Ralston said nothing at first. Then he looked at Katharine as though expecting that she should speak again and explain her meaning, in spite of her having said that she had not meant to do so.

“What is this other reason?” he asked, after a long pause.

“It would take so long to tell you all about it,” she answered, thoughtfully. “And even if I did, I am not sure that you would understand. It belongs—well—to quite another set of ideas.”

“It must be something rather serious if it means marriage now, or marriage never.”

“It is serious. And the worst of it is that you will laugh at it—and I am sure you will say that I am not honest to myself. And yet I am. You see it is connected with things about which you and I don’t think alike.”

“Religion?” suggested Ralston, in a tone of enquiry.

Katharine bowed her head slowly, sighed just audibly and looked away from him as she leaned back. Nothing could have expressed more clearly her conviction that the subject was one upon which they could never agree.

“I don’t see why you should sigh about it,” said Ralston, in a tone which expressed relief rather than perplexity. “I often wonder why people generally look so sad when they talk about religion. Almost everybody does.”

“How ridiculous!” exclaimed Katharine, with a little laugh. “Besides, I wasn’t sighing, exactly—I was only wishing it were all arranged.”

“Your religion?”

“Don’t talk like that. I’m in earnest. Don’t laugh at me, Jack dear—please!”

“I’m not laughing. Can’t you tell me how religion bears on the matter in hand? That’s all I need to know. I don’t laugh at religion—at yours or any one else’s. I believe I have a little inclination to it myself.”

“Yes, I know. But—well—I don’t think you have enough to save a fly—not the smallest little fly, Jack. Never mind—you’re just as nice, dear. I don’t like men who preach.”

“I’m glad of it. But what has all this to do with our getting married?”

“Listen. It’s perfectly clear to me, and you can understand if you will. I have almost made up my mind to become a Catholic—”

“You?” Ralston stared at her in surprise. “You—a Roman Catholic?”

“Yes—Holy Roman Catholic and Apostolic. Is that clear, Jack?”

“Perfectly. I’m sorry.”

“Now don’t be a Puritan, Jack—”

“I’m not a Puritan. I haven’t a drop of Puritan blood. You have, Katharine, for your grandmother was one of the real old sort. I’ve heard my father say so.”

“You’re just as much a Lauderdale as I am,” retorted Katharine. “And if Scotch Presbyterians are not Puritans, what is? But that isn’t what I mean. It’s the tendency to wish that people were nothing at all rather than Catholics.”

“It’s not that. I’m not so prejudiced. I was thinking of the row—that’s all. You don’t mean to keep that a secret, too? It wouldn’t be like you.”

“No, indeed,” answered Katharine, proudly.

“Well—you’ve not told me what the connection is between this and our marriage. You don’t suppose that it will really make any difference to me, do you? You can’t. And you’re quite mistaken about my Puritanism. I would much rather that my wife should be a Roman Catholic than nothing at all. I’m broad enough for that, anyhow. Of course it’s a serious matter, because people sometimes do that kind of thing and then find out that they have made a mistake—when it’s too late. And there’s something ridiculous and undignified about giving it up again when it’s once done. Religion seems to be a good deal like politics. You may change once—people won’t admire you—I mean people on your old side—but they will tolerate you. But if you change twice—”

“I’m not going to change twice. I’ve not quite, quite made up my mind to change once, yet. But if I do, it will make things—I mean, our marriage—almost impossible.”

“Why?”

“The Catholics do everything they can to prevent mixed marriages, Jack,—especially in our country. You would have to make all sorts of promises which you wouldn’t like, and which I shouldn’t want you to make—”

Ralston laughed, suddenly comprehending her point of view.

“I see!” he exclaimed.

“Of course you see. It’s as plain as day. I want to make sure of you—dear,”—she laid her hand softly on his,—“and I also want to be sure of being perfectly free to change my mind about my religion, if I wish to. It’s a stroke of diplomacy.”

“I don’t know much about diplomatic proceedings,” laughed Ralston, “but this strikes me as—well—very intelligent, to say the least of it.”

