As for Katharine, this was the third blow she had received within five minutes. The fact that she was in a measure prepared for it had not diminished its force. It had the effect, however, of quenching her rising anger instead of further inflaming it, as young Van De Water’s foolish remarks had done. She begun to feel that she had a real calamity to face--something against which mere anger would have no effect. She heard every word Crowdie said, and each struck her with cruel precision in the same aching spot. But she drew herself up proudly as she came between the two men. There was something almost queenly in the quiet dignity with which she affected to ignore what she had heard, even trying to give her white lips the shadow of a civil smile as she spoke. “Mr. Crowdie, I wish to speak to Hamilton a moment--you don’t mind, do you?” Crowdie looked at her with undisguised amazement and admiration. He uttered some polite but half inaudible words and moved away, glad, perhaps, to get out of the sphere of Bright’s invective. Bright understood very well that Katharine had heard, and admired her calmness almost as much as Crowdie did, though he did not know as much as the latter concerning Katharine’s relations with Ralston. Hester Crowdie, who told her husband everything, had told him most of what Katharine had confided to her, not considering it a betrayal of confidence, because she trusted him implicitly. No day of disenchantment had yet come for her. “Won’t you come and sit down?” asked Bright, rather anxiously. “There’s a corner there.” “Yes,” said Katharine, moving in the direction of the vacant seats. “I’m afraid you heard what that brute said,” Bright remarked before they had reached the place. “If I’d seen you coming--” “It wouldn’t have made any difference,” Katharine answered. Then they sat down side by side. “It’s much too serious a matter to be angry about,” she continued, settling herself and looking at his face, and feeling that it was a relief to see a pair of honest blue eyes at last. “That’s why I come to you. It happened to you, it seems. Everybody is talking about it, and I have some right to know--” She hesitated and then continued. “He’s a near relation and all that, of course, and whatever he does makes a difference to us all--my mother has heard, too--I’m sure Mr. Crowdie told her. Didn’t he?” “I believe so,” answered Bright. “He’s just like a--oh, well! I’ll swear at him when I’m alone.” “I’m glad you’re angry with him,” said Katharine, and her eyes flashed a little. “It’s so mean! But that’s not the question. I want to know from your own lips what happened--and why he’s not here. I have a right to know because--because we were going to dance the cotillion together--and besides--” She hesitated again, and stopped altogether this time.