And thus the day went on. At dinner there was perforce a little time during which the trio were together; but then the servants were present, making any intimate conversation impossible, and the talk that was was entirely about the dishes, which did not please either Sir Charles or his wife. Poor Mrs. Simmons, anxious to please, had with great care compounded what she called and thought to be a curry, upon which both of them looked with disgust. “Take it away,” they both said, after a contemptuous examination of the dish, turning over its contents with the end of a fork, one after the other. “Kate, why do you let that woman try things she knows nothing about?” said Stella severely. “But you never care what you eat, and you think that’s fine, I know. Old Simmons never could do much but what English people call roast and boil--what any savage could do! and you’ve kept her on all these years! I suppose you have eaten meekly whatever she chose to set before you ever since I went away.” “I think,” said Sir Charles in his moustache, “if I am to be here much there will certainly have to be a change in the cook.” “You can do what you please, Stella--as soon as everything is settled,” Katherine said. Her sister had taken her place without any question at the head of the table; and Somers, perhaps unconsciously, had placed himself opposite. Katherine had taken with some surprise and a momentary hesitation a seat at the side, as if she were their guest--which indeed she was, she said to herself. But she had never occupied that place before; even in the time of Stella’s undoubted ascendancy, Katherine had always sat at the head of the table. She felt this as one feels the minor pricks of one’s great troubles. After dinner, when she had calculated upon having time for her explanation, Sir Charles took out his cigar case before the servants had left the room. Stella interrupted him with a little scream. “Oh, Charles, Kate isn’t used to smoke! She will be thinking of her curtains and all sorts of things.” “If Kate objects, of course,” he said, cutting the end off his cigar and looking up from the operation. Katherine objected, as many women do, not to the cigar but to the disrespect. She said, “Stella is mistress. I take no authority upon me,” with as easy an air as she could assume.