“I’m glad to see that you look at the matter in its true light,” said her father, as she stood up again.
“How should I look at it?” asked Katharine, coldly. “Good night, mother—good night,” she repeated, nodding to her father.
She turned and left the room. A moment later she was on her way to the Van De Waters’ house, leaning back in the dark, comfortable brougham, her feet toasting on the foot-warmer, and the furs drawn up closely round her. It was a bitterly cold night, for a sharp frost had succeeded the snow-storm after sunset. Even inside the carriage Katharine could feel that there was something hard and ringing in the quality of the air which was in harmony with her own temper. She had plenty of time to go over the scene which had taken place in her mother’s room, but she felt no inclination to analyze her feelings. She only knew that this letter of John’s, written when he was still half senseless with drink, was another insult, and one deeper than any she had felt before. It was a direct insult—a sin of commission, and not merely of omission, like his absence from the ball on the previous night.
She supposed, naturally enough, that he would not appear at the dinner-party, but at that moment she was almost indifferent as to whether he should come or not. She was certainly not afraid to meet him. It would be far more probable, she thought, that he should be afraid to meet her.
It was a quarter past eight when she reached the Van De Waters’, and she was the last to arrive. It was a party of sixteen, almost all very young, and most of them unmarried—a party very carefully selected with a view to enjoyment—an intimate party, because many out of the number were more or less closely connected and related, and it was indicative of the popularity of the Lauderdales, that amongst sixteen young persons there should be four who belonged more or less to the Lauderdale tribe. There was Katharine, there was Hamilton Bright,—the Crowdies had been omitted because so many disliked Crowdie himself,—there was little Frank Miner, who was a near relation of the Van De Waters, and there stood John Ralston, talking to Ruth Van De Water, before Crowdie’s new portrait of her, as though nothing had happened.
Katharine saw him the moment she entered the room, and he knew, as he heard the door opened, that she must be the last comer, since every one else had arrived. Without interrupting his conversation with Miss Van De Water, he turned his head a little and met Katharine’s eyes. He bowed just perceptibly, but she gave him no sign of recognition, which was pardonable, however, as he knew, since there were people between them, and she had not yet spoken to Ruth herself, who, with her brother, had invited the party. The elder Van De Waters had left the house to the young people, and had betaken themselves elsewhere for the evening.
John continued to talk quietly, as Katharine came forward. As he had expected, he had found her name on the card in the little envelope which had been handed to him when he arrived, and he was to take her in to dinner. Until late in the afternoon the brother and sister had hoped that John would not come, and had already decided to ask in his place that excellent man, Mr. Brown, who was always so kind about coming when asked at the last minute. Then Frank Miner had appeared, with an evening paper containing Doctor Routh’s letter, and had explained the whole matter, so that they felt sympathy for John rather than otherwise, though no one had as yet broached to him the subject of his adventures. Naturally enough, the Van De Waters both supposed that Katharine should have been among the first to hear the true version of the story, and they would not disarrange their table in order to separate two young people who were generally thought to be engaged to be married. There were, of course, a few present who had not heard of Doctor Routh’s justification of John.
Katharine came across directly, towards Ruth Van De Water, and greeted her affectionately. John came forward a little, waiting to be noticed and to shake hands in his turn. Katharine prolonged the first exchange of words with her young hostess rather unnecessarily, and then, since she could not avoid the meeting, held out her hand to John, looking straight and coldly into his eyes.
“You’re to take Miss Lauderdale in, you know, Mr. Ralston,” said Miss Van De Water, who knew that dinner would be announced almost immediately, and that Katharine would wish to speak to the other guests before sitting down.
“Yes—I found my card,” answered John, as Katharine withdrew her hand without having given his the slightest pressure.
It was a strange meeting, considering that they had been man and wife since the previous morning, and could hardly be said to have met since they had parted after the wedding. Katharine, who was cold and angry, wondered what all those young people would say if she suddenly announced to them, at table, that John Ralston was her husband. But just then she had no definite intention of ever announcing the fact at all.
John only partly understood, for he was sure that she must have received his letter. But what he saw was enough to convince him that she had not in the least believed what he had written, and had not meant to answer him. He was pale and haggard already, but during the few minutes that followed, while Katharine moved about the room, greeting her friends, the strong lines deepened about his mouth and the shadows under his eyes grew perceptibly darker.
A few minutes later the wide doors were thrown back and dinner was announced. Without hesitation he went to Katharine’s side, and waited while she finished speaking with young Mrs. Vanbrugh, his right arm slightly raised as he silently offered it.
Katharine deliberately finished her sentence, nodded and smiled to Dolly Vanbrugh, who was a friend of hers, and had been in some way concerned in the famous Darche affair three or four years ago, as Mrs. Darche’s intimate and confidante. Then she allowed her expression to harden again, and she laid her hand on John’s arm and they all moved in to dinner.
“I’m sorry,” said John, in a low, cold voice. “I suppose they couldn’t upset their table.”
Katharine said nothing, but looked straight before her as they traversed one beautiful room after another, going through the great house to the dining-room at the back.
“You got my letter, I suppose,” said John, speaking again as they crossed the threshold of the last door but one, and came in sight of the table, gleaming in the distance under soft lights.
Katharine made a slight inclination of the head by way of answer, but still said nothing. John thought that she moved her hand, as though she would have liked to withdraw it from his arm, and he, for his part, would gladly have let it go at that moment.
It was a very brilliant party, of the sort which could hardly be gathered anywhere except in America, where young people are not unfrequently allowed to amuse themselves together in their own way without the interference or even the presence of elders—young people born to the possession, in abundance, of most things which the world thinks good, and as often as anywhere, too, to the inheritance of things good in themselves, besides great wealth—such as beauty, health, a fair share of wit, and the cheerful heart, without which all else is as ashes.
Near one end of the table sat Frank Miner, who had taken in Mrs. Vanbrugh, and who was amusing every one with absurd stories and jokes—the small change of wit, but small change that was bright and new, ringing from his busy little mint.
