Gareth could not suppress a faint stirring of amusement at the fancy portrait of Kathleen's timorous anguish. But at the same time, he was genuinely touched and stirred by his mother's generous pleadings, by the tears he saw dimming her usually placid eyes.
Slipping an affectionate arm around her shoulders: "Mother dear," he said; "look at me—straight up at me. That's right. I've wronged no one, do you understand? I'm not that sort of fellow, thanks to you. I have asked Kathleen to be my wife. She refused."
"Refused?" incredulously.
"Yes."
"Impossible."
Mrs. Temple, outwardly so malleable, was a determined little woman, and once her brain struck out on a certain line it was a matter of some difficulty to divert it. Gareth made an effort.
"You see, mother, she's not at all the sort of silly helpless girl you imagine her. She knew what she was doing. She's free, and—and—I told you she walked as if her feet were bare; that's got to do with it, somehow. She doesn't want to marry."
But in his mother's scheme of things, girls did not refuse offers of marriage, especially under existing circumstances. Nor was it at that period, the close of the eighteen-nineties, as usual an occurrence as later.
For a moment she was silent, brain and knitting-needles bright and busy. Illumination came, and with it soft amusement at his denseness:
"O my youngest knight, you are younger even than I thought. Did you allow nothing for her pride, her delicacy? How clearly did you betray that it was a matter of duty that prompted your offer? Of course she drew back! What could you expect? She thinks she has cheapened herself in your sight; she thinks—you men, you are born blunderers, the best of you."