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 William allowed himself to behave in a way which made me extremely uncomfortable to-day.”

Katharine seemed to waken completely, and at once to be in control of herself.

“At the Zoo?” she asked.

“No, on the way home. When we had tea.”

As if foreseeing that the interview might be long, and the night chilly, Katharine advised Cassandra to wrap herself in a quilt. Cassandra did so with unbroken solemnity.

“There’s a train at eleven,” she said. “I shall tell Aunt Maggie that I have to go suddenly I shall make Violet’s visit an excuse. But, after thinking it over, I don’t see how I can go without telling you the truth.”

She was careful to abstain from looking in Katharine’s direction. There was a slight pause.

“But I don’t see the least reason why you should go,” said Katharine eventually. Her voice sounded so astonishingly equable that Cassandra glanced at her. It was impossible to suppose that she was either indignant or surprised; she seemed, on the contrary, sitting up in bed, with her arms clasped round her knees and a little frown on her brow, to be thinking closely upon a matter of indifference to her.

“Because I can’t allow any man to behave to me in that way,” Cassandra replied, and she added, “particularly when I know that he is engaged to some one else.”

“But you like him, don’t you?” Katharine inquired.

“That’s got nothing to do with it,” Cassandra exclaimed indignantly. “I consider his conduct, under the circumstances, most disgraceful.”

This was the last of the sentences of her premeditated speech; and having spoken it she was left unprovided with any more to say in that particular style. When Katharine remarked: