Part 61 (1/2)
The waning day was cloudy, the crossings deep with slush, the pavements damp, and the chill of her wet soles made her s.h.i.+ver, adding the last touch to her forlornness and the depression which Bowers's desertion had induced. She dreaded returning to her cheerless room, but she could not walk the streets indefinitely, so she bought a magazine to read until it was time to dine alone in some one of the neighborhood's cheap restaurants. The night clerk was already on duty and through the fly-specked plate-gla.s.s window of the office saw her coming. Das.h.i.+ng from behind the desk, he skated recklessly across the tiles to open the door.
”Say--you're all right!” His tone was emphatic and sincere.
Kate eyed him without enthusiasm.
”Why didn't you tell me?” he demanded.
”Tell you what?”
He held up the afternoon newspaper that he had in his hand.
Kate's own face looked back at her from the front page and her name in the headlines met her astonished eyes. The picture, which had been made from a snapshot, was excellent, and the text was a highly colored recital of her achievements obtained from Bowers.
The clerk's tone conveyed his admiration as he confessed:
”Looks like you knew what you was talkin' about when you said I'd know who you was before you left Omaha.”
Sitting on the edge of her bed Kate read the article again, but her first feeling of elation did not return. With her hands clasped about one knee, in her characteristic att.i.tude, she stared at a festoon of dusty cobwebs hanging from the ceiling, and there gradually crept over her a feeling of la.s.situde.
She had established a record price with the best trainload of range sheep that ever had come into the stockyards; she had been accepted as an equal in achievement and intelligence by every one of the worthwhile men with whom she had come in contact; and as a climax to the day's events she was proclaimed a successful woman in the public prints. Yet, in the silence of the cheerless room, she was cognizant of the fact that nothing inside of her was changed thereby. There remained in her heart the same dreary emptiness.
Two tears slipped slowly down her cheeks. She brushed them away with the back of her hand, looked at her watch, and got up. She had no appet.i.te, but ordering food in a restaurant would help the time to pa.s.s. After rubbing such mud as she could from her boots, she smoothed her hair before the mirror and put on her hat. The sheep woman was the cynosure of the respectful gaze of many eyes as she came down the stairs.
Outside all the world was going home with eager, hurrying feet and she paused, looking indifferently up and down the street. The nearest restaurant was not inviting, but it answered well enough. After a few mouthfuls, Kate crumpled the paper napkin, paid her bill, and walked dispiritedly back to the hotel.
More often than not, the momentous happenings in life come without warning, and with no stage-setting to enhance the dramatic effect.
Certainly there was nothing in the announcement of the now too friendly clerk that ”she had a visitor who looked like new money,” to prognosticate that once Kate had crossed the threshold of the red-plush parlor, her life would never be the same again.
It was Bowers, of course--she thought--Bowers come too late to take her to the restaurant whose delectable ”grub” was one of his boasted memories of Omaha. Her conclusion was correct that Bowers was there, wearing his new clothes like a disguise, his eyes s.h.i.+ning with eagerness. But it was not Bowers that Kate saw in the dim light as she stepped through the doorway--it was the man who at intervals had been strongly in her thoughts all day, for whom she had unconsciously kept a lookout, impelled by an inexplicable desire to see him again and remove that perplexing, haunting sense of having seen him somewhere before.
Kate felt herself trembling when the man arose from the sofa facing the door. As if by divination she recognized some impending event of importance to herself. He was no casual caller brought by idle curiosity, she was sure of that.
There was in his eyes a tremendous hope, and a yearning tenderness in his face which seemed to draw her into his arms. It required an effort of will to remain pa.s.sive as he approached.
Without explanation or apology, he put his hand under her chin and raised it with all gentleness, studying meanwhile every lineament of her face.
Kate watched the light of conviction grow in his eyes. Then she felt an arm about her shoulder and herself being drawn close against her father's heart as he exclaimed brokenly:
”My baby-girl, grown up! My _Kate_!”
CHAPTER XXVIII
THE SURPRISE OF MR. WENTZ'S LIFE
After an absence from Prouty of several weeks, Kate stepped off the train alone one afternoon and furnished the town with the liveliest sensation of its kind that it had known since the Toomeys had gone ”on East.”
Through the cooperation of the telephone and of breathless ladies das.h.i.+ng across lots and from house to house, the town, by night, had a detailed description of the clothes which had altered Kate's appearance beyond belief.
Mrs. Abram Pantin expressed the opinion that Kate's Alaskan-seal coat which, in reality, represented the price of a goodly band of sheep, was merely native muskrat rather skilfully dyed.