“But to keep it a secret, you mean,” she said sadly.
“You see,” he answered, in a tone that was almost apologetic, “it would be a mistake, socially, to say you were married, and to go on living each with your own family—besides, your father would know it like everybody else. He’d make your life very—unbearable, I should think.”
“Yes—he would. I know that.”
“Well—come and see me again soon, and we’ll talk it over. You’ll have to consider it just as a—I don’t know exactly how to put it—a sort of formal betrothal between yourselves, such as they used to have in old times. And I suppose I’m the head of the family, though your grandfather is older than I am. Anyhow, you must consider it as though you were solemnly engaged, with the approval of the head of the family, and as though you were to be married, say, next year. Can you do that? Can you make him look at it in that light, child?”
“I’ll try, since there’s really nothing else to be done. But oh, uncle Robert, I wish I’d come before. You’ve been so kind! Why did it rain yesterday—oh, why did it rain?”
CHAPTER XVII.
When Katharine left Robert Lauderdale’s house that morning, she felt that trouble had begun and was not to cease for a long time. She had entered her uncle’s library full of hope, sure of success and believing that John Ralston’s future depended only upon the rich man’s good will and good word. She went out fully convinced at last that he must take one or the other of the much-despised chances he had neglected and forthwith do the best he could with it. She thought it was very hard, but she understood old Lauderdale’s clear statement and she saw that there was no other way.
She sympathized deeply with John in his dislike of the daily drudgery, for which it was quite true that he was little fitted by nature or training. But she did her best to analyze that unfitness, so as to try and discover some gift or quality to balance it and neutralize it. And her first impulse was not to find him at once and tell him what had happened, but rather to put off the evil moment in which she must tell him the truth. This was the first sign of weakness which she had exhibited since that Monday afternoon on which she had persuaded him to take the decisive step.