The spring was coming. Signs of it showed at the park edges, where the
high willow hedges began to give forth shoots of yellowish-green; at
times the lake was opalescent and the sky had moments of tenderness and
warmth. Even through the pavement one seemed to scent the earth; and the
flower shops set up their out-of-door booths and solicited the passer-by
with blossoms.
When Kate could spare the money, she bought flowers for Marna--for it
was flower-time with Marna, and she had seen the Angel of the
Annunciation. All that was Celtic in her was coming uppermost. She
dreamed and brooded and heard voices. Kate liked to sit in the little
West-Side flat and be comforted of the happiness there. She was feeling
very absurd herself, and she was ashamed of her excursion into the
realms of feminine folly. That was the way she put her defection from
"common sense," and her little flare of sentiment for Ray, and all her
breathless, ridiculous preparation for him. She had never worn the
chrysanthemum dress, and she so loathed the sight of it that she boxed
it and put it in the bottom of her trunk.
No word came from Ray. "Sometime" had not materialized and he had failed
to call. His name was much in the papers as "best man" or cotillion
leader or host at club dinners. He moved in a world of which Kate saw
nothing--a rather competitive world, where money counted and where there
was a brisk exchange of social amenities. Kate's festivities consisted
of settlement dinners and tea here and there, at odd, interesting places
with fellow "welfare workers"; and now and then she went with Honora to
some University affair. A great many ladies sent her cards to their
"afternoons"--ladies whom she met at the home of the President of the
University, or with whom she came in contact at Hull House or some of
the other settlements. But such diversions she was obliged to deny
herself. They would have taken time from her too-busy hours; and she had
not the strength to do her work according to her conscience, and then to
drag herself halfway across town, merely for the amiability of making
her bow and eating an ice in a charming house. Not but that she enjoyed
the atmosphere of luxury--the elusive sense of opulence given her by the
flowers, the distant music, the smiling, luxurious, complimentary women,
the contrast between the glow within and the chill of twilight
without--twilight sparkling with the lights of the waiting motors, and
the glittering procession on the Drive. But, after all, while others
rode, she walked, and sometimes she was very weary. To be sure, she was
too gallant, too much at ease in her entertaining world, too expectant
of the future, to fret even for a moment about the fact that she was
walking while others rode. She hardly gave it a thought. But her
disadvantages made her unable to cope with other women socially. She
was, as she often said, fond of playing a game; but the social game
pushed the point of achievement a trifle too far.
Moreover, there was the mere bother of "dressing the part." Her handsome
heavy shoes, her strong, fashionable street gloves, her well-cared-for
street frock, and becoming, practical hat she could obtain and maintain
in freshness. She was "well-groomed" and made a sort of point of looking
competent, as if she felt mistress of herself and her circumstances; she
could even make herself dainty for a little dinner, but the silks and
furs, the prodigality of yard-long gloves, the fetching boots and
whimsical jewels of the ladies who made a fine art of feminine
entertainments, were quite beyond her. So, sensibly, she counted it
all out.
That Ray was at home in such surroundings, and that, had she been
willing to give him the welcome he expected, she might have had a
welcome at these as yet unopened doors through which he passed with
conscious suavity, sometimes occurred to her. She was but human--and but
woman--and she could not be completely oblivious to such things. But
they did not, after all, wear a very alluring aspect.
When she dreamed of being happy, as she often did, it was not amid such
scenes. Sometimes, when she was half-sleeping, and vague visions of joy
haunted the farther chambers of her brain, she saw herself walking
among mountains. The setting sun glittered on distant, splendid snows;
the torrent rushed by her, filling the world with its clamor; beneath
lay the valley, and through the gathering gloom she could see the light
of homes. Then, as sleep drew nearer and the actual world slipped
farther away, she seemed to be treading the path--homeward--with some
companion. Which of those lights spelled home for her she did not know,
and whenever she tried to see the face of her companion, the shadows
grew deeper,--as deep as oblivion,--and she slept.
She was lonely. She felt she had missed much in missing Ray. She knew
her friends disapproved of her; and she was profoundly ashamed that they
should have seen her in that light, expectant hour in which she awaited
this lover who appeared to be no lover, after all. But she deserved her
humiliation. She had conducted herself like the expectant bride, and she
had no right to any such attitude because her feelings were not those
of a bride.
The thing that she did desperately care about just now was the
fitting-up of a home for mothers and babes in the Wisconsin woods. It
was to be a place where the young Polish mothers of a part of her
district could go and forget the belching horror of the steel mills, and
the sultry nights in the crowded, vermin-haunted homes. She hoped for
much from it--much more than the physical recuperation, though that was
not to be belittled. There was some hitch, at the last, about the
endowment. A benevolent spinster had promised to remember the
prospective home in her will and neglected to do so and now there were
several thousands to be collected from some unknown source. Kate was
absorbed with that when she was not engaged with her regular work.
Moreover, she made a point of being absorbed. She could not endure the
thought that she might be going about with a love-lorn, he-cometh-not
expression.
* * * * *
Life has a way of ambling withal for a certain time, and then of
breaking into a headlong gallop--bolting free--plunging to catastrophe
or liberty. Kate went her busy ways for a fortnight, somewhat chastened
in spirit, secretly a little ashamed, and altogether very determined to
make such a useful person of herself that she could forget her apparent
lack of attractions (for she told herself mercilessly that if she had
been very much desired by Ray he would not have been able to leave her
upon so slight a provocation). Then, one day,--it was the last day of
May and the world had rejuvenated itself,--she came across him.
A more unlikely place hardly could have been chosen for their meeting
than an "isle of safety" in mid-street, with motors hissing and
toof-toofing round about, policemen gesticulating, and the crowd
ceaselessly surging. The two were marooned with twenty others, and met
face to face, squarely, like foes who set themselves to combat. At first
he tried not to see her, and she, noting his impulse, thought it would
be the part of propriety not to see him. Then that struck her as so
futile, so childish, so altogether a libel on the good-fellowship which
they had enjoyed in the old days, that she held out her hand.
He swept his hat from his head and grasped the extended hand in a
violent yet tremulous clutch.
"We seem to be going in opposite directions," she said. There was just a
hint of a rising inflection in the accent.
He laughed with nervous delight.
"We are going the same way," he declared. "That's a well-established
fact."