IT was in February that Kay finally accepted Herbert. She was honest with him.
"You know," she said, "that I cared for Tom McNair, I think it is all over, and anyhow I always knew it couldn't be. I would have been unhappy with him, and he would have made me wretched."
"I won't force myself on you, Kay. If ever you feel"
"I know that. I shall feel safe with you, Herbert."
She told her father and mother that night, in her mother's bedroom. Katherine was lying back on her chaise longue—she seemed to lie down a great deal those days—and Kay felt slightly comforted by the relief in Henry's face.
"Herbert will talk to you tomorrow," she told him. "But I wanted to tell you myself, so you will know"
To his credit he understood.
But when she looked at Katherine she saw, to her amazement, that there were tears in her eyes.
"I thought it would please you, mother dear."
"Is that why you did it, Kay?"
It was the nearest to an attempt at her confidence that Katherine had ever come, and Kay looked down at her ring.
"No," she said slowly. "I'm fond of Herbert, mother. I'll do my best to make him happy. I—we, that is" She stopped suddenly; already she was saying "we!" "We have no plans yet," she went on painfully. "We are not in a hurry. But I wanted you to know as soon as possible."
After that she went into her own room, and closed and locked the door. And late that night she opened the wall safe where she kept her grandmother's pearls, and took out the snap-shot of Tom McNair. But she did not look at it. She took a match and set fire to a corner, and then held it while it burned. When the flame got too close to her fingers she dropped it into a cigarette tray—she was still
