“Yes—but if I just go without asking his leave? What will happen? What do you think? Girls often go alone, and it’s only five hours by the half-past eleven train that Charlotte always takes. She’d be glad to have me, too.”
“Your father would be quite capable of going and bringing you back—on Sunday.”
“On Sunday!” Katharine laughed hardly. “How you know him! He wouldn’t lose a day at his office, to save you or me from drowning. That’s what he calls duty. Yes—perhaps he’d come, as you say. Then we should have an opportunity of fighting it out on the way back. Five hours, side by side—but I suppose we should turn our chairs back to back and go to sleep or read. But he might not come, after all. Do you know? I should feel a sort of sense of security at the Slaybacks’. I like him, though Charlotte makes fun of him. There’s something real about him. I didn’t mean to go to Washington, though.”
“You couldn’t go to the Ralstons’,” observed Mrs. Lauderdale. “With Jack at home—people would talk.”
“If I went there, I should stay,” answered Katharine, with a coolness that startled her mother. “I should never come back at all. Perhaps I shall some day. Who knows? No—I thought I’d go and stop with uncle Robert. That would terrify papa. He’d suppose, in the first place, that I’d tell uncle Robert everything that’s happened, and then that uncle Robert would tell me a great deal more about his intentions with regard to the will. That would make papa anxious to be nice to me when I came home again, so as to get the secret out of me. I think it’s a very good plan; don’t you? Uncle Robert would be delighted. He’s all alone and not at all strong. The very last time I saw him, he begged me to come and stay a few days. I think I will. Fancy papa’s rage! He’d scarcely dare to come and get me there, I imagine.”
Mrs. Lauderdale did not answer at once. She saw the immense advantage Katharine would have over her father if she carried out the plan, and it seemed too great. Alexander would be almost at his daughter’s mercy. She could dictate her own terms of peace. Incensed as she was against him, she could easily use her influence against him with his uncle, who had a lonely old man’s fondness for the beautiful girl.
“Of course you could go—I couldn’t prevent you,” said Mrs. Lauderdale, rather helplessly.
“Of course I could. I’ve only to walk there. Uncle Robert will send for my things.”
“I hope you won’t, dear. It wouldn’t make it easier for me—he’ll think it’s been my fault, you know—and then—”
Katharine looked at her mother in silence for a moment, and pitied her too much, even after what had passed between them, to leave her to Alexander’s temper.