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 RELATIONAL
COMMUNICATION
An Interactional Perspective to the Study of Process and Form

Edited by

L. Edna Rogers • Valentin Escudero

 RELATIONAL
COMMUNICATION
 LEA’s Series on Personal Relationships
Steve Duck, Series Editor

Bennett · Time and Intimacy: A New Science of Personal Relationships

Canary/Dainton · Maintaining Relationships Through Communication:

Relational, Contextual, and Cultural Variations

Christopher · To Dance the Dance: A Symbolic Interactional Exploration

of Premarital Sexuality

Goodwin/Cramer · Inappropriate Relationships: The Unconventional, the

Disapproved, and the Forbidden

Honeycutt/Cantrill · Cognition, Communication, and Romantic

Relationships

Miller/Alberts/Hecht/Trost/Krizek · Adolescent Relationships and Drug

Use

Monsour · Women and Men as Friends: Relationships Across the Life

Span in the 21st Century

Rogers/Escudero · Relational Communication: An Interactional

Perspective to the Study of Process and Form
 RELATIONAL
COMMUNICATION
An Interactional Perspective
to the Study
of Process and Form

Edited by

L. Edna Rogers
University of Utah

Valentín Escudero
University of La Coruña

LAWRENCE ERLBAUM ASSOCIATES, PUBLISHERS

2004 Mahwah, New Jersey London
Copyright Ó 2004 by Lawrence Erlbaum Associates, Inc.
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in
any form, by photostat, microform, retrieval system, or any other
means, without the prior written permission of the publisher.

Lawrence Erlbaum Associates, Inc., Publishers

10 Industrial Avenue
Mahwah, New Jersey 07430

Cover Art: “Awakening” by Carl B. Gacono, Ph.D., Austin, Texas

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Relational communication : an interactional perspective to the study of process and form /

edited by L. Edna Rogers, Valentín Escudero.
p. cm. — (LEA’s series on personal relationships)
Includes bibliographical references and indexes.
ISBN 0-8058-3712-4 (cloth : alk. paper)
1. Interpersonal relations. 2. Interpersonal communication. 3. Interpersonal
communication—Research. I. Rogers, Lilian Edna, 1933– II. Escudero, Valentín, 1961–
III. Series.

HM1106.R375 2004
302—dc22 2003060163
CIP

Books published by Lawrence Erlbaum Associates are printed on acid-free paper,

and their bindings are chosen for strength and durability.

Printed in the United States of America

10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1
 Contents

Series Foreword vii

Steve Duck

Foreword ix
Janet Beavin Bavelas

Preface xiii

About the Authors xvii

PART I: RELATIONAL COMMUNICATION PERSPECTIVE

1 Theoretical Foundations 3
L. Edna Rogers and Valentín Escudero

2 Observing Relational Communication 23

Valentín Escudero and L. Edna Rogers

3 Analyzing Relational Communication 51

Valentín Escudero and L. Edna Rogers

PART II: RELATIONAL COMMUNICATION RESEARCH CONTEXTS

4 Relational Communication Patterns in Marital Interaction 83

L. Edna Rogers and Valentín Escudero

v
vi CONTENTS

5 From Dyads to Triads, and Beyond: Relational Control

in Individual and Family Therapy 103
Laurie Heatherington and Myrna L. Friedlander

6 Relational Research in Brief Family Therapy:

Clinical Implications 131
José Luis Rodríguez-Arias

7 Expressed Emotion and Interpersonal Control

in Families of Persons With Mental Illness 149
Anne K. Wuerker

8 Relational Control in Physician–Patient Interaction 179

Denise Wigginton Cecil and Marlene M. von Friederichs-Fitzwater

9 Organizational Relational Control Research:

Problems and Possibilities 197
Gail T. Fairhurst

PART III: REFLECTIONS ON THE RELATIONAL PERSPECTIVE

10 Overview and Future Directions 219

L. Edna Rogers and Valentín Escudero

Author Index 237

Subject Index 245

 Series Foreword

Steve Duck, Series Editor

University of Iowa

This series from Lawrence Erlbaum is intended to review the progress in

the academic work on relationships with respect to a broad array of issues
and to do so in an accessible manner that also illustrates its practical value.
The LEA series includes books intended to pass on the accumulated schol-
arship to the next generation of students and to those who deal with rela-
tionship issues in the broader world beyond the academy. The series thus
not only comprises monographs and other academic resources exemplify-
ing the multidisciplinary nature of this area, but also, in the future, text-
books suitable for use in the growing numbers of courses on relationships.
The series has the goal of providing a comprehensive and current sur-
vey of theory and research in personal relationship through the careful
analysis of the problems encountered and solved in research, yet it also
considers the systematic application of that work in a practical context.
These resources not only are intended to be comprehensive assessments
of progress on particular “hot” and relevant topics, but will be significant in-
fluences on the future directions and development of the study of personal
relationships. Although each volume is focused and centered, authors all
attempt to place the respective topics in the broader context of other re-
search on relationships and within a range of wider disciplinary traditions.
The series already offers incisive and forward-looking reviews and also
demonstrates the broader theoretical implications of relationships for the
range of disciplines from which the research originates. Present and future
volumes include original studies, reviews of relevant theory and research,

vii
viii SERIES FOREWORD

and new theories oriented toward the understanding of personal relation-

ships both in themselves and within the context of broader theories of fam-
ily process, social psychology, and communication.
Reflecting the diverse composition of personal relationship study, read-
ers in numerous disciplines—social psychology, communication, sociology,
family studies, developmental psychology, clinical psychology, personality,
counseling, women’s studies, gerontology, and others—will find valuable
and insightful perspectives in the series.
Apart from the academic scholars who research the dynamics and proc-
esses of relationships, there are many other people whose work takes them
up against the operation of relationships in the real world. For such people
as nurses, the police, teachers, therapists, lawyers, drug and alcohol coun-
selors, marital counselors, and those who take care of the elderly, a num-
ber of issues routinely arise concerning the ways in which relationships af-
fect the people whom they serve. Examples are the role of loneliness in
illness and the ways to circumvent it, the complex impact of family and
peer relationships upon a drug-dependent’s attempts to give up the drug,
the role of playground unpopularity on a child’s learning, the issues in-
volved in dealing with the relational side of chronic illness, the manage-
ment of conflict in marriage, the establishment of good rapport between
physicians and seriously ill patients, the support of the bereaved, and the
correction of violent styles of behavior in dating or marriage. Each of these
is a problem that may confront some of the aforementioned professionals
as part of their daily concerns and each demonstrates the far-reaching influ-
ences of relationship processes on much else in life that is presently theo-
rized independently of relationship considerations.
The present volume is a good example of the series’ concerns, as it at-
tends to a particular approach to relationships that has been systematically
outlined and developed over a number of years by a group of dedicated re-
searchers who deal comprehensively with the approach and demonstrate
its potential. The theoretical perspective of the approach is well developed
in the opening chapter and the methods that support the approach are
clearly depicted in later chapters, some dedicated to the overall approach
and some depicting its specific application to areas such as marital relation-
ships or the therapeutic interactions where it is particularly useful, such as
work with families or in organizations.
The strength of systematic research within a particular paradigm in ap-
proaching relationships is one of the ways in which research can contribute
substantially to an understanding of relationship processes. For theorists,
therapists, and the rest of us, this theme is of immense significance and the
present collection of thinking on the topic represents one of the best collec-
tions to date.
 Foreword

Janet Beavin Bavelas

University of Victoria

With this book, Rogers and Escudero have provided the field of relational
communication with its first full primary resource, that is, a single, compre-
hensive text covering the past, present, and promising future of the rela-
tional communication approach to the study of relationship. Even readers
who work in the field may be surprised by the wide range of relationships
and contexts appearing in the studies that are included and integrated
here, from organizational to medical to counseling settings.
Because of my particular background and involvement, I would also like
to emphasize the unique balance of continuity and change in this program
of research. The fundamental ideas and principles that gave rise to rela-
tional communication research are preserved here, not by rigid or literal
repetition, but instead by growth and development. The best way to honor
the past is to select and remain true to its most promising ideas while at the
same time transforming them in fruitful ways.