Katharine’s face became very grave, and she withdrew her hand.

“You mean that it does not seem to you perfectly honest,” she said.

“I didn’t say that,” he answered, his expression changing with hers. “Of course the idea is that if you are married to me before you become a Catholic, your church can have nothing to say to me when you do.”

“Of course—yes. You couldn’t be called upon to make any promises. But if I should decide, after all, not to take the step, there would be no harm done. On the contrary, I shall have the advantage of being able to put pressure on uncle Robert, as I explained to you before.”

“I didn’t say I thought it wasn’t honest,” said Ralston. “It’s rather deep, and I’m always afraid that deep things may not be quite straight. I should like to think about it, if you don’t mind.”

“I want you to decide. I’ve thought about it.”

“Yes—but—”

“Well? Suppose that, after thinking it over for ever so long, you should come to the conclusion that I should not be acting perfectly honestly to my conscience—that’s the worst you could discover, isn’t it? Even then—and I believe it’s an impossible case—it’s my conscience and not yours. If you were trying to persuade me to a secret marriage because you were afraid of the consequences, it would be different—”

“Rather!” exclaimed Ralston, vehemently.

“But you’re not. You see, the main point is on my account, and it’s I who am doing all the persuading, for that reason. It may be un—un—what shall I call it—not like a girl at all. But I don’t care. Why shouldn’t I tell you that I love you? We’ve both said it often enough, and we both mean it, and I mean to be married to you. The religious question is a matter of conviction. You have no convictions, so you can’t understand—”

“I have one or two—little ones.”

“Not enough to understand what I feel—that if religion is anything, then it’s everything except our love. No—that wasn’t an afterthought. It’s not coming between you and me. Nothing can. But it’s everything else in life, or else it’s nothing at all and not worth speaking of. And if it is—if it really is—why then, for me, as I look at it, it means the Catholic Church. If I talk as though I were not quite sure, it’s because I want to be quite on the safe side. And if I want you to do this thing—it’s because I want to be absolutely sure that hereafter no human being shall come between us. I know all about the difficulties in these mixed marriages. I’ve made lots of enquiries. There’s no question of faith, or belief, or anything of the sort in their objections. It’s simply a matter of church politics, and I daresay that they are quite right about it, from their point of view, and that if one is once with them one must be with them altogether, in policy as well as in religion. But I’m not as far as that yet. Perhaps I never shall be, after all. I want to make sure of you—oh, Jack, don’t you understand? I can’t talk well, but I know just what I mean. Tell me you understand, and that you’ll do what I ask!”

“It’s very hard!” said Ralston, bending his head and looking at the carpet. “I wish I knew what to do.”

Woman-like, she saw that she was beginning to get the advantage.

“Go over it all, dear. In the first place, it’s entirely for my sake, and not in the least for yours. So you can’t say there’s anything selfish in it, if you do it for me, can you? You don’t want to do it, you don’t like it, and if you do it you’ll be making a sacrifice to please me.”

“In marrying you!” Ralston laughed a little and then became very grave again.

“Yes, in marrying me. It’s a mere formality, and nothing else. We’re not going to run away afterwards, nor meet in the dark in Gramercy Park nor do anything in the least different from what we’ve always done, until I’ve got what I want from uncle Robert. Then we’ll acknowledge the whole thing, and I’ll take all the blame on myself, if there is any—”

“You’ll do nothing of the kind,” interrupted Ralston.

“Unless you tell a story that’s not true, you won’t be able to find anything to blame yourself with,” answered Katharine. “So it will be all over, and it will save no end of bother—and expense. Which is something, as neither of us, nor our people, have any money to speak of, and a wedding costs ever so much. I needn’t even have a trousseau—just a few things, of course—and poor papa will be glad of that. You needn’t laugh. You’ll be doing him a service, as well as me. And you see how I can put it to uncle Robert, don’t you? ‘Uncle Robert, we’re married—that’s all. What are you going to do about it?’ Nothing could be plainer than that, could it?”

“Nothing!”

