“Except Hester Crowdie,” observed Ralston. “I’m sure she’s cruel.”
“Hester!” exclaimed Katharine, in surprise. “How absurd! She’s the kindest woman living.”
“I may be mistaken—I judge from her face, that’s all, and from her eyes when she sees Crowdie talking to any other woman.”
“Oh—she’s infatuated about him,” laughed Katharine. “She’s mad on that point, but as they love each other so tremendously, I think it’s rather nice of them both—don’t you?”
“Oh yes,” answered Ralston, indifferently. “Go on with what you were saying. You were talking about your father.”
“Yes. He has a cruel streak. In a small way, Charlotte has it, too. She can say the most horrid things sometimes, that give pain, and she seems to enjoy it. But you’re wrong about Hester—she’s kind-hearted. As for papa—it’s just that. His religion and his love of money are always fighting in him. His religion gets the better of it whenever he’s tempted to do anything that’s plainly wrong. But his love of money drives him up to the very edge of what’s fair. Now, for instance, he’s always told us that he was poor, and yet uncle Robert knew that he had a million put away somewhere. That’s fifty thousand a year, isn’t it? Yes, I’ve heard him say so. Yet, I’m quite sure that he really considered that very little, much too little to have divided it between us girls. So he’s made us live on a quarter of it all our lives. He felt poor, and he said he was. Those things are relative, Jack. Uncle Robert would have felt as poor as a church mouse with only a million to dispose of. As papa looked at it, it was true, though it didn’t seem so to us. Do you see what I mean?”
“Dear—if you wish to defend your father, defend him as much as you please. But let’s differ in our opinion of some of his peculiarities. It’s better to agree about differing, you know. We’ve both got the most awful tempers, you and I, and unless we label the disagreeable things, we shall quarrel over them. That’s one of them—your father. Put him away and lock up the idea. It’s safer.”
“But you and I wouldn’t really quarrel—even about him, Jack,” said Katharine, with sudden earnestness.
“Well—I don’t know. Not for long, of course.”
“Not for one minute,” said Katharine, in a tone of absolute certainty. “When have we quarrelled, Jack? Except last winter, over that wretched misunderstanding—and that was all my fault. You don’t think I’m angry about what you said of papa, do you? I’m not, and I’m sorry if you thought I was. But how could two people love each other as we do, and quarrel? You didn’t mean what you said, dear, or you don’t understand by quarrelling what I understand by it. Perhaps that’s it. I’ve grown up in an atmosphere of perpetual fighting, and I hate it. You’ve not. You don’t understand, as I said. You’ve never quarrelled with your mother, have you?”