Her mother gave a little cry, not sharp for anyone else in the world, but very sharp indeed for Mrs. Trenchard. “You! Katherine—you! If it had been Millie!” They looked at one another then in silence. They were both of them conscious of an intensity of love that they had borne towards one another through the space of a great many years—a love that nothing else had ever approached. But it was an emotion that had always been expressed in the quietest terms. Both to Katherine and her mother demonstrations were unknown. Katherine felt now, at what promised to be, perhaps, the sharpest crisis that her life had yet experienced, an urgent desire to break through, to fling her arms round her mother, to beat down all barriers, to assure her that whatever emotion might come to her, nothing could touch their own perfect relationship. But the habits of years muffled everything in thick, thick wrappings—it was impossible to break through. “Your father is pleased?” said Mrs. Trenchard. “Yes,” answered Katherine. “He likes Philip. But we must wait a year.” “Your father has never told me anything. Never.” She got up slowly from the sofa. “He couldn’t have told you,” Katherine said eagerly. “He has only just known. I came straight to you from him.” Mrs. Trenchard now stood, looking rather lost, in the middle of her room; the shawl had slipped half from her shoulders, and she seemed, suddenly, an old woman. The vision of something helpless in her, as she stood there, stirred Katherine passionately. She took her mother into her arms, stroking her hair, kissing her cheeks and whispering to her: “Darling—darling—it doesn’t make any difference to us—it can’t—it can’t. Nothing can. Nothing.... Nothing!” Mrs. Trenchard kissed her daughter very quietly, remained in her embrace for a little, then drew herself away and went to her mirror. She tidied her hair, patted her dress, put some eau-de-Cologne on her handkerchief, laid the shawl carefully away in the drawer. “I must go down now. Father will want his tea. I’ll take the doll—I shan’t have another chance of finishing it.” She walked to the door, then, turning, said with an intensity that was amazing in its sudden vehemence and fire: “No one shall take you from me, Katherine. No one. Let him do what he likes. No one shall take you.” She did not appear an old woman, then, as she faced her daughter. Meanwhile, in the drawing-room, the family had already gathered together as though it were aware that something had occurred. Mr. Trenchard, Senior, surrounded by his rugs, his especial table, his silver snuff-box (he never took snuff in the drawing-room, but liked his box to be there), a case of spectacles, and the last number of ‘Blackwood’s Magazine’. Great Aunt Sarah, Aunt Aggie, Aunt Betty, and Millie. Millie, watching them, was, to her own immense surprise, sorry for them.