, +as you have spoilt mine. You will be a great man, Paul, if you do not +marry me." + +"Listen," he said, without heeding her. "This is the last time I shall +ask you; this is the last time I shall hold you in my arms,--_so_. I +shall go away after this, and you will never see me again, nor hear of +me again. I shall never kiss you any more, nor ask you to come away +with me, nor tell you I love you as I never loved another woman. If +you come to me on your knees and beg me to love you again, I will not +relent. Do you understand me? This is the last, the very last time. +_Now_ what have you to say? Will you come with me?" + +She threw back her head and met his gaze as he bent over her. + +"No," she said again. He covered her face with kisses. + +"And now?" + +"No," she repeated desperately; and she crept away from him at last, +and took her letter from the table and tried to walk to the door. + +A slippered footstep shuffled along the hall and stopped outside the +library door. The next moment the Rector was in the room. + +"Kitty, my child, have you seen my hat anywhere? I feel convinced I +put it down somewhere, and for the life of me--" + +He paused as he saw Paul, and held out his hand with a smile of +welcome. + +"Delighted to see you again, my dear sir, delighted! That is to say," +added the old man, looking to Katharine for assistance, "I suppose I +_have_ seen you before, though for the moment I cannot quite recall +your name. But my memory is getting a bad one for names, a very bad +one, eh, Kitty? Anyhow, you will stop to lunch, of course; and +meanwhile, if I can only find my hat--" + +"Daddy, it is Mr. Wilton," explained Katharine, making an effort to +speak in her usual voice. Strange to say, it did not seem difficult to +become usual again now that her father was in the room. "He stayed +with us once, a long time ago; you remember Mr. Wilton, don't you?" + +"To be sure, to be sure; of course I remember Mr. Wilton perfectly!" +said the Rector, shaking hands with him again. "I can remember +distinctly many of our little talks on archæology and so forth. Let me +see, any relation to the great numismatist? Ah, now I know who you are +quite well. There was an accident, or a calamity of some sort, if I +recollect rightly. Kitty, my child, have you found my hat?" + +"Will you stay to lunch?" Katharine was asking him. + +"Of course he will stay to lunch," cried the Rector, without giving +him time to reply. "I've picked up some fine specimens of old +Sheffield plate that I should like to show you, Mr. Wilton. Stay to +lunch? Why, of course. Dear me, I know I saw it somewhere-- Got to +catch the two-thirty? Oh, that's all right; we'll drive you to the +station after lunch. That child will like a chat with you, eh, Kitty? +You used to be great friends, and she has something--no, no, I've +looked there twice--something of interest to tell you, something of +very great interest, eh, Kitty? A nice young fellow he is, too," +continued the old man, stopping for a moment in his fruitless search. +"By the way, you know him, don't you? It's young-- Ah, now I remember! +I left it in the vestry; so stupid of me!" + +Paul stopped him as he was hurrying out of the room. + +"I must be off, thank you, sir. I am not going to catch the two-thirty +at all. I think I will walk on somewhere and catch something else, if +there happens to be anything. I am sure I wish Miss Katharine every +happiness. Good-morning." + +He went out by the window as he had come, and they watched him as he +walked across the lawn, the neat figure crowned by the conventional +felt hat. He had not shaken hands with Katharine nor looked at her +again. + +The Rector glanced after him and smoothed his hair thoughtfully. + +"Curious man that," he remarked with his simple smile. "He always +looks to me as though there were a tragedy in his life." + +"Oh, I don't think so," said Katharine, coldly. "It is only his +manner. He takes a joke tragically. Besides, he has never married +unhappily, or anything like that." + +"That may be," said Cyril Austen, with one of his occasional flashes +of intuition; "but it means a tragedy to some men if they haven't got +married at all, and I fancy that's one of them. Ah, well, his father +was one of our best--" + +Miss Esther's voice came shrilly down the passage, and the Rector +hastened out of the room without finishing his sentence. + +"The annoyances of life," thought Katharine cynically, "are much more +important than the tragedies." + +She picked up her letter once more and tore it open. Even then she did +not read it at once, but looked out of the window first and beyond the +garden, where a man's felt hat was moving irregularly along the top of +the hedge. She made an impatient gesture and turned her back to the +light, and unfolded Ted's letter at last. And this is what it +contained:-- + + "By the time you get this, I shall have cleared out. I may