So the winter of 1912 drew to a close, and the spring of 1913 came, and with it Gerard Strobridge.

He was well and sunburnt and seemed more resigned on his first visit after he returned to Blissington accompanied by Lady Beatrice.

Katherine was pouring out the tea--now her daily task--when he came in, and a glad thrill ran through her. Would he see any change in her? Would he be pleased with her advancement? He was her friend, and her helpmate in literature, and never by word or look did she recognise that he could feel any other emotion but a platonic one for her.

Her attractions always struck Gerard afresh after his absences, and made him remark upon them each time he returned.

"How beautiful you have grown, Katherine," he said when presently they had a chance of talking a little apart. "You are the most wonderful thing in the world--I came back hoping to find you less attractive, and you are just as fascinating as ever--more so--Oh! shall I never make you care the least for me?"

"Never."

"It is a wonder that I should love you so madly, when you are as cold as ice to me, and never melt--I believe you could see me on the rack without turning a hair--if it suited your purpose!"

"Probably."

But she smiled softly, so he asked eagerly:

"Is it so, Katherine?"

"Will you never understand even after the hundreds and hundreds of talks we have had? I have marked out a settled, determined path in life which I intend to follow--so that even if I loved you I would crush all emotion out of myself, since indulging in it would ruin my aims, and drag us both to social perdition meanwhile. It is extremely fatiguing to have to recommence explaining our positions every time you come back from abroad. As a friend I delight in you--I love our talks, our discussions and controversies. I have tried in every way to improve under your tuition, but if you will be weak and give way to other feelings--it is you who put yourself on the rack--And if you do it I cannot help it, it cannot change my determination, even if I see you suffering."

"How can a man worship anything so logical?"

"I don't know; what I do know is that I never mean to admit that you have any feelings for me but those I have for you, of warm friendship. I shall always act as if you were only my friend, and only consider any of my actions as affecting you from that point of view. If you are hurt it is your own fault, I cannot be responsible for the pain."

He clenched his hands with sudden violence.

"And if I refused to bear it--if I broke all friendship and never spoke to you again--what then?"

"You would be quite right to do so if it gave you any satisfaction. I should miss you--but I should understand."

He gave a faint groan.

"Well, I have not the strength to throw off your influence. I always think I have done it when I go to foreign climes, and I dwell upon the pleasure that your intellect gives me. I come back quite resigned, but the first sight of you, the sight of those red, wicked lips and that white skin drives me mad once more, and I feel I do not care whether you have any brain or no, in the overwhelming desire to hold you in my arms."

Katherine gave an exclamation of weariness.

"Oh, it is tiresome that you must always have these scenes when you return, they spoil everything. You force me to seem cruel. Why can't you accept the situation?"

"Because I am a man and you are a woman," and his eyes sought hers with pa.s.sion, "and all the rest of emotion is but make-believe; the only real part is the tangible. To have and to hold, to clasp and to kiss, to strain the loved one next the heart--Katherine, you make me suffer the tortures of the d.a.m.ned."

"No--you permit yourself to suffer them, that makes all the difference.

If I made you, then I should feel as wicked as you say my lips look."

Here Lady Beatrice interrupted them in her plaintive, drawling voice.

"Gerard, can you imagine it! Aunt Sarah has just had a letter from Tom Hawthorne by the evening's post, announcing that Lao has quietly married that boy in Paris, and they are going to Monte Carlo for their honeymoon! Isn't it quite too tragic for them, poor things!"

Lady Garribardine joined the group, with the epistle in her hand.

"Lao was always a fool, but I believed even the sense of a rabbit would have kept her from this!"

"They are madly in love, dear Sarah!" old Gwendoline d'Estaire said sentimentally.

Her ladyship snorted.

"Tut, tut! Lao is forty-two years old and the boy not more than six and twenty, sixteen years between them! Quite an immaterial discrepancy while he remained a lover--but a menace which even the strongest brain cannot combat when the creature turns into a husband. The situation is ridiculous at once. It means that the woman has to spend her time not only fighting old age as we all have to do, but watching for every sign of weariness in the youth, trembling at every fresh wrinkle in herself, and always on the tiptoe of anxiety, so that she loses whatever charm lured the poor child into her net."

"But really Lao had made it so evident--the affair--perhaps she thought----"

"That a second wedding ring was essential! Ridiculous nonsense, Gwendoline! We are not of the _bourgeoisie_--there is an epidemic of these rich widows rushing these penniless young men into matrimony. No one objects to their amusing themselves, but these respectable unions offend the sensibilities at once from their obvious unsuitableness. The woman loses prestige--almost caste, I was going to say. The man grows either sheepish or intolerably insolent, and if you notice, the pair eventually drop out of all agreeable society."

"How awful to contemplate!" and Lady Beatrice sighed sadly. "To think that after one had _pretended_ for years that one was full of emotions and s.e.x and horrible things, one should succ.u.mb to them really--It is a cruel retribution--Gerard, aren't you interested?"

For Mr. Strobridge had raised a whimsical eyebrow.

"Perfectly thrilled. I am amply revenged for her indifference to me!"

"Is it not possible for them to be happy, then?" Katherine whispered to him in the din of a chorus of remarks the news had provoked.

"They have about a hundred to one chance for a few months; then either will suffer, probably both. Oh! the intolerable bond of matrimony!--Unless, of course----"

Katherine shrugged her shoulders.

"Yes, I suppose so, if one was not quite sure what the reason was that one was marrying for, and had not weighed it and found out if it would be worth while or no."

"What will you marry for?"

"Contentment, I expect."

"And what is contentment--only the obtaining of one's heart's desire."

"I shall not marry unless it is to obtain my heart's desire," and that sphinxlike smile grew round her mouth, which always roused Gerard Strobridge's curiosity. After all this time, he could never quite fathom what was going on inside that clever brain.

"I refuse to think about it--Let us talk about something else--books you have been reading--something I can do for you."

"There is one thing I would like you to do very much--only I do not know if it could be managed. Last week, Her Ladyship allowed me to go with Miss Arabella d'Estaire to see the House of Commons. I would so much like to see the House of Lords and hear a debate there before the Easter recess. I am trying to study politics."

"That will not be very difficult. I can get an order from Blackrod; there will be something to listen to next week, when I believe my aunt will be in town. I shall love to gratify your wish, Katherine."

"We must ask Lady Garribardine first if I may."

"Model of circ.u.mspection! Of course."

Then the company drifted from the tea table and Miss Bush returned to her sanctum, while Gerard Strobridge went up to his aunt's sitting-room.

They talked of numbers of things, and at last that lady said: