Jane had seen the matter very differently from the first. She was in close touch with the Lexingtons and all their female friends and relatives; she was imbued with their views and feelings, and was unremitting in her efforts to pass them on to me. At least she made me understand, even if I could not entirely share, what was felt at female headquarters; but I was not going to let her see that. I did not want to take sides in the matter, and had no intention of saying anything that Jane could quote either to Lady Lexington or to Miss Constantine herself. “What is expected of her?” I asked carelessly, taking my pipe out of my mouth. “Nobody exactly presses her--well, there’s nobody who has the right--but of course she feels it herself,” Jane explained. She knitted her brows and added, “It must be overwhelming.” “Then why in the world doesn’t she do it?” I asked. Here I was, I admit, being aggravating, in the vulgar sense of that word. For Jane’s demeanour hinted at the weightiest, the most disturbing reasons, and I had in my heart very little doubt about what they were. “Can’t you see for yourself?” she snapped back pettishly. “You were dining there last night--have you no eyes?” Thus adjured--and really Jane’s scorn is sometimes a little hard to bear--I set myself to recover the impressions of the dinner-party. The scene came back easily enough. I remembered that Katharine Constantine and Valentine Hare had once more been sent in together, and had once more sat side by side. I remembered also that Lady Lexington had once more whispered to me, when I arrived, that the affair was “all but settled,” and had once more said nothing about it when I left. I remembered watching the pair closely. True, I was placed, as a friend of the family, between Miss Boots, the Lexingtons’ ex-governess, and Mr Sharples, Lady Lexington’s latest curate (she always has one in tow; some of the earlier ones are now in a fair way to achieve gaiters), so that there was nothing very likely to distract my attention from the centre of interest. But I should have watched them, anyhow. Who could be better to watch? Katharine, with her positive incisive beauty (there was nothing of the elusive about her; some may prefer a touch of it); the assurance of manner which her beauty gave, and the consciousness of her thousands enhanced; her instinctive assumption of being, of being most indisputably, Somebody; and to-night, as it seemed, a new air about her, watchful, expectant, and telling of excitement, even if it stopped short of nervousness--Katharine, with all this, had a claim to attention not seriously challenged by Miss Boots’ schoolroom reminiscences, or Mr Sharples’ views on Church questions of the day.