Mrs. Lauderdale had met with temptations in the course of her life, but they had not often appealed to her as they would have appealed to many women, for she was not easily tempted. A number of forms of goodness which are very hard to most people had been so easy to her that she had been good without effort, as, on the whole, she was good by nature. She had been brought up in an absolutely fixed religious belief, and had never felt any inclination to deviate from it, nor to speculate about the details of it, for her intellect was rather indolent, and in most positions in life her common-sense, which was strong, had taken the place of the complicated mental processes familiar to imaginative people like Katharine. Such imagination as Mrs. Lauderdale had was occupied with artistic matters.

Her vanity had always been satisfied quite naturally, without effort on her part, by her own great and uncontested beauty. She knew, and had always known, that she was commonly compared with the greatest beauties of the world, by men and women who had seen them and were able to judge. Social ambition never touched her either, and she never remembered to have met with a single one of those small society rebuffs which embitter the lives of some women. Nobody had ever questioned her right, nor her husband’s right, nor that of any of the family, to be considered equal with the first. In early days she had suffered a little, indeed, from not being rich enough to exercise that gift of almost boundless hospitality which is rather the rule than the exception among Americans, and which is said, with some justice, to be an especial characteristic of Kentuckians. Such troubles as she had met with had chiefly arisen from the smallness of her husband’s income, from peculiarities of her husband’s character, and from her elder daughter’s headstrong disposition. And with all these her common-sense had helped her continually.

She loved amusement and she had it in abundance, in society, during a great part of the year. Her talent had helped her to procure luxuries, and she had been generous in giving a large share of them to her daughters. She had soon learned to understand that society wanted her for herself, and not for what she could offer it in her own home, and she had been flattered by the discovery. As for Alexander, he had many good qualities which she appreciated when she compared him with the husbands of other women. Generosity with money was not his strong point, but he had many others. He loved her tenaciously, not tenderly, nor passionately, nor in any way that was at all romantic—if that word means anything—and certainly not blindly, but tenaciously; and his admiration for her beauty, though rarely expressed, found expression on such occasions in short, strong phrases which left no manner of doubt as to his sincere conviction. She had not been happy with him, as boys and girls mean to be happy—for the rigidity of very great strength, when not combined with a corresponding intellect, is excessively wearisome in the companionship of daily married life. There is a coldness, a lack of expression and of sympathy, a Pharaoh-like, stony quality about it which do not encourage affection, nor satisfy an expansive nature. And though not imaginative, Mrs. Lauderdale was expansive. She had a few moments of despairing regret at first. She felt that she might just as well have married a magnificent, clean-built, iron-bodied, steel-jointed locomotive, as the man she had chosen, and that she could produce about as much impression on his character as she could have made upon such an engine. But she found out in time that, within certain limits, he was quite willing to do what she asked of him, and that beyond them he ran his daily course with a systematic and unvarying regularity, which was always safe, if it was never amusing. She got such amusement as she liked from other sources, and she often consoled herself for the dulness of the family dinner, when she dined at home, with the certainty that, during several hours before she went to bed, the most desirable men at a great ball would contest the honour of dancing with her. And that was all she wanted of them. She liked some of them. She took an interest in their doings, and she listened sympathetically to the story of their troubles. But it was not in her nature to flirt, nor to lose her head when she was flattered, and if she sometimes doubted whether she really loved her husband at all, she was quite certain that she could never love any one else. Perhaps she deserved no credit for her faithfulness, for it was quite natural to her.

On the whole, therefore, her temptations had been few, in reality, and she had scarcely noticed them. She had reached the most painful moment of her life with very little experience of what she could resist—the moment when she realized that the supremacy of her beauty was at an end. Of course, she had exaggerated very much the change which had taken place, for at the crucial instant when she had caught sight of her face in the mirror she had been unusually tired, considerably bored and not a little annoyed—and the mirror had a decidedly green tinge in the glass, as she assured herself by examining it and comparing it with a good one on the following morning. But the impression once received was never to be effaced; she might look her very best in the eyes of others—to her own, the lines of age being once discovered were never to be lost again, the dazzling freshness was never to come back to her skin, nor the gold to her hair, nor the bloom to her lips. And Crowdie, who was an artist, and almost a great portrait painter, could not take his eyes from Katharine, at whom no one would have looked twice when her mother had been at the height of her beauty. At least, so Mrs. Lauderdale thought.

