revelation, for some little while longer. Nor did Katharine
speak. Her attitude was that of some one who wishes to
be concealed as much as possible from observation. She
sighed profoundly; she was absolutely silent, and apparently
overcome by her thoughts.
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“D’you know what time it is?” she said at length, and
shook her pillow, as if making ready for sleep.
Cassandra rose obediently, and once more took up her
candle. Perhaps the white dressing-gown, and the loosened
hair, and something unseeing in the expression of
the eyes gave her a likeness to a woman walking in her
sleep. Katharine, at least, thought so.
“There’s no reason why I should go home, then?”
Cassandra said, pausing. “Unless you want me to go,
Katharine? What do you want me to do?”
For the first time their eyes met.
“You wanted us to fall in love,” Cassandra exclaimed, as
if she read the certainty there. But as she looked she saw
a sight that surprised her. The tears rose slowly in
Katharine’s eyes and stood there, brimming but contained—
the tears of some profound emotion, happiness,
grief, renunciation; an emotion so complex in its nature
that to express it was impossible, and Cassandra, bending
her head and receiving the tears upon her cheek,
accepted them in silence as the consecration of her love.
“Please, miss,” said the maid, about eleven o’clock on
the following morning, “Mrs. Milvain is in the kitchen.”
A long wicker basket of flowers and branches had arrived
from the country, and Katharine, kneeling upon the
floor of the drawing-room, was sorting them while
Cassandra watched her from an arm-chair, and absentmindedly
made spasmodic offers of help which were not
accepted. The maid’s message had a curious effect upon
Katharine.
She rose, walked to the window, and, the maid being
gone, said emphatically and even tragically:
“You know what that means.”
Cassandra had understood nothing.
“Aunt Celia is in the kitchen,” Katharine repeated.
“Why in the kitchen?” Cassandra asked, not unnaturally.
“Probably because she’s discovered something,”
Katharine replied. Cassandra’s thoughts flew to the subject
of her preoccupation.
“About us?” she inquired.
“Heaven knows,” Katharine replied. “I shan’t let her
stay in the kitchen, though. I shall bring her up here.”
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The sternness with which this was said suggested that
to bring Aunt Celia upstairs was, for some reason, a disciplinary
measure.
“For goodness’ sake, Katharine,” Cassandra exclaimed,
jumping from her chair and showing signs of agitation,
“don’t be rash. Don’t let her suspect. Remember, nothing’s
certain—”
Katharine assured her by nodding her head several times,
but the manner in which she left the room was not calculated
to inspire complete confidence in her diplomacy.
Mrs. Milvain was sitting, or rather perching, upon the
edge of a chair in the servants’ room. Whether there was
any sound reason for her choice of a subterranean chamber,
or whether it corresponded with the spirit of her
quest, Mrs. Milvain invariably came in by the back door
and sat in the servants’ room when she was engaged in
confidential family transactions. The ostensible reason
she gave was that neither Mr. nor Mrs. Hilbery should be
disturbed. But, in truth, Mrs. Milvain depended even more
than most elderly women of her generation upon the delicious
emotions of intimacy, agony, and secrecy, and the
additional thrill provided by the basement was one not
lightly to be forfeited. She protested almost plaintively
when Katharine proposed to go upstairs.
“I’ve something that I want to say to you in private,”
she said, hesitating reluctantly upon the threshold of her
ambush.
“The drawing-room is empty—”
“But we might meet your mother upon the stairs. We
might disturb your father,” Mrs. Milvain objected, taking
the precaution to speak in a whisper already.
But as Katharine’s presence was absolutely necessary
to the success of the interview, and as Katharine obstinately
receded up the kitchen stairs, Mrs. Milvain had no
course but to follow her. She glanced furtively about her
as she proceeded upstairs, drew her skirts together, and
stepped with circumspection past all doors, whether they
were open or shut.
“Nobody will overhear us?” she murmured, when the comparative
sanctuary of the drawing-room had been reached.
