Oh, well, Kate did not allow herself to be downcast at having missed dawn in the orchard. Not a bit of it. What a day it was to be! The frock, “The Blue Bird,” the whole day in Boston with Elsie, and Aunt Katherine so friendly!
At her place at the little breakfast table under the peach tree she found a letter from her mother. She snatched it up and tore it open, hoping she could get at least the heart out of it before Aunt Katherine and Elsie should appear.
But she had hardly read the first sentence before Miss Frazier came out through the breakfast-room and Elsie floated from the direction of the orchard. Kate was too absorbed to be aware of the approach of either until she heard Elsie exclaim, “Letters! Oh, is there one for me?”
Aunt Katherine’s tone was surprisingly sharp when she answered, “You never get letters, Elsie. You have hardly had one in the last year.”
“That’s unfair,” Kate thought hotly. “Aunt thinks she’s jealous even of my mail. And all the time she’s probably expecting an answer to that special delivery she sent yesterday.”
But in spite of the edge in Miss Frazier’s voice Elsie apparently was not at all dashed. To Kate’s curious eyes she looked just exactly as one might who had been skylarking with fairies in the orchard all early morning. She was ready to laugh, ready to talk, ready to be friendly. Kate was profoundly glad, for this kind of an Elsie argued well for the day they were to have in Boston together.
They went by train because Miss Frazier herself had uses for the car. Bertha was again dressed in her correct gray tailored suit. “Looking like an aunt herself,” Kate thought. Kate wore the blue silk dress she had travelled in and the smart little hat that was really her mother’s. The white linen would have done beautifully if they had not been going to the theatre; but even though they were to sit in the balcony—seats were sold out so far ahead that this was the best Aunt Katherine had been able to do for them—Kate thought the white linen would hardly be appropriate for that, and Bertha had agreed with her. Elsie, when she appeared, quite took Kate’s breath away. She was so lovely, but so much older looking than she had been in her house clothes. She was dressed in a straight little three-piece silk suit of olive green. The rolling collar was tied by a jaunty orange bow, and on the low belt of the dress the same colour was embroidered in a conventional flower pattern. The coat hung loosely and very full, hooked together only at the collar. The hat was a limp dark brown straw with olive-green and orange embroidery all around the crown. Elsie had pinned her curls up over her ears, and her hair was a soft crushed aura under the hat. She looked very much like a city girl but as though the city might have been New York or Paris rather than Boston.
Kate gasped a little, and in her secret heart was very glad she herself had decided on her silk. For a little while she was constrained with Elsie, as though Elsie had in fact become older suddenly just because she looked older.
As they came through the gates at their terminal in Boston Kate noticed a young man in a slouch brown hat, a polka-dotted brown tie, and very shining pointed brown shoes, standing about as though expecting someone to meet him from the train on which they had come in. Perhaps Kate noticed him so particularly because he seemed to be noticing them so particularly, especially Elsie. For the first time that morning she remembered Mr. O’Brien, the detective. Was this one of his men, and was he going to “shadow” them to-day? Kate was sure of it when out of the tail of her eye she saw him wheel and follow at a little distance as they moved toward the taxi stand. He stood prepared to take the next cab that should move into position as theirs moved out. Kate hardly understood her own emotions at that moment. Her cheeks were hot and her knees shook a little. She was resentful for Elsie. Why was she being shadowed by a detective as though she were a criminal? Why had Aunt Katherine let this happen?
Madame Pearl’s establishment was a narrow three-story house on Beacon Street. “Madame Pearl” was engraved on a plate above the bell, nothing more. A daintily capped and aproned maid answered their ring. She knew their names before they had given them.
“It is the Misses Frazier,” she said, speaking with a distinct accent. “You have an engagement, and Madame Pearl is expecting. Please come this way.”
The front door opened directly into a long narrow room, panelled in ivory, decorated with wreathed cupids and flowers. The floor was cool gray and the hangings at the long windows at the end of the room were gray, too, silvery. But under their feet were warm-coloured Persian rugs of the most beautiful shades and designs. There were little tables in the room with magazines and books scattered on them, a few easy chairs, and two long divans. In one corner by the window there was an exquisite little writing desk of Italian workmanship. On this stood a vase of very red roses.
Kate glanced about with surprised eyes. But Elsie, who had been here before with Aunt Katherine, nonchalantly followed the maid who was guiding them. Kate had expected to find herself in a shop. But there was no evidence of things for sale here. And they had an appointment! Whoever heard of having an appointment in a shop?
The maid stood back at the foot of a narrow spiral staircase at the back of the room. The girls and Bertha ascended.
