Certainly Kate was looking her best to-night--the colour in her face was absolutely brilliant; she did not often have such a mantle of crimson to add to her charms. Her eyes were very bright and very dark, and her lips were remarkably firm.
"There's something in the wind," thought Hunt; "she does not wear that mouth for nothing. What can it be?"
The uneasiness which visited him destroyed his appetite for the rest of the dinner.
"By George," he said to himself, "if she is going to come over me with the news of some impossible marriage, I'll--I'll oppose it tooth and nail."
But as Hunt thought of opposing the child so like himself in all her characteristics, he owned to himself that he would have a tough time before him.
Dessert was placed on the table, and the servants withdrew. The moment they had done so Hunt looked straight across at his daughter.
"Have it out, Katie," he said; "don't beat about the bush. What's up? what's wrong? Why are you wearing your mouth in that particular angle? I know you. You are up to mischief, Katie. But out with it, for any sake! Don't beat about the bush."
"It isn't what you think, father," replied Katherine.
"And how do you know what I think, miss?"
"You are imagining," said Katherine, and she gave a smile which was very sad, and which took on the instant all the hardness, and almost all the firmness, out of her mouth--"you are imagining that I am going to tell you that I love somebody better than you, dear old man, and that I am going to leave you for him. But that's not the case, daddy mine--that is by no means the case."
"Then nothing matters," said David Hunt--"nothing." He took out his large white silk handkerchief and mopped his forehead. "I got a bit of a fright," he said. "I will own it--I got a considerable bit of a fright. You don't wear that mouth for nothing."
"I wish you would leave my mouth alone, father. My lips must form themselves into any curves they like."
"They don't go down at the corners for nothing," said the obstinate old man.
"If they were down at the corners during dinner, they had good reason to be," she replied. "I am not going to do what you feared, but I am going to do something else you won't like."
"You are always doing things I don't like. You are at once my worry and my blessing. I don't like your going out so late in the evening to visit the slums; don't like your having those old women from the workhouse to tea once a week; I don't like your--"