n every man. Katherine fascinated her
weaker sister by some such super-feminine charm. At the same time,
Audrey was afraid of her, as she had been afraid of Hardy in his
passion, or of Ted in his boisterous mirth. There were moments when she
thought that Katherine's direct unquestioning gaze must have seen what
she hid from her own eyes, must have penetrated the more or less
artistic disguises without which she would not have known herself. Now
her one anxiety was lest Katherine knew or guessed her treatment of
Vincent, and had come to reproach her with it. Owing to some slight
similarity of detail, the events of the morning had brought the
recollection of that last scene with Hardy uppermost in her mind. She
had persuaded herself that her love for Ted was her first experience of
passion, as it was his; but at the touch of one awkward memory the bloom
was somehow brushed off this little romance. For these reasons there was
fear in her grey eyes as she put up her face to Katherine's to be
kissed.

"Do you know?" she half whispered. "Has he told you?"

"No, he has told me nothing; but I know."

There was silence as the two women sat down side by side and looked into
each other's faces. Katherine's instinct was to soothe and protect the
shy creatures that shrank from her, and Audrey in her doubt and timidity
appealed to her more than she had ever done in the self-conscious
triumph of her beauty. She took her hand, caressing it gently as she
spoke.

"Audrey--you won't mind telling me frankly? Are you engaged to Ted?"

True to her imitative instincts, Audrey could be frank with the frank.
"Yes, I am. But it's our own little secret, and we don't want anybody to
know yet."

"Perhaps you are wise." She paused. How could she make Audrey understand
what she had to say? She was not going to ask her to break off her
engagement. In the first place, she had no right to do so; in the second
place, any interference in these cases is generally fatal to its own
ends. But she wanted to make Audrey realise the weight of her
responsibility.

"Audrey," she said at last, "do you remember our first meeting, when you
thought Ted was a baby?"

"Yes, of course I do. That was only six, seven months ago; and to think
that I should be engaged to him now! Isn't it funny?"

"Very funny indeed. But you were perfectly right. He is a baby. He knows
no more than a baby does of the world, and of the men in it. Of the
women he knows rather less