Part 31 (1/2)

”Your--last holidays?” She felt, without seeing, that he had looked up sharply at her.

”I don't suppose it will interest you,” she went on, rousing herself to be more explicit; ”but I am giving up my work in London, and going home for good.”

There was the slightest perceptible pause before he spoke.

”Would you care to tell me why?”

”Because,” said Katharine slowly, ”I happened to find out, through a friend, that I was a prig; and I am going home to try and learn not to be a prig any more.” She was looking straight at him as she finished speaking. His face was quite incomprehensible just then.

”Was that a true friend?” he asked.

”People who tell us unpleasant things about ourselves are always said to be our true friends, are they not?” she said, evasively.

”That is not an answer to my question; I was not dealing in generalities when I asked it. But of course, you have every right to withhold the answer, if it pleases you--”

”I don't think I know the answer,” said Katharine. ”I have always found your questions too difficult to answer; and as to this one,--I wish I could be sure that it was a friend at all.” He moved his chair, involuntarily, a little nearer hers.

”Can I do anything to make you feel more sure?” he asked.

She shook her head, and he moved away again. ”Of course, you are the best judge in the matter,” he resumed, more naturally; ”but it is rather a serious step to take at the outset of your career, is it not?”

”Perhaps,” she said, indifferently; ”but then, I am not a man, you see. There is no career possible for a woman, because her feelings are always more important to her than all the ambition in the world. A man only draws on his feelings for his recreation; but a woman makes them the whole business of her life, and that is why she never gets on. I don't suppose you can realise this, because it is so different for you. Everybody expects a man to get on; it is made comparatively easy for him, and n.o.body ever disputes his way of doing it. A man can have as much fun as he likes, as long as he isn't found out,--and it's easy for a man not to be found out,” she added, with a sigh.

”Easier than for a woman?” He spoke in the bantering tone that was so familiar to her.

”Oh, a woman is dogged by detectives from her cradle, mostly drawn from the ranks of her own s.e.x. It is a compliment we pay ourselves, in one sense. We dare not inquire into the private life of a man, because of the iniquities he is supposed to practise; but there is so little scandal attached to a woman's name, that we are anxious not to miss any of it.” She laughed at her small attempt to be frivolous, and Paul brightened considerably. He could understand her when she was in this mood, and his peace of mind was undisturbed by it.

”I suppose the man is still unborn who will take the trouble to champion his s.e.x, and explain that men are not all profligates before they are married,” he observed. ”I wonder why women always think of us as cads, and then take us for husbands. I can't think why they want to marry us at all, though.”

”And we can't think what reason there is for you to offer _us_ marriage, unless you do it for position or something like that,”

retorted Katharine, and then bit her lip and stopped short, as she realised what she had said. In the embarra.s.sing pause that followed, Marion came back into the room.

”Well, you two don't look as though you'd had much conversation,” she remarked.

”We haven't,” said Katharine, getting up to leave. ”Mr. Wilton's conversation, you see, is all bespoken already.”

”Miss Austen is a little hard on me,” said Paul. ”I have had so little practice in conversation with brilliant and learned young lecturers, that--”

”That I will leave you to a less dismal companion,” interrupted Katharine, a little abruptly.

”Will you allow me to suggest,” he went on, as he held her hand for a moment, ”that you should try and think more kindly of the particular friend who was so unpleasantly frank to you?”

”If I thought that the friend in question were likely to be affected by my opinion of him, perhaps I might,” she said, as she turned away.

When she had gone, Marion asked him what he had meant.

”Merely a pa.s.sing reflection on something she had been telling me,”

was his reply.

”Oh,” said Marion, ”did she tell you about her love affair?”