The arrangement between Kate and Eugene was, as a family arrangement, above perfection.

Mrs.Welman was not rich, and like people who are not rich, she highly esteemed riches; like most women, she looked with favor on Eugene; the fact of Kate having some money seemed to her, as it does to most people, a reason for her marrying somebody who had more, instead of aiding in the beneficent work of a more equal distribution of wealth.

But Kate was undeniably willful.

She treated her engagement, indeed, as an absolutely binding and unbreakable tie--a fact so conclusively accomplished that it could almost be ignored.

But she received any suggestion of a possible excess in her graciousness toward Haddington and her acceptance of his society, as at once a folly and an insult; and as she was of age and paid half the bills, all means of suasion were conspicuously lacking.