But Kate did not turn to him. “Go away, go away, go away,” she said, mentally. “I don’t want to hear any more. It’s not for you to unravel the mystery. I don’t want to know from a stranger. I feel very indignant. Very, very indignant, and I hardly know why.”
Kate’s silence meant as much to Jack Denton as the thoughts he could not hear. He turned away and strolled toward the house, swinging his racket and looking at the ground dejectedly. Kate was sorry she had been so deliberately rude, but she simply could not call him back. She was too really indignant, and at the same time unable to analyze her indignation. She returned to her letter.
But she found it very difficult to write. There was just too much ever to begin to put on paper, in spite of this being only her third day here! What she must do was simply tell the facts and let the rest go. The colour of the facts, all that lay underneath and over them, must wait. The letter that finally developed was a thin affair, perfunctory and empty of interest. Kate had never in her life felt so far from her mother.
The girls and Miss Frazier selected and cut flowers in the garden. They took them in loosely on their arms and tossed them down on a damp sheet spread on the floor just inside the drawing-room doors. Then came the deciding on receptacles and the placing of them. It was all very interesting, and exciting, too, for as the rooms grew in adornment Kate felt the party itself drawing nearer and nearer. Miss Frazier seemed very gay as they worked. She laughed and said whimsical things in a whimsical manner. And her every touch was deft, and the result artistic.
That morning Kate learned more about colour values and proportion than she had ever learned in all her years of school. She had not dreamed that so much mind could be used on such an apparently simple occupation as placing a few nasturtiums in a vase!
What a good time they were having! Kate moved about the big drawing-room and hall with almost dancing steps, she was so happy doing her aunt’s intelligent bidding and seeing loveliness form before her eyes and under her hand. And Elsie was laughing quite spontaneously at Aunt Katherine’s humour and taking as much delight as Kate in the growing beauty of the arrangements.
“Someone to speak to you on the telephone, Miss Frazier.” Isadora had come out from the telephone booth under the hall stairs.
“Who is it, please? Always get the name, Isadora.”
“Yes, ma’am. I always do when I can. But this gentleman won’t give his name. Says it’s not necessary. He wants to speak to you on important business, he says.”
“Won’t give his name! Nonsense! Tell him, then——” But suddenly in the middle of this command Aunt Katherine’s expression changed. “Oh, well, I think I know now who it must be. That’s all right, Isadora.”