be + an infernally rotten ass, but I won't let the best girl in the + world marry me out of kindness, and that is all you were going + to do. I tried to think you were a little keen on me a few + weeks ago, but of course I was wrong. Don't mind me. I shall + come up smiling again after a bit. It was just like my + poorness to think I could ever marry any one so clever and + spry as yourself. Of course you will buck up and marry some + played-out literary chap, who will gas about books and things + all day and make you happy. Good old Kit, it has been a + mistake all along, hasn't it? When I come back, we will be + chums again, won't we? I am off to Melbourne in the morning + and shall travel about for a year, I think. You might write to + me--the jolly sort of letters you used to write. Monty knows + all my movements. + + Yours ever, + + Ted." + +The letter fell from her hand, and she turned and gazed blankly out of +the window. The felt hat was no longer to be seen at the top of the +hedge. + + + + +CHAPTER XX + + +High up in one of the houses on the shady side of the Rue Ruhmhorff, +Katharine sat on her balcony and thought. Her reflections were of the +desultory order begotten of early spring lethargy and early spring +sunshine, relating to street cries innumerable and to the mingled +scent of violets and asphalt in the air, to the children playing their +perpetual game of hop-scotch on the white pavements, and to the +artisan opposite who was mixing his salad by the open window with a +naïve disregard for the public gaze. Her pupils were all in the Bois +under the able supervision of the excellent Miss Smithson, and there +was temporary calm in the three _étages_ that formed Mrs. Downing's +Parisian establishment for the daughters of gentlemen. + +"Will he ever have done, I wonder?" speculated Katharine lazily. She +was taking quite a languid interest in the progress of the salad, and +smiled to herself when the man took off his blue blouse and attacked +it afresh in his shirt sleeves. His wife joined him after a while, +evidently, to judge from her emphatic gestures, with critical intent. +But the man received her volley of suggestions with an expressive +shrug of the shoulders, and they finally went off to their mid-day +meal. + +"What pitiable jargon we talk, all the world over, about the triumph +of mind over matter," murmured Katharine, yawning as she spoke. "And +all the while matter goes on triumphing over mind on every conceivable +occasion! It even gets into the street cries," she added with another +yawn, as a flower vender came along the street below and sent up his +minor refrain in unvarying repetition. "Des violettes pour embaumer la +chambre," he chanted, "du cresson pour la santé du corps!" + +It was more than a year since she had accepted Mrs. Downing's offer +and settled here in Paris; more than a year since Ted had gone abroad +and Paul Wilton had bidden her farewell. But she never looked back on +those days now, though not so much from design as from lack of +incentive; for her life had strayed into another channel, and her days +were full of the kind of occupation that leaves no room for the luxury +of reminiscence. It never even occurred to her to wonder whether she +was happy or not; she seemed to have completely lost her old trick of +wanting a reason for everything she thought or felt, and for the time +being she had become eminently practical. Even now, in spite of the +enervating effect of the first spring weather, her thoughts returned +to the business of the moment, and she wondered why the father of her +newest pupil, who had made an appointment with her for eleven o'clock, +was so late in coming. A ring at the electric bell seemed to answer +her thought, and the maid came in almost immediately with a +gentleman's card on a tray. + +"British caution," was Katharine's criticism, as Julie explained that +the English monsieur had not attempted to teach her his name. By the +merest chance she glanced at the card before her visitor came in, and +was spared the annoyance of betraying the surprise she must otherwise +have felt. As it was, she had time to recover from her astonishment, +even to remark how different the familiar name and address seemed to +her when, for the first time as now, she saw them transcribed on a +visiting card,--"Mr. Paul Wilton, Essex Court, Temple." + +"I am so glad to see you," she exclaimed, with a look that did not +contradict the welcome in her voice. And Julie, who had never seen +her mistress look so joyous before, went back to Marie in the kitchen +with a highly coloured account of the meeting she had just witnessed, +which explained to that frivolous but astute little person how it was +that Madame always looked so leniently on her flirtations with the +_charcutier_ round the corner. + +"I have never caught you idling before," said Paul, referring to the +attitude in which he had seen her