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 flatteryof 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, beforeany 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 shrankfrom 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 whatmakes 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,—evena 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 spiritsthan 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, witha 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 outto 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 andlounging 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 careerthere, 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 almostdepressed, 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 theinnocent 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.
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 wasconsumed 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; andhe 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?Idon'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 therein 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.
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-dressedlittle 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, Katharinewas 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 "inthe 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 cannotbeartohave 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 differencebetween 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," sheexclaimed. "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 girlsstopped 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;Iwouldn'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 ofdead 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 didtheysay?" 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, whateveris 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 hadmyexperience 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. Shemight 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 occurto 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'sa 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 thehors d'œuvrewith 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 atwhat 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?" headded, 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 inthose 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 verymaterially, 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, afterthe 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, youarecross. 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 canthink 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 thatI 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 ofthe other people, so they may as well say what they like about it.Idon'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 atarms' 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 forme."
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. Katharinenever 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'tknow 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.