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.