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 as Ralph Denham or Mary Datchet might think, that she was, for some reason, unsympathetic—hostile even?

“As to your mother,” said Mr. Hilbery, after a pause, in which he seemed to be considering the colour of the flames, “you had better tell her the facts. She’d better know the facts before every one begins to talk about it, though why Aunt Celia thinks it necessary to come, I’m sure I don’t know. And the less talk there is the better.”

Granting the assumption that gentlemen of sixty who are highly cultivated, and have had much experience of life, probably think of many things which they do not say, Katharine could not help feeling rather puzzled by her father’s attitude, as she went back to her room. What a distance he was from it all! How superficially he smoothed these events into a semblance of decency which harmonized with his own view of life! He never wondered what Cyril had felt, nor did the hidden aspects of the case tempt him to examine into them. He merely seemed to realize, rather languidly, that Cyril had behaved in a way which was foolish, because other people did not behave in that way. He seemed to be looking through a telescope at little figures hundreds of miles in the distance. Her selfish anxiety not to have to tell Mrs. Hilbery what had happened made her follow her father into the hall after breakfast the next morning in order to question him.

“Have you told mother?” she asked. Her manner to her father was almost stern, and she seemed to hold endless depths of reflection in the dark of her eyes.

Mr. Hilbery sighed.

“My dear child, it went out of my head.” He smoothed his silk hat energetically, and at once affected an air of hurry. “I'll send a note round from the office I’m late this morning, and I’ve any amount of proofs to get through.”

“That wouldn’t do at all,” Katharine said decidedly.