watching for this moment, and he instantly produced his
sentence.

"I wonder, Miss Hilbery, whether you remembered to get that picture
glazed?" His voice showed that the question was one that had been
prepared.

"Oh, you idiot!" Mary exclaimed, very nearly aloud, with a sense that
Ralph had said something very stupid. So, after three lessons in Latin
grammar, one might correct a fellow student, whose knowledge did not
embrace the ablative of "mensa."

"Picture--what picture?" Katharine asked. "Oh, at home, you mean--that
Sunday afternoon. Was it the day Mr. Fortescue came? Yes, I think I
remembered it."

The three of them stood for a moment awkwardly silent, and then Mary
left them in order to see that the great pitcher of coffee was properly
handled, for beneath all her education she preserved the anxieties of
one who owns china.

Ralph could think of nothing further to say; but could one have stripped
off his mask of flesh, one would have seen that his will-power was
rigidly set upon a single object--that Miss Hilbery should obey him.
He wished her to stay there until, by some measures not yet apparent
to him, he had conquered her interest. These states of mind transmit
themselves very often without the use of language, and it was evident to
Katharine that this young man had fixed his mind upon her. She instantly
recalled her first impressions of him, and saw herself again proffering
family relics. She reverted to the state of mind in which he had
left her that Sunday afternoon. She supposed that he judged her very
severely. She argued naturally that, if this were the case, the burden
of the conversation should rest with him. But she submitted so far as
to stand perfectly still, her eyes upon the opposite wall, and her lips
very nearly closed, though the desire to laugh stirred them slightly.

"You know the names of the stars, I suppose?" Denham remarked, and from
the tone of his voice one might have thought that he grudged Katharine
the knowledge he attributed to her.

She kept her voice steady with some difficulty.

"I know how to find the Pole star if I'm lost."

"I don't suppose that often happens to you."

"No. Nothing interesting ever happens to me," she said.

"I think you make a system of saying disagreeable things, Miss Hilbery,"
he broke out, again going further than he meant to. "I suppose it's one
of the characteristics of your class. They never talk seriously to their
inferiors."

Whether