But Honora seldom spoke of him. Only sometimes she read a brief note
from him, and added:--
"He wishes to be remembered to you, Kate."
She did not hint: "He saw you only a second." Honora was not one of
those persons who take pleasure in pricking bubbles. She perceived the
beauty of iridescence. If her odd friend and her inexplicable cousin had
any satisfaction in remembering a passing encounter, they could have
their pleasure of it.
Kate, for her part, would not have confessed that she thought of him.
But, curiously, she sometimes dreamed of him.
At last Ray McCrea was coming home. His frequent letters, full of good
comment, announced the fact.
"I've been winning my spurs, commercially speaking," he wrote. "The old
department heads, whom my father taught me to respect, seem pleased with
what I have done. I believe that when I come back they will have ceased
to look on me as a cadet. And if they think I'm fit for
responsibilities, perhaps you will think so, too, Kate. At any rate, I
know you'll let me say that I am horribly homesick. This being in a
foreign land is all very well, but give me the good old American ways,
crude though they may be. I want a straightforward confab with some one
of my own sort; I want the feeling that I can move around without
treading on somebody's toes. I want, above all, to have a comfortable
entertaining evening with a nice American girl--a girl that takes
herself and me for granted, and isn't shying off all the time as if I
were a sort of bandit. What a relief to think that you'll not be
accompanied by a chaperon! I shall get back my self-respect once I'm
home again with you nice, self-confident young American women."
"It will be good to see him, I believe," mused Kate. "After all, he
always looked after me. I can't seem to remember just how much pleasure
I had in his society. At any rate, we'll have plenty of things to talk
about. He'll tell me about Europe, and I'll tell him about my work. That
ought to carry us along quite a while."
She set about making preparations for him. She induced Honora to let
her have an extra room, and she made her fine front chamber into a
sitting-room, with a knocker on the door, and some cheerful brasses and
old prints within. She came across oddities of this sort in her Russian
and Italian neighborhoods, but until now she had not taken very much
interest in what she was inclined to term "sublimated junk."
Mary Morrison took an almost vicious amusement in Kate's sudden efforts
at aesthetic domestication, and Marna Fitzgerald--who was
delighted--considered it as a frank confession of sentiment. Kate let
them think what they pleased. She presented to their inspection--even
Mary was invited up for the occasion--a cheerful room with a cream
paper, a tawny-colored rug, some comfortable wicker chairs, an
interesting plaster cast or two, and the previously mentioned "loot."
Mary, in a fit of friendliness, contributed a Japanese wall-basket
dripping with vines; Honora proffered a lamp with a soft shade; and
Marna took pride in bestowing some delicately embroidered cushions,
white, and beautiful with the beauty of Belfast linen.
It did not appear to occur to Kate, however, that personal adornment
would be desirable, and it took the united efforts of Marna and Mary to
persuade her that a new frock or two might be needed. Kate had a way of
avoiding shabbiness, but of late her interest in decoration had been
anything but keen. However, she ventured now on a rather beguiling
dress for evening--a Japanese crêpe which a returned missionary sold her
for something more than a song. Dr. von Shierbrand said it was the color
of rust, but Marna affirmed that it had the hue of copper--copper that
was not too bright. It was embroidered gloriously with chrysanthemums,
and she had great pleasure in it. Mary Morrison drew from her rainbow
collection a scarf which accentuated the charm of the frock, and when
Kate had contrived a monk's cape of brown, she was ready for possible
entertainments--panoplied for sentiment. She would make no further
concessions. Her practical street clothes and her home-made frocks of
white linen, with which she made herself dainty for dinner at Mrs.
Dennison's, had to serve her.
"I'm so poor," she said to Marna, "that I feel like apologizing for my
inefficiency. I'm getting something now for my talks at the clubs, and
I'm paid for my writing, too. Now that it's begun to be published, I
ought to be opulent presently."
"You're no poorer than we," Marna said. "But of course there are two of
us to be poor together; and that makes it more interesting."
"Love doesn't seem to be flying out of your window," smiled Kate.