through the open door before she had +turned round with that glad look in her eyes. + +"I don't suppose you have," she said. "It isn't so very long since I +learnt how to idle. Do you remember how bitterly you used to complain +because I never wanted to lounge? I often lounge now; and my greatest +joy is to think about nothing at all. Don't you know how restful it is +to think about nothing at all?" + +"You must have altered a good deal," he observed. + +"Do you think I have, then?" + +"Ask me that presently," he replied, with an answering smile. "I have +got to hear all the news first,--how keeping school agrees with you, +and everything there is to tell about yourself. So make haste and +begin, please." + +"Oh, there is nothing to tell about myself; at least, nothing more +than you can learn from the prospectus! Would you like to see one? You +can read it and learn what an important person I am, while I go and +leave a message for Miss Smithson." + +When she came back, he regarded her with a look of amused interest. + +"This is a very novel sensation," he remarked. + +"I am glad it amuses you," said Katharine; "but I never knew before +that the prospectus was funny." + +"Oh, no; it isn't that," he explained. "The humour of a prospectus is +the kind of grim joke that could only be expected to appeal to a +parent. What I meant was the fact of your appearing to me for the +first time in the character of hostess." + +"I wondered how it was that I did not feel so awed by your presence as +usual," she remarked. "Now I know it is because you, even you, are +sensible to the chastening atmosphere of the home of the young idea. +You had better come round the establishment at once, before the +favourable impression begins to wear off." + +"Oh, please!" he implored. "You will surely let me off? I haven't a +daughter or a niece, or any kind of feminine relation who could be of +the least commercial value to you. And I really don't feel equal to +facing crowds of unsophisticated girls in short frocks, with pocket +editions of their favourite poets in their hands. Girls of that age +always expect you to be so well informed, and I haven't run a +favourite poet for years." + +"When you first met me," she said emphatically, "_I_ was an +unsophisticated girl in a short frock, with a whole list of favourite +poets. And I distinctly remember one occasion on which I bored you for +half an hour with my views on Browning." + +"I am not here to deny it," said Paul. "It is only an additional +reason for my wishing to stay and talk to you, now that you have +ceased to have any views on any subject whatever. Besides, I exhausted +the subject of unsophistication in short frocks when I first had the +pleasure of meeting you, four years ago. And, interesting as I found +it then, I have no particular wish to renew it now." + +"All of which is an unpleasant reflection on the enormous age I seem +to have acquired in four years," she cried. "They must have been +singularly long years to you!" + +"With the exception of the last one," said Paul, "they were much the +same as any other years to me." + +"Now, that's odd," she remarked; "because last year has seemed to go +more quickly than any other year in my life. I wonder why it seemed so +long to you?" + +"It didn't," he replied promptly. "It was the other three that did +that, because I spent them in learning wisdom." + +"And the last one in forgetting it? How you must have wasted the other +three! Ah, there are the girls at last," she added, springing to her +feet. "That means déjeûner, and I am as hungry as two wolves. You will +stop of course?" + +"More developments," he murmured. "You used to scorn such mundane +matters as meals, in the days when the poets were food enough for you. +But please don't imagine for a moment that I am going to face that +Anglo-French crowd out there; I would almost as soon listen to your +opinion of Browning." + +"Do you mean to say," she complained, "that you expect me to minister +to your wants in here? What will Miss Smithson say, what will the dear +children say in their weekly letters home? You don't really mean it?" + +"On the contrary," he replied, placidly, "I am going to take you out +to lunch in the most improper restaurant this improper city can +produce. So go and put on that Parisian hat of yours, and be as quick +as you like about it. I am rather hungry, too." + +"You really seem to forget," she said, "that I am the respectable head +of a high-class seminary for--" + +"I only wish you would allow me to forget it," he interrupted. "It is +just because you have been occupying yourself for a whole year, and +with the most lamentable success, in growing elderly and respectable, +that I intend to give you this opportunity of being regenerated. May I +ask what you are waiting for, now?" + +"I am waiting for some of the conventional dogma you used to preach to +me in the days when _I_ wanted to