whole situation needed the most careful management lest it should degenerate into some degrading and disturbing exhibition such as the scene, which he could never think of without shame, upon the heath among the dead leaves. And yet each sentence brought him relief. He was coming to understand something or other about his own desires hitherto undefined by him, the source of his difficulty with Katharine. The wish to hurt her, which had urged him to begin, had completely left him, and he felt that it was only Katharine now who could help him to be sure. He must take his time. There were so many things that he could not say without the greatest difficulty—that name, for example, Cassandra. Nor could he move his eyes from a certain spot, a fiery glen surrounded by high mountains, in the heart of the coals. He waited in suspense for Katharine to continue. She had said that he might be very happy with some one he loved in that way.
“I don’t see why it shouldn’t last with you,” she resumed. “I can imagine a certain sort of person—” she paused; she was aware that he was listening with the greatest intentness, and that his formality was merely the cover for an extreme anxiety of some sort. There was some person then—some woman—who could it be? Cassandra? Ah, possibly———
“A person,” she added, speaking in the most matter-of-fact tone she could command, “like Cassandra Otway, for instance. Cassandra is the most interesting of the Otways—with the exception of Henry. Even so, I like Cassandra better. She has more than mere cleverness. She is a character—a person by herself.”
“Those dreadful insects!” burst from William, with a nervous laugh, and a little spasm went through him as Katharine noticed. It was Cassandra then. Automatically and dully she replied, “You could insist that she confined herself to—to—something else . . . But she
