Chapter X

by Susan Glaspell

　　Feeling that first efforts, even on life-preservers, should not be longones, it was soon after they returned to the library that Katie threwout: "Well, Ann, if that letter must be written—"

　　Ann rose. "Yes, and it must."

　　"But morning is the time for letter writing," urged Wayne.

　　"Morning in this instance is the time for shopping," said Kate.

　　She had left Ann at the foot of the stairs, murmuring something abouthaving to see Nora. It was a half hour later that she looked in upon her.

　　What she saw was too much for Katie. Had the whole of creation beenwrecked by her laughing, Katie must needs have laughed just then.

　　For Ann's two hands gripped "Days in Florence" with fierce resolution.Ann's head was bent over the book in a sort of stern frenzy. Ann, noteven having waited to disrobe, was attacking Florence as the good oldcity had never been attacked before.

　　She seemed to get the significance of Katie's laugh, however, for it wasas to a confederate she whispered: "I'll get caught!"

　　"Trust me," said Kate, and laughed from a new angle.

　　Ann could laugh, too, and when Katie sat down to "talk it over" theywere that most intimate of all things in the world, two girls with asecret, two girls set apart from all the world by that secret they heldfrom all the world, hugging between them a beautiful, brilliant secretand laughing at the rest of the world because it couldn't get in. Thatsecret, shared and recognized and laughed over and loved, did what noamount of sympathy or gratitude could have done. It was as if the wholesituation heaved a sigh of relief and settled itself in morecomfortable position.

　　"Why no," sparkled Kate, in response to Ann's protestation, "the onlything you have to do is not to try. Lovers of Italy must take their Italywith a superior calm. And when you don't know what to say—just seem toofull for utterance. That being too full for utterance throws such a safeand lovely cover over the lack of utterance. And if you fear you're mixedup just look as though you were going to cry. Wayne will be so terrifiedat that prospect that he'll turn the conversation to air-ships, andyou'll always be safe with Wayne in an air-ship because he'll do all thetalking himself."

　　Ann grew thoughtful. She seemed to have turned back to something. Katiewould have given much to know what it was Ann's deep brown eyes weresurveying so somberly.

　　"The strange part of it is," she said, "I used to dream of somesuch place."

　　"Of course you did. That's why you belong there. A great deal more thansome of us who've tramped miles through galleries." Then swiftly Katiechanged her position, her expression and the conversation. "ElizabethBarrett Browning is your favorite poet, isn't she, Ann?"

　　"Why—why no," stammered Ann. "I'm afraid I haven't any favorite.

　　You see—"

　　"So much the better. Then you can take Elizabeth without being untrue toany one else. She loved Florence. You know she's buried there. I thinkyou used to make pilgrimages to her tomb."

　　Again Ann turned back, and at what she saw smiled a little, halfbitterly, half wistfully. "I'd like to have made pilgrimages somewhere."

　　"To be sure you would. That's why you did. The things we would like tohave done, and would have done if we could, are lots more part of us thanjust the things we did do because we had to do them. Just consider thatall those things you'd like to have done are things you did. It will makeyou feel at home with yourself. And to-morrow we'll go over the river andorder Elizabeth Barrett Browning and a tailored suit."

　　But with that the girl who would like to have done things receded,leaving baldly exposed the girl who had done the things she had had todo. "No," said Ann stubbornly and sullenly.

　　"But blue gingham morning dress and rose-colored evening dress arescarcely sufficient unto one's needs," murmured Kate.

　　Ann turned away her head. "I can't take things—not things like that."

　　"But why not?" pursued Kate. "Why can't you take as well as I can take?"

　　She turned upon her hotly, as if resentful of being toyed with. "Howsilly! It is yours."

　　Katie had said it at random, but once expressed it interested her.

　　"Why I don't know whether it is or not," she said, suddenly more

　　interested in the idea itself than in its effect upon Ann. "Why is it?

　　I didn't earn it."

　　"There's no use talking that way. It's yours because you've got it."That not seeming to bring ethical satisfaction she added: "It's yoursbecause your family earned it."

　　Katie was unfastening the muslin gown. "But as a matter offact,"—getting more and more interested—"they didn't. They didn't earnit. They just got it. What they earned they had to use to live on. Thisthat is left over is just something my grandfather fell upon throughluck. Then why should it be mine now—any more than yours?"

　　Ann deemed her intelligence insulted. "That's ridiculous."

　　"Well now I don't know whether it is or not." She was silent for amoment, considering it. "But anyhow," she came back to the issue, "wehave our hands on this money, so we'll get the suit. You're in the armynow, Ann. You're enlisted under me, and I'll have no insubordination. Youknow—into the jaws of death!—Even so into the jaws of Elizabeth BarrettBrowning—and a tailor-made suit!"

　　So Katie laughed herself out of the room.