“Now he will simply have to do something. Perhaps he’ll be angry at first, but that won’t last long. He’ll get over it and laugh at my audacity. But that isn’t the main point. It’s perfectly conceivable that you might work and slave at something you hate for years and years, until we could get married in the regular way. The principal question is the other—my freedom afterwards to do exactly as I please about my religion without any possibility of any one interfering with our marriage.”

“Katharine! Do you really mean to say that if you were a Catholic, and if the priests said that we shouldn’t be married, you would submit?”

“If I couldn’t, I couldn’t,” Katharine answered. “If I were a Catholic, and a good Catholic,—I wouldn’t be a bad one,—no marriage but a Catholic one would be a marriage at all for me. And if they refused it, what could I do? Go back? That would be lying to myself. To marry you in some half regular way—”

“Hush, child! You don’t know what you’re talking about!”

“Yes, I do—perfectly. And you wouldn’t like that. So you see what my position is. It’s absolutely necessary to my future happiness that we should be quietly married some morning—to-morrow, if you like, but certainly in a day or two—and that nobody should know anything about it, until I’ve told uncle Robert.”

“After all,” said Ralston, hesitating, “it will be very much the same thing as though we were to run away, provided we face everybody at once.”

“Very much better, because there’ll be no scandal—and no immediate starvation, which is something worth considering.”

“It won’t really be a secret marriage, except for the mere ceremony, then. That looks different, somehow.”

“Of course. You don’t suppose that I thought of taking so much trouble and doing such a queer thing just for the sake of knowing all to myself that I was married, do you? Besides, secrets are always idiotic things. Somebody always lets them out before one is ready. And it’s not as though there were any good reason in the world why we should not be married, except the money question. We’re of age—and suited to each other—and all that.”

“Naturally!” And Ralston laughed again.

“Well, then—it seems to me that it’s all perfectly clear. It amounts to telling everybody the day after, instead of the day before the wedding. Do you see?”

“I suppose I ought to go on protesting, but you do make it very clear that there’s nothing underhand about it, except the mere ceremony. And as you say, we have a perfect right to be married if we please.”

“And we do please—don’t we?”

“With all our hearts,” Ralston answered, in a dreamy tone.

“Then when shall it be, Jack?” Katharine leaned towards him and touched his hand with her fingers as though to rouse him from the reverie into which he seemed to be falling.

The touch thrilled him, and he looked up suddenly and met her glance. He looked at her steadily for a moment, and once more he felt that odd, pleasurable, unmanly moisture in his

eyes, with a sweeping wave of emotion that rose from his heart with a rush as though it would burst his throat. He yielded to it altogether this time, and catching her in his arms drew her passionately to him, kissing her again and again, as though he had never kissed her before. He did not understand it himself, and Katharine was not used to it. But she loved him, too, with all her heart, as it seemed to her. She had proved it to him and to herself more completely within the last half hour, and she let her own arms go round him. Then a deep, dark blush which she could feel, rose slowly from her throat to her cheeks, and she instinctively disentangled herself from him and drew gently back.

“Remember that it’s for my sake—not for yours, dear,” she said.

Her grey eyes were as deep as the dusk itself. Vaguely she guessed her power as she gave him one more long look, and then rose suddenly and pretended to busy herself with the single light, turning it up a little and then down. Ralston watched the springing curves that outlined her figure as she reached upward. He was in many ways a strangely refined man, in spite of all his sins, and of his besetting sin in particular, and refinement in others appealed to him strongly when it was healthy and natural. He detested the diaphanous type of semi-consumptive with the angel face, man or woman, and declared that a skeleton deserved no credit for looking refined, since it could not possibly look anything else. But he delighted in delicacy of touch and grace of movement when it went with such health and strength as Katharine had.

“You are the most divinely beautiful thing on earth,” he said, quietly.

Katharine laughed, but still turned her face away from him.

“Then marry me,” she said, laughing. “What a speech!” she cried an instant later. “Just fancy if any one could hear me, not knowing what we’ve been talking about!”

“You were just in time, then,” said Ralston. “There’s some one coming.”

