“No, Miss Katharine.”
Katharine let her pen fall, rose and went to the window in hesitation. The bit of red ribbon which had served as a signal to John was pinned to the small curtain stretched over the lower sash. She looked at it thoughtfully, and forgot Mr. Wingfield for a moment.
“Shall I show the gentleman into the library, Miss Katharine?” asked Annie, in an insinuating tone.
“Oh, well! Yes,” said Katharine, turning suddenly. “Tell Mr. Wingfield that I’ll be down in a few minutes, if he doesn’t mind waiting. I suppose I’ve got to,” she added, audibly, before Annie was well out of the room.
She glanced at herself in the looking-glass, but without interest. Then she slipped her unfinished letter into the drawer of the little writing-table by the window, at which she had been sitting, and turned towards the door. But before she left the room she paused, hesitated, and then went back to the table, locking the drawer and withdrawing the key, which she slipped behind the frame of an engraving. She had become unreasonably distrustful of late.
Instead of going down to the library, she knocked at the door of her mother’s morning room. It chanced that Mrs. Lauderdale was at home that afternoon, which was unusual in fine weather. Mrs. Lauderdale was sitting by the window at the table she used for her miniature painting. She had talent, and had been well taught in her girlhood, and her work was distinctly good. Amateurs more often succeed with miniature than in any other branches of art. It is harder to detect faults when the scale of the whole is very minute.
Mrs. Lauderdale was bending over a piece of work she had lately begun. All the little things she used were lying about her on the wooden table, the tiny brushes, the saucers for colours, the needle-pointed pencils. She looked up as Katharine entered, and the latter saw all the lines in the still beautiful face accentuated by the earnest attention given to the work. The eyelids were contracted and tired, the lips drawn in, one eyebrow was raised a little higher than the other, so that there were fine, arched wrinkles in the forehead immediately over it. The faces of American women of a certain age, when the complexion is fair, favour the formation of a multitude of very delicate crossing and recrossing lines, not often seen in the features of other nationalities.
“What is it, child?” asked Mrs. Lauderdale, quietly, with her soft southern intonation.
“Mr. Wingfield’s there again,” answered Katharine, with unmistakable disgust.
“Well, my dear, go down and see him,” said Mrs. Lauderdale, blandly. “Did you send word that you’d receive?”