It did strike her that he was rather a dangerous creature to be left a free hand with any young woman—and that after to-day she would see that Katherine ran no more risks from too much of his company.
The pupils of his eyes were rather dilated, she noticed; otherwise he seemed his usual self at tea—and when Colonel Hawthorne left them alone, she got him to read to her, and did not mention her secretary at all.
The afternoon had been most instructive, Katherine thought, as she ate her muffin, and looked at the papers before the old schoolroom fire. She had learned a quantity of things. Mr. Strobridge was undoubtedly a charming man, and she wondered what effect he would have had upon her if she had never met Algy? As it was he mattered no more than a chair or a table, he was just part of her game. And he was rapidly approaching the state when she could obtain complete dominion over him.
"He knows quite well that he is married and that I can never honestly be anything to him. He is only coming after me because he is attracted and is not master of his passions or his will. If he is a weakling he must pay the price—I shall not care! He is not thinking in the least as to whether or no it will hurt me—he is only thinking of himself, just like Bob Hartley, only he is a gentleman and therefore does not make any hypocritical promises to try to lure me."
And then she laughed softly. "Well, whatever comes is on his own head, I need have no mercy upon him!"
So she calmly finished her tea and wrote to Matilda whose excited letter with the family news of Gladys' secret marriage she had not yet replied to. Gladys had written her a little missive also—full of thanks for her part in the affair. Bob was being rather rude and unkind to her about it, she said, but it was not altogether his fault, because on Christmas night he had had rather too much to drink, and had been quarrelsome for two days since. She was going to keep the expected event from being known as long as possible, and then she supposed they would go and live somewhere together. It would be wretched poverty and struggle, and she was miserable, but at least she felt an "honest woman," and could not be grateful enough to her sister for bringing this state of things about. Katherine stared into the fire while she thought over it all. It seemed to her too astonishing that a woman should prefer a life tied to a man who was reluctant to keep her—his drudge and the object of his scorn—to one of her own arranging in America, perhaps—along with the child, but free. Gladys had sufficient talent in her trade to have earned good wages anywhere, and must have enough money saved, could she have got it from Matilda's fond guardian clutches, to have tided over the time. But weaklings must always suffer and be other people's slaves and tools. Poor Gladys! Then she fell to thinking of Algy—why was he haunting her? For the first month the complacent satisfaction from the conquest of self had upheld her splendidly, but now the pain felt as keen as on the first day of separation.
She would crush it.
Except on the path coming out of church she had no words with Mr. Strobridge on the morrow—and then it was only a few sentences of ordinary greeting. Lady Garribardine claimed his entire attention. She did see him from the window, smoking a cigar in the rose garden in the afternoon, whither he had come from the smoking-room. She deliberately let him catch sight of her, as she stood there, and she marked the look of eager joy on his face, and then she moved away and did not appear again.
So the Monday arrived—the last day of the old year.
Lady Garribardine was having no party for it as was her usual custom; her rheumatism was rather troublesome, and she stayed in the house all the day, up in her boudoir, where Katherine was in constant attendance.