PAST, PRESENT, AND FUTURE

The present book reflects an enduring commitment to three crucial ele-

ments introduced by Bateson’s Naven in 1936. These contributions of the
original work remain novel today and hold great promise for the future of
the field. The first and most obvious continuity is a focus on the interaction
patterns Bateson discovered and called symmetrical (based on similarity or

ix
x FOREWORD

mirroring) and complementary (based on interdependent differences). Pri-

marily because of the long-term program of research summarized here,
these relational terms have become not only familiar but highly useful for
the study of interaction in many diverse settings. Moreover, new dimen-
sions have been added and refined, which should encourage young re-
searchers to carry on even further.
Second and even more important is the fact that these relational terms
have remained firmly located in the observation of moment-by-moment in-
teraction. Thus, like Bateson (1936) when he described “systems of relation-
ship” (p. 176), these contemporary researchers are not making global or
vague inferences (much less relying on what individuals report about their
relationships). Instead, relational communication researchers derive gener-
alizations by observing the specific, sequential reactions of one individual
to another, and the theory and terminology remain firmly anchored at this
immediate level of interaction. This firm anchoring is one that I find most in-
tellectually and aesthetically satisfying. In my view, an inductive, bottom-up
(and thus well grounded) progress from data to abstraction is the essence
of the scientific approach, rather than the deductive, top-down approach
that characterizes so much of social science—and is often premature.
The third crucial element in the work described here could easily be
overlooked, in part because of the infelicitous and forgettable term
Bateson originally chose to describe it: schismogenesis, which is “a proc-
ess of differentiation in the norms of individual behavior resulting from
cumulative interaction between individuals” (Watzlawick, Beavin, & Jack-
son, 1967, p. 67, italics omitted). Yet in many ways this is the most im-
portant proposition, because it still goes against the grain of typical con-
temporary work on social interaction (including many “relationship”
studies). As Rogers and Escudero point out, Bateson’s approach was fun-
damentally relational, not individualistic. Indeed, when one re-reads the
definition of schismogenesis, it is clear that Bateson was saying that the
behaviors of individuals derived from the interaction—not the reverse.
Yet, ironically, the individual remains a focus and basic unit in many con-
temporary studies of social interaction, often because of a misinterpreta-
tion of the principle of reductionism, which assumes that social interac-
tion can be additively derived from individual behaviors or even self-
reports (Bavelas, in press). In my view, the best way to learn what rela-
tional ultimately means is to do truly relational research.
Thus, this collection has not only procedural but broad heuristic value
that can take the study of relationships beyond the study of individual ac-
tions or self-reports. Too often, 20th-century communication and research
remained shaped by a 19th-century psychology of individuals. It is timely to
begin the 21st century with a clearly realized vision of an alternative.
FOREWORD xi

REFERENCES

Bateson, G. (1936). Naven. Cambridge, England: Cambridge University Press.

Bavelas, J. B. (in press). The two solitudes: Reconciling social psychology and language and so-
cial interaction. In K. Fitch & R. Saunders (Eds.), Handbook of language and social interaction.
Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates.
Watzlawick, P., Beavin, J., & Jackson, D. D. (1967). Pragmatics of human communication. New York:
Norton.
 Preface

The study of relationships has long held a fascination for scholars across
the social sciences, and this is increasingly so in the area of interpersonal
studies. In recent years, not only have relationships become a prominent
focus of study, but there is also a growing recognition of the intrinsic, inter-
relatedness of communication and relationships, such that relationships
are seen as being creatively performed and shaped through the dynamic in-
terplay of the members’ communicative processes. As the title of the book
indicates, the study of process and form is central to the relational commu-
nication perspective for understanding interpersonal relationships. Thus, a
primary focus and theme of the present volume centers on the interactive,
constitutive nature of communication as it impacts our relational lives.
In the development of the relational communication perspective, the in-
terconnection between communication and relationships has been a basic
premise. From the beginning, the goal of this approach to the study of rela-
tionships was to focus on the formative, relational level qualities of the
communicative process of interrelating with others, guided by the proposi-
tion that the mutually produced, interactional patterns of relationships “do
not lie within individual interactors, but rather exist between them” (Rogers
& Farace, 1975, p. 222). As later expressed by Sigman (1988), in emphasizing
the consequentiality of communication, “A relationship is, thus, not an en-
tity from which communication emanates, but a location in the ongoing be-
havioral stream. It is communication that produces and sustains a relation-
ship” (p. 52).

xiii
xiv PREFACE

To clarify the relational position, it is important to note that it does not

negate the study of the interactor, but rather provides a different locus of
attention. It represents a conceptual shift in thinking from the study of ac-
tion to the study of interaction, from the study of individual members to the
study of their jointly constructed relationship. The relational communica-
tion perspective recognizes the importance of the members’ actions, inter-
pretations, cognitive meanings and emotions, and the insights they provide,
but it represents a different focus of analysis, with the potential of differing
levels of analysis lending a more comprehensive view of interpersonal rela-
tions. Given the different approaches for studying relationships, note that
relational communication is used here as it was originally to refer to the
perspective taken in this book.
In the field of communication in the 1960s, it was a time of waning satis-
faction with the traditional, monadic models of communication and in turn,
a time of searching for more process-oriented, system-based models. Fortu-
nately, the influential writings of the members of the Palo Alto Mental Re-
search Institution articulating the interactional view of communication ap-
peared in print during this time. In particular, the work of Sluzki and Beavin
(1965) and Watzlawick, Beavin, and Jackson (1967) opened the window of
ideas emphasizing process, pattern, and context that laid the foundation for
the relational communication approach, the development of the interaction
coding protocol, and the subsequent program of collaborative research.
From these beginnings, the relation communication paradigm forged a
network of scholars and research efforts that over time has resulted in a cu-
mulative series of cross-discipline and cross-cultural relationship studies. In
view of these multiple lines of relational research, we felt it was time to
bring these research efforts together into one volume. Thus, although the
relational perspective has generated notable research attention, both
within and outside the communication discipline and the United States, un-
til now no single organizing text on the perspective existed. The goal of the
present volume is to fill this void by offering a comprehensive treatment of
the relational communication perspective and its research application.
In planning this project, our main considerations were to give a full and
accessible reading on the perspective’s conceptual and methodological ap-
proach, to draw together in one resource a review of the major programs of
relational communication research, along with suggested future directions.
Furthermore, by including specific procedural descriptions and illustrative
examples, it was also our attempt to provide a practical guide for those in-
terested in carrying out this type of research. In line with these concerns,
the content of the book is organized into three major parts, with each part
designed to provide a systematic unfolding of the relational communication
perspective. Part I of the book opens with a discussion of the theoretical
foundation and epistemological grounding of the perspective, first by pre-
PREFACE xv

