"Yes, it's father, not mother or her family; father would have his way, and Fred has got this idea, too, but nothing like Kitten's! How I wish she'd look at Charlie Prodgers and get married and settled!"
Then she sighed again and sat down by the window to enjoy her one great pleasure of the day, the perusal of the feuilleton in the Morning Reflector. In these brief moments she forgot all family worries, all sordid cares—and revelled in the adventures of aristocratic villains and persecuted innocent governesses and actresses, and felt she, too, had a link with the great world. She was a good sound Radical in what represented politics to her, so she knew all aristocrats must be bad, and ought to be exterminated, but she loved to read about them, and hear first-hand descriptions of the female members from Gladys, who saw many in the showrooms of Madame Ermantine. "Glad knows," she often said to herself with pride.
Meanwhile, Katherine Bush—having snubbed Mr. Prodgers into silence in the train—where he manœuvred to meet her every morning—reached her employers' establishment, and began her usual typing.
There was work to be done by twelve o'clock in connection with the renewal of the loan to Lord Algernon Fitz-Rufus—the old Marquis would be obliged to pay before Christmas time, Mr. Percival Livingstone said.
Miss Bush, to his intense astonishment, gave a sudden short laugh—it was quite mirthless and stopped abruptly—but it was undoubtedly a laugh!
"What is amusing you?" he asked with a full lisp, too taken off his guard to be as refined and careful in tone as usual.
"The old Marquis having to pay, of course," Katherine responded.
Never once during the whole day did she allow her thoughts to wander from her work, which she accomplished with her usual precision. Even during her luncheon hour she deliberately read the papers. She had trained herself to do one thing at a time, and the moment for reflection would not come until she could be undisturbed. She would go back as soon as she was free, to her own attic, and there think everything out, and decide upon the next step to be taken in her game of life.
A few burnt sticks, and a lump of coal in the tiny grate, were all she discovered on her return that evening to her sanctuary. The maid-of-all-work was not a talented fire-lighter and objected to criticism. Katherine's level brows met with annoyance, and she proceeded to correct matters herself, while she muttered:
"Inefficient creature! and they say that we are all equal! Why can't she do her work, then, as well as I can mine!"