Looking back on it now, Browne is obliged to confess that the whole scene was theatrical in the extreme. Madame Bernstein, on hearing the news, behaved with a most amiable eccentricity; she sprang from her chair, and, taking his hand in hers, pressed it to her heart. If her behaviour counted for anything, this would seem to have been the happiest moment of her life. In the middle of it all the sound of a light footstep reached them from the corridor outside.
"Hush!" said Madame Bernstein, holding up her finger in warning. "It is Katherine! I implore you not to tell her that I have said this to you."
"You may depend upon my not doing so," Browne answered.
An instant later the girl, whose happiness they appeared to be so anxious to promote, entered the room. Her surprise and confusion at finding Browne there may be better imagined than described. But if the position were embarrassing for her, how much more so was it for Browne! He stood before her like a schoolboy detected in a fault, and who waits to be told what his punishment will be.
"Monsieur Browne was kind enough to take pity on my loneliness," said Madame Bernstein, by way of explanation, but with a slight falter in her voice which told the young man that, although she wished him to think otherwise, she really stood in some awe of her companion. "We have had a most interesting discussion on modern French art. I had no idea that Monsieur Browne was so well acquainted with the subject."
"It is the one thing of all others in which I take the greatest possible interest," replied Browne, with corresponding gravity. But he dared not look at Katherine's face, for he knew she was regarding him with a perplexed and somewhat disappointed look, as if she were not quite certain whether he was telling the truth. She did not know how to account for his presence there, and in some vague way it frightened her. It was plain, at any rate, that she placed no sort of reliance in her guardian's somewhat far-fetched explanation.
Seeing that she was likely to be _de trop_, that lady made an excuse and left the room. After she had gone, and the door had closed behind her, things passed from bad to worse with the couple she had left behind. Browne knew exactly what he wanted to say, but he did not know how to say it. Katherine said nothing at all; she was waiting for him to make the first move.