“I see that I have interrupted you,” she added, glancing at
the flowers strewn upon the floor. A moment later she
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inquired, “Was some one sitting with you?” noticing a
handkerchief that Cassandra had dropped in her flight.
“Cassandra was helping me to put the flowers in water,”
said Katharine, and she spoke so firmly and clearly
that Mrs. Milvain glanced nervously at the main door and
then at the curtain which divided the little room with the
relics from the drawing-room.
“Ah, Cassandra is still with you,” she remarked. “And
did William send you those lovely flowers?”
Katharine sat down opposite her aunt and said neither
yes nor no. She looked past her, and it might have been
thought that she was considering very critically the pattern
of the curtains. Another advantage of the basement,
from Mrs. Milvain’s point of view, was that it made it
necessary to sit very close together, and the light was
dim compared with that which now poured through three
windows upon Katharine and the basket of flowers, and
gave even the slight angular figure of Mrs. Milvain herself
a halo of gold.
“They’re from Stogdon House,” said Katharine abruptly,
with a little jerk of her head.
Mrs. Milvain felt that it would be easier to tell her niece
what she wished to say if they were actually in physical
contact, for the spiritual distance between them was formidable.
Katharine, however, made no overtures, and Mrs.
Milvain, who was possessed of rash but heroic courage,
plunged without preface:
“People are talking about you, Katharine. That is why I
have come this morning. You forgive me for saying what
I’d much rather not say? What I say is only for your own
sake, my child.”
“There’s nothing to forgive yet, Aunt Celia,” said
Katharine, with apparent good humor.
“People are saying that William goes everywhere with
you and Cassandra, and that he is always paying her attentions.
At the Markhams’ dance he sat out five dances
with her. At the Zoo they were seen alone together. They
left together. They never came back here till seven in the
evening. But that is not all. They say his manner is very
marked—he is quite different when she is there.”
Mrs. Milvain, whose words had run themselves together,
and whose voice had raised its tone almost to one of
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protest, here ceased, and looked intently at Katharine, as
if to judge the effect of her communication. A slight rigidity
had passed over Katharine’s face. Her lips were
pressed together; her eyes were contracted, and they were
still fixed upon the curtain. These superficial changes
covered an extreme inner loathing such as might follow
the display of some hideous or indecent spectacle. The
indecent spectacle was her own action beheld for the
first time from the outside; her aunt’s words made her
realize how infinitely repulsive the body of life is without
its soul.
“Well?” she said at length.
Mrs. Milvain made a gesture as if to bring her closer,
but it was not returned.
“We all know how good you are—how unselfish—how
you sacrifice yourself to others. But you’ve been too unselfish,
Katharine. You have made Cassandra happy, and
she has taken advantage of your goodness.”
“I don’t understand, Aunt Celia,” said Katharine. “What
has Cassandra done?”
“Cassandra has behaved in a way that I could not have
thought possible,” said Mrs. Milvain warmly. “She has
been utterly selfish—utterly heartless. I must speak to
her before I go.”
“I don’t understand,” Katharine persisted.
Mrs. Milvain looked at her. Was it possible that Katharine
really doubted? That there was something that Mrs. Milvain
herself did not understand? She braced herself, and pronounced
the tremendous words:
“Cassandra has stolen William’s love.”
Still the words seemed to have curiously little effect.
“Do you mean,” said Katharine, “that he has fallen in
love with her?”
“There are ways of making men fall in love with one,
Katharine.”
Katharine remained silent. The silence alarmed Mrs.
Milvain, and she began hurriedly:
“Nothing would have made me say these things but
your own good. I have not wished to interfere; I have not
wished to give you pain. I am a useless old woman. I
have no children of my own. I only want to see you happy,
Katharine.”
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Again she stretched forth her arms, but they remained
empty.
“You are not going to say these things to Cassandra,”
said Katharine suddenly. “You’ve said them to me; that’s
enough.”
Katharine spoke so low and with such restraint that
Mrs. Milvain had to strain to catch her words, and when
she heard them she was dazed by them.
