Part 3 (2/2)

Ted came in a good deal further, just then, a.s.sisted by an unexpected push between his shoulders.

”It's so poor of Kitty; and it isn't my fault, I swear it isn't!” said Ted, in an injured tone. ”You see, she wants me to say--Oh, hang, Kit, do let a fellow explain! Well, she says that--that--well, she wants to come in too, don't you see? She doesn't see why she should have to go and talk to horrid old men in the village, when they won't let her come in and talk to you; at least, that's what she says. And she says it's all rotten humbug-- Well, you know you did! But Miss Esther will about kill me when she finds it out. Kitty never thinks of that, she's so poor.”

Paul smiled again, partly at himself for being young enough to appreciate the childishness of the situation.

”Where is Miss Esther?” he asked, like a man, wisely.

”Oh, she's out right enough; but still--”

”Yes,” said Paul reflectively, ”I recognise that there are still difficulties in the way. But don't you think, as I am decidedly as much afflicted as the other horrid old men you mentioned, and as Miss Esther is out, that--we might all agree to vote it rotten humbug? Just for a few minutes, you know!”

And Katharine, who had been listening anxiously to every word, slipped into the room at this point of the negotiations, and closed the door; nodded cheerfully to Paul as though she had known him all her life, and dropped sideways on the chair at the end of his bed.

”I knew you wouldn't mind,” she said. ”Ted declared you would; but Ted's so awfully dense sometimes, isn't he?”

Paul was willing to admit that, on this occasion, Ted had been remarkably dense; but he only murmured some commonplace about the correctness of her judgment, and the honour he felt at her discrimination.

”Oh, I _knew_!” said Katharine confidently. ”I am never wrong about people. Ted is. He makes fearful hashes about people; I always have to tell him who is to be trusted, and who isn't.”

”I should like to know,” observed Paul, ”how you manage to know so much about people whom you have never seen before,--myself, for instance!”

”But I have seen you before! Oh, I forgot; of course, you didn't know.

I was with daddy last night when he came to fetch you. Don't you remember? I suppose you were too bad to notice much.”

”That must have been it,” a.s.sented Paul. ”I just remember some one supporting my head, or it may have been my shoulders--”

”It was your head. That was me!” cried Katharine, with animation.

”Wasn't Ted jealous when I told him,--that's all!”

”I wasn't,” said Ted. ”But it was just like Kitty. Girls always do have all the luck.”

”I am glad,” said Paul drily, ”that at least one of you was fortunate enough to view my discomfiture.”

Ted laughed, but Katharine became suddenly thoughtful.

”I was very sorry for you, I was really,” she said.

”Oh, no, excuse me,--merely interested,” said Paul.

Katharine reflected again.

”Perhaps I was; how caddish of me!” she said, and looked at him doubtfully. Paul raised his eyebrows; to be taken seriously by a woman, at such an early stage of her acquaintance, was a new experience to him.

”Oh, please,” he exclaimed, laughing, ”don't be truthful whatever you are! It's much more charming to think that you _were_ sorry for me.”

Katharine still seemed puzzled. She turned to Ted instinctively, and he came to her rescue.

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