“Well,” replied Bright, doubtfully. “I don’t know that I meant to talk about that exactly. But there’s a certain connection. If you’ve anything on your mind to say about it, why, go ahead, cousin Katharine—go ahead. I daresay you’ll put it much better than I shall.”
“I’m not so sure of that. But it may seem to come better from me. I’ll say it, at all events, and if you don’t think as I do, tell me so. Of course I know how strange it must have seemed to you and aunt Maggie that I should have come here, out of a clear sky, the other day, without so much as giving you half an hour’s warning. No amount of charity and hospitality can make that look natural to you,—to either of you,—and I daresay you’ve wondered about it. And then, to stay on in this way, after my father has behaved in the way he has—it’s not exactly delicate, you know—”
“Nonsense!” exclaimed Bright, emphatically. “You’re mistaken if you think that’s my view of the case.”
“I don’t think I’m mistaken, cousin Ham. I daresay you may like to have me, but that doesn’t explain my coming, does it? But I’m in an awfully hard position just now, and the other day—do you know? I was driving to the Crowdies’, and then I changed my mind and came here instead.”
“I’m glad you did. So’s my mother. As for not thinking it natural, when your father’s tearing about like wild and rooting up everything like a mad rhinoceros—oh, I say! I beg your pardon—”
Katharine did not smile, for there was good blood in her veins, of the kind that does not play false at such moments. But the temptation to laugh was strong, and she looked fixedly at her left hand.
“No,” she said. “Please don’t speak of my father like that. I suppose you both think you’re right in this horrible question of money. I myself don’t know what I think. He’s wrong in one way, of course. Whether there’s a flaw in the will or not, it represents poor uncle Robert’s last wish about his fortune. If he changed his mind, that’s none of our business—”
“How do you mean?” said Bright, quickly, and forgetting his embarrassment. “Did you say he changed his mind?”
“I didn’t mean to say that, positively,” answered Katharine, who had forgotten herself for a moment. “As the will was made almost at the last moment, perhaps there had been—others, before it. People often make several wills, don’t they? That’s all I meant. My own feeling would be to carry out his wishes. But I suppose men feel differently—and it’s an enormous fortune, of course. The main point is that you and your mother are legally my father’s enemies—well, call it opponents—and I’ve no business to be eating your bread while it lasts. That’s what it comes to, in plain language.”
“I wish you wouldn’t talk in that way, cousin Katharine,” said Bright, in a low voice. “I don’t think it’s exactly kind.”