Part 22 (1/2)

As to the last point Kate eagerly denied the danger. The other questions she answered more slowly, but with her usual frankness. Esther had been more in love with New England than herself; she had not criticised things-oh, dear, she had never quarrelled with anybody in behalf of her native state; and she had been perfectly delighted with the invitation to stay, there could be no doubt of that. And then she was silent, her face lengthening a little, as she thought of the one who gave the invitation.

The young man had listened with the closest attention while she talked, and he gave a little sigh when she finished. ”I'm afraid I shan't know as much about things that are happening there now as I did before you came away,” he said wistfully. ”You were ever so good about writing to me, Kate. I haven't had but one letter since you came away.”

His eyes wandered as he spoke to that letter with its well-known writing lying on the table, and it was not the first time since he came in that they had moved in that direction. Kate noted the hungry look, and felt mean.

”We had one to-day, and she is perfectly well,” she said uneasily. And then she would have changed the subject but that Virgie, who was so little given to conversation that her occasional contributions were the more dangerous, spoke up just then and said it was such an interesting letter, all about a visit Esther had made with grandfather; Kate had read it to them all, and it was beautiful.

”Can't I hear it too?” said Morton, boldly.

There was no help for it now, and Kate walked soberly to the table.

There were one or two pa.s.sages she would certainly have left out, but Virgie, who had read it three times, would be likely enough to call attention to the omissions, and that would make the business worse. So she went straight through it, with a certain hardness of tone when allusions were made to the charming qualities of Mr. Philip Hadley which made them all the more emphatic.

Morton Elwell's eyes did not move from her face as she read. Indeed, there was a tenseness about his expression at moments which suggested that he was holding his breath.

”So you see grandfather's taking her into all the gayeties,” Kate said rather nervously, as she laid down the letter. ”She's a wonderful favorite with grandfather.”

Morton drew his hand across his forehead. ”This Mr. Hadley is the one who went to the graveyard with her, isn't he? Esther wrote me about that.”

”Yes, only 'twas Stella he was with,” said Kate. ”Esther was with grandfather.”

The exact arrangement of the party was apparently not the main interest just then for Morton. ”And he showed you around Boston and Cambridge and those other places afterward, didn't he?” he queried.

”Yes, we did a good deal of sight-seeing together,” said Kate, and then she added hurriedly, ”he and Stella are tremendously up in art, and that's why he went to some places with us. He wanted to show her a picture in his own house for one thing. Maybe Esther wrote you about that too.”

”But he knows Stella's gone from your grandfather's now, doesn't he?”

said the young man. There were apparently other things besides the price of turkeys in regard to which he could draw quick deductions, and his eyes searched Kate's at that moment with a look that was straight and keen.

”I don't know but he does,” she said almost pettishly.

There was a minute's silence, and somehow it occurred to Morton Elwell just then that the hour was growing late.

”I must be going home,” he said. ”Aunt Jenny'll wonder what has become of me.”

He said good night to Virgie, and stopped in the hall a minute for a word with Mrs. Northmore. Kate was beside him. ”I'll go down to the gate with you,” she said, as she had said many a time before, and he seemed to expect it.

But when they were fairly beyond the porch, in the shadows of the shrubbery, he slipped his arm through hers, and said very quietly: ”Kate, I wish you'd tell me the truth about this Mr. Hadley. He's coming to see Esther, of course. Is he in love with her?”

”I don't know that he is. I never saw a thing to make me think so,” said Kate, with low vehemence. And then (for there was a frankness in her which would not let her stop there) she added: ”Tom says he is; but Tom made up his mind to that right at the start, and he's the most obstinate boy I ever saw about his own opinions. He never changes his mind, no matter what good reasons you may show him on the other side.”

The idiosyncrasies of Tom Saxon were not interesting just then to Morton Elwell. Kate heard him draw his breath hard before he said: ”Of course he's in love with her. He's been seeing her all summer, and he couldn't help being. And she”-he paused for an instant before he added bitterly: ”I understand it now. It's knowing _him_ that made her so willing to stay.”

”Oh, no it isn't, Mort; indeed it isn't,” said Kate, bringing him to a standstill with a compelling pressure on his arm. ”If you knew everything, you wouldn't say that. It was Aunt Katharine that made her stay. Oh, if you knew Aunt Katharine! She's a dreadfully strong-minded woman, and she's taken a terrible fancy to Esther. She'd like to make her feel just as she does about woman's rights, and never marrying, and all that sort of thing. _She's_ the one, not Mr. Hadley at all, that has such an influence over Esther.”

”Nonsense!” said Morton Elwell; and he said it with a sharpness that for an instant made Kate almost afraid of him.

There was silence for a minute as they moved down the path. Then, with the sharpness gone out of his voice and the bitterness overflowing it again, he said: ”I don't wonder at it. He's rich and agreeable,-you wrote that yourself, Kate. He's all that's delightful and cultivated,-she says so in the letter. He has everything and-and time to be with her,” he added, with a groan. ”She can't help caring for him. I know it as if I were there to see.”

They had reached the great horse-chestnut tree by the gate, and the moonlight came down through the half-leafless branches on the girl's face lifted to his. ”Oh, it won't be the way you think, Mort,” she whispered pa.s.sionately. ”Esther _can't_ care for Mr. Hadley. I'm sure, I'm sure she can't!”

”Why can't she?” he asked, and his face looked pale and stern.