"Of course," Peter hastened to add, "as far as money goes, you know; you understand, dear, that your mother shall want nothing. But to rob her of the companionship of both daughters?" Peter rose and walked to the window. It needed some heroism, he thought, to put aside the idea of Hilda living with them; he tried to pride himself on the renunciation, while under the poor crust of self-approbation lurked jibing depths of consciousness. Heroism would not lie in renunciation, but in living with her. The cowardice of his own retreat left him horribly shaken. Katherine watched him from her chair, calmly. "But Hilda's work must cease at once," he said presently, finding a certain relief in decisive measures. "She won't show any false pride, I hope, about allowing me to put an end to it." "It would be like her," said Katherine, sliding a sympathetic gloom of voice over the hard reality of her conclusions; conclusions half angry, half sarcastic. Peter was dull after all. Katherine felt alarmed, humiliated, and amused, but she steeled herself inwardly to a calm contemplation of facts. She joined him at the window. "What a burden you have taken on your poor shoulders, Peter." Peter immediately put his arm around her waist, and, though Katherine felt a deeper humiliation, she saw that alarm was needless; a proof of Peter's superiority, a proof, too, of his stupidity; as her own most original and clever superiority was proved by the fact of her calm under humiliation. Could she accept that humiliation as the bitter drop in the cup of good things Peter had to offer her? Katherine asked herself the question; it was answered by another. Just how far did the humiliation go? Peter's infidelity might be mere shallow passion, _passagère;_ the fine part might be to feign blindness and help him out of it. _Attendons_ summed up Katherine's mental attitude at the moment. "Don't talk to me of burdens, dear Katherine," said Peter. "Don't try to spoil my humble little pleasure. If I can make you and yours happier, what more can I ask?" He looked at her with kind, tired eyes. "I won't thwart you, but Hilda will." "Hilda will find it difficult when we are married. That must be soon, Katherine." Katherine looked pensively out of the window. "We will see," she replied, with a pretty evasiveness.