They argued the case and talked over it, as they had done many times already, without coming to any conclusion, except that they should have had the money and Alexander should not. They always considered that he had got the property, though it was really his father’s. But they both knew how futile discussion was, and they abandoned it at last, as they always did, with a hopeless conviction that the truth could never be known.
Katharine on her side was much disturbed by what she knew of the previous will, and she took counsel with John Ralston, as to how she should act. There was not much to be done, since the will itself had not been found up to the present date, though the administrators had been already some time engaged in examining the papers. Of these there was no end, though the agent of the estate was acquainted with most of them. They consisted chiefly of title deeds and leases.
By this time Alexander had practically admitted that Katharine was engaged to be married to Ralston, but like every one else concerned, he thought it better to wait until the summer, before announcing the fact. To do so now would look as though the family had only waited for Robert Lauderdale’s death. Moreover, though it is so little the custom to wear mourning for any but the very nearest nowadays, the inheritance of wealth requires a corresponding show of grief on the part of the heirs. There is a sort of tacit understanding about that. When an uncle leaves a fortune, the particular nephew who gets it must acknowledge the fact and propitiate the shade of the dear departed with a decently broad hatband. The position of the Brights caused some amusement. They had worn something approaching to mourning after old Lauderdale’s death, but they did not think it necessary to continue to do so after the court had set aside the will. The Lauderdales and the Ralstons wore half mourning.
As has been said, Katharine’s engagement was accepted as a fact in the family, and she had no difficulty in seeing Ralston as often as she pleased, when he was free from his work. He had told Mr. Beman that he should prefer to stay in the bank for a time and learn something about business, and Beman had been delighted, especially when he saw that John came as regularly as ever.
CHAPTER XXVI.
In the late spring John and Katharine often walked together of an afternoon, between half past five and sunset.
It was during one of these walks that Katharine consulted him seriously. They went about together in unfrequented places, as a rule, not caring to meet acquaintances at every turn. Neither of them had any social duties to perform, and they were as free to do as they pleased as though they had not represented the rising generation of Lauderdales.
The spring had fairly come at last. It had rained, and the pavement dried in white patches, the willow trees in the square were a blur of green, and the Virginia creeper on the houses here and there was all rough with little stubby brown buds. It had come with a rush. The hyacinths were sticking their green curved beaks up through the park beds, and the little cock-sparrows were scraping their wings along the ground.
There was a bright youthfulness in everything,—in the air, in the sky, in the old houses, in the faces of the people in the streets. The Italians with their fruit carts sunned themselves, and turned up their dark rough faces to the warmth. The lame boy who lived in the house at the corner of Clinton Place was out on the pavement, with a single roller skate on his better foot, pushing himself along with his crutch, and laughing all to himself, pale but happy. The old woman in grey, who hangs about that region and begs, had at last taken the dilapidated woollen shawl from her head, and had replaced it by a very, very poor apology for a hat, with a crumpled paper cherry and a green leaf in it, and only one string. And the other woman, who wants her car-fare to Harlem, seemed more anxious to get there than ever. Moreover the organ-grinders expressed great joy, and the children danced together to the cheerful discords, in Washington Square, under the blur of the green willows—slim American children, who talked through their noses, and funny little French children with ribbons in their hair, from South Fifth Avenue, and bright-eyed darkey children with one baby amongst them. And they took turns in holding it while the others danced.
Now also the patriotic Italians took occasion to bury a dead comrade or two, and a whole platoon of them, who had been riflemen in their own army at home, turned out in their smart, theatrical uniforms of green and red, with plumes of gleaming cock’s feathers lying over one side of their flat waterproof hats. And they had a band of their own which played a funeral march, as their little legs moved with doll-like slowness to the solemn measure.