She opened the doors, and Katherine and Nick blew through them like two drenched leaves. The rain had blurred the glass, and the running pair had thought it was Kate standing there watching them and letting them in. When they saw that it was Aunt Katherine they stood and simply stared, with almost no expression, still gripping each other’s hands.
Miss Frazier’s first words were unexpected ones. “Where is Elsie?” she asked Nick. That was all, just “Where is Elsie?” as though that, for the instant, was the thing of prime importance to her. It was Kate who could answer, though. Timidly she said, “Elsie’s up on the stair landing.”
“Well, that’s all right, then. I thought she might be in search of a father in the South Station or some place. I thought, Nick, you two, you and Elsie, had run away.”
Nick said, “We were going to. It is Katherine who has stopped us at the very minute.” He still held Katherine’s hand. Now he turned and looked at her. She looked back at him. Both Aunt Katherine and Kate, seeing what passed between their eyes, gasped. But it forewarned them, and Katherine’s words when she spoke were only an echo of what they had seen.
“Nick and I are getting married, Aunt Katherine. We didn’t know you were here, or we wouldn’t have burst in like this. We had come to tell our children. Won’t you get Elsie, Kate?”
“You and Nick marrying? So at last you’ve come to your senses!” That was Aunt Katherine.
“Yes. And oh, Aunt Katherine, she knows everything about me, and still she wants to.”
“Well, of course she knows everything about you. I fancy that’s had publicity enough. But if this is the way you feel, Katherine, why didn’t you write me one word when Nick got himself into trouble? Or since? Your silence has been as cruel as any part of it all. It said plainer than words, ‘Like Mrs. Van Vorst-Smith, I expected this sort of thing.’”
“Why, Aunt Katherine! How can you? If I had known Nick was in prison, that something so terrible had happened, I should have written you right away. No, I should have come. Trouble like that would have brought us all together. But how could I know, when nobody told me?” Katherine’s beautiful eyes were like a grieved, accusing child’s. “And what hard-shelled little creatures we are! Why couldn’t my soul have told me?”
“Don’t talk about your soul telling you.” Aunt Katherine was brusque. “What about your eyes? Don’t you ever read the papers?”