be improper," she retorted. "It +would really save a great deal of trouble if our respective moral +codes could be induced to coincide sometimes, wouldn't it?" + +"It would save a great deal of trouble if you were to do as you are +told, without talking quite so much about it. It is now half-past--" + +"I tell you it is impossible," she protested. "You must have your +déjeûner here, with unsophistication twenty-five strong--and Miss +Smithson. What is the use of my having acquired a position of +importance if I deliberately throw it away again by behaving like an +improper schoolgirl?" + +"What is the use of a position at all," replied Paul, "if it doesn't +enable you to be improper when you choose? Don't you think we might +consider the argument at an end? I am quite willing to concede to Miss +Smithson, or to any other person in authority, that you have made all +the objections necessary to the foolish possessor of a conscience, if +you will only go and tell her that you do not intend to be in to +lunch." + +"I have told her," said Katharine inadvertently, and then laughed +frankly at her own admission. "I always spoil all my deceptions by +being truthful again too soon," she added plaintively. + +"Women always spoil their vices by incompletion," observed Paul. "They +have reduced virtue to an art, but there is a crudity about their vice +that always gives them away sooner or later. That is why they are so +easily found out; it is not because they are worse than men, but +because they are better. They repent too soon, and your sins always +find you out when you begin to repent." + +"That's perfectly true," said Katharine, half jestingly. "You would +never have discovered that I was a prig if I had not become partly +conscious of it first." + +"That," said Paul deliberately, "is a personal application of my +remarks which I should never have dreamed of making myself; but, since +you are good enough to allow it, I must say that the way you have +bungled the only vice you possess is quite singular. If you had been a +man no one would have detected your priggishness at all; at its worst +it would have been called personality. It is the same with everything. +When a woman writes an improper book she funks the crisis, and gets +called immoral for her pains; a man goes the whole hog, and we call it +art." + +"According to that," objected Katharine, "it is impossible to tell +whether a man is good or bad. In fact, the better he appears to be the +worse he must be in reality; because it only means that he is cleverer +at concealing it." + +"None of us are either good or bad," replied Paul. "It is all a +question of brains. Goodness is only badness done well, and morality +is mostly goodness done badly. I should like to know what I have said +to make you smile?" + +"It isn't what you have said," laughed Katharine; "it is the way you +said it. There is something so familiar in the way you are inventing a +whole new ethical system on the spur of the moment, and delivering it +just as weightily as if you had been evolving it for a lifetime. Do go +on; it has such an additional charm after one has had a holiday for +more than a year!" + +"When you have done being brilliant and realised the unimportance of +being conscientious, perhaps you will kindly go and get ready," said +Paul severely. And she laughed again at nothing in particular, and +raised no further objection to following what was distinctly her +inclination. + +When they had had déjeûner and were strolling through the Palais +Royal, he alluded for the first time to their parting at Ivingdon more +than a year ago. She gave a little start and reddened. + +"Oh, don't let us talk about that; I am so ashamed of myself whenever +I think of it," she said hastily. + +"I am sorry," he replied with composure, "because I particularly wish +to talk about it just now. You must remember that, until I met Ted in +town last week, I had no idea you were not married." + +She turned and stared at him suddenly. + +"I never thought of that," she said, slowly. + +"Of course you didn't. In fact, all your proceedings immediately +following that particular day in December seem to have been +characterised by the same lack of reflection. You might have known +that there was no one who could tell me of your erratic actions. And +how was I to guess that you would go flying off to Paris just when +everything was made easy for you to stop in England? I was naturally +forced to conclude, as I neither saw nor heard from you again, that +you had carried out your absurdly heroic purpose of marrying Ted. I +must say, Katharine, you have a wonderful faculty for complicating +matters." + +"Nothing of the sort," she said indignantly. "And your memory is no +better than mine, for you seem to forget that it was you who made our +parting final. You were so tragic that of course I thought you meant +it." + +"Before we criticise my own action