Everybody laughed at what seemed the fantastic irrelevancy of the comparison—Bright laughing louder than the rest.
“How do you make that out?” he asked. “It would be rather a grimy, earthy sort of love, I should think.”
“Explain, aunt Maggie!” laughed Katharine.
“A truffle’s a cryptogam,” said Bright. “Nobody has ever explained about cryptogams.”
“What is a cryptogam?” asked Katharine. “I’ve always wanted to know.”
“Cryptogam means secret marriage, or something of the sort,” said Wingfield.
Katharine started a little and glanced at John Ralston.
“Yes,” said the latter. “It’s equivalent to saying that nobody knows how they grow. But that doesn’t at all explain what aunt Maggie means by what she said. Come, aunt Maggie, we’re all waiting for you to tell us.”
“Oh—I’m getting so sleepy, my dears, don’t ask me to explain things! You know I’m always sleepy in the evening. It’s taking an unfair advantage of me! Why is love like a truffle? Why, exactly for that reason—because nobody can possibly tell when it begins, or how, or why—or anything about it. Only, when you find it, you’ve found something worth having. As for secret marriages—wasn’t it you who mentioned them just now, Mr. Wingfield? Yes—well, they’re very romantic and unpractical and pretty, but I should think the people would find it a great nuisance. It’s much better to run away, and be done with it.”
Ralston’s eyes met Katharine’s, and he suppressed a smile, but in her pale face the colour was rising slowly. Again the door opened, and two men entered the room unannounced. The servant had taken it for granted that as two visitors had been admitted, he might admit as many more as came. Paul Griggs, the author, and Walter Crowdie, the artist, came forward into the bright light. Crowdie has been already described. Griggs was a lean, strong, grey-haired, plain-featured man of fifty, a gaunt, bony, weather-beaten man, who had lived in many countries and had seen many interesting sights—but none so interesting, people had been saying lately, as Katharine Lauderdale’s face. It was commonly said that he was in love with the girl, and people added that at his age it was ridiculous, and that he was making a fool of himself.