CHAPTER IX

Katharine disliked telling her mother about Cyril's misbehavior quite
as much as her father did, and for much the same reasons. They both
shrank, nervously, as people fear the report of a gun on the stage,
from all that would have to be said on this occasion. Katharine,
moreover, was unable to decide what she thought of Cyril's
misbehavior. As usual, she saw something which her father and mother
did not see, and the effect of that something was to suspend Cyril's
behavior in her mind without any qualification at all. They would
think whether it was good or bad; to her it was merely a thing that
had happened.

When Katharine reached the study, Mrs. Hilbery had already dipped her
pen in the ink.

"Katharine," she said, lifting it in the air, "I've just made out such
a queer, strange thing about your grandfather. I'm three years and six
months older than he was when he died. I couldn't very well have been
his mother, but I might have been his elder sister, and that seems to
me such a pleasant fancy. I'm going to start quite fresh this morning,
and get a lot done."

She began her sentence, at any rate, and Katharine sat down at her own
table, untied the bundle of old letters upon which she was working,
smoothed them out absent-mindedly, and began to decipher the faded
script. In a minute she looked across at her mother, to judge her