But it was raining, and uncle Robert lived far away from Clinton Place in a house he had built for himself at the corner of a new block facing the Central Park. He had built the whole block and had kept possession of it afterwards. It was almost three miles from Alexander Lauderdale’s house in unfashionable Clinton Place—three miles of elevated road, or of horse-car or of walking—and in any case it meant getting wet in such a rain storm. Moreover, Katharine rarely went alone by the elevated road. She wished it would stop raining. If it would only stop for half an hour she would go. Perhaps it was as well to let fate decide the matter in that way.
Just then a carriage drove up to the door. She flattened her face against the window, but could not see who got out of it. It was a cab, however, and the driver had a waterproof hat and coat. In all probability it came from one of the hotels. Any one might have taken it. Katharine drew back a little and looked idly at the little mottled mist her breath had made upon the window pane. The door of her room opened suddenly.
“Kitty, are you there?” asked a woman’s voice.
Katharine knew as the handle of the latch was turned that her sister Charlotte had come. No one else ever entered her room without knocking, and no one else ever called her ‘Kitty.’ She hated the abbreviation of her name and she resented the familiarity of the unbidden entrance. She turned rather sharply.
“Oh—is that you? I thought you were in Washington.” She came forward, and the two exchanged kisses mechanically.
“Benjamin Slayback of Nevada had business in New York, so I came up to get a breath of my native microbes,” said Charlotte, going to the mirror and beginning to take off her hat very carefully so as not to disturb her hair. “We are at a hotel, of course—but it’s nice, all the same. I suppose mamma’s at work and I know papa’s down town, and the ancestor is probably studying some new kind of fool—so I came to your room.”
“Will you have some tea?” asked Katharine.
“Tea? What wild extravagance! I suppose you offer it to me as ‘Mrs. Slayback.’ I wonder if papa would. I can see him smile—just like this—isn’t it just like him?”
She smiled before the mirror and then turned suddenly on Katharine. The mimicry was certainly good. Mrs. Slayback, however, was fair, like her mother, with a radiant complexion, golden hair and good features,—larger and bolder than Mrs. Lauderdale’s, but not nearly so classically perfect. There was something hard in her face, especially about the eyes.
“It’s just the same as ever,” she said, seating herself in the small arm-chair—the only one in the room. “The same dear, delightful, dreary, comfortless, furnace-heated, gas-lighted, ‘put-on-your-best-hat-to-go-to-church’ sort of existence that it always was! I wonder how you all stand it—how I stood it so long myself!”