usly. Her tone of
consideration touched him, and he walked on in silence for a space.

"And we might be so happy, Katharine!" he exclaimed impulsively, and
drew her arm through his. She withdrew it directly.

"As long as you let yourself feel like this we shall never be happy,"
she said.

The harshness, which Henry had noticed, was again unmistakable in her
manner. William flinched and was silent. Such severity, accompanied
by something indescribably cold and impersonal in her manner, had
constantly been meted out to him during the last few days, always in the
company of others. He had recouped himself by some ridiculous display of
vanity which, as he knew, put him still more at her mercy. Now that
he was alone with her there was no stimulus from outside to draw his
attention from his injury. By a considerable effort of self-control he
forced himself to remain silent, and to make himself distinguish what
part of his pain was due to vanity, what part to the certainty that no
woman really loving him could speak thus.

"What do I feel about Katharine?" he thought to himself. It was clear
that she had been a very desirable and distinguished figure, the
mistress of her little section of the world; but more than that, she was
the person of all others who seemed to him the arbitress of life, the
woman whose judgment was naturally right and steady, as his had never
been in spite of all his culture. And then he could not see her come
into a room without a sense of the flowing of robes, of the flowering of
blossoms, of the purple waves of the sea, of all things that are lovely
and mutable on the surface but still and passionate in their heart.

"If she were callous all the time and had only led me on to laugh at me
I couldn't have felt that about her," he thought. "I'm not a fool, after
all. I can't have been utterly mistaken all these years. And yet, when
she speaks to me like that! The truth of it is," he thought, "that I've
got such despicable faults that no one could help speaking to me
like that. Katharine is quite right. And yet those are not my serious
feelings, as she knows quite well. How can I change myself? What would
make her care for me?" He was terribly tempted here to break the silence
by asking Katharine in what respects he could change himself to suit
her; but he sought consolation instead by running over the list of his
gifts and acquirements, his knowledge of Greek and Latin, his knowledge
of art and liter