At the other end sat Teddy Van De Water, a good fellow at heart in spite of his eyeglass and his affectations, discussing yachts and centreboards and fin-keels with Fanny Trehearne, a girl who sailed her own boats at Newport and Bar Harbor, and who cared for little else except music, strange to say. Nearly opposite to Katharine and John was Hamilton Bright, between two young girls, talking steadily and quietly about society, but evidently much preoccupied, and far more inclined to look at Katharine than at his pretty neighbours. He had seen Routh’s letter, and had, moreover, exchanged a few words with Ralston in the hall, having arrived almost at the same instant, and he saw that Katharine did not understand the truth. Ralston had begun by apologizing to his friend for what had happened at the club, but Bright, who bore no malice, had stopped him with a hearty shake of the hand, and a challenge to wrestle with him any day, for the honour of the thing, in the hall of the club or anywhere else.
Frank Miner, too, from a distance, watched John and Katharine, and saw that the trouble was great, though he laughed and chatted and told stories, as though he were thoroughly enjoying himself. In reality he was debating whether he should not bring up the subject which must be near to every one’s thoughts, and give John a chance of telling his own story. Seeing how the rest of the people were taking the affair, he would not have done so, since all was pleasant and easy, but he saw also that John could not possibly have an explanation with Katharine at table, and that both were suffering. His kindly heart decided the question. It would be a very easy matter to accomplish, and he waited for a convenient opportunity of attracting attention to himself, so as to obtain the ear of the whole large table, before he began. He was perfectly conscious of his own extreme popularity, and knew that, for once, he could presume upon it, though he was quite unspoiled by a long career of little social successes.
John and Katharine exchanged a few words from time to time, for the sake of appearances, in a coldly civil tone, and without the slightest expression of interest in one another. John spoke of the weather, and Katharine admitted that it had been very bad of late. She observed that Miss Van De Water was looking very well, and that a greenish blue was becoming to fair people. John answered that he had expected to hear of Miss Van De Water’s engagement to that foreigner whose name he had forgotten, and Katharine replied that he was not a foreigner but an Englishman, and that his name was Northallerton, or something like that. John said he had heard that they had first met in Paris, and Katharine took some salt upon her plate and admitted that it was quite possible. She grew more coldly wrathful with every minute, and the iron entered into John’s soul, and he gave up trying to talk to her—of which she was very glad.
It was some time before the occasion which Miner sought presented itself, and the dinner proceeded brilliantly enough amid the laughter of young voices and the gladness of young eyes. For young eyes see flowers where old ones see but botany, so to speak.
Katharine had not believed that it would hurt her as it did, nor Ralston that love could seem so far away. They turned from each other and talked with their neighbours. John almost thought that Katharine once or twice gathered her black skirts nearer to her, as though to keep them from a sort of contamination. He was on her left, and he was conscious that in pretending to eat he used his right arm very cautiously because he did not wish even to run the risk of touching hers by accident.
Now, in the course of events, it happened that the subject of yachts travelled from neighbour to neighbour, as subjects sometimes do at big dinners, until, having been started by Teddy Van De Water and Fanny Trehearne, it came up the table to Frank Miner. He immediately saw his chance, and plunged into his subject.
“Oh, I don’t take any interest in yacht races, compared with prize fights, since Jack Ralston has gone into the ring!” he said, and his high, clear voice made the words ring down the table with the cheery, laughing cadence after them.
“What’s that about me, Frank?” asked John, speaking over Katharine’s head as she bent away from him towards Russell Vanbrugh, who was next to her on the other side.
“Oh, nothing—talking about your round with Tom Shelton. Tell us all about it, Jack. Don’t be modest. You’re the only man here who’s ever stood up to a champion prize-fighter without the gloves on, and it seems you hit him, too. You needn’t be ashamed of it.”
“I’m not in the least ashamed of it,” answered Ralston, unbending a little.
He spoke in a dead silence, and all eyes were turned upon him. But he said nothing more. Even the butler and the footmen, every one of whom had read both the morning and the evening papers, paused and held their breath, and looked at John with admiration.
“Go ahead, Ralston!” cried Teddy Van De Water, from his end. “Some of us haven’t heard the story, though everybody saw those horrid things in the papers this morning. It was too bad!”
Katharine had attempted to continue her conversation with Russell Vanbrugh, but it had proved impossible. Moreover, she was herself almost breathless with surprise at the sudden appeal to Ralston himself, when she had been taking it for granted that every one present, including his hosts, despised him, and secretly wished that he had not come.
Van De Water had spoken from the end of the table. Frank Miner responded again from the other, looking hard at Katharine’s blank face, as he addressed John.
“Tell it, Jack!” he cried. “Don’t be foolish. Everybody wants to know how it happened.”
Ralston looked round the table once more, and saw that every one was expecting him to speak, all with curiosity, and some of the men with admiration. His eyes rested on Katharine for a moment, but she turned from him instantly—not coldly, as before, but as though she did not wish to meet his glance.
“I can’t tell a story by halves,” said he. “If you really want to have it, you must hear it from the beginning. But I told Frank Miner this morning—he can tell it better than I.”
“Go on, Jack—you’re only keeping everybody waiting!” said Hamilton Bright, from across the table. “Tell it all—about me, too—it will make them laugh.”
John saw the honest friendship in the strong Saxon face, and knew that to tell the whole story was his best plan.
“All right,” he said. “I’ll do my best. It won’t take long. In the first place—you won’t mind my going into details, Miss Van De Water?”
“Oh, no—we should rather prefer it,” laughed the young girl, from her distant place.
“Then I’ll go on. I’ve been going in for reform lately—I began last Monday morning. Yes—of course you all laugh, because I’ve not much of a reputation for reform, or anything else. But the statement is necessary because it’s true, and bears on the subject. Reform means claret and soda, and very little of that. It had rather affected my temper, as I wasn’t used to it, and I was sitting in the club yesterday afternoon, trying to read a paper and worrying about things generally, when Frank, there, wanted me to drink with him, and I wouldn’t, and I didn’t choose to tell him I was trying to be good, because I wasn’t sure that I was going to be. Anyhow, he wouldn’t take ‘no,’ and I wouldn’t say ‘yes’—and so I suppose I behaved rather rudely to him.”
