“Well, I’ll soon find out,” announced his companion.
XIV
During the journey to Toledo Catalina stared sulkily out of the window or slept with her head against the side of the car. She ignored Over’s attempts to converse until, with chilling dignity, he retired to the opposite end of the compartment and wondered how he could have thought of love in connection with a bad-tempered child. He was delighted at the prospect of reunion with the orthodox Moultons, and understood something of their serene contempt for originality. It is true that Catalina asleep, with the deep vermilion on her cheeks, her tumbled head drooping, looked so innocent and lovely that she set him to wondering regretfully why there was no such thing as perfection in woman; and from thence it was but a step to imagine Catalina with the qualities and training that would make her the ideal of man. There was no harm in indulging one’s self in idyllic imagining, by way of variety, Over concluded; doubtless it was good for the soul.
Whatever the motive, his imagination performed unaccustomed feats during the drowsy afternoon, while his companion slept and the other occupants of the car, few in number, smoked and said little. It pictured Catalina ten years hence; she would then be thirty-three, an age he had always found sympathetic in woman; she would have seen the world, have adapted herself to many new conditions, and in the process learned self-control, pared off the jagged edges of her egoism, and supplemented her beauty with a distinction of manner and style that would compel the homage of the best societies of the world.
He had seen what she was capable of, and he suspected that she was ambitious. It was her love of solitude and dislike of mere men and women that had swathed her so deeply in her crudities; but if she carried out her intention of living for some years in England and Europe, and cultivated the right sort of people, the transformation was almost certain. Perhaps it would be worth while to ask his mother to take care of her in England. Lady “Peggy” Over was a clever, warm-hearted woman of the simple, old-fashioned aristocracy, who offered her sons no assistance in choosing their wives, and had the broadest tolerance for the vagaries of young people. With her lively mind and humor she would win upon Catalina at once, and her complete honesty of nature would finish the conquest of a girl whose hatred of sham was almost fanatical.
Catalina opened her eyes upon him, half awake, and he asked her, impulsively: “What is your ambition? What do you want?”
She answered, sleepily, but without hesitation, “To have four children.”
He was too astonished to speak for a moment; then he asked, feebly, “Is that all?”
“No,” she said, now quite awake. “I want to meet all the most interesting people in the world, and read the most interesting books, and show a lot of other people what frauds and useless creatures they are; but I love children as much as I detest most people, and I’ll never be contented till I have four. I don’t see why you look so dumfounded! What is there so remarkable in wanting children?”