“Then there’s Katherine. Katherine is the clue to the house—know Katherine and you know the family. But then Katherine is not easy to know. She is more friendly than any of them—and she is farther away. Very quiet with all the calm security of someone who knows that there are many important things to be done and that you will never be allowed, however insistent you may be, to interfere with those things. The family depends entirely upon her and she lives for the family. Nor is she so limited as that might seem to make her. She keeps, I am sure, a great many things down lest they should interfere, but they are all there—those things. Meanwhile she is cheerful, friendly, busy, very, very quiet—and distant—miles. Does she like me? I don’t know. She listens to all that I have to say. She has imagination and humour. And sometimes when I think that I have impressed her by what I have said I look up and catch a glimpse of her smiling eyes, as though she thought me, in spite of all my wisdom, the most awful fool. The family do more than depend upon her—they adore her. There is no kind of doubt—they adore her. She alone in all the world awakes her father’s selfish heart, stirs her mother’s sluggish imagination, reassures her brother’s terrified soul. They love her for the things that she does for them. They are all—save perhaps Henry—selfish in their affection. But then so are the rest of us, are we not? You, Paul, and I, at any rate.... “And, all this time, I have said nothing to you about the guardians of the House’s honour. Already, they view me with intense suspicion. There are two of them, both very old. An aged, aged man, bitter and sharp and shining like a glass figure, and his sister, as aged as he. They are, both of them, deaf and the only things truly alive about them are their eyes. But with these they watch everything, and above all, they watch me. They distrust me, profoundly, their eyes never leave me. They allow me to make no advances to them. They cannot imagine why I have been admitted—they will, I am sure, take steps to turn me out very soon. It is as though I were a spy in a hostile country. And yet they all press me to stay—all of them. They seem to like to have me. What I have to tell them interests them and they are pleased, too, to be hospitable in a large and comfortable manner. Trenchard was deeply attached to my father and speaks of him to me with an emotion surprising in so selfish a man. They like me to stay and yet, Paul, with it all I tell you that I am strangely frightened. Of what? Of whom?... I have no idea. Isn’t it simply that the change from Russia and, perhaps, also Anna is so abrupt that it is startling? Anna and Miss Trenchard—there’s a contrast for you! And I’m at the mercy—you know, of anyone—you have always said it and it _is_ so—most unhappily. Tell Anna from me that I am writing.