It was only four o’clock, but it was very cold.
“I think I’ll have my shawl, dear,” said Mrs. Trenchard. “The Indian one that your Uncle Timothy gave me—it’s in the third drawer—there—to the right.... Thank you. I must go down. Grandfather’s coming down to tea this afternoon.”
Katherine drew closer to the sofa, after she had brought the shawl; she laid her hand upon her mother’s, which were very cold.
“But, Mother, you’ve said nothing! I know that now it must seem as though I’d done it without asking you, without telling you, but I didn’t know myself until yesterday afternoon. It came so suddenly.”
“Yesterday afternoon?” Mrs. Trenchard drew her shawl closely about her. “But how could he—Mr. Mark—yesterday afternoon? You weren’t alone with him—Aggie was there. Surely she—”
“No. He wrote on a piece of paper and slipped it across to me, and I said ‘yes.’ We both felt we couldn’t wait.”
“I don’t like him,” Mrs. Trenchard said slowly. “You knew that I didn’t like him.”
The colour rose in Katherine’s cheeks.
“No,” she said, “I knew that you thought some of his ideas odd. But you didn’t know him.”
“I don’t like him,” said Mrs. Trenchard again. “I could never like him. He isn’t a religious man. He has a bad effect upon Henry. You, Katherine, to accept him when you know that he doesn’t go to church and was so rude to poor Mr. Seymour and thinks Russia such a fine country! I can’t think,” said Mrs. Trenchard, her hands trembling again, “what’s come over you.”