Presently, when he had recovered himself a little, Katherine, who had heard no rumours, asked, “And Lady Hamilton—what of her?”
To which Will replied stoutly, “The Admiral loves her,” and from that he would not be budged.
While Katherine had been questioning him of Donna Rusidda and the Admiral, Will had forgotten his ashamedness a little, and no longer held her at arms’ length, but by the hands loosely.
By the slightest movement, she was holding his hands, instead of he hers. But the movement was full of consciousness.
“Will,” she said, forcing him to raise responding eyes, “do you love me now?”
“With all the strength of shame, Kitty, and before everything in the world. But can you forgive?”
“You haven’t kissed me yet, Will!”
I will not write down what Katherine said when, loverlike, he insisted upon going over all his iniquities again, to be forgiven in detail. For all her life was a forgiveness. And how wisely the wench did, for with whom could she have known such proud happiness as with Will? He has had eyes for no other woman since—not even for their lovely daughter, who is by just a look of her father the more regal of the two women.
And she—she has had the greatest pride that life can give a woman: the double knowledge that she does not fear the proud, grim, masterful man whom one can hardly meet without being daunted, she who has to face him in all his moods, and to stand between him and his wrath; and that though they have been married these twenty years, her favour is of such moment to him that he will pause in his anger to win a gracious look.
I could fill another book with the stories of the neighbours about the noble fashion in which Katherine comforted herself during Will’s long absences at sea for years after this; of the gaiety of heart and graciousness which she maintained with a spotless reputation. It was in those years, through ten of their dozen, that she was in London, one of the rulers of society, and the most courted of women, keeping house with Will’s mother for her father. But when her father died she went down to Eastry to mourn him, nor ever came to London again without her husband.