you?”
His air of open confidence entirely vanished.
“Oh, people are saying that you’re in love with Cassandra,
and that you don’t care for me.”
“They have seen us?” he asked.
“Everything we’ve done for a fortnight has been seen.”
“I told you that would happen!” he exclaimed.
He walked to the window in evident perturbation.
Katharine was too indignant to attend to him. She was
swept away by the force of her own anger. Clasping
Rodney’s flowers, she stood upright and motionless.
Rodney turned away from the window.
“It’s all been a mistake,” he said. “I blame myself for it.
I should have known better. I let you persuade me in a
moment of madness. I beg you to forget my insanity,
Katharine.”
“She wished even to persecute Cassandra!” Katharine
burst out, not listening to him. “She threatened to speak
to her. She’s capable of it—she’s capable of anything!”
“Mrs. Milvain is not tactful, I know, but you exaggerate,
Katharine. People are talking about us. She was right
to tell us. It only confirms my own feeling—the position
is monstrous.”
At length Katharine realized some part of what he meant.
“You don’t mean that this influences you, William?”
she asked in amazement.
“It does,” he said, flushing. “It’s intensely disagreeable
to me. I can’t endure that people should gossip about
us. And then there’s your cousin—Cassandra—” He paused
in embarrassment.
“I came here this morning, Katharine,” he resumed, with
a change of voice, “to ask you to forget my folly, my bad
temper, my inconceivable behavior. I came, Katharine, to
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ask whether we can’t return to the position we were in
before this—this season of lunacy. Will you take me back,
Katharine, once more and for ever?”
No doubt her beauty, intensified by emotion and enhanced
by the flowers of bright color and strange shape
which she carried wrought upon Rodney, and had its share
in bestowing upon her the old romance. But a less noble
passion worked in him, too; he was inflamed by jealousy.
His tentative offer of affection had been rudely and, as
he thought, completely repulsed by Cassandra on the preceding
day. Denham’s confession was in his mind. And
ultimately, Katharine’s dominion over him was of the sort
that the fevers of the night cannot exorcise.
“I was as much to blame as you were yesterday,” she
said gently, disregarding his question. “I confess, William,
the sight of you and Cassandra together made me
jealous, and I couldn’t control myself. I laughed at you, I
know.”
“You jealous!” William exclaimed. “l assure you,
Katharine, you’ve not the slightest reason to be jealous.
Cassandra dislikes me, so far as she feels about me at all.
I was foolish enough to try to explain the nature of our
relationship. I couldn’t resist telling her what I supposed
myself to feel for her. She refused to listen, very rightly.
But she left me in no doubt of her scorn.”
Katharine hesitated. She was confused, agitated, physically
tired, and had already to reckon with the violent
feeling of dislike aroused by her aunt which still vibrated
through all the rest of her feelings. She sank into a chair
and dropped her flowers upon her lap.
“She charmed me,” Rodney continued. “I thought I loved
her. But that’s a thing of the past. It’s all over, Katharine.
It was a dream—an hallucination. We were both equally
to blame, but no harm’s done if you believe how truly I
care for you. Say you believe me!”
He stood over her, as if in readiness to seize the first
sign of her assent. Precisely at that moment, owing, perhaps,
to her vicissitudes of feeling, all sense of love left
her, as in a moment a mist lifts from the earth. And when
the mist departed a skeleton world and blankness alone
remained—a terrible prospect for the eyes of the living
to behold. He saw the look of terror in her face, and
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without understanding its origin, took her hand in his.
With the sense of companionship returned a desire, like
that of a child for shelter, to accept what he had to offer
her—and at that moment it seemed that he offered her
the only thing that could make it tolerable to live. She
let him press his lips to her cheek, and leant her head
upon his arm. It was the moment of his triumph. It was
the only moment in which she belonged to him and was
dependent upon his protection.
“Yes, yes, yes,” he murmured, “you accept me, Katharine.
You love me.”
For a moment she remained silent. He then heard her
murmur:
“Cassandra loves you more than I do.”
