It was too much trouble to correct her assumptions, and Katharine allowed her to go on. After all, her sympathy was genuine, if it was a little crudely expressed. "I shouldn't think any more about him, if I were you," continued Marion. "They're not worth it, any of them; go and get another, and snap your fingers at the first. You're not tied to one, as I am." "No," said Katharine, scalding herself with mouthfuls of boiling tea. "I'm not." "I know I would give anything to get rid of mine," said Marion sorrowfully. "May you never know the awful monotony of being engaged!" "I don't fancy I ever shall," observed Katharine. "Always the same writing on the breakfast table," sighed Marion; "always the same face on the back seat of the carriage; always the same photograph all over the house,--oh, it's maddening! You wouldn't be able to stand it for a day, Kitty!" "Perhaps not," said Katharine. "Then your engagement is publicly announced now?" "I should rather think so! I am tired of being congratulated by a lot of idiots, who don't even take the trouble to find out whether I want to be married or not. And then, the boys! Bobby is going to shoot himself, he says; but of course Bobby always says that. And Jack has gone to South Africa; I don't exactly know why, except that every one goes to South Africa when there isn't any particular reason for staying in town. And Tommy--you remember Tommy, don't you? He was my best boy for ever so long; I rather liked Tommy. Well, he has gone and married that stupid Ethel Humphreys, and he always said she _pinched_. I know why he did it, too. He was being objectionably serious, one day, and said he would do anything on earth for me; so I asked him to go and marry mamma, because then I should get eight hundred a year. And he didn't like it a bit; Tommy always was ridiculously hot-tempered. Oh, dear, I'm sick of it all! I believe you're the only person I know, who hasn't congratulated me." "Apparently, you do not consider yourself a subject for congratulation," said Katharine, smiling faintly. "Oh, you're not like all the others, and I should like to be congratulated by you. You would mean what you said, anyhow." "I certainly should," exclaimed Katharine. "How earnestly you said that! It's frightfully nice of you to care so much, though. I was telling Paul what a good sort you were, the other day, and he quite agreed." "Wasn't it rather dull for him?" "Oh, no, I'm sure it wasn't; he takes a tremendous interest in you; he says you are the cleverest woman he knows, and the pluckiest. He does, really!" "I have no doubt of it. He has always thought me clever and plucky," said Katharine. "Well, it's more than he thinks about me, anyhow," said Marion ruefully. "He doesn't think I am good for anything, except to play with." "And to fall in love with," added Katharine softly.