And only a few hours ago Kate had felt very far away from her mother, very independent of her! She smiled now, remembering. Well, she had never needed her more. Sitting alone here in the sleeping house, with rain and wind at the windows and Elsie lying hating her in the next room, Kate ached for her mother.
She decided to write her a special delivery letter. That would bring her day after to-morrow, or day after to-day rather, for it must be getting toward day now. For one day Kate could stand guard over Elsie. She was glad of her decision to write as soon as she arrived at it. It seemed automatically to relieve her from grave responsibility. Besides, the composition of the letter would keep her awake.
And so, mother darling, please come on the very first train. Your desperate Kate.
It had been a long, full letter. She had told Katherine just everything that had to do with Elsie and her strange behaviour from their very first meeting. When Kate looked up from her signature she found the night had passed; dawn was in the room, at least the gray light of a rainy morning.
Kate rose, stretched her cramped limbs, and yawned prodigiously. Then she crept to Elsie’s door. Elsie was not asleep. Their eyes met. There were dark circles under Elsie’s eyes, and her face in the gray light was almost paper-white. The girls stared at each other silently. Then Elsie turned her head away on the pillow.
“How she hates me!” Kate thought, as she stole back through the bathroom. “She’s a dreadful hater. I couldn’t hate any one that way, no matter what they had done.”
She turned out the light that was still burning by her bed. Then she took a cold shower bath and dressed in a fresh dress, the second chintz curtain one. She brushed her hair vigorously.
“Some difference,” she reflected, “between the party Kate and the morning-after one. Too bad I haven’t a magic cap for day-times!”
Perhaps she needed one especially to-day. For tired, sleepless people are rarely pretty people; and Kate’s eyes were almost as dark-rimmed as Elsie’s.
Her toilet completed, she stole again to Elsie’s door. Again their eyes met.