And now, until Katharine was married and went away from home, the elder woman was to be daily, almost hourly, compared with her daughter by all who saw them together; for the first time in her life she was to be second in that one respect in which she had everywhere been first ever since she could remember, and she was to be second in her own house. When she realized it, she was horrified, and for a time her whole nature seemed changed. She clung desperately to that beauty of hers, which was, had she known it, the thing she loved best on earth, and which had reduced in her eyes the value of everything else. She clung to it, and yet, from that fatal moment, she knew that it was hopeless to cling to it, hopeless to try and recall it, hopeless to hope for a miracle which, even in the annals of miracles, had never been performed—the recall of youth. The only possible mitigation suggested itself as a spontaneous instinct—to avoid that cruel comparison with Katharine. In the first hours it overcame her altogether. She could not look at the girl. She could hardly bring herself to speak kindly to her; though she knew that she would willingly lay down her life for the child she loved best, she could not lay down her beauty.

She was terrified at herself when she began to understand that something had overcome her which she felt powerless to resist. For she was a very religious woman, and the idea of envying her own daughter, and of almost hating her out of envy, was monstrous. When Ralston had come, she had not had the slightest intention of speaking as she had spoken. Suddenly the words had come to her lips of themselves, as it were. If things went on as they were going, Katharine would wait for Ralston during years to come—the girl had her father’s nature in that—and Katharine would be at home, and the cruel, hopeless comparison must go on, a perpetual and a keen torture from which there was to be no escape. It was simply impossible, intolerable, more than human endurance could bear. Ralston must be sent away, Katharine must be married as quickly as possible, and peace would come. There was no other way. It would be easy enough to marry the girl, with her position, and the hope of some of Robert Lauderdale’s money, and with her beauty—that terrible beauty of hers that was turning her mother’s to ugliness beside it. The first words had spoken themselves, the others had followed of necessity, and then, at the end, had come the overwhelming consciousness of what they had meant, and the breaking down of the overstrained nerves, and the sobs and the tears, gushing out as a spring where instant remorse had rent and cleft her very soul.

It was no wonder that Katharine did not understand what was taking place. Fortunately, being much occupied with her own very complicated existence, she did not attempt any further analysis of the situation, did not accidentally guess what was really the matter, and wisely concluded that it would be best to leave her mother to herself for a time.

On the morning after the events last chronicled, Mrs. Lauderdale returned to her work, and at a quarter before eleven Katharine was ready to go out and was watching for Ralston at the library window. As soon as she saw him in the distance she let herself out of the house and went to meet him. He glanced at her rather anxiously as they exchanged greetings, and she thought that he looked tired and careworn. There were shadows under his eyes, and his dark skin looked rather bloodless.

“Why didn’t you tell me that you had an accident the day before yesterday?” she asked at once.

“Who told you I had?” he enquired.

“Mr. Miner. I went out alone yesterday, after you had gone, and I met him at the corner of Washington Square. He told me all about it. How can you do such things, Jack? How can you risk your life in that way? And then, not to tell me! It wasn’t kind. You seem to think I don’t care. I wish you wouldn’t! I’m sure I turned perfectly green when Mr. Miner told me—he must have thought it very extraordinary. You might at least have given me warning.”

“I’m very sorry,” said Ralston. “I didn’t think it was worth mentioning. Wasn’t I all right when I came to see you?”

He looked at her rather anxiously again—for another reason, this time. But her answer satisfied him.

“Oh—you were ‘dear’—even nicer than usual! But don’t do it again—I mean, such things. You don’t know how frightened I was when he told me. In fact, I’m rather ashamed of it, and it’s much better that you shouldn’t know.”

“All right!” And Ralston smiled happily. “Now,” he continued after a moment’s thought, “I want to explain to you what I’ve found out about this idea of yours.”

“Don’t call it an idea, Jack. You promised that you would do it, you know.”

“Yes. I know I did. But it’s absolutely impossible to have it quite a secret—theoretically, at least.”

“Why?” She slackened her pace instinctively, and then, seeing that they were just entering Fifth Avenue, walked on more briskly, turning down in the direction of the Square.

Ralston told her in a few words what he had learned from the lawyer.

“You see,” he concluded, “there’s no way out of it. And, of course, anybody may go to the Bureau of Vital Statistics and look at the records.”

“But is anybody likely to?” asked Katharine. “Is the Clerk of the Records, or whatever you call him, the sort of man who would be likely to know papa, for instance? That’s rather important.”

“No. I shouldn’t think so. But everybody knows all about you. You might as well be the President of the United States as be a Lauderdale, as far as doing anything incognito is concerned.”

“There’s only one President at a time, and there are twenty-three Lauderdales in the New York directory besides ourselves, and six of them are Alexanders.”

“Are there? How did you happen to know that?” asked Ralston.

“Grandpapa looked them up the other day. He’s always looking up things, you know—when he’s not asleep, poor dear!”

“That certainly makes a difference.”

