Katherine had arrived in a taxi from the station a few minutes earlier and presented herself anxiously at Miss Frazier’s door. She had no trepidations about meeting her aunt now, no thought of their standing quarrel. Her whole mind was taken up with her daughter. To say that she was worried would be to describe her state of mind weakly. She was very nearly frantic. She had read and reread Kate’s telegram on an average of once every five minutes since its arrival, and in spite of all this study was no nearer guessing at the nature of the “mix-up” than she had been after the first reading.
Isadora was not one of the servants who had known and loved Katherine, and so it is not surprising that when she opened the door and saw her standing there with her suitcase she took her for an agent. Katherine did not enlighten Isadora as to her identity, for she wanted to see Kate first of all, and for the present Kate only. She made this very plain, and then walked past Isadora and into the drawing-room with such an air that in spite of the old black velvet tam and general lack of style in the caller’s clothes, Isadora accorded her all due respect and went in search of Kate.
But Kate was not to be found in the house. Would the caller wait? Yes? Very well. Isadora withdrew with several curious backward glances.
As soon as Isadora was out of the way Katherine went through the French doors on to the terrace. She paced back and forth, looking toward the orchard house. Was Kate there? Had she forgotten the time? The maid Isadora had appeared calm and collected enough. There certainly was a sense of peace in the house. The “mix-up” perhaps was not such a desperate one, after all. Katherine couldn’t wait here, though, doing nothing—not after all those hours of waiting on the train. She walked across the terrace and down into the garden toward the orchard house. She met Kate just at the edge of the trees.
Kate returned her mother’s embrace and kiss almost absently. Then Katherine held her off and looked at her. “You look all right,” she said, breathlessly. “Kate, tell me nothing dreadful has happened. Tell me you are all right. Quick!”
“Yes, yes. Oh, Mother, don’t look like that! I am perfectly all right. It’s about Elsie. But even that’s all right now. Mother, her father is here. Nick is in the orchard house. He wants to see you. He says it may be the last time you ever see each other. He wants you to come right now.”
But if Kate’s words reassured Katherine about Kate’s safety, they flung her into a new anxiety. “Nick? The last time? Why?”
“Oh, I don’t know. Only come.” Kate pulled at her mother’s hand.
Nick had come down the stairs and was waiting in the hall. When Katherine followed Kate dazedly in, and she and Nick stood facing each other, he exclaimed involuntarily; to him it was as though the girl of eighteen he had known years ago had come back. In the black velvet tam, raindrops sparkling in her hair that waved so softly at her ears and brow, raindrops drenching her eyelashes, her face vivid with emotion, her hands outstretched to him—why, she was as young and fresh as Kate herself, more beautiful even than he had remembered her.
“I must talk with you.” He was very intense and at the same time shy.