senting a contextual, historical backdrop to relational thinking and second,

by giving a closer description of the conceptual evolution of ideas and influ-
ences on the development of the perspective. The discussion then moves
to the observational research methods involved in applying the perspec-
tive’s interactional approach. Detailed descriptions of the relational coding
system, coding procedures, reliability and validity, and related issues are
followed by a discussion of the techniques for describing and analyzing in-
teraction data and relational level patterns, based on the application of se-
quential data analysis procedures.
Part II presents a set of programmatic research exemplars that describe
the application of the relational communication approach in different rela-
tional contexts, from marital to organizational settings. Each of the chap-
ters in this section are written by prominent researchers in their field who
have been engaged in sustained programs of relational research. Through
their contributions, the conceptual and methodological aspects of the per-
spective come alive; in addition, the analytical procedures and extensions
described in these research efforts lend further to the development and
utility of the research perspective.
Part III offers a reflective overview of the research perspective. In this fi-
nal section of the text, the contributions and challenges of the relational ap-
proach are considered with a view toward future research directions for ex-
panding this approach.
With the completion of this volume, we are particularly indebted to the
authors of the contributed chapters whose research forms an essential and
substantive part of the book. We also wish to express our intellectual in-
debtedness to Janet Bavelas, and our appreciation for her willingness to
write the foreword to the book. In moving this volume to publication, the
generous support and editorial guidance of Linda Bathgate are most genu-
inely and warmly acknowledged. We extend our appreciation to Vincen
Quera for his analytical consultation. In additional, the support provided by
the research grants from each of our universities, the University of Utah
and the Universidad de La Coruña, for the completion of this volume is
gratefully acknowledged.

REFERENCES
Rogers, L. E., & Farace, R. V. (1975). Analysis of relational communication in dyads: New mea-
surement procedures. Human Communication Research, 1, 222–239.
Sigman, S. J. (1998). Relationships and communication: A social communication and strongly
consequential view. In R. L. Conville & L. E. Rogers (Eds.), The meaning of “relationship” in in-
terpersonal communication (pp. 47–67). Westport, CT: Praeger.
Sluzki, C. E., & Beavin, J. (1965). Simetria y complementaridad: Una definicion operacional y una
tipologia de parejas. Acta Psiquiatrica y Psicologica de America Latina, 11, 321–330.
Watzlawick, P., Beavin, J., & Jackson, D. (1967). Pragmatics of human communication. New York:
Norton.
 About the Authors

Janet Beavin Bavelas (PhD, Stanford University) is Professor of Psychol-

ogy at the University of Victoria. She has authored or coauthored three
books, including Pragmatics of Human Communication (Norton, 1967) and
Equivocal Communication (Sage, 1990), and numerous articles and chapters,
primarily on interpersonal communication and research methods. She was
previously a research associate at the Mental Research Institute in Palo
Alto, California.

Denise Wigginton Cecil (PhD, University of Utah) has held research and
teaching positions at Wichita State University. The areas of health communi-
cation and physician-patient interaction represent her primary research in-
terests. Her research has been published in communication and medical
journals. She is currently an instructor at Flathead Valley Community College
in Kalispell, Montana, and a health communication research consultant.

Valentín Escudero (Doctorate, University of Santiago) is Professor of Psy-

chology and Director of the Family Intervention Masters Program at the Uni-
versity of La Coruña (Spain). His research interests focus on interaction anal-
ysis, family communication systems, and family therapy process. His work
has been published in European and international journals in the areas of
counseling, family therapy, marital interaction, and research methods.

Gail T. Fairhurst (PhD, University of Oregon) is Professor of Communica-

tion at the University of Cincinnati. Her research interests include organiza-

xvii
xviii ABOUT THE AUTHORS

tional leadership, lanaguage analysis, and downsizing. Her work has ap-
peared in the major journals and handbooks in the areas of communication,
management, and organization. She coauthored The Art of Framing: Man-
aging the Language of Leadership (Jossey-Bass, 1996), which received the
1997 National Communication Association Organizational Division Book of
the Year Award.

Myrna L. Friedlander (PhD, Ohio State University) is Professor of Coun-

seling Psychology and Director of Doctoral Training at the State University
of New York at Albany, where she recently received the President’s Award
for Excellence in Research. Her research on the process of counseling and
psychotherapy has appeared in numerous journals in counseling psychol-
ogy and family therapy. She has served as clinician, educator, supervisor,
and consultant in a variety of schools, counseling centers, hospitals, and
community agencies, as well as on several journal editorial boards. She was
the 2001–2002 recipient of the Distinguished Psychologist Award from the
Psychological Association of Northeastern New York.

Laurie Heatherington (PhD, University of Connecticut) is Professor of Psy-

chology at Williams College in Williamstown, Massachusetts. Her research
and clinical interests include family therapy and psychotherapy process-
outcome research with a recent focus on the process and measurement of
change in clients’ cognitive constructions about family problems. She has
served on several journal editorial boards and has published extensively in
the areas of clinical psychology, counseling, and family therapy.

José Luis Rodríguez-Arias (Doctorate, University of Salamanca) is pres-

ently a clinical psychologist at the Mental Health Unit of the Virxe
Xunqueira Hospital of Spain. He was previously an associate professor of
Psychology and founder of the Family Therapy Clinic at the University of
Salamanca. His research interest and publications have focused on interac-
tion processes and clinical outcomes in brief family therapy.

L. Edna Rogers (PhD, Michigan State University) is Professor of Communi-

cation at the University of Utah, and a past president of the International
Communication Association. Her research has centered on the interac-
tional study of marital and family relationships. She has received several
awards including the National Communication Association Woolbert Re-
search Award and Distinguished Faculty Awards from Cleveland State Uni-
versity and the University of Utah. She has served on various communica-
tion and relationship journal editorial boards, and co-edited The Meaning of
“Relationship” in Interpersonal Communication (Praeger, 1998).
ABOUT THE AUTHORS xix

Marlene M. von Friederichs-Fitzwater (PhD, University of Utah) is Professor

of Communication Studies at California State University, Sacramento. She is
also on the faculty of the Center for Medical Informatics and clinical profes-
sor in the School of Medicine at the University of California, Davis, and is the
founder and CEO of Health Communication Research Institute, Inc. Her teach-
ing and research activities are related to the delivery and outcome of health
care through improved health care communication. She has published in the
area of health communication and has presented her research at national
and international medical meetings in Europe and Canada.

