This conversation occurred as Wade and Delaney were walking down the room together talking about Jacquard looms and their best maker. Katherine had been hitherto silent as far as words were concerned, but she had slipped her hand into Harry’s hand when he had finished his exhibition at the loom. It was her way of praising him and Harry had held the little hand fast and was still doing so when the squire said:
“Harry, looms are wonderful creatures—ay, and I’ll call them ‘creatures.’ They hev sense or they know how to use the sense of men that handle them properly. I hev seen plenty of farm laborers that didn’t know that much; but those patterns you worked from, they are beyond my making out.”
“Well, squire, many designs are very elaborate, requiring from twenty thousand to sixty thousand cards for a single design. Weaving like that is a fine art, I think.”
“Thou art right. Is tha going to stay here any longer to-day or will tha ride back with us?”
“Oh, sir, if I only might go back with you! In five minutes, I will be ready.”
The squire turned hastily away with three short words, “Make haste, then.” He was put out by the manner in which Harry had taken his civil offer. He had only meant to give him a lift back to his club but Harry appeared to have understood it as an invitation to dinner. He was wondering how he could get out of the dilemma and so did not notice that Harry kissed Katherine’s hand as he turned away. Harry had found few opportunities to address her, none at all for private speech, yet both Katherine and Harry were satisfied. For every pair of lovers have a code of their own and no one else has the key to it.
In a short time Harry reappeared in a very dudish walking suit, but Wade and Delaney were not ready to separate and the squire was hard set to hide his irritability. Harry also looked too happy, and too handsome, for the gentlemen’s dress of A. D. 1833 was manly and becoming, with its high hat, pointed white vest, frock coat, and long thin cane, always carried in the left hand. However, conversation even about money comes to an end and at length Wade was satisfied, and they turned city-ward in order to leave Wade at his hotel. On arriving there, Annis was again detained by Wade’s anxieties and fears, but Harry had a five minutes’ heavenly interlude. He was holding Katherine’s hand and looking into her eyes and saying little tender, foolish words, which had no more meaning than a baby’s prattle, but Katherine’s heart was their interpreter and every syllable was sweet as the dropping of the honey-comb.
Through all this broken conversation, however, Harry was wondering how he could manage to leave the coach with Katherine. If he could only see Lady Jane, he knew she would ask him to remain, but how was he to see Lady Jane and what excuse could he make for asking to see her? It never struck the young man that the squire was desirous to get rid of him. He was only conscious of the fact that he did not particularly desire an evening with Katherine’s father and mother and that he did wish very ardently to spend an evening with Katherine and Lady Jane; and the coach went so quick, and his thoughts were all in confusion, and they were at the Leyland mansion before he had decided what to say, or do. Then the affair that seemed so difficult, straightened itself out in a perfectly natural, commonplace manner. For when Katherine rose, as a matter of course, Harry also rose; and without effort, or consideration, said—
“I will make way for you, squire, or if you wish no further delay, I will see Katherine into Lady Leyland’s care.”
“I shall be obliged to you, Harry, if you will do so,” was the answer. “I am a bit tired and a bit late, and Mistress Annis will be worrying hersen about me, no doubt. I was just thinking of asking you to do me this favor.” Then the squire left a message for his eldest daughter and drove rapidly away, but if he had turned his head for a moment he might have seen how happily the lovers were slowly climbing the white marble steps leading them to Lady Leyland’s door. Hand in hand they went, laughing a little as they talked, because Harry was telling Katherine how he had been racking his brains for some excuse to leave the coach with her and how the very words had come at the moment they were wanted.