"I'm Ralph Denham speaking. I'm in my right senses now."

"How long did you wait outside the house?"

"I went home and wrote you a letter. I tore it up."

"I shall tear up everything too."

"I shall come."

"Yes. Come to-day."

"I must explain to you--"

"Yes. We must explain--"

A long pause followed. Ralph began a sentence, which he canceled with
the word, "Nothing." Suddenly, together, at the same moment, they said
good-bye. And yet, if the telephone had been miraculously connected with
some higher atmosphere pungent with the scent of thyme and the savor
of salt, Katharine could hardly have breathed in a keener sense of
exhilaration. She ran downstairs on the crest of it. She was amazed to
find herself already committed by William and Cassandra to marry the
owner of the halting voice she had just heard on the telephone.
The tendency of her spirit seemed to be in an altogether different
direction; and of a different nature. She had only to look at Cassandra
to see what the love that results in an engagement and marriage means.
She considered for a moment, and then said: "If you don't want to tell
people yourselves, I'll do it for you. I know William has feelings about
these matters that make it very difficult for him to do anything."

"Because he's fearfully sensitive about other people's feelings," said
Cassandra. "The idea that he could upset Aunt Maggie or Uncle Trevor
would make him ill for weeks."

This interpretation of what she was used to call William's
conventionality was new to Katharine. And yet she felt it now to be the
true one.

"Yes, you're right," she said.

"And then he worships beauty. He wants life to be beautiful in
every part of it. Have you ever noticed how exquisitely he finishes
everything? Look at the address on that envelope. Every letter is
perfect."

Whether this applied also to the sentiments expressed in the letter,
Katharine was not so sure; but when William's solicitude was spent upon
Cassandra it not only failed to irritate her, as it had done when she
was the object of it, but appeared, as Cassandra said, the fruit of his
love of beauty.

"Yes," she said, "he loves beauty."

"I hope we shall have a great many children," said Cassandra. "He loves
children."

This remark made Katharine realize the depths of their intimacy better
than any other words could have done; she was jealous for one moment;
but the next she was humiliated. She had known William for years,