Anne K. Wuerker (PhD, University of Maryland) is Professor of Nursing at

the University of California, Los Angeles. Her research interests in family in-
teraction are integrated with her background in psychiatric nursing, profes-
sional experience as a family therapist, and social science analyst with the
National Institute of Mental Health. She has published extensively in the ar-
eas of family therapy and mental health on relational interaction processes
of families in therapy and families with a mentally troubled member.
 P A R T

I
RELATIONAL COMMUNICATION
PERSPECTIVE
 C H A P T E R

1
Theoretical Foundations

L. Edna Rogers
University of Utah

Valentín Escudero
University of La Coruña

Social relationships lie at the heart of our humanness, and in turn, commu-
nication lies at the heart of our relationships. In constructing the social
worlds we inhabit, there is an intimate tie between communication and rela-
tionship, with each interwoven in the other. This interconnection repre-
sents an underlying premise of the relational communication perspective.
Thus, while it is assumed that our relationships contextualize and influence
our lives, it is also assumed that our relationships are constituted and
shaped through our communication processes.
Communication is seen as the life-giving, social-sustaining essence of re-
lationships, the interactive process by which relationships come into being,
take shape, are built up or torn down in the ongoing ebb and flow of their
evolutionary course. Viewed from this perspective, communication is not of
a singular nature, but a joint, social adventure, with relationships continu-
ally in process, malleable and changeable, tranquil at times, and at times,
tenuous. Negotiating relationships, as McCall and Simmons (1966) sug-
gested, is often a “hazardous gamble” (p. 201), with the making and unmak-
ing of relationships in the hands—and hearts—of the makers. Relationships
form the “bedrock” of our social existence, yet rest on the “shifting sands”
of our communicative behaviors.
The basic, constitutive nature of communication was captured, some
years ago, in a statement by Duncan (1967), “We do not relate and then talk,
but we relate in talk” (p. 249). More recently, Shotter (1993) expanded the
idea that “our ways of talking are formative of social relations” (p. 10) by

3
4 ROGERS AND ESCUDERO

noting the inherent contingencies of the communicative process when he

stated, “to talk in new ways, is to ‘construct’ new forms of social relation,
and, to construct new forms of social relation . . . is to construct new ways
of being” (p. 9). Not only do our relationships, but the very essence of our be-
ing, lie within our ways of talking. Among relational scholars, even though
guided by different perspectives, there is a growing consensus on the consti-
tutive quality of communication and the social implications of our talk.
The once, somewhat radical notion expressed by Berger and Kellner
(1964) that “in a fundamental sense it can be said that one converses one’s
way through life” (p. 4) such that relationships can be viewed as “ongoing
conversations” (p. 3), has increasingly gained acceptance in contemporary
studies of relationships. From the beginning, this idea has been central in
the formation of the relational communication perspective. Rooted within
the influence of system and cybernetic principles, relational communica-
tion, both conceptually and empirically, has focused on the formative, con-
sequential processes of communication. As the name implies, relational
communication represents a communication-based, interactional approach
to the study of personal and social relationships.
The relational perspective, also known as the pragmatic (Fisher, 1978) or
interactional (Watzlawick & Weakland, 1977) perspective of human commu-
nication, is grounded within an epistemology that places primary impor-
tance on the study of interaction, or in the words of Bateson (1979), on “the
pattern which connects” (p. 8). The relational approach represents a con-
ceptual and analytical shift from the study of individual acts, per se, to the
study of system-level qualities of interactions that evolve from ongoing com-
binations of communicative behaviors into transactional patterns that in
turn, combine into larger patterns of relational form.
With this perspective, relationships are viewed as the emergent social
structurings that are created and defined by the relational members’ com-
munication patterns with one another. Through the process of message ex-
change, system members reciprocally define self in relation to other, and si-
multaneously, define the interactive nature of their relationship. In playing
out these everyday social dramas of relationships, offered definitions can
be resisted, modified, accepted, or ignored. Thus, each member is seen as a
necessary part of the whole, actively influencing one another with their in-
dividual lines of action, yet the “socialness” of the drama resides in the mu-
tually constructed patterns of relationship.
Elaborating on this view, relationships are visualized as unfolding, mov-
ing “art forms,” analogous to a relational dance, creatively shaped by the
temporal patterning of the participants as they flow in and around, toward
and against and away from one another via their communicative behaviors.
When we think of relationships, we think of a coming together, of interrelat-
ing, of acting in awareness of one another. We often speak of being in-
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that the Duke should come in and dine the next night and decide the
matter came out quite naturally.
Lady Garribardine made no remark at the time, and indeed hardly
thought about it, but that night when she sat by her bedroom fire,
she suddenly remembered that her secretary would meet the Duke,
and for a long time she stared into the glowing embers in deep
thought.
No, it was not possible that the girl had known that he would speak;
that was not her reason for wishing to go to the House of Lords; but
she had seen him there, and now she would meet him at dinner!
A number of expressions chased themselves over Her Ladyship's
countenance, while her eyes never left the one point in the coals.
The frown of cogitation deepened on her forehead and then cleared
away. She had come to a decision.

