She early perceived that her parents looked to her for assistance in their ambitions, but she was obdurate in giving them none; they called her undutiful, and undutiful she might be; but she felt that she would rather be guilty of any offence whatever than become degraded and servile. So extreme was her resistance on this point that one evening it brought an open rupture with her father, and that exile to India of which Mrs. Massarene had not told all the truth when exhibiting Dalont’s bust of her daughter. The winter before their acquaintance with Lady Kenilworth the Massarenes had been at Cannes and Monte Carlo, following that smart world of which they still vainly pined to enter the arena. They had not as yet found their guide, philosopher, and friend in the fair mother of Jack and Boo, and William Massarene was beginning to fear that gold was not the all-potent solvent he had believed it. But a very high personage, whose notice would have had power to lift them at once into the empyrean was also at Cannes at that period, and the white-rose skin and admirable form of Katherine Massarene attracted him, and he desired that she should be presented to him. Very unwillingly, very coldly, she had submitted to her fate at a public ball to which she had been taken. The great gentleman asked her to waltz. Neither his age nor his figure were suited to the dance, but women were nevertheless enchanted to be embraced by him in its giddy gyrations. Katherine excused herself and said that she did not waltz. The great gentleman was annoyed but attracted; he sat out the dance by her side on a couch in a little shady corner under palm trees such as he especially favored. But he made very little way with her; she was chilly, reserved, respectful. “Take your respect to the devil,” thought the misunderstood prince. “Why are you so very unkind to me, Miss Massarene?” he said in a joking fashion, which would have convulsed with joy every other women in those rooms. “There can be no question of unkindness from me to yourself, sir,” she replied more distantly still, and she looked him straight in the eyes: he was not used to being looked at thus. He had drunk more wine than was good for him; he tried to take her hand, his breath was hot upon her shoulder. “I’ll dine with your father if _you_ ask me,” he murmured. A whole world of suggestion was in the simple phrase. Katherine Massarene drew her hand away. “Sir,” she said very distinctly; “my father was a cowherd and my mother a dairy-woman. I do not know why you should do them the honor to dine with them, sir, merely because they earned money in America!” Her companion had never received such a “facer” in all his fifty years of life. Like his own speech it suggested innumerable things. He grew very red and his glassy eyes became very sullen. He was silent for a few moments. Then he rose and offered her his arm.