e in whom she could
confide, and as she walked up and down beneath the hoops of the pergola,
she did begin a little speech to him, which ran something like this:

"To begin with, I'm very fond of William. You can't deny that. I know
him better than any one, almost. But why I'm marrying him is, partly,
I admit--I'm being quite honest with you, and you mustn't tell any
one--partly because I want to get married. I want to have a house of my
own. It isn't possible at home. It's all very well for you, Henry; you
can go your own way. I have to be there always. Besides, you know what
our house is. You wouldn't be happy either, if you didn't do something.
It isn't that I haven't the time at home--it's the atmosphere." Here,
presumably, she imagined that her cousin, who had listened with
his usual intelligent sympathy, raised his eyebrows a little, and
interposed:

"Well, but what do you want to do?"

Even in this purely imaginary dialogue, Katharine found it difficult to
confide her ambition to an imaginary companion.

"I should like," she began, and hesitated quite a long time before she
forced herself to add, with a change of voice, "to study mathematics--to
know about the stars."

Henry was clearly amazed, but too kind to express all his doubts; he
only said something about the difficulties of mathematics, and remarked
that very little was known about the stars.

Katharine thereupon went on with the statement of her case.

"I don't care much whether I ever get to know anything--but I want to
work out something in figures--something that hasn't got to do with
human beings. I don't want people particularly. In some ways, Henry, I'm
a humbug--I mean, I'm not what you all take me for. I'm not domestic, or
very practical or sensible, really. And if I could calculate things, and
use a telescope, and have to work out figures, and know to a fraction
where I was wrong, I should be perfectly happy, and I believe I should
give William all he wants."

Having reached this point, instinct told her that she had passed beyond
the region in which Henry's advice could be of any good; and, having rid
her mind of its superficial annoyance, she sat herself upon the stone
seat, raised her eyes unconsciously and thought about the deeper
questions which she had to decide, she knew, for herself. Would she,
indeed, give William all he wanted? In order to decide the question, she
ran her mind rapidly over her little collection of significant