When Mordryn had retired with his hostess after luncheon, Gerard
Strobridge had sought Miss Bush in the secretary's room.
"The deed is done, Katherine," he announced, with an attempt at
gaiety while his heart was heavy within him. "The Duke is coming to
dinner on Friday night, and Gwendoline not Arabella, and a couple of
bores from the country, so all my duties and sacrifices are
completed. Now are you going to give me a reward?"
"It depends upon its nature."
"Yes, I know that. It is quite a reasonable one. It is to come down in
my motor with me this afternoon and see the spring borders at
Hampton Court?"
Katherine hesitated. She would love to go, but she had work to do
before to-morrow, and unless she sat up late at night it could not be
accomplished.
He came over and spoke earnestly.
"I feel that this will be the last time that we can be pupil and
teacher, Katherine. Fate is going to change for us both. I want to
keep a memory of you, dearest, when you were my friend alone,
without the shadow of any other interest between—Won't you try to
give me this one last great pleasure?"
Katherine was touched.
"Yes, I will," she agreed. "I cannot go up and ask Her Ladyship now,
but I believe she would let me go. I have no business with her until
to-morrow morning. Do you want me to come at once?"
"Yes, I will walk on round to the garage and get the motor, and you
can meet me at Stanhope Gate."
It turned out to be an afternoon which neither of them would ever
forget, and Katherine Bush had never been so near to emotion for
her friend as when at last they sat down upon a bench and looked
away to the broad green avenue between the giant trees.
Gerard Strobridge had exerted every power he possessed to please
her. He had enchanted her fancy, and had drawn out all that was
finest in herself. They had studied the flowers, and talked of their
favourite books; and Katherine was conscious that she herself was
being brilliant, and that now his flights were not beyond her, but that
she could fully hold her own.
"If I had been unwed, Katherine, would you have married me?" he
asked her at last. "Divine as to-day has been, think what it would
have meant with love between us—and further joys to come.
Katherine, I would have done my utmost to make you happy. Will
you answer me this question? I think it may be the last one I shall
ever ask you."
She let her hands fall into her lap and she looked at him critically for
a while before she spoke. And her voice was reflective when she did
reply.
"I think if you had been free at that first Christmas, yes—I would
have married you, I would have let you take me away and teach me
all that I now know—And then I would have made you use all your
gifts and rise, rise to the top of your tree. I would never have rested
until you had reached the summit, and I with you."
He gave a little groan and covered his face with his hands.
"I forged all the barriers to joy by weakness long ago, Katherine. I
drifted idly down life's stream, and now am caught in the rushes and
cannot get free. The thought is bitter sweet, dear love—this picture
of what might have been. And I would have taught you to love me
at last. Ah! God! the pain! But now I do not want to finish this day
with sorrowful repinings. I will keep this memory of your words and
go my way, and when you come into your kingdom remember me,
and let us renew our friendship on calmer shores."
He took her hand, and pulling her glove off backwards kissed each
white finger, and then his eyes grew misty and he said farewell. And
in Katherine's heart there was a strange sadness, and they hardly
spoke at all as they sped homewards.
 CHAPTER XXIV
When Friday night came and Katherine was ready to get into the taxi
with Miss Gwendoline d'Estaire, she felt exalted as she had never
done in her life.
This evening would be the test of her powers—If she failed, then
she would know that such high goals were not for her, and so she
must curtail her aspirations. But she would not fail. It might be that
the Duke would not be drawn to her—it was impossible to tell from
that one afternoon what his temperament could be—but at all costs
she must not fail in being a cultivated lady, a guest among equals,
and so to take at least that place in his regard.
There was something almost diabolically whimsical in the fact that
one passionate would-be lover was deliberately arranging that his
lady should meet a possible rival! Gerard Strobridge appreciated this
point as he stood before the cheerful wood fire in the morning-room
in Brook Street, awaiting his guests.
The bores, of course, came first, and then Katherine and old Miss
Gwendoline d'Estaire, and last of all, not more than five minutes late
—His Grace.
He was quite abnormally distinguished looking in evening dress,
which when dissected did not prove to be remarkably different from
that of the others, but which yet possessed some subtle quality
entirely apart from theirs, in its bygone suggestion. His manners
were most courtly; he recognised Katherine at once and shook
hands with her. And then dinner was announced.
Gerard sent the lady bore in with the Duke—himself taking old
Gwendoline, and leaving Katherine to the husband, so that Katherine
sat next His Grace at a little round table.
She was looking quite beautiful in a new black frock, as simple as
the old one, and with some of her favourite lilies of the valley tucked
into the belt. Mordryn felt constrained to talk to his partner until
after the fish—the host, by a tactful interruption, drew away her
attention and left him free, and then without hesitation he turned to
Katherine.
Her heart was beating fast, and the excitement made her eyes dark
and her cheeks pale, but she did not lose her head, and indeed felt
an extra stimulant to her brain power.
He began about the debate on Wednesday. The whole thing was
rather a mockery since they were robbed of all power now in the
House of Lords, and could only make mild protests, but not enforce
their opinions. Was Miss Bush interested in politics?
Katherine said that she was, but thought it rather a degrading
profession now, with paid members making their living out of their
seats. And so they spoke for a little upon this theme, and the Duke
found himself agreeably entertained. He liked her deep voice, and
above all her extraordinarily good hands.
"Bush?" he said to himself. "I do not remember to have heard the
name before—the mother perhaps had the breeding. Those hands
do not come from the shrubbery or the common!"
Now Katherine began to talk of travels. She knew that all people
enjoyed discussing theirs on their return.
She would much like to visit the East. She had always been thrilled
with Kinglake's description of Damascus in "Eothen." Was it really a
city "of hidden palaces, of copses and gardens, and fountains and
bubbling streams"? His Grace's eyes expressed real interest now, not
so much that they should discuss Damascus, but that a modern girl
should have read Kinglake and deeply enough to quote him
correctly! He also knew his Kinglake, and had that potent gift of
memory which never stumbles in its manifestations.
He continued the subject with enthusiasm and found that this
charming young woman was familiar with all the subtlest shades.
They had touched upon passages of peculiar beauty concerning the
Dead Sea, and the girls of Bethlehem and the wonderful desert sun,
and were in the middle of those dedicated to the Sphinx, when the
Duke became aware that a sweet was being handed and that dinner
was more than half over! With infinite discretion the host had never
allowed the flow of conversation to flag, so that no pause among so
small a company should bring this promising tête-à-tête to a close.
Katherine should have a fair field if he could procure it for her.
But His Grace's good manners reproached him for his negligence to
the lady he had taken in, and he turned from the contemplation of
Katherine's regular profile with reluctant dutifulness, inwardly
determining to continue Kinglake and other things when they should
all be safely in the drawing-room. These people would surely play
bridge. What a capital thing cards were if one had strength of mind
enough to enforce one's own selfishness in not playing them!
Katherine now used her best endeavours to be agreeable to the bore
husband, and spoke of subjects which were in his ken. And Gerard,
watching her, admired the progress of his pupil. No one of his world,
or any world, could have been a more polished or enchanting guest.
And his pride in her numbed the pain he had felt all the day.
Then the conversation became general, and gave fresh opportunity
for Katherine to show her powers of repartee.
Yes, the quartette played bridge, and began it almost immediately
the men joined the ladies upstairs. Mr. Strobridge had carefully not
allowed the talk to stray to any personal subject while they were
alone in the dining-room, in case the Duke should question him
about Katherine. If so, he would have been forced to say who she
was, and that would spoil her plans perhaps. How she meant to get
out of the dilemma afterwards he did not speculate. All pretence was
so foreign to her nature. But that was her affair; his only concern
was that this evening should be without flaw.
The Duke found a place on the sofa beside Katherine as soon as the
rest began their rubber, and here he could look at her undisturbed
and without craning his neck.
He admired her extremely. She was the exact type which pleased
him, distinguished and well-bred looking. He liked the way she
spoke, with no distressingly modern slang in her phrases. She must
evidently have been most carefully brought up in a really refined
home! Could she be a relation of the d'Estaires? But to ask questions
of this sort was not his method, and he turned the conversation back
to "Eothen" again and kindred things.
Katherine was in the seventh heaven; she was blooming like a
glowing hot-house plant and seemed to radiate sweetness and
serenity. Every now and then she let her eyes meet his dark-blue
ones, with that strange magnetic look in hers which she knew would
compel his interest.
They spoke of music and poetry, and then of pictures—pictures in
general—and lastly those of Blissington.
"Did she know Blissington well?"
Yes, she knew it very well, and that enigmatic smile hovered for a
moment round her lips. Mordryn was surprised at it.
"It contains some recollections for you which are humorous, then?"
"Yes—very humorous."
"Won't you tell me what they are?" His most attractive clear-cut face
came a little nearer to her in his interest.
"Some day you will know."
"How fraught with meaning! 'Some day I shall know!' Not to-night,
then?"
"No, for to-night we are guests at a dinner-party and are talking
about literature and music and art."
"But I want to talk about you—May I not?"
"I do not see why you should. I am just a person whom you will
never really see again—I mean, never really talk to again—so why
waste time in unprofitable investigations?"
"How do you know that they would be unprofitable?"
Katherine looked down at her own white hands folded quietly in her
lap, then up again and straight into his eyes.
"This night week if you chance to think of this evening, you will
realise how right I am as to their complete unprofitableness!"

