“I know—not this, however, anyhow. I hope you would have had sense enough to keep your share. It would have been far better in the long run for Stella, she would always have had you to fall back upon. My heart is broken about it all, Katherine. I blame myself now more than at the first. I should never have countenanced them; and I never should if I had thought it would bring disaster upon you.”
“You need not blame yourself, Lady Jane, for this was the will of ’71; and if you had never interfered at all, if there had been no Charles Somers, and no elopement, it would have been just the same.”
“There is something in that,” Lady Jane said. “And now I hope, I do hope, that Stella—she is not like you, my dear Katherine. She has never been brought up to think of any one but herself.”
“She has been brought up exactly as I was,” Katherine said with a smile.
“Ah yes, but it is different, quite different; the foolish wicked preference which was shown for her, did good to you—you are a different creature, and most likely it is more or less owing to that. Katherine, you know there are things in which I think you were wrong. When that good, kind man wanted to marry you, as indeed he does now——”
“Not very much, I think, Lady Jane; which is all the better, as I do not wish at all to marry him.”
“I think you are making a mistake,” said Lady Jane. “He is not so ornamental perhaps as Charlie Somers, but he is a far better man. Well, then, I suppose there is nothing more to be said; but I can’t help thinking that if you had a man to stand by you they would never have propounded that will.”
“Indeed,” said Katherine, “you must not think they had anything to do with it; the will was propounded because it was the only one that was there.”
“I know that women always are imposed upon in business, where it is possible to do it,” Lady Jane said in tones of conviction. And it was with great reluctance that she went away, still with a feeling that it was somehow Katherine’s fault, if not at bottom her own, for having secretly encouraged Stella’s runaway match. “She had never thought of this,” she declared, for a moment. She had been strongly desirous that Stella should have her share, and she knew that Katherine would have given her her share. As for Stella’s actions, no one could answer for them. She might have a generous impulse or she might not; and Charlie Somers, he was always agape for money. If he had the Duke of Westminster’s revenues he would still open his mouth for more. “But you may be sure I shall put their duty very plainly before them,” she said.
“Oh, don’t, please don’t,” cried Katherine. “I do not want to have anything from Stella’s pity—I am not to be pitied at all. I have a very sufficient income of my own.”