"We've bars on the windows," laughed Marna. "Some former occupant of the
flat put them on to keep the babies from dashing their brains out on the
pavement below, and we haven't taken them off." She blushed. "No,"
responded Kate with a _moue_; "what was the use?"
* * * * *
Unfortunately McCrea, the much-expected, had not made it quite plain
when he was to land in New York. To be sure, Kate might have consulted
the steamer arrivals, but she forgot to do that. So it happened that
when a wire came from Ray saying that he would be in Chicago on a
certain Saturday night in mid-May, Kate found herself under compulsion
to march in a suffrage procession.
David Fulham thought the circumstance uproariously funny, and he told
them about it at the Caravansary. They made rather an annoying jest of
it, but Kate held to her promise.
"It's an historic event to my mind," she said with all the dignity she
could summon. "I wouldn't excuse myself if I could. And I can't. I've
promised to march at the head of a division. We hope there'll be twenty
thousand of us."
Perhaps there were. Nobody knew. But all the city did know that down the
broad boulevard, in the mild, damp air of the May night, regiment upon
regiment of women marched to bear witness to their conviction and their
hope. Bands played, choruses sang, transparencies proclaimed watchwords,
and every woman in the seemingly endless procession swung a yellow
lantern. The onlookers crowded the sidewalks and hung from the towering
office buildings, to watch that string of glowing amber beads reaching
away to north and to south. College girls, working-girls, home-women,
fine ladies, efficient business women, vague, non-producing,
half-awakened women,--all sorts, all conditions, black, white, Latin,
Slav, Germanic, English, American, American, American,--they came
marching on. They were proud and they were diffident; they were sad and
they were merry; they were faltering and they were enthusiastic. Some
were there freely, splendidly, exultantly; more were there because some
force greater than themselves impelled them. Through bewilderment and
hesitancy and doubt, they saw the lights of the future shining, and they
fixed their eyes upon the amber lanterns as upon the visible symbols of
their faith; they marched and marched. They were the members of a new
revolution, and, as always, only a portion of the revolutionists knew
completely what they desired.
At the Caravansary there had been sharp disapproval of the whole thing.
The men had brought forth arguments to show Kate her folly. Mrs.
Dennison, Mrs. Goodrich, and Mrs. Applegate had spoken gentle words of
warning; Honora had vaguely suggested that the matter was immaterial;
Mary Morrison had smiled as one who avoided ugliness; and Kate had
laughingly defied them.
"I march!" she had declared. "And I'm not ashamed of my company."
It was, indeed, a company of which she was proud. It included the names
of the most distinguished, the most useful, the most talented, the most
exclusive, and the most triumphantly inclusive women in the city.
"Poor McCrea," put in Fulham. "Aren't you making him ridiculous? He'll
come dashing up here the moment he gets off the train. As a matter of
fact, he'll be half expecting you to meet him. You're making a mistake,
Miss Barrington, if you'll let a well-meaning fellow-being say so.
You're leaving the substance for the shadow."
"I've misled you about Ray, I'm afraid," Kate said with unexpected
patience. "He hasn't really any right to expect me to be waiting, and I
don't believe he will. Come to think of it, I don't know that I want to
be found waiting."
"Oh, well, of course--" said Fulham with a shrug, leaving his sentence
unfinished.
"Anyway," said Kate flushing, "I march!"
* * * * *
They told her afterward how McCrea had come toof-toofing up to the door
in a taxi, and how he had taken the steps two at a time.
"He wrung my hand," said Honora, "and got through the preliminary
amenities with a dispatch I never have seen excelled. Then he demanded
you. 'Is she upstairs?' he asked. 'May I go right up? She wrote me she
had a parlor of her own.' 'She has a parlor,' I said, 'but she isn't in
it.' He balanced on the end of a toe. 'Where is she?' I thought he was
going to fly. 'She's out with the suffragists,' I said. I didn't try to
excuse you. I thought you deserved something pretty bad. But I did tell
him you'd promised to go and that you hadn't known he was coming that
day. 'She's in that mess?' he cried. 'I saw the Amazon march as I came
along. You don't mean Kate's tramping the streets with those women!'