"'You are ready for the great

adventure?'"
"You speak in riddles."
She shrugged her shoulders slightly and smiled.
His Grace found himself distinctly curious.
"Why should you be so sure that I shall never really see—or was it
speak to—you again? Do you then live on some desert island off the
north of Scotland, by chance?"
"In a much more inaccessible place than that." Her eyes sparkled
with some unfathomable expression.
"Iceland?"
"There is an ice barrier surrounding it."
"I shall have to give it up, and you will tell me yourself out of
gratitude, for ceasing to tease you."
Katherine leaned back on the soft green silk cushions of the sofa.
She was looking most alluring in her new rôle of honoured guest. It
was so delightful to be perfectly at ease and able to lean there, and
not sit bolt upright in a chair in an attitude of respect. The Duke
found the sight of her extremely soothing.
"You come to London sometimes, I expect?"
"Yes, for a part of the year."
"Ah! I thought so! I did not believe that Iceland produced such a
polished creature. You know you are quite unusual, Miss Bush. You
have consented, without apparent reluctance, to talk upon
interesting subjects to a wearied and middle-aged man, and you
have not spoken of golf or dancing—and you have not smoked!"
"I do smoke sometimes, but only when I am doing some tiresome
mechanical work like typing."
"Typing?—I suppose it is useful—but what can you have to type? Are
you writing a book?"
Katherine gave a sudden soft laugh, infinitely provoking; it made the
blood run in Gerard Strobridge's veins, and he viciously played a
knave while quivering with a sense of rebellion. He knew what it
meant when she laughed like that! When would this ghastly evening
end?
And Katherine half whispered: "No, not writing one, but trying to
learn out of that greatest volume of all time—the book of life!"
"What can you know of life?" The Duke asked the question as
Gerard Strobridge had asked it long ago. "Protected and pampered
and kept from all but its pleasant sides—what can girls of our class
know of life?"
"Tell me, then, what it is—since I could not be supposed to know?"
and her mouth still looked mischievous as well as her eyes.
The Duke thrilled a little.
"Life is either a muddle through, or an achievement. And it contains
good things and bad things, and passions—and it is forever trying to
express itself, and proclaim its meaning quite regardless of laws."
"'Tis not to stalk about and draw fresh air,
From time to time, or gaze upon the Sun."
"Oh! it is a splendid thing!" Katherine cried, and her voice vibrated.
"And unlike the Spanish Student, I shall not 'grow weary of the
bewildering masquerade,' 'where strangers walk as friends and
friends as strangers.' And even if they did, the unexpectedness of it
would be delightful!"
Mordryn looked at her. At the fresh, young firm, smooth cheeks, the
living red, voluptuous mouth, the ashen-hued hair, every strand of
which seemed to be specially alive and to hold its own silvery glitter.
And then at her strange, compelling eyes, and he sighed a little. She
seemed such an embodiment of vital things.
"You are ready for the great adventure?"
"Quite, and I mean to know everything before I grow old and
indifferent."
He sighed again.
"Age does not always produce indifference; it would be merciful if it
did."
"There can be no need really to grow old. Age comes because
people lose their grip on things."
"Probably. But responsibilities and sorrows and disappointments age.
You have no doubt a very sheltered life, and so it seems to you that
all is easy."
Katherine laughed again softly. It was so delicious to think of the
reality in contrast to his supposition!
"My life is indeed sheltered—by a very strong shield, but not by the
one your words would suggest."
"No? What then?"
"It is not at all interesting to talk of me; I have already told you so—
Why do you persist? I would much rather hear of foreign countries—
Italy, for instance. I have never been there."
There was not the least subjective deference in her manner to him.
It was as if an equal were talking to one of her own brain calibre
and that equal a woman, who had a right to be humoured. Women
—especially girls—were not wont so to treat him, but were always
more or less impressed by his great position, or his aloofness, or his
satirical but courteous wit. He had sometimes an expression of
contemptuous, amiable tolerance, which was eighteenth century and
disconcerting. It made all but the most simple or most highly
cultivated among them slightly uneasy—Was he laughing at them?
They were never quite sure.
He found himself piqued now, and in no mood to be balked, so he
contradicted Katherine.
"You may not find yourself interesting to talk about; it chances that I
do. I wish to know what it is that shields you so effectively."
"A clear idea of what I want, I expect, and a strong enough will not
to be much buffeted about by any wind of opinion."
"What a rara avis! And you look so young!"
"I am twenty-three; that is fully grown."
"And what is it you want?"
"To be free to soar—to see the world—to feel its throb—to
demonstrate some of my ideas."
"On what subjects?"
"The meanings of things—and why they are—and the common
sense aspect of them. Then one could help humanity. Lady
Garribardine is my ideal of what a woman should be. There is
nothing small about her; she is as big as a great man and far more
sagacious."
"There I am with you!" and his voice became eager. "Her Ladyship
has always been the perfection of things feminine, in my opinion.
You know her well?"
"Extremely well. She is not afraid of her views and principles. She is
really an aristocrat. She believes in herself, so everyone believes in
her, too!"
"Most of us are shaky about ourselves."
"You are not—I shall turn the tables now and say I want to talk
about you! What does it feel like to be a Duke?—A real Duke, not a
parvenu or one who makes a laughing stock of his order."
He smiled; she was a most engaging and audacious young person,
because she did not speak with childish artlessness, but with
deliberation.
"It feels a great responsibility sometimes, and a thing of very little
consequence at others. It enforces perhaps a standard of behaviour
which it is difficult always to follow. If the circumstances of my life
had been different when I was younger, I should have endeavoured
not to let our order slip into impotency; now the whole modern
political outlook disgusts me so that I seldom speak in the House."
"That is very wrong of you, and cowardly." She was quite fearless.
"You should never give up a fight or remain passive when what
really belongs to you is being filched from you. If you do, as a band,
you deserve to be put aside. You should fight with the same
fierceness with which those Radicals do who know they are shams,
but are indeed in earnest to obtain their own ends."
"You are quite right. There are some women who stimulate in all
ways, who are, as it were, sent into the world as electric dynamos.
They get the best out of everyone; they make men work better and
play better—and love better."
He looked at her now with his fine eyes sparkling, but flirtation was
far beneath his feet. To his mistresses he was a master, a generous,
tolerant, contemptuous master; to his friends like Lady Garribardine
the essence of courtly consideration; to the general company politely
aloof. But to the woman who could arouse his love, what might he
not be! Katherine thought this, and a quiver ran through her of a
kind she had never experienced before, so that her composure was
not so perfect as usual when she answered:
"If one really knew exactly what is love!"
"You have no dim guess at it, then?" He was quite surprised that it
should interest him to know what her reply would be.
"Yes, I have—more than that. I know that some phases of it make
one feel mad, agitated, unbalanced, animal, even motherly and
protective—but what it could be if it touched the soul, I cannot
fathom."
The Duke did not speak for a moment; he was filled with wonder
and a growing admiration, admiration which extended even beyond
the very real appreciation of her beauty. Her mentality was so far
above the average, her directness so interesting. There was not the
slightest trace of pose in anything she said—And that last speech—
what possibilities it opened up! She knew something of one side of
love then, evidently!
"Do you realise what your words imply?"
"Yes."
"That you have loved someone—in that way—once?"
"Yes, I have—It is a way that frightens one, and makes one more
than ever sure that there must be something else. Do you know that
there is—you who have lived your life?"
Her face was pale and cool as moonbeams. She seemed to be
talking in the abstract, for all the personal question. The Duke found
himself quite unaccountably moved, and was just about to answer
eagerly, when at that moment the host joined them from the other
