"Kathleen does like him really; at least she would like him really—only—"
"There has been a misunderstanding," said Mrs. Roseleigh. She put an anxious note into her voice, slightly lowering it, and pressing down as it were the soft pedal of sympathy and confidential intimacy.
"They have both misunderstood, you see; and one misunderstanding has reacted on the other. Perhaps you don't know the whole story?"
"Do tell it me," he said. Once more he had the sensation of coasting or free-wheeling down a pleasant hill of perfect companionship.
"Many years ago," said Mrs. Roseleigh, "she was engaged to Lancelot Stukely. She wouldn't marry him because she thought she couldn't leave her father. She couldn't have left him then. He depended on her for everything. But he died, and Lancelot, who was away, didn't come back and didn't write. He didn't dare, poor man! It was very silly of him. He thought he was too poor to offer her to share his poverty, but she wouldn't have minded. Anyhow he waited and time passed, and then the other day his uncle died and left him money, and he came back at once, and came here at once, to see her, not to see Donna Laura. That was just an accident, Donna Laura being here, but when he came here he thought Kathleen no longer cared, so he decided to go away without saying anything.
"Kathleen had been longing for him to come back, had been expecting him to come back for years. She had been waiting for years. She was not normal from excitement, and then she had a shock and disappointment. She was not, you see, herself. She was susceptible to all influences. She was magnetic for the moment, ready for an electric disturbance; she was like a watch that is taken near a dynamo on board ship, it makes it go wrong. And now she realizes that she is going wrong and that she won't go right till she is demagnetized."
"Ah!" said Anikin, "she realizes."
"You see," said Mrs. Roseleigh gently, "it wasn't anyone's fault. It just happened."
"And how will she be demagnetized?" asked Anikin.
"Ah, that is just it," said Mrs. Roseleigh. "We must all try and help her. We must all try to show her that we want to help. To show her that we understand."