a straw for his embarrassment feeling how little,
on her own part, she was moved by charity. She
had seen him, first and last, in so many attitudes that
she could now deprive him quite without compunc
tion of the luxury of a new one. Yet she felt the
disconcerted gasp in his tone as he said: " Oh my
child, I can never consent to that!"

"What then are you going to do?"

"I'm turning it over," said Lionel Croy. You
may imagine if I'm not thinking."

"Haven't you thought then," his daughter asked,
"of what I speak of? I mean of my being ready."

Standing before her with his hands behind him
and his legs a little apart, he swayed slightly to and
fro, inclined toward her as if rising on his toes. It
had an effect of conscientious deliberation. " No.
I haven t. I couldn t. I wouldn t." It was so re
spectable, a show that she felt afresh, and with the
memory of their old despair, the despair at home,
how little his appearance ever by any chance told
about him. His plausibility had been the heaviest
of her mother's crosses; inevitably so much more
present to the world than whatever it was that was
horrid thank God they didn't really know! that
he had done. He had positively been, in his way,
by the force of his particular type, a terrible hus
band not to live with; his type reflecting so invidi
ously on the woman who had found him distasteful.
Had this thereby not kept directly present to Kate
herself that it might, on some sides, prove no light

[[12]]

p011 _ -chap- _ toc-1 _ p012w _ toc-2 _ +chap+ _ p013

v?