It did not show itself at once, but afterward it seemed to Katie that the next day marked the beginning of Ann's retreat on the bridge of make-believe.
And she wondered whether the stray dog or the dangerous literature had most to do with that retreat.
Ann was pale and quiet the day after the dance, and it was not merely the languor of the girl who has fatigued herself in having a good time.
At luncheon Katie suddenly demanded: "Wayne, where do you get dangerous literature?"
"I don't know what form of danger you're courting, Katie. I have a valuable work on high explosives, and I have a couple of volumes of De Maupassant."
"Oh I weathered all that kind of danger long ago," said she airily. "I want the kind that is distressing editors of church papers. The man who edits this religious paper uncle sends me is a most unchristian gentleman. He devoted a whole page to talking about dangerous literature and then didn't tell you where to get it. Well, I'll try Walt Whitman. He's very popular in the West, I'm told, and as the West likes danger perhaps he's dangerous enough to begin on."
"And you feel, do you, Katie, that the need of your life just now is for danger?"
"Yes, dear brother. Danger I must have at any cost. What's the good living in a dangerous age if you don't get hold of any of the danger? This unchristian editor says that little do we realize what a dangerous age it is. And he says it's the literature that's making it so. Then find the literature. Only he—beast!—doesn't tell you where to."
Worth there requested the privilege of whispering in his Aunt Kate's ear. The ear being proffered, he poured into it: "I guess the man that mends the boats has got some dangerous literature, Aunt Kate."
"Tell him to endanger Aunt Kate," she whispered back.