"There are several," said Kathleen in a low voice.
"Will you not marry him?"
"I don't know; I think not."
"Are you not in love with him?"
"Does that matter?" asked Kathleen steadily. "Scott's happiness is what is important."
"But his happiness, apparently, depends on you."
Kathleen flushed and looked at her curiously.
"Dear, if I knew that was so, I would give myself to him. Neither you nor he have ever asked anything of me in vain. Even if I did not love him—as I do—and he needed me, I would give myself to him. You and he have been all there was in life for me. But I am afraid that I may not always be all that life holds for him. He is young; he has had no chance yet; he has had little experience with women. I think he ought to have his chance."
She might have said the same thing of herself. A bride at her husband's death-bed, widowed before she had ever been a wife, what experience had she? All her life so far had been devoted to the girl who stood there confronting her, and to the brother. What did she know of men?—of whether she might be capable of loving some man more suitable? She had not given herself the chance. She never would, now.
There was no selfishness in Kathleen Severn. But there was much in the Seagrave twins. The very method of their bringing up inculcated it; they had never had any chance to be otherwise. The "cultiwation of the indiwidool" had driven it into them, taught them the deification of self, forced them to consider their own importance above anything else in the world.