CHAPTER XLVIII

I do not know whether Katherine attributed Owen’s sudden departure to me or not, but I think it extremely probable that she did, although she never mentioned it. Yet we sometimes spoke of Owen himself during the days that followed. In those days we slipped back more or less into our former friendship, and I tried to feel that it was just the same. Yet something of the old freedom had gone, and I could not forget what Katherine had said to me the night before Owen’s departure. After a few days, indeed, it came into my romantic mind that there might be another interpretation of her behaviour on that occasion, one I hardly dared even to dream of, so much was it what I desired. But it influenced me nevertheless. I longed to have another day alone with her――a day such as we had had last year, and I determined to ask her to come somewhere with me alone, to come, that is, without Gerald.

I went up to Derryaghy one afternoon with this intention, and was shown into the morning-room, where I found Mrs. Carroll and Miss Dick. Mrs. Carroll informed me that Katherine had been washing her hair, and was now drying it at the kitchen fire. She told me to go on in if I wanted to speak to her, but I hung back bashfully. In the end I went, all the same, and discovered Katherine sitting on a stool, a book open on her knee, and her long, thick, dark brown hair hanging loose in the red glow of the kitchen range.

“It’s well for you you haven’t to undergo torments of this kind!” she exclaimed. “I was baked nearly ten minutes ago. My hair was simply full of salt. I don’t know how it gets in under my bathing-cap.”

The situation may seem more homely than romantic, but I thought she looked extremely lovely, and gazed at her in silent admiration. Perhaps she noticed it, for she coloured as she laughed.

“My dear Peter, aren’t you going to say good-morning to me? I’m not the Sleeping Beauty, you know?”

“What beautiful hair you have,” I said, in an awed tone, and involuntarily I touched it with my hand.

She laughed again, but drew back. “Did you come in just to admire it? It’s very nice of you.”

“I came to ask you to go for a walk with me this afternoon, round by the Hilltown Road――by the road under the mountains――just you by yourself.”

“‘Me by myself!’ When do you want to go?”

“After lunch.”

“Very well――if it’s not too hot.”

The readiness with which she consented made me consider myself a fool for not having asked her sooner, and I began to regret all my lost opportunities.

On my way home I met Gerald, who wanted to know if I had bathed yet.

“I bathed before breakfast. Where have you been?”

“Oh, just down to the Club House.”

I turned back with him. I had made up my mind to say something he might possibly resent, but I plunged into my subject without beating about the bush. “Don’t you think you are rather a fool to go down there so often?”

“Down where?” asked Gerald. “To the Club House?”

“Yes; though I was thinking more of the hotel. It seems to me you go to the hotel nearly every evening now.”

He smiled, indifferently. “There’s nothing else to do.”

“It seems stupid to chum up with people about twice your age,” I persisted.

“They’re not twice my age. Some of them aren’t very much older than I am. What harm does it do?”

“Well, I was only with you once, but I didn’t like what I saw there, especially towards the end of the evening.”

“What didn’t you like, Peter?” he asked, good-humouredly.

“I thought it looked silly――and a little disgusting. There were you, a chap barely eighteen, calling Captain Denby, who’s about fifty, by his Christian name. You must know well enough that he’s as gross as a pig. What does he care about your playing? And what pleasure, anyway, can it give you to play a lot of waltzes and popular songs?”

“He cares as much for my playing as you do.”

“My dear Gerald, if you think that you’re a fool.”

“You sat quiet enough at the time. You were afraid to open your mouth.”

“That may be so, but it doesn’t alter the fact that I was infinitely superior to anyone in that room except yourself.”

“I daresay you were, Peter. I never doubt your superiority. There’s one thing you forget, however, and that is that any friendship there may be between you and me is a pretty one-sided affair.”

“What do you mean?” I asked, uncomfortably.

“Only that you’ve never given it much encouragement.”

“Why?”

“I don’t know, I’m sure. Partly, I should think, because you rather dislike me. That always stands in the way of such things.”

His irony rang unpleasantly true. “Why should you think I dislike you?” I said, very weakly.

“It would take too long to explain. It never gave me any particular pleasure to think so――at first, just the reverse――and I mention it now merely at your request.”

I didn’t quite know what to say. “Isn’t my speaking to you about this matter a proof of my not disliking you?” I risked. “I thought we had always been friends.”

“No, Peter, your friend is a prig called Owen Gill.”

“Owen isn’t a prig,” I said warmly, glad to have a chance to put him in the wrong, but my chance did not last.

“I beg your pardon,” said Gerald, “even if he was, I shouldn’t have called him one to you.”

“Better say it to me, if you’re going to say it at all. I can defend him.”

“I daresay there is no harm in being a prig.”

“Owen is a good deal finer chap than either you or I.”

“And yet neither of us would change with him! But the point is hardly worth discussing.”

“I don’t want to discuss it.”

“You want to give me good advice? Well, fire ahead.”

“Oh, there’s no use in my saying anything. You know it all well enough yourself, and if you think it better to go on as you are doing, I can’t interfere. But it seems to me stupid to get into bad habits.”

“Have you no bad habits, Peter?”

“I’m not talking about myself.”

“That’s true.”

“You said the other night you were an artist; but you know as well as I do, that if you are going to do anything in that way you will have to work, and that you won’t work if you begin to loaf about, taking drinks with this person and that. I can’t even understand why you should want to. If _I_ had any particular gift I would cultivate it for all it was worth.”

“Have you no gift?”

“No. As you also remarked, I am a person of taste.”

“I’m sorry if I offended you. I didn’t mean anything.”

“You believed it all the same.”

“I’m not sure that I did. You’re clever enough.”

“Thank you. I’ll not come any further.”

“Won’t you? It was good of you bothering about me, and I took it very well, didn’t I?” He smiled.

“You didn’t take it at all; but that’s not my fault.”