Katharine turned quickly, listened a moment, and distinguished a footfall on the stairs outside the door. She nodded, and came to his side at once.

“You will, Jack,” she said under her breath. “Say that you will—quick!”

Ralston hesitated one moment. He tried to think, but her eyes were upon him and he seemed to be under a spell. They were close together, and there was not much light in the room. He felt that the shadow of something unknown was around them both—that somewhere in the room a sweet flower was growing, not like other flowers, not common nor scented with spring—a plant full of softly twisted tendrils and pale petals and in-turned stamens—a flower of moon-leaf and fire-bloom and dusk-thorn—drooping above their two heads like a blossom-laden bough bending heavily over two exquisite statues—two statues that did not speak, whose faces did not change as the night stole silently upon them—but they were side by side, very near, and the darkness was sweet.

It was only an instant. Then their lips met.

“Yes,” he whispered, and drew back as the door opened.

Mrs. Lauderdale entered the room.

“Oh, are you there, Jack?” she asked, but without any surprise, as though she were accustomed to find him with Katharine.

“Yes,” answered Ralston, quietly. “I’ve been here ever so long. How do you do, cousin Emma?”

“Oh, I’m so tired!” exclaimed Mrs. Lauderdale. “I’ve been working all day long. I positively can’t see.”

“You ought not to work so hard,” said Ralston. “You’ll wear your eyes out.”

“No, I’m strong, and so are my eyes. I only wanted to say that I was tired. It’s such a relief!”

Mrs. Lauderdale had been a very beautiful woman, and was, indeed, only just beginning to lose her beauty. She was much taller than either of her daughters, but of a different type of figure from Katharine, and less evenly grown, if such an expression may be permitted. The hand was typical of the difference. Mrs. Lauderdale’s was extremely long and thin, but well made in the details, though out of proportion in the way of length and narrowness as a whole. Katharine’s hand was firm and full, without being what is called a thick hand. There was a more perfect balance between flesh and bone in the straight, strong fingers. Mrs. Lauderdale had been one of those magnificent fair beauties occasionally seen in Kentucky,—a perfect head with perfect but small features, superb golden hair, straight, clear eyes, a small red mouth,—great dignity of carriage, too, with the something which has been christened ‘dash’ when she moved quickly, or did anything with those long hands of hers,—a marvellous constitution, and the dazzling complexion of snow and carnations that goes with it, very different from the softer ‘milk and roses’ of the Latin poet’s mistress. Mrs. Lauderdale had always been described as dazzling, and people who saw her for the first time used the word even now to convey the impression she made. Her age, which was known only to some members of the family, and which is not of the slightest importance to this history, showed itself chiefly in a diminution of this dazzling quality. The white was less white, the carnation was becoming a common pink, the gold of her hair was no longer gold all through, but distinctly brown in many places, though it would certainly never turn grey until extreme old age. Her movements, too, were less free, though stately still,—the brutal word ‘rheumatism’ had been whispered by the family doctor,—and to go back to her face, there were undeniably certain tiny lines, and many of them, which were not the lines of beauty.

It was a brave, good face, on the whole, gifted, sometimes sympathetic, and oddly cold when the woman’s temper was most impulsive. For there is an expression of coldness which weakness puts on in self-defence. A certain narrowness of view, diametrically opposed to a corresponding narrowness in her husband’s mind, did not show itself in her features. There is a defiant, supremely satisfied look which shows that sort of limitation. Possibly such narrowness was not natural with Mrs. Lauderdale, but the result of having been systematically opposed on certain particular grounds throughout more than a quarter of a century of married life. However that may be, it was by this time a part of her nature, though not outwardly expressed in any apparent way.

