“Did it? I never knew anything about it. William came in one day and said: ‘I’ve bought a place in the shires. Go down there this afternoon.’ That was all. I was struck all of a heap when I saw it. And the housekeeper, who had stayed on to go over the inventory, drew herself up when she met me, stiff as stiff, and said to me, ‘I shall be glad if you will release me of my charge, madam. I have always lived with gentlefolks.’ Those were her very words, Kathleen. A fine set-up, glum-looking woman she was, dressed in black watered silk, and she went off the next morning, though we had offered her double her price to remain under us. That’s just, you know, what Gregson, the courier, said once; or rather, _he_ said he wouldn’t live with gentlefolks because they was always out o’ pocket.” Katherine moved restlessly: words rose to her lips which she repressed. “And when I go in the village,” continued her mother, “there’s nothing but black looks and shut doors, and the very geese on the little common screech at me. The rector’s civil, of course, because he’s an eye to the main chance, but he’s the only one; and I’m afeard it’s mostly because he wants your father to give him a peal of bells. They seem to think your father should pay the National Debt!” Katherine sighed. “Poor mother! _Que de couleuvres on vous fait avaler!_” “Don’t talk French, Kathleen, I can’t abide it,” said Mrs. Massarene with unusual acerbity. “When we first set foot in Kerosene City, a few planks on the mud as ’twas then, a little nasty Frenchman had an eating shop next ours and he undersold me in everything, and made dishes out of nothing, and such pastry--light as love! My best was lead beside it.” She continued to recall the culinary feats of her Gallic rival, whose superiority had filled her with a Gallophobia deathless and pitiless as that of Francesco Crispi; and her daughter’s thoughts wandered away from her to the low-lying white fields round Greater Thrope, and to the remembrance of the dark blue eyes which had met her own so frankly through the misty air. “Would you mind very much, mother,” she said at length, “if I did not appear while these people are here? I could go to Lady Mary’s or to Brighton.” Mrs. Massarene was startled and alarmed. “Oh, my dearie, no! Not on any account. Your father would never forgive it. You have been so much away; it has angered him so. And as for your views and your reasons he’d never see them, my dear, no more than a blind man can see a church clock. Pray don’t dream of it, child. People say it is so odd you went to India. They will think you have some skin-disease, or are light in your head, unless you are seen now at home.” Katherine sighed again.