CHAPTER IX
Kathryn Morris, as the days of Northrup’s absence stretched into weeks, grew more and more restless. She began to do some serious thinking, and while this developed her mentally, the growing pains hurt and she became twisted.
Heretofore she had been borne along on a peaceful current. She was young and pretty and believed that everyone saw her as she wanted them to see her––a charming, an unusually charming girl.
People had always responded to her slightest whim, but suddenly her own particular quarry had eluded her; did not even pine for her; was able to keep silent while he left her and his mother to think what they chose.
At this moment Kathryn placed herself beside Helen Northrup as a timid débutante shrinks beside her chaperon.
“And that old beast”––Kathryn in the privacy of her bedchamber could speak quite openly to herself––“that old beast, Doctor Manly, suggested that at forty I might be fat if–––” Well, it didn’t matter about the “if.” Kathryn did a bit of mental arithmetic, using her fingers to aid her. What was the difference between twenty-four and forty? The difference seemed terrifyingly little. “A fat forty! Oh, good Lord!”
Kathryn was in bed and it was nine-thirty in the morning! She sprang out and looked at herself in the mirror.
“Well, my body hasn’t found it out yet!” she whispered, and her pretty white teeth showed complacently.