Madam Crewe raised her chin in her old supercilious manner, then quickly lowered it.

"I don't know. I've had no experience. I never punished. Perhaps that is where I made my mistake."

Again Katherine's lips curled slightly in a wry smile.

"You need have no regrets there, grandmother. You have nothing to make up to me on that score."

"You mean I have punished you?"

"Oh—very thoroughly."

"Curious! I can't see myself doing it."

"I can't see you not doing it!"

Madam Crewe, in her turn, stared, surprised. Katherine was acting out of all character, in quite a new, unaccountable fashion.

"I suppose I must take your word for it," her grandmother admitted with an odd sigh. "Be kind enough not to interrupt. You know the story of the man I did not marry. Now you shall hear the story of the man I did marry.