Chapter XXXVIII

by Susan Glaspell

　　She found it difficult to adjust herself to the Ann who had luncheonwith her the next day. The basis of their association had shifted and ithad been too unique for it to be a simple matter to appear unconsciousof the shifting.

　　She had not seen Ann since the day they said the cruel things to eachother. Wayne had thought it best that way, saying that Ann must have nomore emotional excitement. She had acquiesced the more readily as at thetime she was not courting emotional excitement for herself.

　　And now the Ann sitting across the table from her was not the logicalsequence of things experienced in last summer's search for Ann. She wasnot the sum of her thoughts about Ann—visioning through her, not theexpression of the things Ann had opened up. It was hard, indeed, to thinkof her as in any sense related to them, at all suggestive of them.

　　An Ann radiating life rather than sorrowing for it was an Ann she did notknow just what to do with.

　　And there was something disturbing in that rich glow of happiness. Shedid not believe that Ann's something somewhere could be stenography. Yether radiance—the deep, warm quality of it—suggested nothing so much asa something somewhere attained. It seemed to Katie rather remarkable ifthe prospect of soon being able to earn her own living could make agirl's eyes as wonderful as that.

　　There was no mistaking her delight in seeing Katie and Worth. And asense of the old relationship was there—deep and tender sense of it;but something had gone from it, or been added to it. It was not theall in all.

　　Truth was, Ann was more at home with her than she was with Ann.

　　After luncheon they went up to Katie's room for a little chat. Katietalked about stenography and soon came to be conscious of that being avapid thing to be talking about.

　　"What pretty furs," she said, in the pause following the collapse ofstenography.

　　That seemed to mean more. "Yes, aren't they lovely?" responded Ann, withhappy enthusiasm. "They were my Christmas present—from Wayne."

　　The way Ann said Wayne—in the old days she had never said it at all—ledinstantly, though without her knowing by what path, to that strange fearof hers in finding Ann so free from fear.

　　Ann was blushing a little: the "Wayne" had slipped out so easily, and soprettily. "He thought I needed them. It's often so cold here, you know."

　　"Why certainly one needs furs," said Katie firmly, as if there could beno question as to that.

　　Katie's great refuge was activity. She got up and began taking somedresses from her trunk.

　　Then, just to show herself that she was not afraid, that there wasnothing to be afraid about, she asked lightly: "What in the world bringsWayne up to New York so much?"

　　Ann was affectionately stroking her muff. She looked up at Katie shyly,but with a warm little smile. There was a pause which seemed to hoverover it before she said softly: "Why, Katie, I think perhaps I bring himup to New York."

　　Everything in Katie seemed to tighten—close up. She gave her mostcobwebby dress a perilous shake and said in flat voice: "Wayne's verykind, I'm sure."

　　Ann did not reply; she was still stroking her muff; that smile whichhovered tenderly over something had not died on her lips. It made hermouth, her whole face, softly lovely. It did something else. Made itdifficult for Katie to go on pretending with herself.

　　Though she made a last stand. It was a dreadful state of affairs, shetold herself, if Ann had been so absurd as to fall in love withWayne—Wayne—just because he had been kind in helping her get a start.

　　She followed that desperately. "Oh yes, Wayne's really very kind atheart. And then of course he's always been especially interested in you,because of me."

　　Ann looked up at her. The look kept deepening, sank far down beneath

　　Katie's shallow pretense.

　　"Well, Katie," Ann began, with the gentle dignity of one whom life hastaken into the fold, "as long as we seem into this, I'd rather go on.Wayne said I was to do just as I liked about telling you. Just as ithappened to come up. But I think you ought to know he is not interestedin just the way you think." She paused before it, then said softly, witha tremulous pride: "He cares for me, Katie—and wants to marry me."

　　"He can't do that! He can't do that!"

　　It came quick and sharp. Quick and sharp as fire answering attack.

　　She sat down. The sharpness had gone and her voice was shaking as shesaid: "You certainly must know, Ann, that he can't do that."

　　So they faced each other—and the whole of it. It was all opened up now.

　　"It's very strange to me," Katie added hotly, "that you wouldn'tknow that."

　　It seemed impossible for Ann to speak; the attack had been too quick andtoo sharp; evidently, too unexpected.

　　"I told him so," she finally whispered. "Told and told him so. That youwould feel—this way. That it—couldn't be. He said no. That youfelt—all differently—after last summer. And I thought so, too. Yourletters sounded that way."

　　Katie covered her eyes for a second. It was too much as if the things shewas feeling differently about were the things she was losing.

　　"And when you want to be happy," Ann went on, "it's not so hard topersuade yourself—be persuaded." She stopped with a sob.

　　"I know that," was wrung wretchedly from Katie.

　　"And since—since I have been happy—let myself think it could be—itjust hasn't seemed it could be any other way. So I stoppedthinking—hadn't been thinking—took it for granted—"

　　Again it wrung from Katie the this time unexpressed admission that therewas nothing much easier than coming to look upon one's happiness as theinevitable.

　　"And Wayne kept saying," Ann went on, sobs back of her words, "that allhuman beings are entitled to work out their lives in their own way. Youbelieved that, he said. And I—I thought you did, too. Your letters—"

　　"No," said Katie bitterly, "what I believed was that I was entitled towork out my life in my own way. Wayne got his life mixed up with mine."

　　The laugh which followed them was more bitter, more wretched thanthe words.