“Like a fiend!” observed Miner, from a distance.
“Exactly. Then I was called to the telephone, and found that my uncle Robert wanted me at once, that very moment, and wouldn’t say why. So I came back in a hurry, and as I was coming out of the cloak-room with my hat and coat on I ran into Bright, who generally saves my life when the thing is to be done promptly. I suppose I looked rather wild, didn’t I, Ham?”
“Rather. You were white—and queer altogether. I thought you ‘had it bad.’ ”
There was a titter and a laugh, as the two men looked at one another and smiled.
“Well, you’ve not often been wrong, Ham,” said Ralston, laughing too. “I don’t propose to let my guardian angel lead a life of happy idleness—”
“Keep an angel, and save yourself,” suggested Miner.
“Don’t make them laugh till I’ve finished,” said Ralston, “or they won’t understand. Well—Ham tried to hold me, and I wouldn’t be held. He’s about twenty times stronger than I am, anyhow, and he’d got hold of my arm—wanted to calm me before I went out, as he thought. I lost my temper—”
“Your family’s been advertising a reward if it’s found, ever since you were born,” observed Miner.
“Suppress that man, can’t you—somebody?” cried Ralston, good-naturedly. “So I tripped Bright up under Miner’s nose—and there was Crowdie there, and a couple of servants, so it was rather a public affair. I got out of the door, and made for the park—uncle Robert’s, you know. Being in a rage, I walked, and passing the Murray Hill Hotel, I went in, from sheer force of habit, and ordered a cocktail. I hadn’t more than tasted it when I remembered what I was about, and promptly did the Spartan dodge—to the surprise of the bar-tender—and put it down and went out. Then uncle Robert and I had rather a warm discussion. Unfortunately, too, just that drop of whiskey—forgive the details, Miss Van De Water—you know I warned you—just that drop of whiskey I had touched was distinctly perceptible to the old gentleman’s nostrils, and he began to call me names, and I got angry, and being excited already, I daresay he really thought I wasn’t sober. Anyhow, he managed to knock my hat out of my hand and smash it—ask him the first time you see him, if any of you doubt it.”
“Oh, nobody doubts you, Jack,” said Teddy Van De Water, vehemently. “Don’t be an idiot!”
“Thank you, Teddy,” laughed Ralston. “Well, the next thing was that I bolted out of the house with a smashed hat, and forgot my overcoat in my rage. It’s there still, hanging in uncle Robert’s hall. And, of course, being so angry, I never thought of my hat. It must have looked oddly enough. I went down Fifth Avenue, past the reservoir—nearly a mile in that state.”
“I met you,” observed Russell Vanbrugh. “I was just coming home—been late down town. I thought you looked rather seedy, but you walked straight enough.”
“Of course I did—being perfectly sober, and only angry. I must have turned into East Fortieth or Thirty-ninth, when I stopped to light a cigar. The waxlight dazzled me, I suppose, for when I went on I fell over something—that street is awfully dark after the avenue—and I hurt my head and my hand. This finger—”
He held up his right hand of which one finger was encased in black silk. Katharine remembered the spot of blood on the letter.
“Then I don’t know what happened to me. Doctor Routh said I had a concussion of the brain and lost the sense of direction, but I lost my senses, anyhow. Have any of you fellows ever had that happen to you? It’s awfully queer?”
“I have,” said Bright. “I know—you’re all right, but you can’t tell where you’re going.”
“Exactly—you can’t tell which is right and which is left. You recognize houses, but don’t know which way to turn to get to your own. I lost myself in New York. I’m glad I’ve had the experience, but I don’t want it again. Do you know where I found myself and got my direction again? Away down in Tompkins Square. It was ten o’clock, and I’d missed a dinner-party, and thought I should just have time to get home and dress, and go to the Assembly. But I wasn’t meant to. I was dazed and queer still, and it had been snowing for hours and I had no overcoat. I found a horse-car going up town and got on. There was nobody else on it but that prize-fighter chap, who turns out to have been Tom Shelton. It was nice and warm in the car, and I must have been pretty well fagged out, for I sat down at the upper end and dropped asleep without telling the conductor to wake me at my street. I never fell asleep in a horse-car before in my life, and didn’t expect to then. I don’t know what happened after that—at least not distinctly. They must have tried to wake me with kicks and screams, or something, for I remember hitting out, and then a struggle, and I was pitched out into the snow by the conductor and the prize-fighter. Of course I jumped up and made for the fighting man, and I remember hearing something about a fair fight, and then a lot of men came running up with lanterns, and I was squaring up to Tom Shelton. I caught him one on the mouth, and I suppose that roused him. I can see that right-hand counter of his coming at me now, but I couldn’t stop it for the life of me—and that was the last I saw, until I opened my eyes in my own room and saw my mother looking at me. She sent for Doctor Routh, and he saw that I wasn’t going to die and went home, leaving everybody considerably relieved. But he wasn’t at all sure that I hadn’t been larking, when he first came, so he took the trouble to make a thorough examination. I wasn’t really hurt much, and though I’d had such a crack from Shelton, and the other one when I tumbled in the dark, I had pretty nearly an hour’s sleep in the horse-car as a set-off. Then my mother brought me things to eat—of course all the servants were in bed, and she’d rung for a messenger in order to send for Routh. And I sat up and wrote a long letter before I went to bed, though it wasn’t easy work, with my hand hurt and my head rather queer. I wish I hadn’t, though—it was more to show that I could, than anything else. There—I think I’ve told you the whole story. I’m sorry I couldn’t make it shorter.”
“It wasn’t at all too long, Jack,” said Katharine, in clear and gentle tones.