　　And softly she whistled herself back into the library. The whistling didnot seem to break through the smoke which surrounded Wayne. After severalmoments of ostentatious indifference, she threw out at him, with aconspicuous yawn: "Well, Wayne, what did you think of the terrifyingjeune fille?"

　　Wayne's reply was long in coming, simple, quiet, and queer: "She's alady."

　　Startled, peculiarly gratified, impishly delighted, she yet repliedlightly: "A lady, is she? Um. Once at school one of the girls said shehad a 'trade-last' for me, and after I had searched the closets of memoryand dragged out that some one had said she had pretty eyes, dressed it upuntil this some one had called her ravishingly beautiful—after all thatconscientious dishonesty what does she tell me but that some one had saidI was so 'clean-looking.' One rather takes 'clean-looking' for granted!Even so with our friends being ladies. Quaint old word for you toresurrect, Wayne."

　　"Yes," he laughed, "quite quaint. But she seems to me just thatold-fashioned thing our forefathers called a lady. Now we have goodfellows, and thoroughbreds, and belongers. Not many of this girl's type."

　　Katie wanted to chuckle. But suddenly the unborn chuckle dissolved into asea of awe.

　　Thoughts and smoke seemed circling around Wayne together; and perhaps theblue rim of it all was dreams. His face was not what one would expect theface of a man engaged in making warfare more deadly to be as hemurmured, not to Katie but to the thin outer rim, softly, as to rimsbarely material: "And more than that—a woman."

　　He puzzled her. "Well, Wayne," she laughed, "aren't you getting alittle—cryptic? I certainly told you—by implication—that she was botha lady and a woman. Then why this air of discovery?"

　　But it did not get Katie into the smoke. He made no effort to get her in,but after a moment came back to her with a kindly: "I am glad you havesuch a friend, Katie. It will do you good."

　　That inward chuckle showed no disposition to dissolve into anything; itfought hard to be just a live, healthy chuckle.

　　Moved by an impulse half serious, half mischievous she asked: "You wouldsay then, Wayne, that Ann seems to you more of a lady than Zelda Fraser?"

　　Wayne's real answer lay in his look of disgust. He did condescend to putinto words: "Oh, don't be absurd, Katie."

　　"But Zelda has a splendid ancestry," she pressed.

　　"And suggests a chorus girl."

　　That stilled her. It left her things to think about.

　　At last she asked: "And Wayne, which would you say I was?"

　　He came back from a considerable distance. "Which of what?"

　　"Lady or chorus girl?"

　　He looked at her and smiled. Katie was all aglow with the daring of heradventure. "I should say, Katie dear, that you were a half-breed."

　　"What a sounding thing to be! But Major Darrett in his last letter tellsme I am his idea of a thoroughbred. How can I be a half-breed if I'm athoroughbred?"

　　"True, it makes you a biological freak. But you should be too original tocomplain of that."

　　"But I do complain. It sounds like something with three legs. Not butwhat I'd rather be a biological freak than a grind—or a prude."

　　"Be at peace," drily advised Wayne.

　　"Ann was quiet to-night," mused Katie, feeling an irresistible desireto get back to her post of duty, not because there was any need for herbeing there, but merely because she liked the post. "She felt a littlestrange, I think. She has been much alone and with people of adifferent sort."

　　"And I presume it never occurred to you, Katie, that neither Ann nor Iwas fairly surfeited with opportunities for conversational initiative?Just drop me a hint sometime when you are not going to be at home, willyou? I should like a chance to get acquainted with your friend."

　　Katie was straightway the hen with feathers ruffled over her brood. "Youmust be careful, Wayne," she clucked at him. "When you are alone with Annplease try to avoid all unpleasant subjects, or anything you see shewould rather not talk about."

　　"Thanks awfully for the hint," returned Wayne quietly. "I had beenmeaning to speak first of her father's funeral. I thought I would followthat with a searching inquiry into her mother's last illness. But ofcourse if you think this not wise I am glad to be guided by yourjudgment, Katie."

　　"Wayne!" she reproached laughingly. "Now you know well enough! I simplymeant if you saw Ann wished to avoid a subject, not to pursue it."

　　"Thanks again, dear Sister Kate, for these easy lessons inbehavior. Rule 1—"

　　But she waved it laughingly aside, rising to leave him. "Just the same,"she maintained, from the doorway, "experience may make the familiarthings—and dear things—the very things of which one wishes least tospeak. Talk to Ann about the army, Wayne; talk about—"

　　But as he was holding out note-book and pencil she beat grimacingretreat.

　　That night Miss Jones dreamed. The world had been all shaken up andeverything was confused and no one could put it to rights. All thosedames whose ancestors had sailed unknown waters were in the front row ofthe chorus, and all the chorus girls were dancing a stately minuet at OldPoint Comfort. Elizabeth Barrett Browning was trying to commit suicide bybecoming a biological freak, and the Madonna of the Chair was wearing asmartly tailored brown rajah suit.