The “now,” however, was almost lost in Katherine’s sudden pounce upon the servant and her hearty handshake.
“Julia often takes a good deal upon herself,” Miss Frazier observed, as linked with Katherine she led their little procession toward the dining-room.
And their first view of the table justified Aunt Katherine in this criticism of Julia. The polished surface of the cherished antique was hidden under an enormous damask cloth. But worse than that, the jade dish with its exquisite floating blossoms had given way to a huge, and to Miss Frazier’s mind hideous, cut-glass punch-bowl full of roses, dozens and dozens of roses, pink, red, and yellow!
“Why, they have made it into a festival,” Katherine cried, surveying the effect. “Smell those roses.”
“See them, rather,” Miss Frazier responded. “It’s the servants. They must have known you both were here; and yes, there are two extra places set.”
“It’s Julia, the lamb!” Katherine declared. “Bless her dear heart. I saw her looking from the kitchen window as we ran in. I’d go and kiss her this second, but she wouldn’t approve of that until after dinner. Julia’s a lion for etiquette.”
“Please be so considerate as not to begin spoiling the servants, Katherine.”
Nick and Kate and Elsie looked at Aunt Katherine, surprised. But Katherine simply answered lightly, “It’s they who spoil me.” She accepted the tone of her aunt’s command without dismay. She knew that the apparent sharpness had been only Aunt Katherine’s old habit of criticism reasserting itself toward a beloved niece, who to her mind could never possibly be anything but the child she had “brought up.” Katherine had begun to understand her aunt to-night for the first time, to see her in the “other light” that the King of the Fairies knew.
“You’d better excuse yourself to wash your hands and remove that odd-looking rain-soaked tam,” Aunt Katherine picked on her again, the minute they were seated. “Use my bathroom, it’s the nearest. And hurry right back, or this surprisingly sumptuous-looking soup that Julia has provided will get cold.”
Katherine, obediently leaving the room, looked rather like a humble child, but Nick’s eyes, as he stood, followed as though hers might have been the departure of an empress.