Page:Night and Day (1919).pdf/119

 disliked telling her mother about Cyril’s misbehaviour quite as much as her father did, and for much the same reasons. They both shrank, nervously, as people fear the report of a gun on the stage, from all that would have to be said on this occasion. Katharine, moreover, was unable to decide what she thought of Cyril’s misbehaviour. As usual, she saw something which her father and mother did not see, and the effect of that something was to suspend Cyril’s behaviour in her mind without any qualification at all. They would think whether it was good or bad; to her it was merely a thing that had happened.

When Katharine reached the study, Mrs. Hilbery had already dipped her pen in the ink.

“Katharine,” she said, lifting it in the air, “I’ve just made out such a queer, strange thing about your grand-father. I’m three years and six months older than he was when he died. I couldn’t very well have been his mother, but I might have been his elder sister, and that seems to me such a pleasant fancy. I’m going to start quite fresh this morning, and get a lot done.”

She began her sentence, at any rate, and Katharine sat down at her own table, untied the bundle of old letters upon which she was working, smoothed them out absentmindedly, and began to decipher the faded script. In a minute she looked across at her mother, to judge her mood. Peace and happiness had relaxed every muscle in her face; her lips were parted very slightly, and her breath came in smooth, controlled inspirations, like those