He spoke very quietly, but the light was beginning to gleam in his eyes. His mother was said to have a very bad temper, and John was like her in many respects. But Mrs. Lauderdale continued to speak quite calmly.
“I have been thinking about you two a great deal lately,” she said. “I have made a mistake, and I may as well say so at once, now that I have discovered it. You wouldn’t like me to go on letting you think that I approved of your engagement, when I don’t—would you? That wouldn’t be fair or honest.”
“Certainly not,” answered Ralston, in a low voice, and he could feel all his muscles tightening as though for a physical effort. “Have you said this sort of thing to Katharine before, or is this the first time?”
“No, she hasn’t said a word,” replied Katharine herself.
The girl was standing by the easy chair, her hand resting on the back of it, her face pale, her great grey eyes staring wide open at her mother’s profile.
“No, I have not,” said Mrs. Lauderdale. “I thought it best to wait until I could speak to you together. It’s useless to give pain twice over.”
“It is indeed,” said Ralston, gravely. “Please go on.”
“Why—there’s nothing more to be said, Jack,” answered Mrs. Lauderdale. “That’s all. The trouble is that you’ll never do anything, and you have no fortune, nor any prospect of any—until your mother—”
“Please don’t speak of my mother in that connection,” interrupted Ralston, his lips growing white.
“Well—and as for us, we’re as poor as can be. You see how we live. Besides, you know. Old Mr. Lauderdale gets uncle Robert to subscribe thousands and thousands for the idiots, but he never suggests that they are far better off than we are. However, those are our miseries and not yours. Yours is that you are perfectly useless—”