“It’s true, at all events,” answered Katharine. “As for being kind—it’s not a case of kindness on my part. It’s gratitude I feel, because you and aunt Maggie have been so awfully kind to me, just when I was in trouble.”
“Oh—if you’re going to look at it in that way!” Bright paused, but Katharine said nothing. “Well, I don’t see where the kindness lies,” he continued. “Of course, if you choose to put it so—but it’s a long way on the other side. It’s a pretty considerable kindness of you to come and stop in my house. If that’s what you’ve got to say about the will business, cousin Katharine, I hope you won’t say any more, because I don’t like it. I appreciate—I suppose that’s the word—I appreciate your motives in trying to twist things inside out and to make martyrs of us because we’ve accepted your company without saying, ‘Look here, cousin Katharine, this is our bread, and you’re eating it, and we don’t exactly mind, but we’d rather you’d go and eat your own.’ I suppose that’s what you make out that we’re thinking all the time. I don’t know whether you call that being kind to me, exactly, but I know pretty well what it feels like. It feels as if you’d slapped my face.”
“Ham! Cousin Ham!” cried Katharine. “You know how I meant it—please, please don’t think—”
“No; I know I’m an idiot. I suppose it’s just as well you should know it, too. It may make things more comfortable. But I’ll tell you. Don’t talk that way, please, because we don’t feel that way, and we’re not going to. I’d rather have you know that this is just as much your home as Clinton Place is than—well, than lots of things. And since we’re saying everything right out, like this, and we’re either going to be friends—or not—I’d like to ask you one question, if you don’t mind. You may be offended, but you’ll know I didn’t mean to be offensive, because I’ve said so. May I?”
He spoke roughly, relapsing under excitement and emotion to habits of speech which had been formed and strengthened in his early years in the West. Katharine had occasionally heard him talk in that way with men, losing all at once the refinements of accent and speech which had been familiar in childhood and again in maturity, but which ten years of California and Nevada had lined, so to say, with something rougher and stronger that occasionally broke through the shell. Katharine was by no means sure of what he meant to say, and would very much have preferred that he should not ask his question just then, whatever it might prove to be. But she saw well enough that in his present mood it would not be easy to control him.
“Yes,” she said. “Ask me anything you like, if you think I can answer. I will if I can.”
“Well—are you going to marry Jack Ralston or not, cousin Katharine? It would make a difference to me if you’d tell me.”
Katharine was taken unawares, both by the question and its form. Not to answer it was very difficult, under the circumstances. She had risked trouble in letting him speak, and it would not be true either to say that she was going to marry Ralston or that she was not, since she was married already. But she had never contemplated the possibility of telling Bright the secret, and she did not wish to do so now. She was very truthful and also very reticent—qualities which she inherited, and which were therefore the foundation of her impulses and not acquired virtues from which there was at least a chance of escape under very trying circumstances. She hesitated a moment, and then made up her mind.
“I’d rather not answer the question just now,” she said, but she felt the blush slowly rising to her cheeks.
Bright glanced at her with a look almost expressing fear. Then he turned his eyes away, and grew red. He jingled his little bunch of keys in his pocket, in his emotion. Once or twice he opened his lips and drew breath, but checked himself and kept silence. Seeing that he said nothing, Katharine rose to her feet, hoping to put an end to the situation. He pretended not to see her, at first. She felt that she should not go away in silence, for she did not wish to seem unkind, so she stood still for a moment, keeping herself in countenance by adjusting the little cape she wore over her injured arm. Still he said nothing, and at last she made a step as though she were going away, purposely trying to put on a kindly and natural expression.