Part 16 (2/2)
”Yes, I saw it on the table, and surmised it was from him.”
”Did you? You were quite right. The reading of that letter has revolutionized my character. I am a changed woman, Dorothy, and thoroughly ashamed of myself. When I remember how I have deluded that poor, credulous young man, in making him believe I understood even the fringe of what he spoke about, it fills me with grief at my perfidy, but I am determined to amend my ways if hard study will do it, and when next I see him I shall talk to him worthily like a female Thomas A. Edison.”
Again Dorothy laughed.
”Now, that's heartless of you, Dorothy. Don't you see I'm in deadly earnest? Must my former frivolity dog my steps through life? When I call to mind that I made fun to you of his serious purpose in life, the thought makes me cringe and despise myself.”
”Nonsense, Kate, don't go to the other extreme. I remember nothing you have said that needs withdrawal. You have never made a malicious remark in your life, Kate. Don't make me defend you against yourself. You have determined, I take it, to plunge into the subjects which interest the man you are going to marry. That is a perfectly laudable ambition, and I am quite sure you will succeed.”
”I know I don't deserve all that, Dorothy, but I like it just the same. I like people to believe in me, even if I sometimes lose faith in myself. May I read you an extract from his letter?”
”Don't if you'd rather not.”
”I'd rather, Dorothy, if it doesn't weary you, but you will understand when you have heard it, in what a new light I regard myself.”
The letter proved to be within the leaves of the late Mr. Steele's book on Chemistry, and from this volume she extracted it, pressed it for a moment against her breast with her open hand, gazing across at her friend.
”Dorothy, my first love-letter!”
She turned the crisp, thin pages, and began:
”'You may recollect that foot-note which you marked with red ink in the book you so kindly gave me on the subject of Catalysis, which did not pertain to the subject of the volume in question, and yet was so illuminative to any student of chemistry. They have done a great deal with Catalysis in Germany with amazing commercial results, but the subject is one so recent that I had not previously gone thoroughly into it.'”
Katherine paused in the reading, and looked across at her auditor, an expression almost of despair in her eloquent eyes.
”Dorothy, what under heaven is Catalysis?”
”Don't ask me,” replied Dorothy, suppressing a laugh, struck by the ludicrousness of any young and beautiful woman pressing any such sentiments as these to her bosom.
”Have you ever heard of a Catalytic process, Dorothy?” beseeched Katherine. ”It is one of the phrases he uses.”
”Never; go on with the letter, Kate.”
”'I saw at once that if I could use Catalytic process which would be instantaneous in its solidifying effect on my liquid limestone, instead of waiting upon slow evaporation, I could turn out building stone faster than one can make brick. You, I am sure, with your more alert mind, saw this when you marked that pa.s.sage in red.'”
”Oh, Dorothy,” almost whimpered Katherine, leaning back, ”how can I go on? Don't you see what a sneak I am? It was bad enough to cozen with my heedless, random markings of the book, but to think that line of red ink might have been marked in his blood, for I nearly sent the poor boy to his death.”
”Go on, Katherine, go on, go on!”
”'In my search for a Catalytic whose substance would remain unchanged after the reaction, I quite overlooked the chemical ingredients of one of the materials I was dealing with, and the result was an explosion which nearly blew the roof off the shop, and quite startled poor Drummond out of a year's growth. However, no real harm has been done, while I have been taught a valuable lesson; to take into account all the elements I am using. I must not become so intent on the subject I am pursuing as to ignore everything else.' And now, Dorothy, I want to ask you a most intimate question, which I beg of you to answer as frankly as I have confided in you.”
”I know what your question is, Kate. A girl who is engaged wishes to see her friend in the same position. You would ask me if I am in love with Alan Drummond, and I answer perfectly frankly that I am not.”
”You are quite sure of that, Dorothy?”
”Quite. He is the only man friend I have had, except my own father, and I willingly confess to a sisterly interest in him.”
”Well, if that is all--”
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