“Jack--dear--aren’t you going to forgive me?” she asked, in a still lower tone than before. Ralston glanced up and down the table, man-like, to see whether they were watched. But no one was paying any attention to them. Hamilton Bright was looking away, just then. “Why didn’t you answer my letter?” asked John, at last, but he could not disguise the bitterness of his voice. “I only--it only came--that is--it was this evening, when I was all dressed to come here.” John could not control his expression any longer, and his lip bent contemptuously, in spite of himself. “It was mailed very early this morning, with a special delivery stamp,” he said, coldly. “Yes, it reached the house--but--oh, Jack! How can I explain, with all these people?” “It wouldn’t be easy without the people,” he answered. “Nobody hears what we’re saying.” Katharine was silent for a moment, and looked at her plate. In a lover’s quarrel, the man has the advantage, if it takes place in the midst of acquaintances who may see what is happening. He is stronger and, as a rule, cooler, though rarely, at heart, so cold. A woman, to be persuasive, must be more or less demonstrative, and demonstrativeness is visible to others, even from a great distance. Katharine did not belittle the hardness of what she had to do in so far as she reckoned the odds at all. She loved John too well, and knew again that she loved him; and she understood fully how she had injured him, if not how much she had hurt him. She was suffering herself, too, and greatly--much more than she had suffered so long as her anger had lasted, for she knew, too late, that she should have believed in him when others did not, rather than when all were for him and with him, so that she was the very last to take his part. But it was hard, and she tried to think that she had some justification.