about it; she simply didn't care. Katty, in spite of her frequent absences, for she was a popular visitor with a large circle of acquaintances, always came home full of an eager wish to learn all that had happened while she had been away.

Little by little, imperceptibly as regarded himself, the banker had fallen into the way of telling this woman, who had so oddly slipped back into his life, everything which concerned and interested himself, every detail of his business, and even, which he had no right to do, the secrets of his clients.

But to this entire confidence there was one outstanding exception. Godfrey Pavely never discussed with Katty Winslow his relations with his wife. Laura's attitude to himself caused him, even now, sharp, almost intolerable, humiliation. Only to Mrs. Tropenell did he ever say a word of his resentment and soreness--and that only because she had been the unwilling confidant of both husband and wife during that early time in their married life when the struggle between Godfrey and Laura had been, if almost wordless, at its sharpest and bitterest.

On one occasion, and on one only, when with Katty Winslow, had Pavely broken his guarded silence. He had been talking, in a way which at once fascinated and tantalized Katty, of his growing wealth, and suddenly he had said something as to his having no son to inherit his fortune. "It's odd to think that some day there will come along a man, a stranger to me, who will benefit by everything I now do----" and as she had looked up at him, at a loss for his meaning, he had gone on, slowly, "I mean the man whom Mrs. Tropenell and Laura between them will select for my girl's husband."

Katty, looking at him very straight out of her bright brown eyes, had exclaimed, "You may have a son yet, Godfrey!"

She had been startled by the look of pain, of rage, and of humiliation that had come into his sulky, obstinate-looking face, as he answered shortly, "I think that's very unlikely."

Had Godfrey Pavely been a more imaginative man, he would probably by now have come to regret, with a deep, voiceless regret, that he had not married Katty instead of Laura--but being the manner of man he was, he had, so far, done nothing of the sort. And yet? And yet, at one time, say fifteen years ago, he had very nearly married Katty. It was a fact which even now he would have denied, but which she never forgot.

In those days Godfrey Pavely had been a priggish, self-important 

 Prev. P 42/232 next