“Of course it does,” said Katharine. “No doubt the Clerk of the Records has seen the name constantly. Besides, I don’t suppose he does the work himself. He only signs things. He probably looks at the books once a month, or something of that sort.”

“Even then—he might come across the entry. He may have heard my name, too—you see my father was rather a bigwig in the Navy—and then, seeing the two together—”

“And what difference does it make? It isn’t really a secret marriage, you know, Jack—at least, it’s not to be a secret after I tell uncle Robert, which will be within twenty-four hours, you know. On the contrary, I shall tell him that we meant to tell everybody, and that it will be an eternal disgrace to him if he does nothing for you.”

“He’ll bear that with equanimity, dear. You won’t succeed.”

“Something will have to be done for us. When we’re married and everybody knows it, we can’t go on living as if we weren’t—indefinitely—it would be too ridiculous. Papa couldn’t stand that—he’s rather afraid of ridicule, I believe, though he’s not afraid of anything else. So, as I was saying, something will have to be done.”

“That’s a hopeful view,” laughed Ralston. “But I like the idea that it’s not to be a secret for more than a day. It makes it look different.”

“But I always told you that was what I meant, dear—I couldn’t do anything mean or underhand. Didn’t you believe me?”

“Of course—but somehow I didn’t see it exactly as I do now.”

“Oh, Jack—you have no more sense than—than a small yellow dog!”

At which very remarkable simile Ralston laughed again, as he caught sight of the creature that had suggested it—a small yellowish cur sitting on the pavement, bolt upright against the railing, and looking across the street, grinning from ear to ear and making his pink tongue shake with a perfectly unnecessary panting, the very picture of canine silliness.

“Yes—that’s the dog I mean,” said Katharine. “Look at him—he’s behaving just as you do, sometimes. But let’s be serious. What am I to do? Who is going to marry us?”

“Oh—I’ll find somebody,” answered Ralston, confidently. “They all say it’s easy enough to be married in New York, but that it’s awfully hard to be divorced.”

“All the better!” laughed Katharine. “By the bye—what time is it?”

“Five minutes to eleven,” answered Ralston, looking at his watch.

“Dear me! And at eleven I’m due at Mr. Crowdie’s for my portrait. I shall be late. Go and see about finding a clergyman while I’m at the studio. It can’t be helped.”

Ralston glanced at her in surprise. Of her sitting for her portrait he had not heard before.

“I must say,” he answered, “you don’t seem inclined to waste time this morning—”

“Certainly not! Why should we lose time? We’ve lost a whole year already. Do you think I’m the kind of girl who has to talk everything over fifty times to make up her mind? When you came, day before yesterday, I’d decided the whole matter. And now I mean—yes, you may look at me and laugh, Jack—I mean to put it through. I’m much more energetic than you seem to think. I believe you always imagined I was a lazy, pokey, moony sort of girl, with too much papa and mamma and weak tea and buttered toast in her nature. I’m not, you know. I’m just as energetic for a girl as you are for a man.”

“Rather more so,” said Ralston, watching her with intense admiration of her strong and beautiful self, and with considerable indifference to what she was saying, though her words amused him. “Please tell me about Crowdie and the portrait.”

“Oh—the portrait? Mr. Crowdie wants to paint it for Hester. I’m going to sit the first time this morning. That’s all. Here we are at the corner. We must cross here to get over to Lafayette Place.”

“Well, then,” said Ralston, as they walked on, “there’s only one more point, and that’s to find a clergyman. I suppose you can’t suggest anybody, can you?”

“Hardly! You must manage that. I’m sure I’ve done quite enough already.”

They discussed the question as they walked, without coming to any conclusion. Ralston determined to spend the day in looking for a proper person. He could easily withhold his name in every case, until he had made the arrangements. As a matter of fact, it is not hard to find a clergyman under the circumstances, since no clergyman can properly refuse to marry a respectable couple against whom he knows nothing. The matter of subsequent secrecy becomes for him more a question of taste than of conscience.

They reached the door of the Crowdie house, and Katharine turned at the foot of the white stone steps to say good-bye.

“Say you’re glad, Jack dear!” she said suddenly, as she put out her hand, and their eyes met.

“Glad! Of course I’m glad—no, I really am glad now, though I wasn’t at first. It looks different—it looks all right to-day.”

“You don’t look just as I expected you would, though,” said Katharine, doubtfully. “And yet it seems to me you ought—” She stopped.

“Katharine—dear—you can’t expect me to be as enthusiastically happy as though it really meant being married to you—can you?”

“But it does mean it. What else should it mean, or could it mean? Why isn’t it just the same as though we had a big wedding?”

“Because things won’t turn out as you think they will,” answered Ralston. “At least, not soon—uncle Robert won’t do anything, you know. One can’t take fate and destiny and fortune and shuffle them about as though they were cards.”

