“As I have told you, you exaggerate my influence. She would suspect the donor. She would not take the money.”
“I could speak to your father; lend him a sum.”
Katherine flushed.
“It would make him very angry with her if he knew. And the lessons are a fixed sum; only a steady income would be the equivalent.”
“Oh dear!” sighed Peter. He suddenly realized that of late he had talked of little else but Hilda in his conversations with Katherine.
“When do you go to London, dear?” he asked.
“The day after to-morrow.” Katherine, above the waving of her fan, smiled slightly at his change of tone. “Will you miss me, Peter?”
“All the more for being cross with you. It is very wrong of you to play truant like this.”
“It will be good for both of us.” Katherine’s voice was playful, and showed no trace of the bitterness she was feeling. “I might get tired of you, Peter, if I allowed myself no interludes. Absence is the best fuel to appreciation. I shall come back realizing more fully than ever your perfection.”
“What a sage little person it is! Sarcastic as well! May I write to you very often?”