drawing-room; the rubber was over, and he felt he must do his duty
and not make too obvious a point of leaving the pair alone.
"Come and see the miniatures, Mordryn," he said. "We must not
forget that it was their lure which brought you here to-night."
His tone Katherine well understood, it contained for all its surface
graciousness some bitterness underneath.
There was general movement after this, and no more private
confidences could be exchanged, so that Miss d'Estaire and
Katherine left, with His Grace's answer to the latter's question still
unspoken.
And Gerard Strobridge, as he pressed Katherine's hand in good-
nights, whispered:
"Have I done well—and are you satisfied?"
The firm clasp of her cool fingers was his answer.
 CHAPTER XXV
Lady Garribardine was unable to spare her secretary from the Easter
party, so it had been arranged that she was to have a few days
holiday from the Saturday following the dinner-party, but she must
catch the three o'clock train from Paddington on the Thursday before
Easter, and return then.
Katherine did not go home to Bindon's Green. She went off alone to
a little place by the sea on the east coast, and there she set herself
to review events, and think out her plans while she lay upon the
sands unheeding the east wind.
Gerard Strobridge had served her loyally—the interest which she had
meant to kindle was kindled. The Duke now had made a mental
picture of her, unmarred by possible qualifications which, if he had
known she was his friend's humble secretary and typist, he would
have been bound to have made. Not that he was in the least a snob,
but that he would have naturally considered it unbefitting his
situation to go about looking for interesting companions among his
friend's dependents. He would simply not have observed her at all
when he came to Blissington, any more than she herself had
observed either of the footmen at Gerard Strobridge's dinner. Not
that she despised footmen as footmen, or the Duke secretaries as
secretaries; they were worthy and necessary servants; but guests
did not remark them except in their professional capacities, people
who were there to serve at table or write letters and attend to
business.
Not the slightest irritation or resentment mingled with these
reflections of Katherine's. She was much too wise and just, and
never under the influence of hurt vanity or dramatic instinct, so this
point of view, that she knew the Duke would naturally take, seemed
to her perfectly right, and instead of resenting it, she had used her
brain to nullify it, knowing full well that if she played her part at the
dinner effectually, interest would be aroused which no barrier of
different statuses could entirely obliterate afterwards. Now on this
last afternoon at Bayview, she must think out what she would do
next, for the Duke would be arriving at Blissington by a train from
the west which got in a few minutes after her own from Paddington.
She had known before the dinner-party that he was coming for
Easter, and that morning had received a command from her mistress
that she was to look out for him, and tell him he was to take the
small coupé and not get into the other motor, which would await her
and be loaded up with fragile hat-boxes which were coming by
Katherine's train. There would be the luggage car for his servant and
his trunks as well. All the rest of the guests were arriving by motors
or by the express an hour later.
Thus the plunge from equal to humble secretary would have to be
made at once, and she must see to it that it was done with tact and
skill, so as not to mar the effect already produced, but rather
enhance it. There was only one drop in her cup. She did not feel
altogether happy in keeping this secret from her beloved mistress. A
secret, too, which concerned her, perhaps, most valued guest. But it
was absolutely impossible that she could frankly avow her intentions
to Lady Garribardine, as she had done to Gerard; so much she would
keep to herself, but she would speak of her enjoyment at meeting
the Duke, if Her Ladyship did not herself begin the subject, and she
had not reason to believe Mr. Strobridge had told his aunt of the
encounter. She had not seen Lady Garribardine since the dinner,
having left for her holiday very early on the Saturday morning. All
the way down in the train to Blissington she was conscious of
suppressed excitement. She had been most careful about her
appearance, and looked as charming and yet unobtrusive as it was
possible to look.
She waited, when once arrived, at the entrance where the subway
from the departure platform emerged—and she felt a quiver when
she saw the top of the Duke's hat and then his face.
How attractive he looked! And how unlike other people! Among a
crowd he was a magnificent personality, one to whom porters and
officials and strangers naturally showed deference. Peers could look
like very humble and sometimes even vulgar people, she knew, but
no man, woman or child could mistake His Grace of Mordryn for
anything but a great noble.
When he caught sight of Katherine standing just at the inside of the
stream of passengers, his whole stern face changed, and an
illuminating smile came over it, while he stretched out his hand
cordially.
"Miss Bush! Are we to be fellow guests? You are coming to
Blissington? How delightful!"
Katherine made as though she did not see the hand, and with
deference and lowered lids, she said:
"Yes, I am going to Blissington, but Your Grace is under a
misapprehension which I must correct. I am Her Ladyship's typist
and secretary, and I am here now to give you a message, that you
are to take her Ladyship's own small coupé and not the motor which
is waiting for the bandboxes and me."
But with all her demureness, she could not prevent an irresistible
and humorous quiver from dimpling round her lips, and then she
raised her steady eyes and looked at him suddenly as she bowed
and moved off quickly, leaving him for the first time in his life
completely nonplussed! What was the meaning of this comedy? He
felt rather angry. What business had Gerard Strobridge to trick him
so? But had he tricked him? He recollected now that Miss Bush had
not been mentioned by Gerard at all one way or another. She was
simply treated as any other guest, and had come apparently with
Gwendoline d'Estaire. That she was a high-bred lady his own senses
had told him, whether she were a typist or no!—Highly bred and
educated and exceptionally cultivated and refined. She must
certainly be the daughter of some friend of Sarah's who had met
with financial misfortune, poor charming girl! And he hurried after
her—but only got outside the station to see her disappear in a motor
already piled up inside with milliner's boxes. So, baffled and still
deeply interested, he entered the coupé awaiting him and was
whirled off. Seraphim would, of course, tell him all about it, and so
he dismissed the matter from his mind; but his first thought when he
got into the hall was to wonder if Katherine would be at tea. She
was not. Tea was a tête-à-tête affair in his old friend's boudoir,
where a hundred thousand things of interest had to be discussed
between them, and no time or chance was given for reference to
obscure secretaries.
After tea on her way down to receive the guests, who would
continue to arrive in relays until dressing time, Lady Garribardine
went into the schoolroom to see Katherine.
They spoke of business, and Katherine received orders, and took
down notes, and then she said:
"Your Ladyship will be amused to hear that I met the Duke at dinner
at Mr. Strobridge's. He did not know my position, and I am afraid at
the time I did not undeceive him. It was such a very great pleasure
to me to be taken for a lady and a guest just for once. Of course, I
told him at the station my real position, and he appeared much
surprised."
Lady Garribardine walked to the window and pretended to be
looking out at something. She wanted to hide all the expression
which might come into her eyes. The simple words, "It was such a
very great pleasure to be taken for a lady and a guest just for once,"
had deeply touched her. She seemed to realise what such a spirit as
Katherine's must feel, always in a subordinate position of no
particular status—And with what dignity she carried it off!
"Child," she answered, without looking round, "no one who knows
you would ever take you for anything else—the theory of blood
being absolutely necessary for this, you have proved to be nonsense.
The Duke is one of my oldest friends and a very fine gentleman. I
am glad you had a chance of talking freely to him."
After she had left the room, Katherine folded and unfolded a bit of
paper, a very unusual agitation moving her.
"Oh! I wish I could tell her outright, my dear lady!" she cried to
herself. "I almost believe she would sympathise with me, but if I see
that she would not, and that it would hurt and anger her, I will give
up even this, my ambition."

