“Well--come and see me again soon, and we’ll talk it over. You’ll have to consider it just as a--I don’t know exactly how to put it--a sort of formal betrothal between yourselves, such as they used to have in old times. And I suppose I’m the head of the family, though your grandfather is older than I am. Anyhow, you must consider it as though you were solemnly engaged, with the approval of the head of the family, and as though you were to be married, say, next year. Can you do that? Can you make him look at it in that light, child?” “I’ll try, since there’s really nothing else to be done. But oh, uncle Robert, I wish I’d come before. You’ve been so kind! Why did it rain yesterday--oh, why did it rain?” CHAPTER XVII. When Katharine left Robert Lauderdale’s house that morning, she felt that trouble had begun and was not to cease for a long time. She had entered her uncle’s library full of hope, sure of success and believing that John Ralston’s future depended only upon the rich man’s good will and good word. She went out fully convinced at last that he must take one or the other of the much-despised chances he had neglected and forthwith do the best he could with it. She thought it was very hard, but she understood old Lauderdale’s clear statement and she saw that there was no other way. She sympathized deeply with John in his dislike of the daily drudgery, for which it was quite true that he was little fitted by nature or training. But she did her best to analyze that unfitness, so as to try and discover some gift or quality to balance it and neutralize it. And her first impulse was not to find him at once and tell him what had happened, but rather to put off the evil moment in which she must tell him the truth. This was the first sign of weakness which she had exhibited since that Monday afternoon on which she had persuaded him to take the decisive step. She turned into Madison Avenue as soon as she could, for the sake of the quiet. The morning sun shone full in her eyes as she began to make her way southwards, and she was glad of the warmth, for she felt cold and inwardly chilled in mind and body. She had walked far, but she still walked on, disliking the thought of being penned in with a dozen or more of unsympathizing individuals for twenty minutes in a horse-car. Moreover, she instinctively wished to tire herself, as though to bring down her bodily energy to the low ebb at which her mental activity seemed to be stagnating. Strong people will understand that desire to balance mind and body.