Jane’s reply was impolite in form, but answered my question substantially in the affirmative. She added: “Lady Lexington told me that she won’t say a word about her reasons. You won’t find it a cheerful household.”
I did not. Jane was right there. I daresay my own cheerfulness was artificial and spasmodic: the atmosphere of a family crisis is apt to communicate itself to guests. It must not be understood that the Lexingtons, or Miss Boots, or Mr Sharples, who was there again, were other than perfectly kind to Katharine. On the contrary, they overdid their kindness—overdid it portentously, in my opinion. They treated her as though she were afflicted with a disease of the nerves, and must on no account be worried or thwarted. If she had said that the moon was made of green cheese they would have evaded a direct contradiction—they might just have hinted at a shade of blue. She saw this; I can quite understand that it annoyed her very much. For the rest, Lady Lexington’s demeanour set the cue: “It must end all right; meanwhile we must bear it.”
She and Mr Sharples and Miss Boots were all going to an afternoon drawing-room meeting, but I was asked to stay and have tea. “You’ll give him a cup of tea, won’t you, Katharine?” And did my ears deceive me, or did Lady Lexington breathe into my ear, as she shook hands, the words, “If you could say a word—tactfully!”? I believe she did; but Jane says I dreamed it—or made it up, more likely. If she did say it, it argued powerfully for her distress.
I had known Katharine Constantine pretty well for three or four years; I had, indeed, some claim to call myself her friend. All the same, I did not see my way to broach the engrossing subject to her, and I hardly expected her to touch on it in talk with me. My idea was to prattle, to distract her mind with gossip about other people. But she was, I think, at the end of her patience both with herself and with her friends. Her laugh was defiant as she said:
“Of course you know all about it? Jane has told you? And of course you’re dying to tell me I’m a fool—as all the rest of them do! At any rate, they let me see they think it.”
“I don’t want to talk about it. Let’s talk of anything else. I’ve got no right——”
“I give you the right. You’re interested?”
“Oh, I can’t deny that. I’m human.”
She was looking very attractive to-day; her perplexity and worry seemed to soften her; an unwonted air of appeal mitigated her assurance of manner; she was pleasanter when she was not so confident of herself.
“Well, I should rather like to put the case to a sensible man—and we’ll suppose you to be one for the moment.” She laughed more gently as I bowed my thanks. “On the one side is what’s expected of me——”