in the matter," said Paul, "I +should rather like to know why you did come and bury yourself here, +without telling anybody?" + +"Oh, it is easy for you to smile and be sarcastic! I had to come, of +course; it was the only thing to be done. Nature had made me a prig, +and everything was forcing me to continue to be a prig, and all my +attempts at being anything else didn't come off. What chance is there +for any one with priggish tendencies in a world like ours? It simply +bristles with opportunities for behaving in a superior way, unless you +resolutely make up your mind to skim over the surface of it and never +to think deeply at all. What was I to do? Ted had gone abroad to +escape from my overbearing superiority, and you had left in disgust +because marrying for love wasn't good enough for me; and then I had +Mrs. Downing's letter, and she persisted in thinking that I was the +only person in the world who could manage the mothers of her +fashionable pupils. It seemed as though I were destined to remain a +superior person to the end of my days, and I wasn't going to fight +against my natural tendencies any longer. I determined that if I had +got to be a prig at all, I would at least make as good a prig as +possible. Now do you understand why I came?" + +"Before I attempt to do that, do you mind mentioning where you are +going to take me?" said Paul casually. She looked round quickly and +found that they had wandered down to the Seine and were close to the +landing-stage of the boats that went to St. Cloud; and an importunate +proprietor was representing to them in broken English the charms of a +trip down the river. + +"Oh, let us go!" she cried impulsively. "It would be so beautiful! +Miss Smithson will never respect me again, but I don't feel as though +I _could_ go back to all those girls just yet. Oh, don't be so musty! +It _won't_ be chilly, and you are not a bit too old, and you have just +got to come. Oh, don't I remember those moods of yours when everything +was too youthful for you! I never knew any one with such a plastic age +as yours." + +He smiled perfunctorily, and gave in; and they were soon journeying +down the Seine. Katharine was in a mood to appreciate everything, and +she leaned over the side of the boat and made a running commentary on +the beauty of the scene as they glided along between the banks. Paul +tried two or three seats in succession, and finally chose one with an +air of resignation and felt for his tobacco pouch. + +"There is a smell of oil," he said. "And the chestnuts at Bushey are +far finer." + +"Can't you lower your standard just for this one afternoon?" she +suggested mockingly. "It would be so pleasant if you were to allow +that Nature, for once, was almost good enough for you. I am so glad it +is always good enough for me; it gives one's critical faculty such a +rest." + +"Or proves the non-existence of one," added Paul. + +"It is surprising," she continued in the same tone, "how you always +manage to spoil the light side of life by treating it seriously. Do +you ever allow yourself a happy, irresponsible moment?" + +"Perhaps I haven't seen as much of the light side as you have," he +returned, quite unmoved. "And it is always easier to play our tragedy +than our comedy; the _mise en scène_ is better adapted to begin with. +That is why the mediocre writer generally ends his book badly; he gets +his effect much more easily than by ending it well." + +"What has made you so cynical, I wonder?" she asked lazily. + +"Principally, the happiness of the vulgar," returned Paul promptly. +"It is not our own unhappiness that makes us cynical, but the badly +done happiness of others. Quite an ordinary person may be able to +bear misfortune more or less nobly, but it takes a dash of genius to +be happy without being aggressive over it." + +"I can't imagine your taking the trouble to be aggressive over +anything," observed Katharine. "That is probably why you prefer to +remain sombre, whether the occasion demands it or not. It is very +prosaic to have to acknowledge that a man's most characteristic pose +is merely due to his laziness. On the whole, I am rather glad I am +quite an ordinary person; I would much sooner be happy, even if it +does make me vulgar." + +"Happiness is like wine," said Paul, without heeding her. "It +demoralises you at the time, and it leaves you flat afterwards. The +most difficult thing in life is to know how to take our happiness when +it comes." + +"It is more difficult," murmured Katharine, "to know how to do without +it when it doesn't come." + +They landed at St. Cloud, and walked up through the little village and +into the park where the ruins of the palace were. They had strayed +away from their fellow passengers by this time, and the complete +solitude of the place and its atmosphere of decay affected them both +in the same way, and they gradually dropped into silence. He was the +first to