Kate's eyes smote her suddenly with compunction, and she leaned her head against her mother's arm, quite impulsively for Jemima. "Not that I'm blaming you, Mummy. You've done the best you know how for us, and this is going to be my affair. It's all quite right for you to be a hermit, if you like. You're a widow, you've had your life. But Jacky and I aren't widows, and if we keep on this way, we'll never have a chance to be."
She was surprised by her mother's sudden chuckle. Jemima was never intentionally amusing.
"So," she finished, "Professor Jim is going to help us all he can."
"What! Jim Thorpe to the rescue again?" Kate could not accustom herself to the thought of this shy, awkward, scholarly man, the least considered of her girlhood adorers, in the rôle of social sponsor to her children.
"I asked him," explained Jemima, "whether he did not know all the worth while people in Lexington and thereabouts, and he said he did. So he is going to see that they invite us to their balls and things. Of course, we shall have to do our share, too. And then," she added with a hesitating glance, "I thought perhaps we might go to New York some day, and visit our father's aunt Jemima."
"That is an idea you may put out of your head at once," said Kate, quietly. "Your father's aunt and I are not on friendly terms."
"I know. I've often wondered why." She paused, but Kate's face did not encourage questioning. "She's very rich, and old, and has no children. Oughtn't we to make friends with her?"
"Jemima!" said her mother, sharply.
The girl looked at her in genuine surprise. "Have you never thought of that? Well, I think you should have, for our sakes. Even if you and she aren't good friends, need that make any difference with Jacky and me? You see, Mother dear, it is we who are really Kildares, not you."
Kate turned abruptly and left the room, more hurt than she cared to show. Sometimes the paternal inheritance showed so strongly in Jemima as to frighten her; the same fierce pride of race, the same hardness, the same almost brutal frankness of purpose. A terrifying question rose in her mind. When they heard the truth about her, as hear it they soon must, would her children he loyal to her? Would they understand, and believe in her? As the girl had said, they were Kildares, and she was not.