At this moment there was a stir in the other room; the voice of Mrs. Hilbery was heard talking of proof-sheets rescued by miraculous providence from butcher’s ledgers in Australia; the curtain separating one room from the other was drawn apart, and Mrs. Hilbery and Augustus Pelham stood in the doorway. Mrs. Hilbery stopped short. She looked at her daughter, and at the man her daughter was to marry, with her peculiar smile that always seemed to tremble on the brink of satire.
“The best of all my treasures, Mr. Pelham!” she exclaimed. “Don’t move, Katharine. Sit still, William. Mr. Pelham will come another day.”
Mr. Pelham looked, smiled, bowed, and, as his hostess had moved on, followed her without a word. The curtain was drawn again either by him or by Mrs. Hilbery.
But her mother had settled the question somehow. Katharine doubted no longer.
“As I told you last night,” she said, “I think it’s your duty, if there’s a chance that you care for Cassandra, to discover what your feeling is for her now. It’s your duty to her, as well as to me. But we must tell my mother. We can’t go on pretending.”
“That is entirely in your hands, of course,” said Rodney, with an immediate return to the manner of a formal man of honor.
“Very well,” said Katharine.
Directly he left her she would go to her mother, and explain that the engagement was at an end—or it might be better that they should go together?
“But, Katharine,” Rodney began, nervously attempting to stuff Cassandra’s sheets back into their envelope; “if Cassandra—should Cassandra—you’ve asked Cassandra to stay with you.”
“Yes; but I’ve not posted the letter.”