Then quite suddenly, just as they were shrinking and darkening the wool with two small spots, a great irresistible sob seemed to come from outside and run through her from head to foot, and shook her and hurt her and gripped her throat. A moment more and the flood of tears broke. Those storms of life’s autumn are chill and sharp. They are not like the showers of spring, quick, light and soft, that make blossoms fragrant and woods sweet-scented.
Katharine did not understand, and her face was gentle and full of pain as she pressed her mother to her bosom.
“Don’t cry, mother—don’t cry!” she repeated again and again.
“Ah, Katharine—child—if you knew!” The few words came with difficulty, as each sob rose and would not be forced back.
“No, darling—don’t! There, there!” And the young girl tried to soothe her.
Suddenly it all ceased. With an impatient movement, as though she despised herself, Mrs. Lauderdale drew back, steadied herself with one hand upon the end of the sofa, turned her head away and rose to her feet.
“Go out, child—leave me to myself!” she said indistinctly, and going quickly towards the door. “Don’t come after me—don’t—no, don’t,” she repeated, not looking back, as she went out.
Left to herself, and understanding that it was better not to follow, Katharine stood still a moment in the middle of the room, then went to the window and looked out, seeing nothing. She did not know what it all meant, but she felt that some great change which she could not comprehend had come over her mother, and that they could never be again as they had been. A mere headache, the mere fatigue from overwork, could not have produced such results. Nor was Mrs. Lauderdale really ill, as the girl’s womanly instinct had told her within the last five minutes. The trouble, whatever it might be, was mental, and the tears had given it a momentary relief. But it was not over.
Katharine went out, at last, and was glad to breathe the keen air of the wintry afternoon; glad, too, to be alone with herself. She even wished that she were not obliged to go into Fifth Avenue, where she might meet an acquaintance, or at all events to cross it, as she decided to do when she reached the first corner. Going straight on, the next street was University Place, and the lower part of that was quiet, and Waverley Place and the neighbourhood of the old University building itself. She could wander about there for half an hour without going so far as Broadway, nor southwards to the precincts of the French and Italian business colonies. So she walked slowly on, and then turned, and turned again, round and round, backwards and forwards, meeting no one she knew, thinking all the time and idly noticing things that had never struck her before, as, for instance, that there is a row of stables leading westward out of University Place which is called Washington Mews, and that at almost every corner where there is a liquor-shop there seems to be an Italian fruit-stand—the function of the ‘dago’ being to give warning of the approach of the police, in certain cases, a fact which Katharine could not be expected to know.
Just beyond the aforesaid Mews, at the corner of Washington Square, she came suddenly upon little Frank Miner, his overcoat buttoned up to his chin and a roll of papers sticking out of his pocket. His fresh face was pink with the cold, his small dark mustache glistened, and his restless eyes were bright. The two almost ran against one another and both stopped. He raised his hat with a quick smile and put out his hand.