She wondered if any one, seeing that gray-faced, heavy-eyed woman, would dream of her so dearly won Ph.D. or of the Phi Beta Kappa key which she had won but not claimed! She had not even dared to converse, lest Lena's fragile self-possession should break. She evidently was in the clutches of nervous fatigue and was fighting it with her last remnant of courage. Even the veriest layman could guess as much.
Kate hastened home, and as she opened the door she heard the voice of Honora mingled with the happy cries of the twins. They were down in the drawing-room, and Honora had bought some colored balloons for them, and was running to and fro with them in her hand, while Patience and Patricia shrieked with delight.
"What a lovely day it's been, hasn't it?" Honora queried, pausing in her play. "I've so longed to be in the country, but matters had reached such a critical point at the laboratory that I couldn't get away. Do you know, Kate, the great experiment that David and I are making is much further along than he surmises! I'm going to have a glorious surprise for him one of these days. Business took him over to the Academy of Science to-day and I was so glad of it. It gave me the laboratory quite to myself. But really, I've got to get out into the country. I'm going to ask David if he won't take me next Sunday."
Kate felt herself growing giddy. She dared not venture to reply. She kissed the babies and sped up to her room. But Honora's happy laughter followed her even there. Then suddenly there was a scurrying. Kate guessed that David was coming. The babies were being carried up to the nursery lest they should annoy him.
Kate beat the wall with her fists.
"Fool! Fool!" she cried. "Why didn't she let him see her laughing and dancing like that? Why didn't she? She'll come down all prim and staid for him and he'll never dream what she really is like. Oh, how can she be so blind? I don't know how to stand it! And I don't know what to do! Why isn't there some one to tell me what I ought to do?"
Mary Morrison was late to dinner. She said she had run across an old Californian friend and they had been having tea together and seeing the shops. She had no appetite for dinner, which seemed to carry out her story. Her eyes were as brilliant as stars, and a magnetic atmosphere seemed to emanate from her. The men all talked to her. They seemed disturbed--not themselves. There was something in her glowing lips, in her swimming glance, in the slow beauty of her motions, that called to them like the pipes o' Pan. She was as pagan and as beautiful as the spring, and she brought to them thoughts of elemental joys. It was as if, sailing a gray sea, they had come upon a palm-shaded isle, and glimpsed Calypso lying on the sun-dappled grass.
XV
That night Kate said she would warn Honora; but in the morning she found herself doubtful of the wisdom of such a course. Or perhaps she really lacked the courage for it. At any rate, she put it off. She contemplated talking to Mary Morrison, and of appealing to her honor, or her compassion, and of advising her to go away. But Mary was much from home nowadays, and Kate, who had discouraged an intimacy, did not know how to cultivate it at this late hour. Several days went by with Kate in a tumult of indecision. Sometimes she decided that the romance between Mary and David was a mere spring madness, which would wear itself out and do little damage. At other moments she felt it was laid upon her to speak and avert a catastrophe.