Kate winced. This was getting on places that hurt and to matters
she well understood, but she was the soul of candour. "You did
very well to educate yourself as you have, with no help at all,"
she said.
"I've done my best in the past, I'm going to do marvels in the
future, and whatever I do, it is all for you and yours for the
taking," he said grandiosely.
"Thank you," said Kate. "But are you making that offer when you
can't help seeing that I'm in deep trouble?"
"A thousand times over," he said. "All I want to know about your
trouble is whether there is anything a man of my size and strength
can do to help you."
"Not a thing," said Kate, "in the direction of slaying a gay
deceiver, if that's what you mean. The extent of my familiarities
with John Jardine consists in voluntarily kissing him twice last
Sunday night for the first and last time, once for himself, and
once for his mother, whom I have since ceased to respect."
George Holt was watching her with eyes lynx-sharp, but Kate never
saw it. When she mentioned her farewell of Sunday night, a queer
smile swept over his face and instantly disappeared.
"I should thing any girl might be permitted that much, in saying a
final good-bye to a man who had shown her a fine time for weeks,"
he commented casually.
"But I didn't know I was saying good-bye," explained Kate. "I
expected him back in a week, and that I would then arrange to
marry him. That was the agreement we made then."
As she began to speak, George Holt's face flashed triumph at
having led her on; at what she said it fell perceptibly, but he
instantly controlled it and said casually: "In any event, it was
your own business."
"It was," said Kate. "I had given no man the slightest
encouragement, I was perfectly free. John Jardine was courting me
openly in the presence of his mother and any one who happened to
be around. I intended to marry him. I liked him as much as any
man need be liked. I don't know whether it was the same feeling
Nancy Ellen had for Robert Gray or not, but it was a whole lot of
feeling of some kind. I was satisfied with it, and he would have
been. I meant to be a good wife to him and a good daughter to his
mother, and I could have done much good in the world and extracted
untold pleasure from the money he would have put in my power to
handle. All was going 'merry as a marriage bell,' and then this
morning came my Waterloo, in the same post with your letter."
"Do you know what you are doing?" cried George Holt, roughly,
losing self-control with hope. "YOU ARE PROVING TO ME, AND
ADMITTING TO YOURSELF, THAT YOU NEVER LOVED THAT MAN AT ALL. You
were flattered, and tempted with position and riches, but your
heart was not his, or you would be mighty SURE of it, don't you
forget that!"