break the pause. + +"Don't you think it is time we brought this farce to an end?" he asked +with a carelessness of manner that was obviously assumed. + +"Who is being farcical?" she returned just as lightly. + +"You did that admirably, but it hasn't deceived me," said Paul +serenely. "You know as well as I do that it is futile to go on any +longer like this. We have tried it for a year, and I for one don't +think very much of it. Your experiences have doubtless been happier +than mine; but if you mean to tell me that they have taught you to +prefer solitude to companionship, then you are as thorough a prig as +you came over here to become. And that I don't believe for a moment, +for at your worst you were always inconsistent, and inconsistency is +the saving grace of the prig." + +"I appreciate the honour of your approval," replied Katharine with +exaggerated solemnity; "but, for all that, I still think that living +with unsophistication in short petticoats is likely to be less tiring, +on the whole, than living with some one for whom nothing in heaven or +earth has yet been brought to perfection." + +She ended with a peal of laughter. Paul strolled on at the same +measured pace as before. + +"Besides," she added, "I thought we had both done with the matter a +year ago. What is the use of dragging it up again?" + +"I thought," added Paul, "that we had also done with taking ourselves +seriously, a year ago. But you seem to wish the process to be renewed. +Very well, then; let us begin at the beginning. The initial +difficulty, if I remember rightly, was the fact that we were very much +in love with each other." + +"I know _I_ wasn't," said Katharine hotly. "I never hated any one so +much in my life, and--" + +"Which gets over the initial difficulty, does it not? Secondly then, +you determined in the most unselfish manner possible that a wife would +inevitably cripple what you were kind enough to call my career. I need +hardly say how touched I felt by your charming consideration, but I +should like to point out--" + +"It is perfectly detestable of you to have come all this way on +purpose to laugh at me," cried Katharine. + +"I should like to point out," repeated Paul, "that I feel quite +capable of pursuing my career without any suggestions from my wife at +all, and that, engrossing as her presence would undoubtedly prove--" + +"It seems to me," interrupted Katharine, "that you don't want a wife +at all; you only want an audience." + +"I don't think," said Paul, smiling indulgently, "that we need quarrel +about terms, need we? Well, as I was saying, my career would probably +continue to take care of itself, even if there were two of us to be +asked out to dinner, instead of one. And that disposes of the second +obstacle, doesn't it? The third and last--" + +"Last? There are millions of others!" + +"The third and last," resumed Paul, "was, I think, the trifling fact +that I had once presumed to call you a prig, in consequence of which +you chose to pretend you were afraid of me. Wasn't that so?" + +"Afraid of you? What a ridiculous idea!" she exclaimed. "Why, I was +never afraid of you in my life!" + +"Which disposes of the third and last difficulty," said Paul promptly. + +Katharine stamped her foot and walked on in front of him. + +"You don't seem to think," she said, "that I might not _want_ to marry +you." + +"Oh, no," said Paul; "I don't." + +She said no more, but continued to walk a little way in front of him +so that he could not see her face. She only spoke once again on their +way down to the boat. + +"How was Ted looking when you saw him?" she asked abruptly. "Perhaps +you didn't notice, though?" + +"Oh, yes," said Paul, blandly. "I've never seen him looking better; he +seemed to have had a splendid time out there. He asked after you, by +the way, and seemed rather surprised that I hadn't heard from you." + +She made no comment, and they reached the boat in silence. + +"You will come back to tea with me?" she said, as they stood waiting +for it to start. + +"With you,--or with unsophistication?" + +"Oh, with me of course! Don't you think you have been funny enough for +one afternoon?" + +"Our best jokes are always our unconscious ones," murmured Paul. +"Seriously, though, I think I won't bother you any more. I shall only +be in the way if I stay any longer." + +"Now what have I done," she demanded indignantly, "to make you think +you are in the way?" + +"Oh, of course--nothing. So foolish of me!" said Paul humbly. "I shall +be delighted to return with you; there are still so many things we +want to say to each other, are there not?" + +However, they did not say them on the way home, for Katharine soon +became thoughtful again, and he made no further attempt to draw her +out but remained studiously at the other end of the boat until they +landed; and after that, the noise of the cab in which they drove +across Paris was sufficient excuse for