“One can, Jack! That’s just it. Everybody has one chance of being happy. We’ve got ours now, and we’ll take it.”

“We’ll take it anyhow, whether it’s really a chance or not. Good-bye—dear—dear—”

He pressed her hand as he spoke, and his voice was tender and rang true, but it had not that quaver of emotion in it which had so touched Katharine on that one evening, and which she longed to hear again; and Ralston missed the wave of what had seemed like deep feeling, and wished it would come back. His nerves were perfectly steady now, though he had been late at his club on the previous evening, and had not slept much.

“I’ll write you a note this afternoon,” he said, “as soon as I’ve arranged with the clergyman. If it has to be very early, you must find some excuse for going out of the house. Of course, I’ll manage it as conveniently as I can for you.”

“Oh, there’ll be no trouble about my going out,” answered Katharine. “Nobody ever asks me where I’m going in the morning. You’ll let me have the note as soon as you can, won’t you?”

“Of course. Before dinner, at all events. Good-bye again, dear.”

“Good-bye—until to-morrow.”

She added the last two words very softly. Then she nodded affectionately and went up the steps. As she turned, after ringing the bell, she saw him walking away. Then he also turned, instinctively, and waved his hat once, and smiled, and was gone. Fletcher opened the door, and Katharine went in.

“How is Mr. Crowdie to-day—is he painting?” she asked of the servant.

“Yes, Miss Katharine, Mr. Crowdie’s very well, and he left word that he expected you at eleven, Miss.”

“Yes, I know—I’m late.”

And she hurried up the stairs, for she had often been to the studio with Hester and with Crowdie himself, to see his pictures, and knew her way. But she knocked discreetly at the door when she had reached the upper story of the house.

“Come in, Miss Lauderdale,” said Crowdie’s silvery voice, and she heard his step on the polished floor as he left his work and came forward to meet her.

It seemed to her that his face was paler and his mouth redder than ever, and the touch of his soft white hand was exceedingly unpleasant to her, even through her glove.

He had placed a big chair ready for her, and she sat down as she was, with her hat and veil on, and looked about. Crowdie pushed away the easel at which he had been working. It ran almost noiselessly over the waxed oak, and he turned it with the face of the picture to the wall in a corner at some distance.

The studio was, as has been said, a very large room, occupying almost the whole upper story of the house, which was deeper than ordinary houses, though not very broad on the front. The studio was, therefore, nearly twice as long as its width, and looked even larger than it was from having no windows below, and only one door. There was, indeed, a much larger exit, by which Crowdie had his pictures taken out, by an exterior stair to the yard, but it was hidden by a heavy curtain on one side of the enormous fireplace. There were great windows, high up, on the north side, which must have opened above the roof of the neighbouring house, and which were managed by cords and weights, and could be shaded by rolling shades of various tints from white to dark grey. Over it was a huge skylight, also furnished with contrivances for modifying the light or shutting it out altogether.

So far, the description might answer for the interior of a photographer’s establishment, but none of the points enumerated struck Katharine as she sat in her big chair waiting to be told what to do.

The first impression was that of a magnificent blending of perfectly harmonious colours. There was an indescribable confusion of soft and beautiful stuffs of every sort, from carpets to Indian shawls and Persian embroideries. The walls, the chairs and the divans were covered with them, and even the door which gave access to the stairs was draped and made to look unlike a door, so that when it was shut there seemed to be no way out. The divans were of the Eastern kind—great platforms, as it were, on which were laid broad mattresses, then stuffs, and then endless heaps of cushions, piled up irregularly and lying about in all directions. Only the polished floor was almost entirely bare—the rest was a mass of richness. But that was all. There were no arms, such as many artists collect in their studios, no objects of metal, save the great dull bronze fire-dogs with lions’ heads, no plants, no flowers, and, excepting three easels with canvases on them, there was nothing to suggest the occupation of Walter Crowdie—nor any occupation at all. Even the little Japanese censer in which Hester said that he burned strange perfumes was hidden out of sight when not in use. There was not so much as a sketch or a drawing or a bit of modelled clay to be seen. There was not even a table with paints and brushes. Such things were concealed in a sort of small closet built out upon the yard, on the opposite side from the outer staircase, and hidden by curtains.

The total absence of anything except the soft materials with which everything was covered, produced rather a strange effect, and for some mysterious reason it was not a pleasant one. Crowdie’s face was paler and his lips were redder than seemed quite natural; his womanish eyes were too beautiful and their glance was a caress—as warm velvet feels to the hand.

“Won’t you let me help you to take off your veil?” he said, coming close to Katharine.

“Thank you—I can do it myself,” she answered, with unnecessary coldness.