“Yes, of course. Of course we must talk.” Katherine’s tone implied, “Why not? Why shouldn’t we?”
“In the parlour, then. I’ll put up a window. No, I can’t do that. Someone in the house might see.”
“But why shouldn’t someone see? I don’t understand.”
“There’s air enough from the door now. Smell the syringa!”
Katherine was standing in the window, her back to them. Kate knew it was to hide strange tears. “The smell of the syringa did that,” she thought, with her quick understanding where her mother was concerned. “Smells are funny that way.”
Nick spoke to Kate then, with gentle imperativeness.
“Elsie will be coming out here in a minute. Yes, we are running away, if you like. Go to her and tell her to wait. Tell her we will go surely to-night, but she is to wait until your mother comes in. You keep her, Kate—stay with her—until your mother comes in.”
“I don’t think I could. She will be furious with me. She wouldn’t do what I said.”
“I’ll write her a note. She will understand that I want it.”
He pulled an envelope from his pocket and scrawled a sentence, holding the paper against the wall. Katherine had taken off her coat and was now sitting in the deep chair in the window. Her tears had vanished, if there really had been tears, and her eyes were clear as happiness itself.