“Cassandra?” he whispered.
“She loves you,” Katharine repeated. She raised herself
and repeated the sentence yet a third time. “She loves
you.”
William slowly raised himself. He believed instinctively
what Katharine said, but what it meant to him he was
unable to understand. Could Cassandra love him? Could
she have told Katharine that she loved him? The desire
to know the truth of this was urgent, unknown though
the consequences might be. The thrill of excitement associated
with the thought of Cassandra once more took
possession of him. No longer was it the excitement of
anticipation and ignorance; it was the excitement of something
greater than a possibility, for now he knew her and
had measure of the sympathy between them. But who
could give him certainty? Could Katharine, Katharine who
had lately lain in his arms, Katharine herself the most
admired of women? He looked at her, with doubt, and
with anxiety, but said nothing.
“Yes, yes,” she said, interpreting his wish for assurance,
“it’s true. I know what she feels for you.”
“She loves me?”
Katharine nodded.
“Ah, but who knows what I feel? How can I be sure of
my feeling myself? Ten minutes ago I asked you to marry
me. I still wish it—I don’t know what I wish—”
He clenched his hands and turned away. He suddenly
faced her and demanded: “Tell me what you feel for
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Denham.”
“For Ralph Denham?” she asked. “Yes!” she exclaimed,
as if she had found the answer to some momentarily perplexing
question. “You’re jealous of me, William; but you’re
not in love with me. I’m jealous of you. Therefore, for
both our sakes, I say, speak to Cassandra at once.”
He tried to compose himself. He walked up and down
the room; he paused at the window and surveyed the
flowers strewn upon the floor. Meanwhile his desire to
have Katharine’s assurance confirmed became so insistent
that he could no longer deny the overmastering
strength of his feeling for Cassandra.
“You’re right,” he exclaimed, coming to a standstill and
rapping his knuckles sharply upon a small table carrying
one slender vase. “I love Cassandra.”
As he said this, the curtains hanging at the door of the
little room parted, and Cassandra herself stepped forth.
“I have overheard every word!” she exclaimed.
A pause succeeded this announcement. Rodney made a
step forward and said:
“Then you know what I wish to ask you. Give me your
answer—”
She put her hands before her face; she turned away and
seemed to shrink from both of them.
“What Katharine said,” she murmured. “But,” she added,
raising her head with a look of fear from the kiss with
which he greeted her admission, “how frightfully difficult
it all is! Our feelings, I mean —yours and mine and
Katharine’s. Katharine, tell me, are we doing right?”
“Right—of course we’re doing right,” William answered
her, “if, after what you’ve heard, you can marry a man of
such incomprehensible confusion, such deplorable—”
“Don’t, William,” Katharine interposed; “Cassandra has
heard us; she can judge what we are; she knows better
than we could tell her.”
But, still holding William’s hand, questions and desires
welled up in Cassandra’s heart. Had she done wrong in
listening? Why did Aunt Celia blame her? Did Katharine
think her right? Above all, did William really love her, for
ever and ever, better than any one?
“I must be first with him, Katharine!” she exclaimed. “I
can’t share him even with you.”
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“I shall never ask that,” said Katharine. She moved a
little away from where they sat and began half-consciously
sorting her flowers.
“But you’ve shared with me,” Cassandra said. “Why can’t
I share with you? Why am I so mean? I know why it is,” she
added. “We understand each other, William and I. You’ve
never understood each other. You’re too different.”
“I’ve never admired anybody more,” William interposed.
“It’s not that”—Cassandra tried to enlighten him—”it’s
understanding.”
“Have I never understood you, Katharine? Have I been
very selfish?”
“Yes,” Cassandra interposed. “You’ve asked her for sympathy,
and she’s not sympathetic; you’ve wanted her to
be practical, and she’s not practical. You’ve been selfish;
you’ve been exacting—and so has Katharine—but it
wasn’t anybody’s fault.”
Katharine had listened to this attempt at analysis with
keen attention. Cassandra’s words seemed to rub the old
blurred image of life and freshen it so marvelously that it
looked new again. She turned to William.
