We walked on slowly, side by side. “Are you angry with me?” I asked, trying to speak penitently. “About what?” There was something in her air of calm deliberation that held me at a distance. “Everything――this afternoon, for instance.” “I thought you weren’t very nice to your friend.” “I wasn’t. Nor to you.” “Oh, it doesn’t matter about me.” “Why?” I asked miserably. “Well, it doesn’t matter so much. I’m not your guest――and――I don’t suppose I’m as fond of you as he is.” There was something cruel in those last words, though their cruelty may have been unconscious. For a minute or two I could not speak. “Why have you changed, Katherine?” I said at length, my voice still not very secure. “It is you who have changed.” “Have I?” “You were not like this last summer.” “I think I was.” “I don’t know what it is, but there is a difference. I suppose it may be only that you are growing up. I like people to be either men or boys. Why can’t you be natural? Why can’t you be content to be as you were?” “I don’t think you have treated me fairly.” “I can’t help it. Why should you be so jealous? It’s horrid. Everything is changed, as you say. It is not nearly so nice. I first began to notice it in your letters, but I thought when I saw you it would be all right. If I had known you were going to be like this I wouldn’t have come at all.” There was something in her manner I couldn’t understand, something mysterious, as if her words hid a regret, though whether it was for our old friendship or not I could not say. “Tell me what it is you don’t like,” I said, thickly. Katherine’s dark blue eyes rested on me while she hesitated. “I can’t. I’m stupid. Perhaps I don’t really know myself.” Then suddenly she broke out, “Don’t speak to me or I shall cry or do something idiotic. Let us go back.” Without waiting for me she began to walk hastily in the direction of the house. I ran after her; I was lost in wonderment; but I made no attempt to detain her or to question her. CHAPTER XLVI No allusion was made to our absence when we returned to the others. Gerald was still playing, but he got up as soon as we entered, and strolled over to the window, where he stood beside Owen, looking out. “There should be white peacocks here,” he murmured idly. “I’ve always longed to live in a house where there were white peacocks. They are the most poetic creatures in the world. They come over the lawn in the moonlight, delightful fowls, and knock with their beaks against the windows to be fed. They love moonlight. They’re extraordinarily morbid and decadent. Their only quite healthy taste is that they want to be fed. Shouldn’t you like them, Miss Dick?” Miss Dick, to whom all Gerald’s words were pearls of wisdom, listened to these with close attention. “I’ll speak to Mrs. Carroll about them,” she said. “It _would_ be nice to have them.”