She was very white as she turned her face to him. Every one agreed with her, and every one began talking at once. But John did not look at her. He answered some question put to him by the young girl on his left, and at once entered into conversation at that side, without taking any more notice of Katharine than she had taken of him before.
The dinner was almost at an end, when John spoke to Katharine again. Every one was laughing and talking at once. The point had been reached at which young people laugh at anything out of sheer good spirits, and Frank Miner had only to open his lips, at his end of the table, to set the clear voices ringing; while at the other, Teddy Van De Water, whose conversational powers were not brilliant, but who possessed considerable power over his fresh, thin, plain young face, excited undeserved applause by putting up his eyeglass every other minute, staring solemnly at John as the hero of the evening, and then dropping it with a ridiculous little smirk, supposed to be expressive of admiration and respect.
John saw him do it two or three times, while turning towards him in the act of talking to his neighbour on his left, and smiled good-naturedly at each repetition of the trick. To tell the truth, the evident turn of feeling in his favour had so far influenced his depressed spirits that he smiled almost naturally, out of sympathy, because every one was so happy and so gay. But he was soon tired of young Van De Water’s joke, before the others were, and looking away in order not to see the eyeglass fall again, he caught sight of Katharine’s face.
Her eyes were not upon him, and she might have been supposed to be looking past him at some one seated farther down the table, but she saw him and watched him, nevertheless. She was quite silent now, and her face was pale. He only glanced at her, and was already turning his head away once more when her lips moved.
“Jack!” she said, in a low voice, that trembled but reached his ear, even amidst the peals of laughter which filled the room.
He looked at her again, and his features hardened a little in spite of him. But he knew that Bright, who sat opposite, was watching both Katharine and himself, and he did his best to seem natural and unconcerned.
“What is it?” he asked.
She did not find words immediately with which to answer the simple question, but her face told all that her voice should have said, and more. The contraction of the broad brows was gone at last, and the great grey eyes were soft and pleading.
“You know,” she said, at last.
John felt that his lips would have curled rather scornfully, if he had allowed them. He set his mouth, by an effort, in a hard, civil smile. It was the best he could do, for he had been badly hurt. Repentance sometimes satisfies the offender, but he who has been offended demands blood money. John deserved some credit for saying nothing, and even for his cold, conventional smile.
“Jack—dear—aren’t you going to forgive me?” she asked, in a still lower tone than before.
Ralston glanced up and down the table, man-like, to see whether they were watched. But no one was paying any attention to them. Hamilton Bright was looking away, just then.
“Why didn’t you answer my letter?” asked John, at last, but he could not disguise the bitterness of his voice.
“I only—it only came—that is—it was this evening, when I was all dressed to come here.”
John could not control his expression any longer, and his lip bent contemptuously, in spite of himself.
“It was mailed very early this morning, with a special delivery stamp,” he said, coldly.
“Yes, it reached the house—but—oh, Jack! How can I explain, with all these people?”
“It wouldn’t be easy without the people,” he answered. “Nobody hears what we’re saying.”
Katharine was silent for a moment, and looked at her plate. In a lover’s quarrel, the man has the advantage, if it takes place in the midst of acquaintances who may see what is happening. He is stronger and, as a rule, cooler, though rarely, at heart, so cold. A woman, to be persuasive, must be more or less demonstrative, and demonstrativeness is visible to others, even from a great distance. Katharine did not belittle the hardness of what she had to do in so far as she reckoned the odds at all. She loved John too well, and knew again that she loved him; and she understood fully how she had injured him, if not how much she had hurt him. She was suffering herself, too, and greatly—much more than she had suffered so long as her anger had lasted, for she knew, too late, that she should have believed in him when others did not, rather than when all were for him and with him, so that she was the very last to take his part. But it was hard, and she tried to think that she had some justification.
After Ralston had finished telling his story, Russell Vanbrugh, who was an eminent criminal lawyer, had commented to her upon the adventure, telling her how men had been hanged upon just such circumstantial evidence, when it had not chanced that such a man as Doctor Routh, at the head of his profession and above all possible suspicion, had intervened in time. She tried to argue that she might be pardoned for being misled, as she had been. But her conscience told her flatly that she was deceiving herself, that she had really known far less than most of the others about the events of the previous day, some of which were now altogether new to her, that she had judged John in the worst light from the first words she had heard about him at the Assembly ball, and had not even been at pains to examine the circumstances so far as she might have known them. And she remembered how, but a short time previous to the present moment, she had looked at the sealed envelope with disgust—almost with loathing, and had turned over its ashes with the tongs. Yet that letter had cost him a supreme effort of strength and will, made for her sake, when he was bruised and wounded and exhausted with fatigue.
“Jack,” she said at last, turning to him again, “I must talk to you. Please come to me right after dinner—when you come back with the men—will you?”
“Certainly,” answered John.
He knew that an explanation was inevitable. Oddly enough, though he now had by far the best of the situation, he did not wish that the explanatory interview might come so soon. Perhaps he did not wish for it at all. With Katharine love was alive again, working and suffering. With him there was no response, where love had been. In its place there was an unformulated longing to be left alone for a time, not to be forced to realize how utterly he had been distrusted and abandoned when he had most needed faith and support. There was an unwilling and unjust comparison of Katharine with his mother, too, which presented itself constantly. Losing the sense of values and forgetting how his mother had denied his word of honour, he remembered only that her disbelief had lasted but an hour, and that hour seemed now but an insignificant moment. She had done so much, too, and at once. He recalled, amid the noise and laughter, the clinking of the things on the little tray she had brought up for him and set down outside his door—a foolish detail, but one of those which strike fast little roots as soon as the seed has fallen. The reaction, too, after all he had gone through, was coming at last and was telling even on his wiry organization. Most men would have broken down already. He wished that he might be spared the necessity of Katharine’s explanation—that she would write to him, and that he might read in peace and ponder at his leisure—and answer at his discretion. Yet he knew very well that the situation must be cleared up at once. He regretted having given Katharine but that one word in answer to her appeal—for he did not wish to seem even more unforgiving than he felt.
