“I know that.”
“And they will not take it in the spirit it is meant. They will probably regard it as an attempt to pay them off, though they will not refuse it on that account.”
“I can see that, and it can’t be helped.”
“I should advise you, Miss Grey, to put that idea out of your mind.”
Katherine shook her head. “You are quite right, I know, but I should like it done all the same.”
“They will grab at the money and abuse you all the more afterwards.”
“Well,” said Katherine, “let them if they like. We all have our own ways of enjoying ourselves. They were, after all, Mrs. Harfield’s only relatives, and though they despised her as a poor relation and paid no attention to her when she was alive, it seems to me unfair that they should be cut off with nothing.”
She carried her point, though the lawyer was still unwilling, and she presently went out into the streets of London with a comfortable assurance that she could spend money freely and make what plans she liked for the future. Her first action was to visit the establishment of a famous dressmaker.
A slim, elderly Frenchwoman, rather like a dreaming duchess, received her, and Katherine spoke with a certain naivete.
“I want, if I may, to put myself in your hands. I have been very poor all my life and know nothing about clothes, but now I have come into some money and want to look really well dressed.”
The Frenchwoman was charmed. She had an artist’s temperament, which had been soured earlier in the morning by a visit from an