'Yes, she is,' I said, 'and she's proud to do it. But she was sorry not
to be here to welcome you.' 'Sorry!' he said; 'why, Mrs. Fulham, I've
been dreaming of this meeting for months.' Honestly, Kate, I was ashamed
for you. I asked him in. I told him you'd be home before long. But he
would not come in. 'Tell her I--I came,' he said. Then he went."
It was late at night, and Kate was both worn and exhilarated with her
marching. Honora's words let her down considerably. She sat with tears
in her eyes staring at her friend.
"But couldn't he see," she pleaded, "that I had to keep my word? Didn't
he understand how important it was? I can see him to-morrow just
as well."
"Then you'll have to send for him," said Honora decisively. "He'll not
come without urging."
She went up to bed with a stern aspect, and left Kate sitting staring
before her by the light of one of Mary's foolish candles.
"They seem to think I'm a very unnatural woman," said Kate to herself.
"But can't they see how much more important it was that the
demonstration should be a success than that two lovers should meet at a
certain hour?"
The word "lovers" had slipped inadvertently into her mind; and no
sooner had she really recognized it, looked at it, so to speak, fairly
in the face, than she rejected it with scorn.
"We're just friends," she protested. "One has many friends."
But her little drawing-room, all gay and fresh, accused her of deceiving
herself; and a glimpse of the embroidered frock reminded her that she
was contemptibly shirking the truth. One did not make such preparations
for a mere "friend." She sat down and wrote a note, put stamps on it to
insure its immediate delivery, and ran out to the corner to mail it.
Then she fell asleep arguing with herself that she had been right, and
that he ought to understand what it meant to give one's word, and that
it could make no difference that they were to meet a few hours later
instead of at the impetuous moment of his arrival.
* * * * *
She spent the next day at the Juvenile Court, and came home with the
conviction that there ought to be no more children until all those now
wandering the hard ways of the world were cared for. She was in no mood
for sweethearting, yet she looked with some covert anxiety at the
mail-box. There was an envelope addressed to her, but the superscription
was not in Ray's handwriting. The Colorado stamp gave her a hint of whom
it might have come from, and ridiculously she felt her heart quickening.
Yet why should Karl Wander write to her? She made herself walk slowly
up the stairs, and insisted that her hat and gloves and jacket should be
put scrupulously in their places before she opened her letter. It proved
not to be a letter, after all, but only a number of photographs, taken
evidently by the sender, who gave no word of himself. He let the
snow-capped solitary peaks utter his meanings for him. The pictures were
beautiful and, in some indescribable way, sad--cold and isolate. Kate
ran her fingers into the envelope again and again, but she could
discover no note there. Neither was there any name, save her own on
the cover.
"At least," said Kate testily, "I might have been told whom to thank."
But she knew whom to thank--and she knew with equal positiveness that
she would send no thanks. For the gift had been a challenge. It seemed
to say: "I dare you to open communication with me. I dare you to break
the conscious silence between us!"
Kate did not lift the glove that had been thrown down. She hid the
photographs in her clock and told no one about them.
At the close of the third day a note came from Ray. Her line, he said,
had followed him to Lake Forest and he had only then found time to
answer it. He was seeing old friends and was very much occupied with
business and with pleasure, but he hoped to see her before long. Kate
laughed aloud at the rebuff. It was, she thought, a sort of Silvertree
method of putting her in her place. But she was sorry, too,--sorry for
his hurt; sorry, indefinitely and indescribably, for something missed.
If it had been Karl Wander whom she had treated like that he would have
waited on her doorstep till she came, and if he had felt himself
entitled to a quarrel, he would have "had it out" before men and the
high gods.
At least, so she imagined he would have done; but upon consideration
there were few persons in the world about whom she knew less than about
Karl Wander. It seemed as if Honora were actually perverse in the way
she avoided his name.