"Why don't they light the gas?" complained the working gentlewomen, when they came downstairs to supper. And when Katharine explained that she had promised to light it herself and had forgotten to do so, they passed on their way, marvelling that any one with so little feeling should have her moments of abstraction like every one else. After they had all gone down, she had a restless fit, and paced up and down the landing until Polly Newland came out of the sick room, and stopped her. "You might choose another landing, if you want to do that," she said, crossly. "You've woke her up now; but you can come in if you like. She has just asked for you." Katharine followed her in, rather awkwardly, and sat down on the chair that was pointed out to her, and tried to think of something appropriate to say. It was difficult to know how to begin, when she looked round the room, and noted all the objects that seemed to have belonged to some distant period in her life, before the world had become so hard and cheerless. But Phyllis was looking the same as ever, except that she was rather white, and her hair was strangely tidy. She was the first to speak. "Hullo," she said. "I've been wanting to see you. What's the matter with you, child?" The incongruity of being asked by the invalid for the cause of her own malady did not immediately occur to Katharine. But the familiar tone of sympathy went straight to her heart, and she broke down completely. She had a dim notion that Polly remonstrated angrily, and that Polly was sent out of the room; and after that she was conscious of nothing except of the comfort of being able to cry undisturbed, until Phyllis said something about red eyes, and they joined in a spasmodic laugh. "Poor old girl, what have they been doing to you?" she asked. "Everything has been horrid," gasped Katharine. "And you were ill, and nobody understood, and oh, Phyllis!--I am a _prig_!" CHAPTER XVI Marion Keeley lay in an indolent attitude on the sofa by the window. Her mother was addressing circulars at the writing-table, with the anxious haste of the fashionable woman of business. Both of them looked as though the London season, which a royal wedding had prolonged this year, had been too much for them. "He is coming again to-night," said Marion, throwing down a letter she had been reading. Her tone was one of dissatisfaction. "I know," replied her mother. "I asked him to come." Marion made a gesture of impatience. "Don't you think," she said, "that you might occasionally, for the sake of variety, wait until his own inclination prompted him to come?" "I don't understand you," said Mrs. Keeley, absently. "I asked him because I wanted to make final arrangements with him about Lady Suffolk's drawing-room meeting, at which he has promised to speak to-morrow." "It seems to me," observed Marion sarcastically, "that it would save a lot of trouble if you were to marry him yourself."