Or should she wire Karl?
She got out his letters, and his words were as a fresh wind blowing over
her spirit. She realized afresh how this man, seen but once, known only
through the medium of infrequent letters, had invigorated her. What had
he not taught her of compassion, of "the glory of the commonplace," of
duty eagerly fulfilled, of the abounding joy of life--even in life
shadowed by care or sickness or poverty?
No, she would write them nothing. They were her friends in fullness of
sympathy. They, like herself, were of those to whom each day and night
is a privilege, to whom sorrow is an enrichment, delight an unfoldment,
opposition a spur. They were of the company of those who dared to speak
the truth, who breathed deep, who partook of the banquet of life
without fear.
She had seen Honora in the worst hour of tribulation that can come to a
good woman, and she knew she had arisen from her overthrow, stronger for
the trial; now Karl was battling, and he had cried out to her in his
pain--his shame of defeat. But it would not be his extinction. She was
sure of that. They might, among them, slay his body, but she could not
read his letters, so full of valiant contrasts, and doubt that his
spirit must withstand all adversaries.
No, sardonic with these two she could never be. Like that poor Elena,
she might have mistaken Wander's meanings. He was a man of too elaborate
gestures; something grandiose, inherently his, made him enact the drama
of life with too much fervor. It was easy, Honora had insinuated, for a
woman to mistake him!
Kate gripped her two strong hands together and clasped them about her
head in the first attitude of despair in which she ever had indulged in
her life. She was ashamed! Honora had said there was nothing to be
ashamed of in love. But Kate would not call this meeting of her spirit
with Karl's by that name. She had no idea whether it was love or not. On
the whole, she preferred to think that it was not. But when they faced
each other, their glances had met. When they had parted, their thoughts
had bridged the space. When she dreamed, she fancied that she was
mounting great solitary peaks with him to look at sunsets that blazed
like the end of the world; or that he and she were strong-winged birds
seeking the crags of the Andes. What girl's folly! The time had come to
put such vagrant dreams from her and to become a woman, indeed.
Ray telephoned that he was home.
"Come up this evening, then," commanded Kate.
Then, not being as courageous as her word, she wept brokenly for her
mother--the mother who could, at best, have given her but such
indeterminate advice.