“I’ll come as soon as possible,” he said, turning to her. “I’ll come now, if you like.”
It would have been a satisfaction to have it over at once. But Katharine shook her head.
“You must stay with the men—but—thank you, Jack.”
Her voice was very sweet and low. At that moment Ruth Van De Water nodded to her brother, and in an instant all the sixteen chairs were pushed back simultaneously, and the laughter died away in the rustle of soft skirts and the moving of two and thirty slippered feet on the thick carpet.
“No!” cried Miss Van De Water, looking over her shoulder with a little laugh at the man next to her, who offered his arm in the European fashion. “We don’t want you—we’re not in Washington—we’re going to talk about you, and we want to be by ourselves. Stay and smoke your cigars—but not forever, you know,” she added, and laughed again, a silvery, girlish laugh.
Ralston stood back and watched the fair young girls and women as they filed out. After all, there was not one that could compare with Katharine—whether he loved her, or not, he added mentally.
When the men were alone, they gathered round him under a great cloud of smoke over their little cups of coffee and their tiny liqueur glasses of many colours. He had always been more popular than he had been willing to think, which was the reason why so much had been forgiven him. He had assuredly done nothing heroic on the present occasion, unless his manly effort to fight against his taste for drinking was heroic. If it was, the majority of the seven other men did not think of it nor care. But he did not deserve such very great credit even for that, perhaps, for there was that strain of asceticism in him which makes such things easier for some people than for others. Most of them, being young, envied and admired him for having stood up to a champion prize-fighter in fair combat, heavily handicapped as he had been, and for having reached his antagonist once, at least, before he went down. A good deal of the enthusiasm young men occasionally express for one of themselves rests on a similar basis, and yet is not to be altogether despised on that account.
John warmed to something almost approaching to geniality, in the midst of so much good-will, in spite of his many troubles and of the painful interview which was imminent. When Van De Water dropped the end of his cigar and suggested that they should go into the drawing-room and not waste the evening in doing badly what they could do well at their clubs from morning till night, John would have been willing to stay a little longer. He was very tired. Three or four glasses of wine would have warmed him and revived him earlier, but he had not broken down in his resolution yet—and coffee and cigars were not bad substitutes, after all. The chair was comfortable, it was warm and the lights were soft. He rose rather regretfully and followed the other men through the house to join the ladies.
Without hesitation, since it had to be done, he went up to Katharine at once. She had managed to keep a little apart from the rest, and in the changing of places and positions which followed the entrance of the men, she backed by degrees towards a corner in which there were two vacant easy chairs, one on each side of a little table covered with bits of rare old silver-work, and half shielded from the rest of the room by the end of a grand piano. It would have been too remote a seat for two persons who wished to flirt unnoticed, but Katharine knew perfectly well that most of her friends believed her to be engaged to marry John Ralston, and was quite sure of being left to talk with him in peace if she chose to sit down with him in a corner.
Gravely, now, and with no inclination to let his lips twist contemptuously, John sat down beside her, drawing his chair in front of the small table, and waiting patiently while she settled herself.
“It was impossible to talk at table,” she said nervously, and with a slight tremor in her voice.
“Yes—with all those people,” assented John.
A short silence followed. Katharine seemed to be choosing her words. She looked calm enough, he thought, and he expected that she would begin to make a deliberate explanation. All at once she put out her hand spasmodically, drew it back again, and began to turn over and handle a tiny fish of Norwegian silver which lay among the other things on the table.
“It’s all been a terrible misunderstanding—I don’t know where to begin,” she said, rather helplessly.
“Tell me what became of my letter,” answered John, quietly. “That’s the important thing for me to know.”
“Yes—of course—well, in the first place, it was put into papa’s hands this morning just as he was going down town.”
“Did he keep it?” asked Ralston, his anger rising suddenly in his eyes.
“No—that is—he didn’t mean to. He thought I was asleep—you see he had read those things in the papers, and was angry and recognized your handwriting—and he thought—you know the handwriting really was rather shaky, Jack.”
“I’ve no doubt. It wasn’t easy to write at all, just then.”
“Oh, Jack dear! If I’d only known, or guessed—”
“Then you wouldn’t have needed to believe a little,” answered John. “What did your father do with the letter?”
“He had it in his pocket all day, and brought it home with him in the evening. You see—I’d been out—at the Crowdies’—and then I came home and shut myself up. I was so miserable—and then I fell asleep.”
“You were so miserable that you fell asleep,” repeated Ralston, cruelly. “I see.”
“Jack! Please—please listen to me—”
“Yes. I beg your pardon, Katharine. I’m out of temper. I didn’t mean to be rude.”
“No, dear. Please don’t. I can’t bear it.” Her lip quivered. “Jack,” she began again, after a moment, “please don’t say anything till I’ve told you all I have to say. If you do—no—I can’t help it—I’m crying now.”
Her eyes were full of tears, and she turned her face away quickly to recover her self-control. John was pained, but just then he could find nothing to say. He bent his head and looked at his hand, affecting not to see how much moved she was.
A moment later she turned to him, and the tears seemed to be gone again, though they were, perhaps, not far away. Strong women can make such efforts in great need.
“I went into my mother’s room on my way down to the carriage to come here,” she continued. “Papa came in, bringing your letter. He had not opened it, of course—he only wanted to show me that he had received it, and he said he would destroy it after showing it to me. I looked at it—and oh, the handwriting was so shaky, and there were spots on the envelope—Jack—I didn’t want to read it. That’s the truth. I let him burn it. I turned over the ashes to see that there was nothing left. There—I’ve told you the truth. How could I know—oh, how could I know?”
John glanced at her and then looked down again, not trusting himself to speak yet. The thought that she had not even wished to read that letter, and that she had stood calmly by while her father destroyed it, deliberately turning over the ashes afterwards, was almost too much to be borne with equanimity. Again he remembered what it had cost him to write it, and how he had felt that, having written it, Katharine, at least, would be loyal to him, whatever the world might say. He would have been a little more than human if he could have then and there smiled, held out his hand, and freely forgiven and promised to forget.