Gerard Strobridge was not of this party; he had been obliged to go

to his brother's, so Katherine would have no collaborator and would
be forced to act alone.
She did not dine downstairs, but was required in the drawing-room
afterwards, and until ten o'clock she stayed alone in her sitting-
room, wondering what the Duke had thought, and if it would have
been wiser to have stayed for a minute after firing her bomb.
Had she known it, nothing to chain his interest could have been
better than her swift disappearance, for he was now thinking of her,
and at the first opportunity between the soup and fish, he said to his
hostess:
"Seraphim, I met your secretary, it seems, the other night at
Gerard's—a very intelligent girl. I had no idea at the time that she
was in any dependent position—and was greatly surprised when she
addressed me at the station to-day as 'Your Grace'! She is some
misfortunate friend's daughter, I suppose. Anyone I knew?"
Lady Garribardine's eyes beamed with a momentary twinkle which
she suppressed—She thought of the auctioneer father and the
butcher grandfather and then she said casually:
"No—she came from an advertisement, but she is a splendid
creature, with more sense in her little finger than most of us have in
our entire bodies—What do you think of my grey locks, Mordryn?"
The Duke assured her he found them bewitching; he saw that she
did not mean to speak of her secretary.
"They cause you to look ten years younger, dear friend. I could find
it in my heart to make love to you once more—and be repulsed with
unabated violence, I fear!"
"Love was good when we were young, Mordryn; ten or twelve years
do not matter when a man is twenty-five and a woman thirty-five to
thirty-eight—that is, if they are not married. The discrepancy in age
only becomes grotesque later. We loved and laughed and lived then,
and should be grateful—I am—As for you, you will love again—fifty-
three for a man is nothing. You are abominably attractive, you know,
Mordryn, with your weary, aloof air—and your Dukedom—And now
that you are altogether free from anxieties, you should take the cup
of joy in both hands and quaff it—Look round the table. Have I not
provided some sweet creatures for you?"
"You have indeed—Which one in particular have you destined for the
cup-bearer?"
"Any one of the three on that side towards the top. You can't have
brains and beauty. Lily Trevelyan has beauty, and enough tact to
hide her absence of brain. Blanche Montague has no beauty but a
certain chic—and I am told wonderful variety of talent. She does not
satiate her admirers with sameness—While Julia Scarrisbrooke is all
passion so well assumed as to be better than the real article, and
always handy. These credentials I have collected from a cohort of
past admirers and they can be vouched for. You have only to choose.
Any one of them will be enchanted. They are only waiting to spring
into your arms!"
"I believe that would bore me. I want someone who is not
enchanted—someone who leaves the whole initiative to me."
Her Ladyship cast up her eyes. "My dear Mordryn, your
unsophistication pains me! Who ever heard of a Duke of fifty-three,
well preserved, good-looking, unmarried and distinguished—known
to be generous as a lover and full of charm—being allowed to take
the initiative with women—Fie!"
The Duke laughed, and by some curious turn of fancy he seemed to
see the white, perfectly composed face of the stately, slender
secretary, who had treated him as naught that night at Gerard's, and
then looked almost mockingly respectful when she called him "Your
Grace!" in the station. Would she be in the drawing-room after
dinner?—Perhaps.
Yes, she was, over by the piano at the far end; but Lily Trevelyan
and Blanche Montague and Julia Scarrisbrooke had surrounded him
before he could get half-way down the long room, and escape was
out of the question. No manœuvring enabled him to break free of
them. So he had to sit and be purred at, and see with the tail of his
eye a graceful creature in black talking quietly (and intelligently he
felt sure) to some less important guest—and then playing
accompaniments—and then slipping away through a door at that
end, presumably to bed.
He cursed civilisation, he profoundly cursed beautiful ladies, and he
became sarcastic and caused Julia and Lily who were for the
moment bosom friends to confide to each other, over the latter's
bedroom fire, that Mordryn was "too darling for words" but spiteful
as Her Ladyship's black cat.
"I do hate men to be so clever—don't you, Lil? One never knows
where one is, with them."
"Oh! but Ju, dearest, he isn't deformed or deadly dull or diseased, or
tipsy, he is awfully good looking and very rich and a Duke—Really
you can't have everything. I thought Blanche Montague was
shockingly open in her desire to secure him, did not you? I wonder
why Sarah asked her here with us!"
Meanwhile Katherine Bush did not permit herself to wonder at His
Grace's possible feelings or his future actions at all. She had seen
the eager look in his dark blue eyes once or twice across the room
and being a wise woman left things to fate.
"I wish G. were here," the hostess said to herself as she, too, stood
by a bedroom fire—her own. "I have no one to exchange unspoken
confidence with. He would have understood and appreciated the
enchanting comedy of female purpose, male instinct to flee, and one
young woman's supreme intelligence!"
The next day the Duke, who knew the house well, and in what wing
Miss Arnott had worked, took it into his head to walk before
breakfast in the rose garden. Miss Bush saw him from the window
and allowed herself to bow gravely when he deliberately looked up;
then she moved away. He felt a distinct sensation of tantalization.
After breakfast everyone would play tennis. He played an
extraordinarily good game himself, and was in flannels ready.
Katherine thought he had a very fine figure and looked much
younger in those clothes. She wanted to ask him about the emerald
ring—she wanted to ask him about a number of things. She had
work to do all the morning, but came out to the tennis lawn with a
message to her mistress just before luncheon, during an exciting
single match between the Duke and an agile young man—the last
game was at 30 all—and Katherine paused to watch the strokes—40-
30—And then Mordryn won—amidst shouts of applause.
Katherine had remarked that he ran about very little and won by
sheer style and skill and hard hitting.
She did not loiter a second when he was free to move, but flitted
back to the house before he could get near her.
She lunched alone in her schoolroom.
By the afternoon, when she did appear at tea, the Duke was
thoroughly ill-tempered, he knew not why or for what reason,
merely that his mood was so. Katherine, busy with the teapot, only
raised her head to give a polite, respectful bow in answer to his
greeting. He was infinitely too much a man of the world to single out
the humble secretary and draw upon her the wrath of these lovely
guests. So he contented himself by watching her, and noting her
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