For in his eyes she was still a child.

He paused so long over the book that Mrs.Cosham had time to look over his shoulder and ask her niece: "And have you settled upon a house yet, Katharine ?" This convinced him of the truth of the monstrous idea.

He looked up at once and said: "Yes, it's a difficult passage." His voice had changed so much, he spoke with such curtness and even with such contempt, that Mrs.Cosham looked at him fairly puzzled.

Happily she belonged to a generation which expected uncouthness in its men, and she merely felt convinced that this Mr.Denham was very, very clever.
She took back her Shakespeare, as Denham seemed to have no more to say, and secreted it once more about her person with the infinitely pathetic resignation of the old.
"Katharine's engaged to William Rodney," she said, by way of filling in the pause; "a very old friend of ours.

He has a wonderful knowledge of literature, too--wonderful." She nodded her head rather vaguely.