And yet she, too, had some justice on her side, though she was ready and willing to forget it all, and to bear far more of blame than she deserved. Russell Vanbrugh had told her that a man might easily be convicted on such evidence. Yet in her heart she knew that her disbelief had waited for no proofs last night, but had established itself supreme as her disappointment at John’s absence from the ball.
“Jack,” she began again, seeing that he did not speak, “say something—say that you’ll try to forgive me. It’s breaking my heart.”
“I’ll try,” answered John, in a voice without meaning.
“Ah—not that way, dear!” answered Katharine, with a breaking sigh. “Be kind—for the sake of all that has been!”
There was a deep and touching quaver in the words. He could say nothing yet.
“Of all that might have been, Jack—it was only yesterday morning that we were married—dear—and now—”
He lifted his face and looked long into her eyes—she saw nothing but regret, coldness, interrogation in his. And still he was silent, and still she pleaded for forgiveness.
“But it can’t be undone, now. It can never be undone—and I’m your wife, though I have distrusted you, and been cruel and heartless and unkind. Don’t you see how it all was, dear? Can’t you be weak for a moment, just to understand me a little bit? Won’t you believe me when I tell you how I hate myself and despise myself and wish that I could—oh, I don’t know!—I wish I could wash it all away, if it were with my heart’s blood! I’d give it, every drop, for you, now—dear one—sweetheart—forgive me! forgive me!”
“Don’t, Katharine—please don’t,” said John, in an uncertain tone, and looking away from her again.
“But you must,” she cried in her low and pleading voice, leaning far forward, so that she spoke very close to his averted face. “It’s my life—it’s all I have! Jack—haven’t women done as bad things and been forgiven and been loved, too, after all was over? No—I know—oh, God! If I had but known before!”
“Don’t talk like that, Katharine!” said Ralston, distressed, if not moved. “What’s done is done, and we can’t undo it. I made a bad mistake myself—”
“You, Jack? What? Yesterday?” She thought he spoke of their marriage.
“No—the night before—at the Thirlwalls’, when I told you that I sometimes drank—and all that—”
“Oh, no!” exclaimed Katharine. “You were so right. It was the bravest thing you ever did!”
“And this is the result,” said John, bitterly. “I put it all into your head then. You’d never thought about it before. And of course things looked badly—about yesterday—and you took it for granted. Isn’t that the truth?”
“No, dear. It’s not—you’re mistaken. Because I thought you brave, night before last, was no reason why I should have thought you a coward yesterday. No—don’t make excuses for me, even in that way. There are none—I want none—I ask for none. Only say that you’ll try to forgive me—but not as you said it just now. Mean it, Jack! Oh, try to mean it, if you ever loved me!”
Ralston had not doubted her sincerity for a moment, after he had caught sight of her face when he had finished telling his story at the dinner-table. She loved him with all her heart, and her grief for what she had done was real and deep. But he had been badly hurt. Love was half numb, and would not wake, though his tears were in her voice.
Nevertheless, she had moved John so far that he made an effort to meet her, as it were, and to stretch out his hand to hers across the gulf that divided them.
“Katharine,” he said, at last, “don’t think me hard and unfeeling. You managed to hurt me pretty badly, that’s all. Just when I was down, you turned your back on me, and I cared. I suppose that if I didn’t love you, I shouldn’t have cared at all, or not so much. Shouldn’t you think it strange if I’d been perfectly indifferent, and if I were to say to you now—‘Oh, never mind—it’s all right—it wasn’t anything’? It seems to me that would just show that I’d never loved you, and that I had acted like a blackguard in marrying you yesterday morning. Wouldn’t it?”
Katharine looked at him, and a gleam of hope came into her eyes. She nodded twice in silence, with close-set lips, waiting to hear what more he would say.
“I don’t like to talk of forgiveness and that sort of thing between you and me, either,” he continued. “I don’t think it’s a question of forgiveness. You’re not a child, and I’m not your father. I can’t exactly forgive—in that sense. I never knew precisely what the word meant, anyhow. They say ‘forgive and forget’—but if forgiving an injury isn’t forgetting it, what is it? Love bears, but doesn’t need to forgive, it seems to me. The forgiveness consists in the bearing. Well, you don’t mean to make me bear anything more, do you?”
A smile came into his face, not a very gentle one, but nevertheless a smile. Katharine’s hand went out quickly and touched his own.
“No, dear, never,” she said simply.
“Well—don’t. Perhaps I couldn’t bear much more just now. You see, I’ve loved you very much.”
“Don’t say it as though it were past, Jack,” said Katharine, softly.
“No—I was thinking of the past, that’s all.”
He paused a moment. His heart was beating a little faster now, and tender words were not so far from his lips as they had been five minutes earlier. He could be silent and still be cold. But she had made him feel that she loved him dearly, and her voice waked the music in his own as he spoke.
“It was because I loved you so, that I felt it all,” he said. “A little more than you thought I could—dear.”
It was he, now, who put out his hand and touched a fold of her gown which was near him, as she had touched his arm. The tears came back to Katharine’s eyes suddenly and unexpectedly, but they did not burn as they had burned before.
“I’ve never loved any one else,” he continued presently. “Yes—and I know you’ve not. But I’m older, and I know men who have been in love—what they call being in love—twice and three times at my age. I’ve not. I’ve never cared for any one but you, and I don’t want to. I’ve been a failure in a good many ways, but I shan’t be in that one way. I shall always love you—just the same.”
Katharine caught happily at the three little words.
“Just the same—as though all this had never happened, Jack?” she asked, bending towards him, and looking into his brown eyes. “If you’ll say that again, dear, I shall be quite happy.”
“Yes—in a way—just the same,” answered Ralston, as though weighing his words.
Katharine’s face fell.