Still no sign of a shop, or dresses for sale. This long upper room was simply a boudoir with chaises-longues, mirrors, and flowers. Madame Pearl swept to meet them. She was a regal little lady in trailing gray chiffon. The gown had long flowing sleeves that just escaped the floor. Miss Frazier had told Kate at breakfast that morning that Madame Pearl was really a Russian princess who had escaped at the time of the Revolution and in just a few years had made a fortune with this shop. Her real name was Olga Schwankovsky. So Kate looked at her with intense curiosity now. But where was the shop?
“Miss Frazier has telephoned,” Madame Pearl said in the sweetest of voices and almost perfect accent. “You young ladies are to have party dresses, your first party dresses. Very simple, very chic, youthful. We must not hurry but give time to it and consideration. If you will be so kind as to come this way——”
“This way” was all down the room to a wider alcove, walled on the street by big plate-glass windows and on the two other sides by huge, perfect mirrors.
There Madame Pearl asked them to be seated. She herself sat comfortably among cushions on a little lounge. She inquired as to their favourite colours. From that the conversation expanded to their other tastes, to books, music. Elsie told about their plan for the afternoon.
“You are to see ‘The Blue Bird’!” Madame Pearl exclaimed. “That will be an experience. I myself saw it when I was about your age—its first production at the Moscow Art Theatre. I had never dreamed anything could be so beautiful. You will think so, too.” Then she added, sighing a little, “But it cannot be quite the same. Stanislavsky produced it as it never could be produced by another. It was superb.”
“You saw it, there, when it was given in Moscow that first time?” Elsie breathed, sitting on the very edge of her chair, her cheeks pink with excitement. “That was wonderful. I know, for my fa——” She stopped, bit her lip, and continued: “Someone showed me photographs of the stage sets and costumes once. I am wondering if it will be anything like that here.”
“I don’t know,” Madame Pearl replied. “But I tell you frankly I am not going to see. For the memory of our Art Theatre production is too vivid for me to want to expose it to any comparison. It was done with a richness, a depth, a true sense of mysticism—— What shall I say? It was so free of sentimentality. I confess I do not care to see it attempted again. It had an effect on me, that play. An effect that is lasting, that runs through—how shall I say?—my life.”
Elsie nodded and looked at Kate. She said, “Yes, we understand. ‘The King of the Fairies’ is like that, too.”
Kate’s heart leapt. At last those two girls had met face to face, comrades on common ground.
“‘The King of the Fairies,’” Madame Pearl murmured, reflectively. “Ah, yes. I have heard of that book. Published last year. Very beautiful, I have heard. And literary people are surprised because it is so popular. They alone, when they discovered it, expected to appreciate it and enjoy. They are a little annoyed that children and simple people and the unliterary love it, too, that it is a ‘best seller.’ I have guessed, though I have not yet read it, that that book must tap some deep wells of truth that all humanity knows, even the simple. I have a theory about art——”
There the beautiful voice ceased abruptly. Madame Pearl rose, smiling enigmatically. “This is not choosing frocks, is it?” she said. “But while we have chattered I have studied your types. I have not been idle. Shall we begin with the one of which I am the least sure? That is Miss Kate. We may have to try several frocks before we are suited for you. But I think we shall begin with an orange crêpe.”
Madame Pearl touched a button in the wall and almost instantly a maid appeared, not the one who had answered the door, but identically dressed. She was young and pretty and very quick in all her motions. Kate found a screen placed around her almost before she knew what was happening. It was a light folding screen made of gray silk and bamboo and embroidered with oriental flowers. Bertha hastened to disrobe her. Then she came forth and stood ready to try on before one of the huge mirrors.
Panels in the wall were slid back and the little maid brought the dresses from their hiding places one by one. Bertha and the little maid slipped them over her head, fastened them, turned her around lightly by the shoulders. Then everyone looked at Madame Pearl. She was sitting on her couch again, her eyes intent. She studied Kate as an artist studies his picture. And to every frock, when it was on and Kate had been turned quite around once or twice, she shook her head decidedly. None of them, not one would do.
Kate herself could not see why. There was not one that was positively unbecoming, and three or four had been quite lovely. She was growing dazed and tired. The sparkle and colour of the frocks heaped about her on chairs and thrown over the screen was almost too much for her eyes. She thought of the Arabian Nights and imagined herself a young princess of Arabia being decked for her wedding. But even as the corners of her mouth lifted with this dream she was startled by an exclamation from Madame Pearl.
“At last! It is perfect!”
Kate turned to herself in the mirror.
But was it Kate Marshall at all? She scarcely knew.
