Then the hands dropped.
Far off before the great chimney-piece, the little cloud of white smoke curled slowly from the censer upwards through the soft, love-laden air—and the perfume stole silently everywhere, in and out, half poisonous with aromatic sweetness, all through the great still room.
CHAPTER XXII.
Katharine found herself in a very difficult position. During the next few days she realized clearly that she could not continue to stay with the Brights indefinitely, both on account of their attitude in the matter of the will, and because Hamilton Bright was in love with her. She felt that the friendships to which she had been accustomed all her life were slipping away under the pressure of circumstances, and that some of her friends were becoming her enemies. Reflections she had never known before now rose in her mind, and in a few days she had reached that state of exaggerated cynicism and unbelief which overtakes the very young when those with whom they closely associate change their minds upon very important points. In the meantime, Katharine went every day to see her mother in Clinton Place while her father was down town.
The bond between mother and daughter, which had been so violently strained during the previous winter, and again within the past few weeks, was growing stronger again. The events which were breaking up Katharine’s intimacy with Hester Crowdie and the Brights had the effect of drawing her and her mother together. So far as Hester Crowdie was concerned, Katharine’s friendship for her had existed upon a false basis, as has been seen. The elder woman’s ardent and sensitive nature reflected itself in her minor actions and relations, lending them an appearance of depth which she herself was far from feeling. Katharine was indeed sympathetic to her, and there had been much confidence between the two, which had not been wholly misplaced on either side. But Hester did not wish the young girl to see too much of Crowdie. How far she understood him it is impossible to say, but that she loved him desperately and was jealous of every glance he bestowed on any passing figure that pleased him, there could be no doubt. Her vanity was not proof against that jealousy, and she feared comparison. That Crowdie should have broken his promise about singing, and should have sung to please Katharine, had hurt her even more deeply than she herself realized.
On the other hand, Mrs. Lauderdale’s confession to her daughter on the morning after Robert Lauderdale’s death had produced a profound impression upon the young girl. Being quite unable to realize a state of mind in which her mother could really be envious of her, Katharine readily believed that Mrs. Lauderdale had greatly exaggerated in her own judgment the fault of which she had been guilty, and that much of what had seemed to be her unkindness and heartlessness toward Katharine had really been the result of her unjust self-accusation, leading her to avoid the person whom she believed that she had injured. All that was a little vague, but that did not matter. The two had always been allies in family questions, and had been devotedly attached to one another until this year. And after the first violent scene with Alexander Junior, the mother had taken the daughter’s side again, had released her from imprisonment in her own room, and had approved of her taking shelter with uncle Robert. The confession she had made on that morning had been in reality a complete reconciliation. Katharine did not understand how much her absence from home during twenty-four hours had to do with the subsidence of her mother’s unnatural envy.
The result was that at the present juncture Katharine desired earnestly to return to her home, and would have done so in spite of Ralston’s objections, had she been assured of finding any condition approaching even to an armed peace. But of this she had little hope. She learned that her father was morose and silent, and that he never referred to her. His attention was naturally preoccupied by the uncommon interests at stake in the approaching conflict, and he grew daily more taciturn. His old father watched events with that apparent indifference of old age, which often conceals a curiosity not without cunning in finding means of satisfying itself. Mrs. Lauderdale also told Katharine that Charlotte and her husband were coming up from Washington for a few days, in order that Slayback and Alexander might talk matters over. Contrary to the latter’s expectations, Slayback did not seem inclined to agree with the Lauderdales about the attempt to break the will, though his wife and his children would ultimately profit largely by the result, if it proved successful.
Katharine returned one afternoon from Clinton Place, after discussing these matters with her mother, and found Hamilton Bright in the library in Park Avenue. She always avoided as much as possible being alone with him, and when she caught sight of his flaxen head bending over the writing-table, she was about to withdraw quietly and go to her own room. But he looked up quickly and spoke to her.
“Don’t run away, cousin Katharine,” he said. “And you always do run. You know it’s not safe, with your arm in a sling.”