“There’s a reservation, dear—I knew there would be,” she said, with a sigh.
“No,” answered Ralston. “Only I didn’t want to say more than just what I meant. I’ve been angry myself—I was angry at dinner—perhaps I was angry still when I sat down here. I don’t know. I didn’t mean to be. It’s hard to say exactly what I do mean. I love you—just the same as ever. Only we’ve both been very angry and shall never forget that we have been, though we may wonder some day why we were. Do you understand? It’s not very clear, but I’m not good at talking.”
“Yes.” Katharine’s face grew brighter again. “Yes,” she repeated, a moment later; “it’s what I feel—only I wish that you might not feel it, because it’s all my fault—all of it. And yet—oh, Jack! It seems to me that I never loved you as I do now—somehow, you seem dearer to me since I’ve hurt you, and you’ve forgiven me—but I wasn’t to say that!”
“No, dear—don’t talk of forgiveness. Tell me you love me—I’d rather hear it.”
“So would I—from you, Jack!”
Some one had sat down at the piano. The keyboard was away from them, so that they could not see who it was, but as Katharine spoke a chord was struck, then two or three more followed, and the first bars of a waltz rang through the room. It was the same which the orchestra had been playing on the previous evening, just when Katharine had left the Assembly rooms with Hester Crowdie.
“They were playing that last night,” she said, leaning toward him once more in the shadow of the piano. “I was so unhappy—last night—”
No one was looking at them in their corner. John Ralston caught her hand in his, pressed it almost sharply, and then held it a moment.
“I love you with all my heart,” he said.
The deep grey eyes melted as they met his, and the beautiful mouth quivered.
“I want to kiss you, dear,” said Katharine. “Then I shall know. Do you think anybody will see?”
That is the story of those five days, from Monday afternoon to Friday evening, in reality little more than four times twenty-four hours. It has been a long story, and if it has not been well told, the fault lies with him who has told it, and may or may not be pardoned, according to the kindness of those whose patience has brought them thus far. And if there be any whose patience will carry them further, they shall be satisfied before long, unless the writer be meanwhile gathered among those who tell no tales.
For there is much more to be said about John Ralston and Katharine, and about all the other people who have entered into their lives. For instance, it may occur to some one to wonder whether, after this last evening, John and Katharine declared their marriage at once, or whether they were obliged to keep the secret much longer, and some may ask whether John Ralston’s resolution held good against more of such temptations as he had resisted on Wednesday night at the Thirlwalls’ dance. Some may like to know whether old Robert Lauderdale lived many years longer, and, if he died, what became of the vast Lauderdale fortune; whether it turned out to be true that Alexander Junior was rich, or, at least, not nearly so poor as he represented himself to be; whether Walter Crowdie had another of those strange attacks which had so terrified his wife on Monday night; whether he and Paul Griggs, the veteran man of letters, were really bound by some common tie of a former history or not, and, finally, perhaps, whether Charlotte Slayback got divorced from Benjamin Slayback of Nevada, or not. There is also a pretty little tale to be told about the three Misses Miner, Frank’s old-maid sisters. And some few there may be who will care to know what Katharine’s convictions ultimately became and remained, when, after passing through this five days’ storm, she found time once more for thought and meditation. All these things may interest a few patient readers, but the main question here raised and not yet answered is whether that hasty, secret marriage between Katharine and John turned out to have been really such a piece of folly as it seemed, or whether the lovers were ultimately glad that they had done as they did. It is assuredly very rash to be married secretly, and some of the reasons given by Katharine when she persuaded John to take the step were not very valid ones, as he, at least, was well aware at the time. But, on the other hand, such true love as they really bore one another is good, and a rare thing in the world, and when men and women feel such love, having felt it long, and knowing it, they may be right to do such things to make sure of not being parted; and they may live to look each into the other’s eyes and say, long afterwards, ‘Thank God that we were not afraid.’ But this must not be asserted of them positively by others without proof.
For better, or for worse, Katharine Lauderdale is Katharine Ralston, and must be left sitting behind the piano with her husband after the Van De Waters’ dinner-party. And if she is the centre of any interest, or even of any idle speculation for such as have read these pages of her history, they have not been written in vain. At all events, she has made a strange beginning in life, and almost unawares she has been near some of the evil things which lie so close to the good, at the root of all that is human. But youth does not see the bad sights in its path. Its young eyes look onward, and sometimes upward, and it passes by on the other side.
F. Marion Crawford’s Novels.
NEW UNIFORM AND COMPLETE EDITION.
12mo. Cloth. $1.00 each.
SARACINESCA.
“The work has two distinct merits, either of which would serve to make it great,—that of telling a perfect story in a perfect way, and of giving a graphic picture of Roman society in the last days of the Pope’s temporal power.... The story is exquisitely told.”—Boston Traveller.
SANT’ ILARIO.
A Sequel to SARACINESCA.
“A singularly powerful and beautiful story.... It fulfils every requirement of artistic fiction. It brings out what is most impressive in human action, without owing any of its effectiveness to sensationalism or artifice. It is natural, fluent in evolution, accordant with experience, graphic in description, penetrating in analysis, and absorbing in interest.”—New York Tribune.
DON ORSINO.
A Sequel to SARACINESCA and SANT’ ILARIO.
“Perhaps the cleverest novel of the year.... There is not a dull paragraph in the book, and the reader may be assured that once begun, the story of Don Orsino will fascinate him until its close.”—The Critic.
PIETRO CHISLERI.
“The imaginative richness, the marvellous ingenuity of plot, the power and subtlety of the portrayal of character, the charm of the romantic environment,—the entire atmosphere, indeed,—rank this novel at once among the great creations.”—The Boston Budget.
A TALE OF A LONELY PARISH.
“It is a pleasure to have anything so perfect of its kind as this brief and vivid story.... It is doubly a success, being full of human sympathy, as well as thoroughly artistic in its nice balancing of the unusual with the commonplace, the clever juxtaposition of innocence and guilt, comedy and tragedy, simplicity and intrigue.”—Critic.
