Now Kitty was idiomatic in her speech at times, and she occasionally used slang of the best brand, but she avoided those colloquialisms which were of the vocabulary of the uneducated. Indeed, she had had no inclination to use them, for her father had set her a good example, and she liked to hear good English spoken. That was why Crozier’s talk had been like music to her; and she had been keen to distinguish between the rhetorical method of Augustus Burlingame, who modelled himself on the orators of all the continents, and was what might be called a synthetic elocutionist. Kitty was as simple and natural as a girl could be, and as a rule had herself in perfect command; but she was so stunned by the sight of this petite person before her that, in reply to Mrs. Crozier’s question, she only said abruptly
“The same!”
Then she came to herself and could have bitten her tongue out for that plunge into the vernacular of the West; and forthwith a great prejudice was set up in her mind against Mona Crozier, in whose eyes she caught a look of quizzical criticism or, as she thought, contemptuous comment. That for one instant she had been caught unawares and so had put herself at a disadvantage angered her; but she had been embarrassed and confounded by this miniature goddess, and her reply was a vague echo of talk she heard around her every day. Also she could have choked the Young Doctor, whom she caught looking at her with wondering humour, as though he was trying to see “what her game was,” as he said to her afterwards.
It was all due to the fact that from the day of the Logan Trial, and particularly from the day when Shiel Crozier had told his life-story, she had always imagined his wife as a stately Amazonian being with the carriage of a Boadicea. She had looked for an empress in splendid garments, and—and here was a humming-bird of a woman, scarcely bigger, than a child, with the buzzing energy of a bee, but with a queer sort of manfulness too; with a square, slightly-projecting chin, as Kitty came to notice afterwards; together with some small lines about the mouth and at the eyes, which came from trouble endured and suffering undergone. Kitty did not notice that, but the Young Doctor took it in with his embracing glance, as the wife saluted Kitty with her inward comment, which was:
“So this is the chit who wrote to me like a mother!” But Mona Crozier did not underestimate Kitty for all that, and she wondered why it was that Kitty had written as she did. One thing was quite clear: Kitty had had good intentions, else why have written at all?
All these thoughts had passed through the mind of each, with a good many others, while they were shaking hands; and the Young Doctor summoned his man to carry Mona’s hand-luggage to the extra buggy he had brought to the station. One of the many other thoughts that were passing through three active minds was Kitty’s unspoken satire:
“Just think; this is the woman he talked of as though she was a moving mountain which would fall on you and crush you, if you didn’t look out!”
No doubt Crozier would have repudiated this description of his talk, but the fact was he had unconsciously spoken of Mona with a sort of hush in his voice; for a woman to him was something outside real understanding. He had a romantic mediaeval view, which translated weakness and beauty into a miracle, and what psychologists call “an inspired control.”
“She’s no bigger than—than a wasp,” said Kitty to herself, after the Young Doctor had assured Mrs. Crozier that her husband was almost well again; that he had recovered more quickly than was expected, and had gained strength wonderfully after the crisis was passed.
“An elephant can crush you, but a wasp can sting you,” was Kitty’s further inward comment, “and that’s why he was always nervous when he spoke of her.” Then, as the Young Doctor had already done, she noticed the tiny lines about the tiny mouth, and the fine-spun webs about the bird-bright eyes.