refraining from anything like +conversation. At the top of the stairs, as they stayed for a moment +outside her _appartement_ to recover their breath, she suddenly turned +to him with one of her unaccountable smiles. + +"Well?" he said. + +"You know I didn't mean to be cross, don't you?" she asked him in a +hurried undertone. + +"You absurd little silly!" was all he said. + +They sat for a long time over tea, and neither of them felt inclined +to talk. But the silence was not embarrassing. And the early spring +day drew to a close and the room grew dark with shadows; and still +they sat there, and it did not occur to either of them to make +conversation. At last, Katharine stirred in her seat at the end of the +sofa and looked towards the dim outline of his figure against the +window, and finished her reflections out loud. + +"After all," she said thoughtfully, "the great thing is to be sane. +Nothing else matters much if one can only be sane about things. There +are heaps of reasons why you and I should not marry, if we were to +begin hunting them up; but why bother about it? You know and I know +that we have simply got to try the experiment, and chance the rest. +One must risk something. And it can't be much worse than going on +alone like this." + +"No," said Paul, "it can't be worse than that." + +He came and sat on the sofa, too, and there was silence once more. He +put out his hand to find hers, and she gave it him and laughed softly. + +"I have an idea," she said irrelevantly. "We must marry Ted to +Marion." + +"We?" said Paul, smiling. And she laughed again. + +"Isn't it ridiculous," she said, "after all our views about marriage +and so on,--to end in behaving just like any one else who never had +any views at all?" + +"Yes," agreed Paul. "We haven't even stuck to our priggishness." + +"_We?_" exclaimed Katharine. + +But there is always a limit to a man's confessions, and Paul's was +never finished. + + + + +BY THE SAME AUTHOR. + + +_AT THE RELTON ARMS._ + +Miss Evelyn Sharp is to be congratulated on having, through the mouth +of one of her characters, said one of the wisest words yet spoken on +what is rather absurdly called "The Marriage Question" (page 132). It +is an interesting and well-written story, with some smart +characterisation and quite a sufficiency of humour.--_Daily +Chronicle._ + +A delightful story. The most genuine piece of humour in a book that is +nowhere devoid of it, is that scene in the inn parlour where Digby +finds himself engaged to two young women within five minutes; while +the two brief colloquies of the landlady and her cronies make one +suspect that the author could produce an admirable study of village +humour.--_Athenæum._ + +A distinctly clever book, of a fresh conventionality.--_Academy._ + + +_WYMPS: FAIRY TALES._ + +_With 8 coloured Illustrations and decorated cover by Mabel Dearmer._ + +Of the stories it is impossible to speak too highly; they are true +fairy literature, and the most exigent taste will be satisfied with +them.--_Truth (London)._ + +[Illustration] + +A FLY-LEAF POEM. + +(_To a little girl with a story-book,--"Wymps," by_ EVELYN SHARP). + + Here, in this book, the wise may find + A world exactly to their mind. + From fairy kings to talking fish, + There's everything such people + wish. + + Sweeter little maid than you + Never read a story through. + Through a sweeter little book + Little maid shall never look. + + MR. 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B.).= + + IN VANITY FAIR. 70 Drawings. Oblong folio. 20s. + +=Wharton (H. T.).= + + SAPPHO. Memoir, Text, Selected Renderings, and a Literal + Translation by HENRY THORNTON WHARTON. With 3 Illustrations in + Photogravure, and a Cover designed by AUBREY BEARDSLEY. With a + Memoir of Mr. Wharton. Fcap. 8vo. 6s. net. + [_Fourth Edition._ + +=Wotton (Mabel E.).= + + DAY BOOKS. Crown 8vo. 3s. 6d. net. + +=Xenopoulos (Gregory).= + + THE STEPMOTHER: A TALE OF MODERN ATHENS. Translated by MRS. + EDMONDS. Crown 8vo. 2s. 6d. net. + + + + +THE YELLOW BOOK + +=An Illustrated Quarterly.= + +_Pott 4to. 5s. net._ + + I. April 1894, 272 pp., 15 Illustrations. [_Out of print._ + + II. July 1894, 364 pp., 23 Illustrations. + + III. October 1894, 280 pp., 15 Illustrations. + + IV. January 1895, 285 pp., 16 Illustrations. + + V. April 1895, 317 pp., 14 Illustrations. + + VI. July 1895, 335 pp., 16 Illustrations. + + VII. October 1895, 320 pp., 20 Illustrations. + + VIII. January 1896, 406 pp., 26 Illustrations. + + IX. April 1896, 256 pp., 17 Illustrations. + + X. July 1896, 340 pp., 13 Illustrations. + + XI. October 1896, 342 pp., 12 Illustrations. + + XII. January 1897, 350 pp., 14 Illustrations. + + XIII. April 1897, 316 pp., 18 Illustrations. + + +BALLANTYNE PRESS + + + + + +End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of The Making of a Prig, by Evelyn Sharp + +*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 42153 *** |