The frock was yellow, of softest satin, the color of a crocus. At the rounded neck it was gathered softly to a narrow border of tiny pearl-white and blue blossoms made in satin. At the low waistline the satin was gathered again at a girdle of the same exquisitely fashioned flowers, four wreaths of them loosely twined. The skirt swung out from this girdle very full and straight, stopping just a little above the ankles, quite the longest skirt Kate had ever had. The border of the skirt was cut in deep, sharp scallops showing an underskirt below of foaming, creamy lace.
“Do you like it?” Madame Pearl asked, interestedly. Kate was looking at herself without speaking.
“I couldn’t help liking it,” Kate replied. “It’s beautiful. But—it doesn’t look exactly as though we belonged—it and I together! It is fluffy! So delicate!”
“That’s the fault of your hair, the short bob,” Madame Pearl assured her. “There must be a cap.” She gave directions to the maid. “The silver cap with the star points. Yes, the one from Riis’s. Deep cream stockings. And the pumps—but I see you know which pumps that frock must have yourself. I think they will fit, too. Fetch them.”
The maid whisked away to return in a minute with silk stockings, satin slippers, and a silver cap.
“Your feet first,” Madame Pearl said, quite excitedly. “The cap we will leave for the finishing touch. Then you shall see.”
Again, almost in a daze, Kate vanished behind the painted screen accompanied by both Bertha and the maid. Each of them dressed a foot, and it was done in a minute. The pumps were an exact fit. They were creamy satin embroidered in deeper creamy-coloured flowers. At the side of each a small diamond-shaped crystal buckle caught the light in many facets. The heels were low.
Kate was troubled. “My aunt is only giving me the frock,” she said. “She didn’t mention slippers and things. I’ve some perfectly good black patent-leather pumps, anyway.”
“Black pumps! With that frock!”
Madame Pearl gazed at her in horror. Bertha hurriedly interposed, “Miss Frazier impressed it on me that the costumes were to be complete.”
Then Madame Pearl arose from the couch and herself set the silver cap on Kate’s head. It was a saucy affair fashioned in crisp silver lace with five star points radiating from its crown. The cap was indeed the finishing touch. It accomplished almost a transformation.
“Why, I’m pretty, awfully pretty!” Kate exclaimed to herself, gazing into the mirror. But then more modestly, she added, “Any one would be in that fascinating cap.”
So Kate was ready for the party! Let it come!
And now it was Elsie’s turn. But Madame Pearl had no trouble in fitting Elsie to just the right frock. In fact, she had decided which it must be in the first minutes while they sat discussing “The Blue Bird.” Elsie was not “difficult.” Madame Pearl whispered to the maid, who scurried away. She returned bearing over her arm a cloud of green chiffon. While Kate was being dressed behind her screen Elsie was put into this green creation behind another similar screen. She appeared before Kate was done.
Her frock was simplicity itself, just straight lengths of green chiffon falling straight away from her slim shoulders. As she moved back and forth in front of the mirror her draperies floated about her like filmiest clouds. When she stood still they fell straight and sheer almost to her ankles. Madame Pearl signalled and the maid took the pins from Elsie’s curls and they tumbled, a shower of sunlight.
The effect was perfect. Madame Pearl breathed softly: “I am satisfied. Exquisitely.” She determined that white kid sandals, sandals in the Greek style, were the footwear the frock required. She had them, too, stored somewhere behind those secret panels. The maid hurried off, and Elsie in preparation for her return slipped off the black patent-leather sandals she was wearing, and out of her stockings.
At the same time Madame Pearl moved to the big windows. “The light is glaring,” she murmured, “and it is unreasonably hot.” Untying a cord at the side of the sash she let down green inner blinds. Elsie rose, and stood in her bare feet facing herself meditatively in the mirror. At that instant Kate came from behind her screen.
“Oh!” It was almost a shriek. Kate actually reeled against Bertha who was following her and clutched for support. Bertha led her to the couch. “Water, a glass of cold water quickly,” Madame Pearl commanded the little maid. Elsie ran to Kate and knelt before her, taking her hands. “Kate, Kate,” she called as though Kate were running away from her.
But Kate was not a girl to faint easily. She straightened up now and took a deep breath. “It’s only the way you looked in the glass, Elsie,” she explained, shakily. “The room just went spinning when I saw you.”
“‘The way she looked in the glass!’” Madame Pearl cast a hurried glance toward the big mirror that now reflected only Kate’s array of discarded dresses, a few tables and chairs.
But Kate explained further, looking at Elsie wanly: “You were the fairy—the fairy that Mother and I saw by the pool that day. You were the fairy exactly, even the expression on your face when you looked at me! And the green light——”
Madame Pearl laughed. “The green light is only because I pulled the blind. But you are right, Miss Elsie does look exactly like some fairy, some wood fairy. Perfection.”
