y sensible grounds, my dear
mother, that after full consideration, she found the bid was not high
enough."

"Indeed," Katherine said.

"Yes, indeed, my dear mother," Richard repeated. "Does that surprise
you? It quite ceased to surprise me, when she pointed out the facts of
the case. For she was touchingly sincere. I respected her for that. The
position was an ungracious one for her. She has a charming nature, and
really wanted to spare me just as much as was possible along with the
gaining of her cause. Her gift of speech is limited, you know, but then
no degree of eloquence or diplomacy could have rendered that which she
had to say agreeable to my self-esteem. Oh! on the whole she did it
very well, very conclusively."

Richard raised his head, pausing a moment. Again that dryness of the
throat checked his utterance. And then, recalling the scene of the past
night, a great wave of unhappiness, pure and simple, of immense
disappointment, immense self-disgust broke over him. His anger, his
outraged pride, came near being swamped by it. He came near losing his
bitter self-control and crying aloud for help. But he mastered the
inclination, perhaps unfortunately, and continued speaking.

"Yes, decidedly, with the exception of Ludovic, that family do not
possess ready tongues, yet they contrive to make their meaning pretty
plain in the end. I have just driven over from Whitney, and am fresh
from a fine example of eventual plain speaking from that excellent
father of the family, Lord Fallowfeild. It was instructive. For the
main thing, after all, as we must both agree, mother, is to understand
oneself clearly and to make oneself clearly understood. And in this
respect you and I, I'm afraid, have failed a good deal. Blinded by our
own fine egoism we have even failed altogether to understand others.
Lady Constance, for instance, possesses very much more character than
it suited us to credit her with."

"You are harsh, dearest," Katherine murmured, and her lips trembled.

"Not at all," he answered. "I have only said good-bye to lying. Can you
honestly deny, my dear mother, that the whole affair was just one of
convenience? I told you--it strikes me now as a rather brutally
primitive announcement--that I wanted a wife because I wanted a son--a
son to prove to me the entirety of my own manhood, a son to give me at
second hand certain obvious pleasures and satisfactions which I am
debarred, as you know, from obtaining at fir