XXV.
Poor Miss Theodora! She could never have imagined herself so indifferent to anything that concerned Kate as she was at first to the news of her engagement. But at length, after she had several times seen Kate and Ben together, she wondered that she had not long before realized their fitness for each other. Perhaps, after all, she had made a mistake in believing that Kate and Ernest could have been happy together. Certainly, she had been very blind in her estimate of Kate's feelings.
She never knew, for pride forbade the young girl to dwell on the rather painful subject, how difficult it was for Kate and Ben to gain Mrs. Digby's consent to their engagement. It could hardly be said, indeed, that she gave her consent. She simply submitted to the inevitable. Kate was of age, and had her own money, an independence, if not a fortune; and Mrs. Digby, after using every argument, decided to make the best of what she could not help. Ralph, at least, would commit no social folly like this of his sister's—Ralph, that model of discretion and mirror of good form. She did not even, as Miss Theodora had dreaded, reprove her cousin for allowing this love affair to develop unchecked by her. Whatever she may have thought of Miss Theodora's blindness, she decided to make Kate's engagement a family affair—an affair of her own small family, in which, apparently, she intended not to include her cousin.
Then Miss Theodora, feeling her heart soften as she watched Kate and Ben, wondered if she had not been too hard with Ernest. Ought she not to show some interest in Eugenie? Though this query never shaped itself in words spoken to Kate or any one else, it pressed itself upon her constantly. A sentence from Ernest's last letter haunted her: "I cannot be perfectly happy until I know that you and Eugenie have met. She has not written to me for some time, and I am almost sure this is because she is so much hurt at the coldness of my relatives. I did expect something different from you and Kate."
This letter touched Miss Theodora more than a little; but Kate made no response when her cousin read it to her. Though she could not tell exactly why, Kate's silence annoyed her. She even began to wonder what she should wear when she made the first call, and she recalled all Ernest had said about Eugenie's critical taste in dress. She was glad that Kate had insisted on her having an autumn street gown made at a fairly fashionable dressmaker's.
Miss Chatterwits happened to be sewing at Miss Theodora's on the day when the latter made her decision about Eugenie.