He paled, but quickly recovered himself. "That was not my affair. There must have been—something afterward."
"Maybe. I'm sure I don't know. But you were the beginning, weren't you?" Suddenly she buried her face in her hands. "Oh I didn't think—I didn't think it could get in here! It's everywhere! It's everywhere! It's getting me!"
"Katie—dear Katie," he murmured, "don't. We'll get you out of this. You wanted to be kind. It was just a mistake of yours. We'll fix it up. Don't cry." And he put an arm about her.
She stood before him with clenched hands, eyes blazing. "Don't touch me!
Don't you touch me!" And she left him.
In the hall Nora stopped her to say there were not enough champagne glasses. She made no reply. Champagne glasses—!
She looked after Worth. Then she went to Ann.
"Well, Ann," she began, her voice high pitched and unsteady, "this is about the limit, isn't it?"
"Oh Katie," moaned Ann, "you told me—you told me—you understood. Why,
Katie—you must have known there was some one."
"Oh I knew there was some one, all right," said Katie, her voice getting higher and higher, her cheeks more and more red—"only I just hadn't figured, you see, on its being some one I knew! Why how under the sun," she asked, laughing wildly, "did you ever meet Major Darrett?"
"I—I'll try to tell you," faltered Ann miserably. "I want to. I want to make you understand. Katie!—I'll die if you don't understand!"