ht air had an edge to
it; while in the valleys there would be frost before morning, ripening
that same splendour of autumn foliage alike to greater glory and
swifter fall. And the snap in the air, working along with other
unwonted influences, made Katherine somewhat restless this evening. Her
eyes were dark with unspoken thought. Her voice had a ring in it. The
shimmering, black, satin dress and fine lace she wore gave a certain
magnificence to her appearance. Her whole being was vibrant. She was
rather dangerously alive. Her elder brother's unlooked-for advent had
awakened her strangely from the reserve and stately monotony of her
daily existence, had shaken even, for the moment, the completeness of
the dominion of her fixed idea. She ceased, for the moment, to sink the
whole of her personality in the maternal relationship. Memories of her
youth, passed amid the varied interests of society and of the literary
and political world of Paris and London, assailed her. All those other
Katherines, in short, whom she might have been, and who had seemed to
drop away from her, vanishing phantom-like before the uncompromising
realities of her husband's death and her child's birth, crowded about
her, importuning her with vague desires, vague regrets. The confines of
Brockhurst grew narrow, while all that which lay beyond them called to
her. She craved, almost unconsciously, a wider sphere of action. She
longed to obtain, and to lend a hand in the shaping of events and
making of history. Even the purest and most devoted among
women--possessing the doubtful blessing of a measure of intellect--are
subject to such vagrant heats, such uprisings of personal ambition,
specially during the dangerous decade when the nine-and-thirtieth year
is past.

Meanwhile Richard's answer to her question was unfortunately somewhat
over-long in coming, for the young man was sunk in meditation and
apparently oblivious of her presence. He leaned back in the long, low
armchair, his hands clasped behind his head, the embroidered rug drawn
about his waist, a venerable, yellow-edged, calf-bound volume lying
face downwards on his lap. While young Camp--young no longer, full of
years indeed beyond the allotted portion of his kind--reposed,
outstretched and snoring, on the all-too-wide space of rug and
chair-seat at his feet. And this indifference, both of man and dog,
grew irksome to Lady Calmady. She moved across the shining yellow and
black surface of the ti