Short stories, American; United States -- Social life and customs -- 19th century -- Fiction
Miss Catherwaight sat upright, and reached out for the card with a
nervous, gasping little laugh.
“Oh, I think it must be for me,” she said; “I'm quite sure it is
intended for me. I was at his office to-day, you see, to return him some
keepsake of his that I found in an old curiosity shop. Something with
his name on it that had been stolen from him and pawned. It was just a
trifle. You needn't go down, dear; I'll see him. It was I he asked for,
I'm sure; was it not, Morris?”
Morris was not quite sure; being such an old gentleman, he thought it
must be for Mr. Catherwaight he'd come.
Mr. Catherwaight was not greatly interested. He did not like to disturb
his after-dinner nap, and he settled back in his chair again and
refolded his hands.
“I hardly thought he could have come to see me,” he murmured, drowsily;
“though I used to see enough and more than enough of Lewis Lockwood
once, my dear,” he added with a smile, as he opened his eyes and nodded
before he shut them again. “That was before your mother and I were
engaged, and people did say that young Lockwood's chances at that time
were as good as mine. But they weren't, it seems. He was very attentive,
though; _very_ attentive.”
Miss Catherwaight stood startled and motionless at the door from which
she had turned.
“Attentive--to whom?” she asked quickly, and in a very low voice. “To my
mother?”
Mr. Catherwaight did not deign to open his eyes this time, but moved his
head uneasily as if he wished to be let alone.
“To your mother, of course, my child,” he answered; “of whom else was I
speaking?”
Miss Catherwaight went down the stairs to the drawing-room slowly, and
paused half-way to allow this new suggestion to settle in her mind.
There was something distasteful to her, something that seemed not
altogether unblamable, in a woman's having two men quarrel about her,
neither of whom was the woman's husband. And yet this girl of whom
Latimer had spoken must be her mother, and she, of course, could do no
wrong. It was very disquieting, and she went on down the rest of the way
with one hand resting heavily on the railing and with the other pressed
against her cheeks. She was greatly troubled. It now seemed to her very
sad indeed that these two one-time friends should live in the same city
and meet, as they must meet, and not recognize each other. She argued
that her mother must have been very young when it happened, or she would
have brought two such men together again. Her mother could not have
known, she told herself; she was not to blame. For she felt sure that
had she herself known of such an accident she would have done something,
said something, to make it right. And she was not half the woman her
mother had been, she was sure of that.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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