“No, not some fairy, the fairy. I have remembered perfectly.”
Madame Pearl spoke to Bertha aside, but Kate heard well enough. “It was the heat, and she was tired from trying on. She ought to lie down.” Then she turned her attention to Elsie’s sandals.
But Elsie kept looking back over her shoulder at Kate, resting on the sofa—questioningly. She was speculating: “Had Kate taken her hint of fairies in the orchard house seriously? Was it so much on her mind that she was imagining things? Or had Kate once really seen a fairy, and Elsie in the mirror had reminded her?”
When they left the shop and stood on the step looking about for a taxi Elsie asked Kate eagerly, “Did you really see a fairy once? Where? When?”
“Yes, Mother and I. But we both saw it differently. And now—now, how could it have been a fairy? Why, it was you. But I promised Mother not to talk about it.”
At the mention of Kate’s mother the cold look came back to Elsie’s face. She turned away with feigned indifference while Bertha lifted her hand to summon a taxi.
But the taxi driver Bertha had signalled shook his head, giving a sidewise jerk toward the back of his cab to indicate that he had a fare. There was the young man of the brown hat and polka-dotted tie looking away as though he was not one bit aware of them and smoking a cigarette.
“Well, why do they stand still, then!” Bertha complained. “How could I know!”
Almost at once, however, another taxi came cruising up the hill, and they were soon in, whirling away toward Miss Frazier’s club. It was now almost one o’clock, and they were quite ready for luncheon.
Though Kate did not actually lean out to see whether the detective’s taxi was following, she felt quite sure that it was. “And he’ll be wherever we go all day,” she reflected. “What does he expect us to do—or Elsie, rather? What could she do with Bertha and me along, anyway? It’s all just too curious! And I don’t like it a bit. It makes me angry for Elsie. It isn’t fair to her! I wonder what Mother and the boys would think if they knew I was riding around Boston to-day, buying gorgeous clothes, conversing with princesses, almost fainting, and being shadowed by a detective!
Both girls, lunching in Miss Frazier’s club, felt themselves quite emancipated, really adult! Elsie wrote out their orders on a little pad tendered by a gray-clad waitress, and acted hostess throughout. Kate very much admired her worldly air, her poise and decision, and the way she knew the French names for things. Apparently she was quite accustomed to such complicated menus. Kate was proud of Elsie, proud and stirred. Aunt Katherine herself could not have conducted things better.
They discussed Madame Pearl and her establishment. They were both enchanted by her, and full of surmises about her life. Miss Frazier had told them that people knew very little about Madame Pearl’s experiences during the Revolution and her escape, because she meant to keep out of the papers. That was why she had taken the name Madame Pearl, and did not want to be known as a princess at all, except to a few trusted customers, or rather patients.
“She prescribes clothes just as a doctor prescribes pills, Aunt Katherine says,” Elsie remarked, laughing.
“I think my dress is too wonderful,” Kate sighed. “But do you know I am afraid Mother won’t want me to wear it to high-school dances next winter, if I go to any. She will say it’s too grand, I’m sure.”
In time, however, they left the topic of clothes and launched into discussion of “The Blue Bird.” Both had read it, but in quite different ways. Kate had read for the story, and Elsie to fit it to the photographs she had seen of its first production in Moscow. In fact, this was typical of these two girls. They had enthusiasm for the same things, but approached them from different angles. That was why, when they found themselves talking freely, the air fairly sparkled between them. They opened new avenues of thought to each other, took each other’s old ideas and spun them like balls, showing new sides and colours. They were animated. They leaned toward each other over the table, their faces alive and bright with thinking. Bertha remained mostly silent, enjoying her luncheon and the interested and appreciative glances that were turned from every direction upon her charges.
Luncheon went on slow feet because of conversation’s wings. But they did not in any way neglect it. It was a most delicious meal, and quite a complicated one, because Miss Frazier had given Elsie carte blanche and told her to make it just as splendid as she pleased. After the ice they had a demitasse. Neither of the girls was accustomed to coffee, but this was a special day and they would do special things. Besides, the waitress seemed to expect it of them. It tasted horrible. But each made a brave effort and drank down the tiny portion without grimacing.
Now for the theatre!
At the door of the club a footman summoned a taxi for them. As Kate went down the steps and got in she looked all about for signs of the detective but saw none. However, they were in a crowded section, taxis and autos moving in two rivers, one north, one south, and the sidewalks were two more rivers—rivers of human beings. That polka-dotted young man might well have his eye on them from some station in that flow of life and Kate never be aware.
