"Fled?" she asked. "From whom d'you mean? Oh, the family party. Yes, it was hot down there, so I went into the garden.""And aren't you very cold?" Henry inquired, placing coal on the fire, drawing a chair up to the grate, and laying aside her cloak. Her indifference to such details often forced Henry to act the part generally taken by women in such dealings. It was one of the ties between them.
"Thank you, Henry," she said. "I'm not disturbing you?""I'm not here. I'm at Bungay," he replied. "I'm giving a music lesson to Harold and Julia. That was why I had to leave the table with the ladies--I'm spending the night there, and I shan't be back till late on Christmas Eve.""How I wish--" Katharine began, and stopped short. "I think these parties are a great mistake," she added briefly, and sighed.
"Oh, horrible!" he agreed; and they both fell silent.
Her sigh made him look at her. Should he venture to ask her why she sighed? Was her reticence about her own affairs as inviolable as it had often been convenient for rather an egoistical young man to think it? But since her engagement to Rodney, Henry's feeling towards her had become rather complex; equally divided between an impulse to hurt her and an impulse to be tender to her; and all the time he suffered a curious irritation from the sense that she was drifting away from him for ever upon unknown seas. On her side, directly Katharine got into his presence, and the sense of the stars dropped from her, she knew that any intercourse between people is extremely partial; from the whole mass of her feelings, only one or two could be selected for Henry's inspection, and therefore she sighed. Then she looked at him, and their eyes meeting, much more seemed to be in common between them than had appeared possible. At any rate they had a grandfather in common; at any rate there was a kind of loyalty between them sometimes found between relations who have no other cause to like each other, as these two had.
"Well, what's the date of the wedding?" said Henry, the malicious mood now predominating.
"I think some time in March," she replied.
"And afterwards?" he asked.
"We take a house, I suppose, somewhere in Chelsea.""It's very interesting," he observed, stealing another look at her.
She lay back in her arm-chair, her feet high upon the side of the grate, and in front of her, presumably to screen her eyes, she held a newspaper from which she picked up a sentence or two now and again.
Observing this, Henry remarked:
"Perhaps marriage will make you more human."At this she lowered the newspaper an inch or two, but said nothing.
Indeed, she sat quite silent for over a minute.
"When you consider things like the stars, our affairs don't seem to matter very much, do they?" she said suddenly.
"I don't think I ever do consider things like the stars," Henry replied. "I'm not sure that that's not the explanation, though," he added, now observing her steadily.
"I doubt whether there is an explanation," she replied rather hurriedly, not clearly understanding what he meant.
"What? No explanation of anything?" he inquired, with a smile.
"Oh, things happen. That's about all," she let drop in her casual, decided way.
"That certainly seems to explain some of your actions," Henry thought to himself.
"One thing's about as good as another, and one's got to do something,"he said aloud, expressing what he supposed to be her attitude, much in her accent. Perhaps she detected the imitation, for looking gently at him, she said, with ironical composure:
"Well, if you believe that your life must be ******, Henry.""But I don't believe it," he said shortly.
"No more do I," she replied.
"What about the stars?" he asked a moment later. "I understand that you rule your life by the stars?"She let this pass, either because she did not attend to it, or because the tone was not to her liking.
Once more she paused, and then she inquired:
"But do you always understand why you do everything? Ought one to understand? People like my mother understand," she reflected. "Now Imust go down to them, I suppose, and see what's happening.""What could be happening?" Henry protested.
"Oh, they may want to settle something," she replied vaguely, putting her feet on the ground, resting her chin on her hands, and looking out of her large dark eyes contemplatively at the fire.
"And then there's William," she added, as if by an afterthought.
Henry very nearly laughed, but restrained himself.
"Do they know what coals are made of, Henry?" she asked, a moment later.
"Mares' tails, I believe," he hazarded.
"Have you ever been down a coal-mine?" she went on.
"Don't let's talk about coal-mines, Katharine," he protested. "We shall probably never see each other again.
When you're married--"
Tremendously to his surprise, he saw the tears stand in her eyes.
"Why do you all tease me?" she said. "It isn't kind."Henry could not pretend that he was altogether ignorant of her meaning, though, certainly, he had never guessed that she minded the teasing. But before he knew what to say, her eyes were clear again, and the sudden crack in the surface was almost filled up.
"Things aren't easy, anyhow," she stated.
Obeying an impulse of genuine affection, Henry spoke.
"Promise me, Katharine, that if I can ever help you, you will let me."She seemed to consider, looking once more into the red of the fire, and decided to refrain from any explanation.
"Yes, I promise that," she said at length, and Henry felt himself gratified by her complete sincerity, and began to tell her now about the coal-mine, in obedience to her love of facts.
They were, indeed, descending the shaft in a small cage, and could hear the picks of the miners, something like the gnawing of rats, in the earth beneath them, when the door was burst open, without any knocking.
"Well, here you are!" Rodney exclaimed. Both Katharine and Henry turned round very quickly and rather guiltily. Rodney was in evening dress. It was clear that his temper was ruffled.
