past her. "How did you know it?" She began, like a child, to
finger a tassel hanging from her mother's cloak.

"The first evening you told me, Katharine. Oh, and thousands of
times--dinner-parties--talking about books--the way he came into the
room--your voice when you spoke of him."

Katharine seemed to consider each of these proofs separately. Then she
said gravely:

"I'm not going to marry William. And then there's Cassandra--"

"Yes, there's Cassandra," said Mrs. Hilbery. "I own I was a little
grudging at first, but, after all, she plays the piano so beautifully.
Do tell me, Katharine," she asked impulsively, "where did you go that
evening she played Mozart, and you thought I was asleep?"

Katharine recollected with difficulty.

"To Mary Datchet's," she remembered.

"Ah!" said Mrs. Hilbery, with a slight note of disappointment in her
voice. "I had my little romance--my little speculation." She looked at
her daughter. Katharine faltered beneath that innocent and penetrating
gaze; she flushed, turned away, and then looked up with very bright
eyes.

"I'm not in love with Ralph Denham," she said.

"Don't marry unless you're in love!" said Mrs. Hilbery very quickly.
"But," she added, glancing momentarily at her daughter, "aren't there
different ways, Katharine--different--?"

"We want to meet as often as we like, but to be free," Katharine
continued.

"To meet here, to meet in his house, to meet in the street." Mrs.
Hilbery ran over these phrases as if she were trying chords that did
not quite satisfy her ear. It was plain that she had her sources of
information, and, indeed, her bag was stuffed with what she called "kind
letters" from the pen of her sister-in-law.

"Yes. Or to stay away in the country," Katharine concluded.

Mrs. Hilbery paused, looked unhappy, and sought inspiration from the
window.

"What a comfort he was in that shop--how he took me and found the ruins
at once--how SAFE I felt with him--"

"Safe? Oh, no, he's fearfully rash--he's always taking risks. He wants
to throw up his profession and live in a little cottage and write books,
though he hasn't a penny of his own, and there are any number of sisters
and brothers dependent on him."

"Ah, he has a mother?" Mrs. Hilbery inquired.

"Yes. Rather a fine-looking old lady, with white hair." Katharine began
to describe her visit, and soon Mrs. Hilbery elicited the facts that not
only was the house of excruciating ugliness, which Ralp