“And there’s one other thing I don’t want you to speak of, Jack,” pursued Katharine, more gravely. “I mean what you told me last night. I don’t intend ever to mention it again—do you understand, dear? I’ve thought it all over since then. I’m glad you told me, and I admire you for telling me, because it must have been hard, especially until I began to understand. A woman doesn’t know everything, you see! Indeed, we don’t know much about anything. We can only feel. And it did seem very hard at first—only for a moment, Jack—that you should not be willing to promise what I asked, when it was to make such a difference to me, and I was willing to promise you anything. You see how I felt, don’t you?”
“Of course,” answered Ralston, looking down at the pavement as he walked on and listened. “It was natural.”
“Yes. I’m so glad you see it. But afterwards, when I thought of things I’d heard—why, then I thought a great deal too much, you know—dreadful things! But I understood better what it all meant. You see, at first, it seemed so absurd! Just as though I had asked you not to—not to wear a green tie, for instance, as Charlotte asked her husband. Absurd, wasn’t it? So I was frightfully angry with you and got up and went away. I’m so ashamed of myself for it, now. But then, when it grew clearer—when I really knew that there was suffering in it, and remembered hearing that it was something like morphia and such things, that have to be cured by degrees—you know what I mean—why, then I wanted you more than ever. You know I’d give anything to help you—just to make it a little easier for you, dear.”
“You do! You’re doing everything—you’re giving me everything,” said Ralston, earnestly.
“Well—not everything—but myself, because that’s all I have to give—if it’s any use to you.”
“Dear—as if you weren’t everything the world has, and the only thing and the best thing altogether!”
“And if I didn’t love you better than anything—better than kings and queens—I wouldn’t do it. Because, after all, though I’m not much, I’m all I have. And then—I’m proud—inside, you know, Jack. Papa says I’m not, because mamma and I sometimes go to the theatre in the gallery, for economy. But that’s hardly a test in real life, I think—and besides, I know I am. Don’t you think so?”
“Yes—a little, in the right way. It’s nice. I like it in you.”
“I’m so glad. It’s because I’m proud that I don’t want to talk about that matter any more. It just doesn’t exist for me. That’s what I want you to feel. But I want you to feel, too, that I’m always there, that I shall always understand, and that if I can help you the least little bit, I mean to. I’ve turned into a woman all at once, Jack, in the last twenty-four hours, and now in an hour I shall be your wife, though nobody will know about it for a day or two. But I don’t mean to turn into your grandmother, too, and be always lecturing you and asking questions, and that sort of thing. You wouldn’t like it either, would you?”
“Hardly!”