She had not been very happy with Alexander Junior, and she admitted the fact. She knew also that she had been a good wife to him in every fair sense of the word. For although she had enjoyed compensations, she had taken advantage of them in a strictly conscientious way. Undeniable beauty, of the kind which every one recognizes instantly without the slightest hesitation, is so rare a gift that it does indeed compensate its possessor for many misfortunes, especially when she enjoys amusement for its own sake, innocently and without losing her head or becoming spoiled and affected by constant admiration. Katharine Lauderdale had not that degree of beauty, and there were numerous persons who did not even care for what they called ‘her style.’ Her sister Charlotte had something of her mother’s brilliancy, indeed, but there was a hardness about her face and nature which was apparent at first sight. Mrs. Alexander had always remained the beauty of the family, and indeed the beauty of the society to which she belonged, even after her daughters had been grown up. She had outshone them, even in a world like that of New York, which does not readily compare mothers and daughters in any way, and asks them out separately as though they did not belong to each other.

She had not been very happy, and apart from any purely imaginary bliss, procurable only by some miraculous changes in Alexander Junior’s heart and head, she believed that the only real thing lacking was money. She had always been poor. She had never known what seemed to her the supreme delight of sitting in her own carriage. She had never tasted the pleasure of having five hundred dollars to spend on her fancies, exactly as she pleased. The question of dress had always been more or less of a struggle. She had not exactly extravagant tastes, but she should have liked to feel once in her life that she was at liberty to throw aside a pair of perfectly new gloves, merely because when she put them on the first time one of the seams was a little crooked, or the lower part was too loose for her narrow hand. She had always felt that when she had bought a thing she must wear it out, as a matter of conscience, even if it did not suit her. And there was a real little pain in the thought, of which she was ashamed. Small things, but womanly and human. Then, too, there was the constant chafing of her pardonable pride when ninety-nine of her acquaintances all did the same thing, and she was the hundredth who could not afford it—and the subscriptions and the charity concerts and the theatre parties. It was mainly in order to supply herself with a little money for such objects as these that she had worked so hard at her painting for years—that she might not be obliged to apply to her husband for such sums on every occasion. She had succeeded to some extent, too, and her initials had a certain reputation, even with the dealers. Many people knew that those same initials were hers, and a few friends were altogether in her confidence. Possibly if she had been less beautiful, she would have been spoken of at afternoon teas as ‘poor Mrs. Lauderdale,’ and people would have been found—for society has its kindly side—who would have half-surreptitiously paid large sums for bits of her work, even much more than her miniatures could ever be worth. But she did not excite pity. She looked rich, as some people do to their cost. People sympathized with her in the matter of Alexander Junior’s character, for he was not popular. But no one thought of pitying her because she was poor. On the contrary, many persons envied her. It must be ‘such fun,’ they said, to be able to paint and really sell one’s paintings. A dashing woman with a lot of talent, who can make a few hundreds in half an hour when she chooses, said others. What did she spend the money on? On whatever she pleased—probably in charity, she was so good-hearted. But those people did not see her as Jack Ralston saw her, worn out with a long day’s work, her eyes aching, her naturally good temper almost on edge; and they did not know that Katharine Lauderdale’s simple ball gowns were paid for by the work of her mother’s hands. It was just as well that they did not know it. Society has such queer fits sometimes—somebody might have given Katharine a dress. But Ralston was in the secret and knew.

“One may be as strong as cast-steel,” he said. “Even that wears out. Ask the people who make engines. You’ll accomplish a great deal more if you go easy and give yourself rest from time to time.”

“Like you, Jack,” observed Mrs. Lauderdale, not unkindly.

“Oh, I’m a failure. I admitted the fact long ago. I’m only fit for a bad example,—a sort of moral scarecrow.”

“Yes. I wonder why?” Mrs. Lauderdale was tired and was thinking aloud. “I didn’t mean to say that, Jack,” she added, frankly, realizing what she had said, from the recollection of the sound of her own voice, as people sometimes do who are exhausted or naturally absent-minded.

“It wasn’t exactly complimentary, mother,” said Katharine, coldly. “Besides, is it fair to say that a man is a failure at Jack’s age? Patrick Henry was a failure at twenty-three. He was bankrupt.”

“Patrick Henry!” exclaimed Ralston. “What do you know about Patrick Henry?”

“Oh, I’ve been reading history. It was he who said, ‘Give me liberty, or give me death.’”