“I’ve made you angry! I knew I should!” she exclaimed.
She quivered, and a kind of sob shook her; but even to
have made Katharine angry was some relief, and allowed
her to feel some of the agreeable sensations of martyrdom.
“Yes,” said Katharine, standing up, “I’m so angry that I
don’t want to say anything more. I think you’d better go,
Aunt Celia. We don’t understand each other.”
At these words Mrs. Milvain looked for a moment terribly
apprehensive; she glanced at her niece’s face, but
read no pity there, whereupon she folded her hands upon
a black velvet bag which she carried in an attitude that
was almost one of prayer. Whatever divinity she prayed
to, if pray she did, at any rate she recovered her dignity
in a singular way and faced her niece.
“Married love,” she said slowly and with emphasis upon
every word, “is the most sacred of all loves. The love of
husband and wife is the most holy we know. That is the
lesson Mamma’s children learnt from her; that is what they
can never forget. I have tried to speak as she would have
wished her daughter to speak. You are her grandchild.”
Katharine seemed to judge this defence upon its merits,
and then to convict it of falsity.
“I don’t see that there is any excuse for your behavior,”
she said.
At these words Mrs. Milvain rose and stood for a moment
beside her niece. She had never met with such treatment
before, and she did not know with what weapons to
break down the terrible wall of resistance offered her by
one who, by virtue of youth and beauty and sex, should
have been all tears and supplications. But Mrs. Milvain
herself was obstinate; upon a matter of this kind she
could not admit that she was either beaten or mistaken.
She beheld herself the champion of married love in its
purity and supremacy; what her niece stood for she was
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Night and Day
quite unable to say, but she was filled with the gravest
suspicions. The old woman and the young woman stood
side by side in unbroken silence. Mrs. Milvain could not
make up her mind to withdraw while her principles
trembled in the balance and her curiosity remained unappeased.
She ransacked her mind for some question that
should force Katharine to enlighten her, but the supply
was limited, the choice difficult, and while she hesitated
the door opened and William Rodney came in. He carried
in his hand an enormous and splendid bunch of white
and purple flowers, and, either not seeing Mrs. Milvain,
or disregarding her, he advanced straight to Katharine,
and presented the flowers with the words:
“These are for you, Katharine.”
Katharine took them with a glance that Mrs. Milvain
did not fail to intercept. But with all her experience, she
did not know what to make of it. She watched anxiously
for further illumination. William greeted her without obvious
sign of guilt, and, explaining that he had a holiday,
both he and Katharine seemed to take it for granted that
his holiday should be celebrated with flowers and spent
in Cheyne Walk. A pause followed; that, too, was natural;
and Mrs. Milvain began to feel that she laid herself open
to a charge of selfishness if she stayed. The mere presence
of a young man had altered her disposition curiously,
and filled her with a desire for a scene which should
end in an emotional forgiveness. She would have given
much to clasp both nephew and niece in her arms. But
she could not flatter herself that any hope of the customary
exaltation remained.
“I must go,” she said, and she was conscious of an
extreme flatness of spirit.
Neither of them said anything to stop her. William politely
escorted her downstairs, and somehow, amongst
her protests and embarrassments, Mrs. Milvain forgot to
say good-bye to Katharine. She departed, murmuring words
about masses of flowers and a drawing-room always beautiful
even in the depths of winter.
William came back to Katharine; he found her standing
where he had left her.
“I’ve come to be forgiven,” he said. “Our quarrel was
perfectly hateful to me. I’ve not slept all night. You’re
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not angry with me, are you, Katharine?”
She could not bring herself to answer him until she had
rid her mind of the impression that her aunt had made on
her. It seemed to her that the very flowers were contaminated,
and Cassandra’s pocket-handkerchief, for Mrs.
Milvain had used them for evidence in her investigations.
“She’s been spying upon us,” she said, “following us
about London, overhearing what people are saying—”
“Mrs. Milvain?” Rodney exclaimed. “What has she told