“It’s quite true,” she said. “It was nobody’s fault.”
“There are many things that he’ll always come to you
for,” Cassandra continued, still reading from her invisible
book. “I accept that, Katharine. I shall never dispute it.
I want to be generous as you’ve been generous. But being
in love makes it more difficult for me.”
They were silent. At length William broke the silence.
“One thing I beg of you both, he said, and the old
nervousness of manner returned as he glanced at
Katharine. “We will never discuss these matters again.
It’s not that I’m timid and conventional, as you think,
Katharine. It’s that it spoils things to discuss them; it
unsettles people’s minds; and now we’re all so happy—”
Cassandra ratified this conclusion so far as she was concerned,
and William, after receiving the exquisite pleasure
of her glance, with its absolute affection and trust,
looked anxiously at Katharine.
“Yes, I’m happy,” she assured him. “And I agree. We will
never talk about it again.”
“Oh, Katharine, Katharine!” Cassandra cried, holding out
her arms while the tears ran down her cheeks.
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CHAPTER XXX
The day was so different from other days to three people
in the house that the common routine of household life—
the maid waiting at table, Mrs. Hilbery writing a letter,
the clock striking, and the door opening, and all the other
signs of long-established civilization appeared suddenly
to have no meaning save as they lulled Mr. and Mrs. Hilbery
into the belief that nothing unusual had taken place. It
chanced that Mrs. Hilbery was depressed without visible
cause, unless a certain crudeness verging upon coarseness
in the temper of her favorite Elizabethans could be
held responsible for the mood. At any rate, she had shut
up “The Duchess of Malfi” with a sigh, and wished to
know, so she told Rodney at dinner, whether there wasn’t
some young writer with a touch of the great spirit—somebody
who made you believe that life was beautiful? She
got little help from Rodney, and after singing her plaintive
requiem for the death of poetry by herself, she
charmed herself into good spirits again by remembering
the existence of Mozart. She begged Cassandra to play to
her, and when they went upstairs Cassandra opened the
piano directly, and did her best to create an atmosphere
of unmixed beauty. At the sound of the first notes
Katharine and Rodney both felt an enormous sense of
relief at the license which the music gave them to loosen
their hold upon the mechanism of behavior. They lapsed
into the depths of thought. Mrs. Hilbery was soon spirited
away into a perfectly congenial mood, that was half
reverie and half slumber, half delicious melancholy and
half pure bliss. Mr. Hilbery alone attended. He was extremely
musical, and made Cassandra aware that he listened
to every note. She played her best, and won his
approval. Leaning slightly forward in his chair, and turning
his little green stone, he weighed the intention of
her phrases approvingly, but stopped her suddenly to
complain of a noise behind him. The window was
unhasped. He signed to Rodney, who crossed the room
immediately to put the matter right. He stayed a moment
longer by the window than was, perhaps, necessary, and
having done what was needed, drew his chair a little
closer than before to Katharine’s side. The music went
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on. Under cover of some exquisite run of melody, he leant
towards her and whispered something. She glanced at
her father and mother, and a moment later left the room,
almost unobserved, with Rodney.
“What is it?” she asked, as soon as the door was shut.
Rodney made no answer, but led her downstairs into
the dining-room on the ground floor. Even when he had
shut the door he said nothing, but went straight to the
window and parted the curtains. He beckoned to Katharine.
“There he is again,” he said. “Look, there—under the
lamp-post.”
Katharine looked. She had no idea what Rodney was
talking about. A vague feeling of alarm and mystery possessed
her. She saw a man standing on the opposite side
of the road facing the house beneath a lamp-post. As
they looked the figure turned, walked a few steps, and
came back again to his old position. It seemed to her
that he was looking fixedly at her, and was conscious of
her gaze on him. She knew, in a flash, who the man was
who was watching them. She drew the curtain abruptly.
“Denham,” said Rodney. “He was there last night too.”
He spoke sternly. His whole manner had become full of
authority. Katharine felt almost as if he accused her of