　　She had persuaded herself the more easily that she was entitled to workout her life in her own way because she had assumed Wayne would be thereto stand guard over the things left from other days. He was to staythere, fixed, leaving her free to go.

　　She could not have explained why it was that the things she had beenthinking did not seem to apply to Wayne.

　　The thing grew to something monstrous. There whirled through her mind afrenzied idea as to what they would do about sending Major Barrett awedding announcement.

　　Other things whirled through her mind—as jeers, jibes, they came, alaugh behind them. A something somewhere was very commendable while itremained abstract! Having a fine large understanding about Ann hadnothing to do with having Ann for a sister-in-law! "Calls" were lessbeautiful when responded to by one's brother! This (and this tore anugly wound) was what came of helping people in their quests forhappiness.

　　It was followed by a frantic longing to be with Mrs. Prescott—in theshelter of her philosophy, hugging tight those things left by the womenof other days. Frightened, outraged, her impulse was to fly back to thosewell worn ways of yesterday.

　　But that was running away. Ann was there. Ann with the radiance gone;though, for just that moment, less stricken than defiant. There wassomething of the cunning of the desperate thing cornered in the sullenflash with which she said: "You talked a good deal about wanting me to behappy. Used to think I had a right to be. When it was Captain Prescott—"

　　It was unanswerable. The only answer Katie would be prepared to make toit was that she didn't believe, all things considered, it was a thing shewould have said. But doubtless people lost nice shades of feeling whenthey became creatures at bay fighting for life.

　　And seemingly one would leave nothing unused. "I want you to know,Katie, that I paid back that money. The missionary money. You made mefeel that it wasn't right. That I—that I ought to pay it back. I earnedthe money myself—some work there was for me to do at school. I wantedto—to buy a white dress with it." Ann was sobbing. "But I didn't. Isent back the money."

　　Katie was wildly disposed to laugh. She did not know why, after havingworried about it so much, Ann's having paid back the missionary moneyshould seem so irrelevant now. But she did not laugh, for Ann was lookingat her as pleadingly, as appealingly, as Worth would have looked after hehad been "bad" and was trying to redeem it by being "good."

　　With a sob, Ann hid her face against her muff.

　　Seeing her thus, Katie made cumbersome effort to drag things to lessdelicate, less difficult, ground.

　　"Ann dear," she began, "I—oh I'm so sorry about this. But truly, Ann,you wouldn't be at all happy with Wayne."

　　Ann raised her face and looked at her with something that had a dullsemblance to amusement.

　　"You see," Katie staggered on, "Wayne hasn't a happy temperament. He'smorose. Queer. It wouldn't do at all, Ann, because it would make you bothwretchedly unhappy."

　　She found Ann's faint smile irritating. "I ought to know," she addedsharply, "for I've lived in the house with him most of my life."

　　"You may have lived in the house with him, Katie," gently came Ann'soverwhelming response. "You've never understood him."

　　Katie openly gasped. But some of her anger passed swiftly into awondering how much truth there might be in the preposterous statement.Wayne as "immune" was another idea jeering at her now. And that furtherassumption, which had been there all the while, though only nowconsciously recognized, that Wayne's knowing Ann's story, made Ann, toWayne, impossible—

　　Living in the same house with people did not seem to have a great deal todo with knowing their hearts.

　　"Wayne," Ann had resumed, in voice low and shaken with feeling, "has thesweetest nature of any one in this world. He's been unhappy just becausehe hadn't found happiness. If you could see him with me, Katie, I don'tthink you'd say he had an unhappy nature—or worry much about our notbeing happy."

　　Katie was silent, driven back; vanquished, less by the words than by thelight they had brought to Ann's face.

　　And what she had been wanting—had thought she was ready to fightfor—was happiness—for every one.

　　"Of course I know," Ann said, "that that's not it." That light had allgone from her face. It was twisted, as by something cruel, blighting, asshe said just above a whisper: "There's no use pretending we don't knowwhat it is."

　　She turned her face away, shielding it with her muff.

　　It was all there—right there between them—opened, live, throbbing. Allthat it had always meant—all that generations of thinking and feelinghad left around it.

　　And to Katie, held hard, it was true, all too bitterly true, that shecame of what Mrs. Prescott called a long line of fine and virtuouswomen. In her misery it seemed that the one thing one need have no fearabout was losing the things they had left one.

　　But other things had been left her. The war virtues! The braving and thefighting and the bearing. Hardihood. Unflinchingness. Unwhimperingness.

　　Those things fought within her as she watched Ann shaken with the sobsshe was trying to repress.

　　Well at least she would not play the coward's part with it! She broughtherself to look it straight in the face. And what she saw was that ifshe could be brave enough to go herself into a more spacious country,leaving hurts behind, she must not be so cowardly, so ignoblyinconsistent as to refuse the hurts coming to her through others whowould dare. Through the conflict of many emotions, out of much misery,she at last wrenched from a sore heart the admission that Wayne had asmuch right to be "free" as she had. That if Ann had a right to happinessat all—and she had always granted her that—she had a right to this. Itwas only that now it was she who must pay a price for it. And perhapssome one always paid a price.

　　"Ann?"

　　Ann looked up into Katie's colorless, twitching face.

　　"I hope you and Wayne will be very happy." It came steadily, and with anattempted smile.

　　The next instant she was sobbing, but trying at the same time to tell Annthat sisters always acted that way when told of their brothers'engagements.