Mrs. Lauderdale stared at her a moment in surprise at not being understood immediately.
“What for?” she repeated. “For your beauty—because you’re young. Don’t you know how beautiful you are?”
Katharine stared in her turn, in genuine astonishment. The idea that her mother could envy her had never crossed her mind.
“Yes—but—” she hesitated, and the rich young blood rose slowly under her white skin. “I know—at least—” she stammered, “people sometimes tell me I’m good-looking, of course. But—but the idea—of your envying—me! Why—it never occurred to me!”
“It’s true,” said Mrs. Lauderdale, looking down and pulling at the lace on the pillow, with a regretful smile.
“Oh, I don’t believe it!” cried Katharine, suddenly. “It’s impossible—you may have thought you did, once—”
“No, it’s true,” answered Mrs. Lauderdale, and the smile faded and was lost in the contrite expression which came into her face.
She had made her confession and wished to go to the end of it. She was trying to make a reparation, being a good woman, and she found it hard, especially as her daughter did not half understand what she meant.
“I’m losing my beauty, Katharine,” she said, and every word of the acknowledgment cut her. “It’s going, day by day, little by little. You don’t know—it’s as though my life-blood were being drained—it’s worse—sometimes. I’d rather die than grow old and faded. You see, it’s all I had. I know now how much I’ve cared for it—now that it’s so hopeless to try and get it back. And one evening last winter—Crowdie was there—he kept looking at you while I was talking to him, and then I caught sight of my face in the little glass that hangs from the mantel-shelf. I shan’t forget how I looked. I knew then.”
Her face grew suddenly weary and half-desperate now, as she told the little story of the hardest moment in her life. Katharine listened in wondering silence, knowing that she was learning one of the secrets of the human heart. Mrs. Lauderdale paused a moment, and shivered a little, perhaps with the last after-sob of her convulsive weeping.