“It’s very hard for me,” she said, wearily. “You’re both partly wrong and partly right.”
“I think I’m altogether right,” said Katharine.
“I know—so does he. But you’re not—either of you—nor I, either, for that matter. Oh, dear! I wish I knew what to do!”
“There’s nothing to be done, I’m afraid,” answered the young girl, more gently, for she was somewhat pacified by her mother’s owning a share in the blame. “Not that I’m going to make a fuss about it, if he doesn’t. I’m not that kind. I won’t come down to dinner to-night, because it would be unpleasant for everybody. As for to-morrow—we’ll see what happens. The idea of shutting me up in my room so long as he’s in the house, because the sight of me is disagreeable to him, it’s silly—it’s perfectly childish! Just like an angry man! I’m not sure that I should mind it very much, so far as not seeing him’s concerned. I don’t want to see him, any more than he wants to see me. But it’s the principle of the thing that sticks in my throat. It’s as though he had the right to treat me like a small child, to be sent to bed in a dark room at discretion, until I change my mind. It’s the tyranny of the thing, the arrogance of it—and when I’m altogether right, as you both know.”
“No—not altogether,” objected Mrs. Lauderdale.
“I won’t go over it again, mother. I’ll sum it up in these words. He’s rich, and he’s told us that he was poor, and he’s stood looking on and letting you work to give us small luxuries that amount to necessities. He’s wilfully calumniated Jack for months. He’s wilfully misled Archie Wingfield—”
“My dear—about that—he assures me that he only said you might ultimately accept him—”
“Well—he knew that I mightn’t, and he had no business to say I might,” interrupted Katharine, decidedly. “Besides, I can hear just his tone of voice, and his way of slurring over the ‘might’ till Mr. Wingfield felt it was ‘may’—oh, it’s abominable! As for his pestering me with questions about uncle Robert’s will, it’s natural enough, considering how he loves money, as a cat loves cream. Oh, I know! You’re going to say it’s disrespectful to say such things. Perhaps it is—I don’t know—he seems to lap it up—with that smile of his—and it disappears, and we have to live on the drops. No—I don’t feel respectful. Why should I? I’ve respected him for nineteen years, and I can’t respect him any longer. It’s over, once and for all. When a man deliberately sets to work to destroy his daughter’s chances of being happy—oh, well! It isn’t only that. It’s the whole thing, the meanness, the miserliness, the Sunday-go-to-meeting-and-sit-up-straight sort of virtuous superiority outside—and all this other inside. It’s revolting. It’s upset all my ideas. I don’t feel as though I could ever believe in anything again. I don’t mean to shock you, mother, but I can’t help saying it, just now.”
“It’s dreadful!” Mrs. Lauderdale spoke in a low voice and earnestly.
Katharine was silent for a few moments, and looked out of the window. It was almost dark by this time.