“Was it? I didn’t know. But I’m glad to hear of somebody who got smashed first and celebrated afterwards. It’s generally the other way, like Napoleon and Julius CÆsar.”

“Cardinal Wolsey, Alexander the Great, and John Gilpin. It’s easy to multiply examples, as the books say.”

“You’re much too clever for me this evening. I must be going home. My mother and I are going to dine all alone and abuse our neighbours all the evening.”

“How delightful!” exclaimed Katharine, thinking of the grim family table at which she was to sit as usual—there had been some fine fighting in Charlotte’s unmarried days, but Katharine’s opposition was generally of the silent kind.

“Yes,” answered Ralston. “There’s nobody like my mother. She’s the best company in the world. Good night, cousin Emma. Good night, Katharine.”

But Katharine followed him into the entry, letting the library door almost close behind her.

“It will be quite time enough, if you come and tell me on the evening before it is to be,” she whispered hurriedly. “There’s no party to-morrow night, but on Wednesday I’m going to the Thirlwalls’ dance.”

“Will any morning do?” asked Ralston, also in a whisper.

“Yes, any morning. Now go—quick. That’s enough, dear—there, if you must. Go—good night—dear!”

The process of leave-taking was rather spasmodic, so far as Katharine was concerned. Ralston felt that same strange emotion once more as he found himself out upon the pavement of Clinton Place. His head swam a little, and he stopped to light a cigarette before he turned towards Fifth Avenue.

Katharine went back into the library, and found her mother sitting as the two had left her, and apparently unconscious that her daughter had gone out of the room.

“He’s quite right, mother dear. You are trying to do too much,” said Katharine, coming behind the low chair and smoothing her mother’s beautiful hair, kissing it softly and speaking into the heavy waves of it.

Mrs. Lauderdale put up one thin hand, and patted the girl’s cheek without turning to look at her, but said nothing for a moment.

“It’s quite true,” Katharine said. “You mustn’t do it any more.”

“How smooth your cheek is, child!” said Mrs. Lauderdale, thoughtfully.

“So is yours, mother dear.”

“No—it’s not. It’s full of little lines. Touch it—you can feel them—just there. Besides—you can see them.”

“I don’t feel anything—and I don’t see anything,” answered Katharine.

But she knew what her mother meant, and it made her a little sad—even her. She had been accustomed all her life to believe that her mother was the most beautiful woman in the world, and she knew that the time had just come when she must grow used to not believing it any longer. Mrs. Lauderdale had never said anything of the sort before. She had been supreme in her way, and had taken it for granted that she was, never referring to her own looks under any circumstances.

In the long silence that followed, Katharine quietly went and closed the shutters of the windows, for Ralston had only pulled down the shades. She drew the dark curtains across for the evening, lit another gaslight, and remained standing by the fireplace.

“Thank you, darling,” said Mrs. Lauderdale.

“I do wish papa would let us have lamps, or shades, or something,” said Katharine, looking disconsolately at the ground-glass globes of the gaslights.

“He doesn’t like them—he says he can’t see.”

There was a short pause.

“Oh, mother dear! what in the world does papa like, I wonder?” Katharine turned with an impatient movement as she spoke, and her broad eyebrows almost met between her eyes.

“Hush, child!” But the words were uttered wearily and mechanically—Mrs. Lauderdale had pronounced them so often under precisely the same circumstances during the last quarter of a century.

Katharine sighed, a little out of impatience and to some extent in pity for her mother. But she stood looking across the room at the closed door through which Ralston and she had gone out together five minutes earlier, and she could still feel his last kiss on her cheek. He had never seemed so loving as on that day, and she had succeeded in persuading him, against his instinctive judgment, to promise her what she asked,—the maddest, most foolish thing a girl’s imagination could long for, no matter with what half-reasonable excuse. But she had his promise, which, as she well knew, he would keep—and she loved him with all her heart. The expression of mingled sadness and impatience vanished like a breath from a polished mirror. She was unconscious that she looked radiantly happy, as her mother gazed up into her face.

“What a beautiful creature you are!” said Mrs. Lauderdale, in a tone unlike her natural voice.