MACMILLAN & CO.,
MR. ISAACS.
A Tale of Modern India.
“Under an unpretentious title we have here the most brilliant novel, or rather romance, that has been given to the world for a very long time.”—The American.
DR. CLAUDIUS.
A True Story.
“It by no means belies the promises of its predecessor. The story, an exceedingly improbable and romantic one, is told with much skill; the characters are strongly marked without any suspicion of caricature, and the author’s ideas on social and political subjects are often brilliant and always striking. It is no exaggeration to say that there is not a dull page in the book, which is peculiarly adapted for the recreation of student or thinker.”—Living Church.
TO LEEWARD.
“A story of remarkable power.”—The Review of Reviews.
“The four characters with whose fortunes this novel deals, are, perhaps, the most brilliantly executed portraits in the whole of Mr. Crawford’s long picture gallery, while for subtle insight into the springs of human passion and for swift dramatic action none of the novels surpasses this one.”—The News and Courier.
THE THREE FATES.
“Mr. Crawford has manifestly brought his best qualities as a student of human nature and his finest resources as a master of an original and picturesque style to bear upon this story. Taken for all in all it is one of the most pleasing of all his productions in fiction, and it affords a view of certain phases of American, or perhaps we should say of New York, life that have not hitherto been treated with anything like the same adequacy and felicity.”—Boston Beacon.
A CIGARETTE-MAKER’S ROMANCE.
“The interest is unflagging throughout. Never has Mr. Crawford done more brilliant realistic work than here. But his realism is only the case and cover for those intense feelings which, placed under no matter what humble conditions, produce the most dramatic and the most tragic situations.... This is a secret of genius, to take the most coarse and common material, the meanest surroundings, the most sordid material prospects, and out of the vehement passions which sometimes dominate all human beings to build up with these poor elements, scenes, and passages, the dramatic and emotional power of which at once enforce attention and awaken the profoundest interest.”—New York Tribune.
AN AMERICAN POLITICIAN.
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THE WITCH OF PRAGUE.
A Fantastic Tale.
Illustrated by W. J. Hennessy.
“The artistic skill with which this extraordinary story is constructed and carried out is admirable and delightful.... Mr. Crawford has scored a decided triumph, for the interest of the tale is sustained throughout.... A very remarkable, powerful, and interesting story.”—New York Tribune.
GREIFENSTEIN.
“...Another notable contribution to the literature of the day. It possesses originality in its conception and is a work of unusual ability. Its interest is sustained to the close, and it is an advance even on the previous work of this talented author. Like all Mr. Crawford’s work this novel is crisp, clear, and vigorous, and will be read with a great deal of interest.”—New York Evening Telegram.
WITH THE IMMORTALS.
“The strange central idea of the story could have occurred only to a writer whose mind was very sensitive to the current of modern thought and progress, while its execution, the setting it forth in proper literary clothing, could be successfully attempted only by one whose active literary ability should be fully equalled by his power of assimilative knowledge both literary and scientific, and no less by his courage and capacity for hard work. The book will be found to have a fascination entirely new for the habitual reader of novels. Indeed, Mr. Crawford has succeeded in taking his readers quite above the ordinary plane of novel interest.”—Boston Advertiser.
ZOROASTER.
“It is a drama in the force of its situations and in the poetry and dignity of its language; but its men and women are not men and women of a play. By the naturalness of their conversation and behavior they seem to live and lay hold of our human sympathy more than the same characters on a stage could possibly do.”—The New York Times.
A ROMAN SINGER.
“One of the earliest and best works of this famous novelist.... None but a genuine artist could have made so true a picture of human life, crossed by human passions and interwoven with human weakness. It is a perfect specimen of literary art.”—The Newark Advertiser.
PAUL PATOFF.
MACMILLAN & CO.,
KHALED.
A Story of Arabia.
“Throughout the fascinating story runs the subtlest analysis, suggested rather than elaborately worked out, of human passion and motive, the building out and development of the character of the woman who becomes the hero’s wife and whose love he finally wins being an especially acute and highly finished example of the story-teller’s art.... That it is beautifully written and holds the interest of the reader, fanciful as it all is, to the very end, none who know the depth and artistic finish of Mr. Crawford’s work need be told.”—The Chicago Times.
CHILDREN OF THE KING.
“One of the most artistic and exquisitely finished pieces of work that Crawford has produced. The picturesque setting, Calabria and its surroundings, the beautiful Sorrento and the Gulf of Salermo, with the bewitching accessories that climate, sea, and sky afford, give Mr. Crawford rich opportunities to show his rare descriptive powers. As a whole the book is strong and beautiful through its simplicity, and ranks among the choicest of the author’s many fine productions.”—Public Opinion.
MARZIO’S CRUCIFIX.
“This work belongs to the highest department of character-painting in words.”—The Churchman.
“We have repeatedly had occasion to say that Mr. Crawford possesses in an extraordinary degree the art of constructing a story. His sense of proportion is just, and his narrative flows along with ease and perspicuity. It is as if it could not have been written otherwise, so naturally does the story unfold itself, and so logical and consistent is the sequence of incident after incident. As a story Marzio’s Crucifix is perfectly constructed.”—New York Commercial Advertiser.
MARION DARCHE.
“Full enough of incident to have furnished material for three or four stories.... A most interesting and engrossing book. Every page unfolds new possibilities, and the incidents multiply rapidly.”—Detroit Free Press.
“We are disposed to rank Marion Darche as the best of Mr. Crawford’s American stories.”—The Literary World.
THE NOVEL: What It Is.
18mo. Cloth. 75 cents.
“When a master of his craft speaks, the public may well listen with careful attention, and since no fiction-writer of the day enjoys in this country a broader or more enlightened popularity than Marion Crawford, his explanation of The Novel: What It Is, will be received with flattering interest.”—The Boston Beacon.
MACMILLAN & CO.,
66 FIFTH AVENUE, NEW YORK.