Elsie had the theatre tickets in her purse, and took them out now to be sure about them. “They’re in the third row in the first balcony,” she said. “Aunt Katherine thought they weren’t very good, but I am sure they are. Why, it will be even better than as though we were ’way up front downstairs. We will get all the effects better. Don’t you think so?” But she asked a trifle anxiously, as though trying to console herself.
Kate agreed, though to speak truth she knew very little indeed about the theatre and could hardly be considered a judge in any way. Both girls were glowing with anticipation and excitement. Kate felt that it was all simply too wonderful to be true. Her heart was almost breaking with happiness—at least, that is what she told herself was the matter with it. It certainly was pounding.
But arrived in the palace of gold decoration and purple plush which was the theatre, and ushered to their seats, there was an unpleasant surprise. One of the seats was directly behind a large ornate post! Whoever sat there would have to do a great deal of craning and stretching to see the stage at all, and not for one instant would she be able to see its entirety.
“Don’t you bother,” Bertha reassured them, concealing her own deep disappointment. “Of course I shall sit there. It’s only a pity it’s between you.”
Now Elsie showed a new side of her character to Kate, and a side that she had not suspected. “Don’t be silly,” she told Bertha emphatically—but not rudely, merely affectionately—“Of course we shall take turns. I shall have the post for half the time and you the other. But it’s mean, just the same.”
“And I, too—I shall certainly take my turn,” Kate threw in. “But I think it is mean, and a cheat, too!”
“No, you are the guest,” Elsie said firmly. “You are to sit at the end and stay there. Go in now and I’ll follow.”
But Kate did not pass in. She stood frowning. “It isn’t fair,” she insisted. “They had no business to sell Aunt Katherine that seat.”
Bertha shrugged. “Of course it’s unfair,” she whispered, “but there’s nothing to do about it.” She was bothered by the attention they were beginning to attract. She wished Kate would go in and sit down.
“Then we ought to complain,” Kate insisted, still blocking up the aisle.
“To whom?” Bertha asked. Her tone said she would have nothing to do with it.
Elsie murmured quickly, “Oh, let’s not,” and gave Kate a slight push. She, too, was conscious of their conspicuous situation. “I couldn’t.”
Kate, too, knew that they were attracting the attention of many people. All the more she was determined not to accept the injustice of that post seat meekly. They were early; the curtain would not go up for ten minutes. The orchestra was only just coming into the pit.
“You go in and sit down. But give me the ticket stubs. I’ll make them fix this up.” Kate did not whisper or even lower her voice. She spoke calmly, with assurance. Underneath she was as diffident as the other two, but hers was not a nature to tolerate such injustice supinely.
Elsie, with one quick, surprised glance, thrust the stubs into this country cousin’s hand, and Kate was off up the steep aisle, bent on business. When she had pushed her way through the incoming crowds out into the upper foyer the first thing she saw was the detective, leaning against the wall trying to look unconcerned and as though he belonged there. In spite of the crowds their eyes happened to meet. Kate’s cool look said, “So you are here.” Then she turned away and fought her passage down the stairs.
The young man scowled. Well, this was not the niece he was to watch. She had light curls, and his chief had said she would be wearing a green silk suit. Even so this bobbed-haired one was of the party. He was troubled by her movements. What was she leaving her seat for? Where was she going? He really ought to find out, but, on the other hand, if he forsook his post here he might miss Miss Elsie if she should come out. No, he must stay, but it was annoying all the same.
At the box office they were turning people away. “No seats left,” Kate heard on every side. But that did not stop her. “They can put a chair in the aisle,” she thought. “They must do something. People should have what they pay for.”
But the man at the ticket window gave her no hope. “All sold out,” he assured her before she had had time to say a word. When he heard her complaint he merely said, “Well, we’ll give you your money back. I could sell that post seat a hundred times over in the next five minutes. All you need is to lean a little. Where’s your stub?”
“I don’t want the money,” Kate protested. “I want to see the play. It was a cheat, selling a seat like that. I want another one. In fact, I want three other seats, for we have to sit together.”
The man laughed, much amused at that. And several by-standers laughed, too. Kate’s cheeks fired.
“Where can I find the manager?” she asked, straightening her spine and looking hard at the amused young man.
The man strangled his laugh and pointed across the lobby to a door marked “Private.” “There, if he’s in. Much good it’ll do you.”
As Kate left the window and crossed to the door indicated she heard several titters. That made her determination deeper. She knocked firmly right in the middle of the word “Private.”
As she got no answer to her knocking she followed her usual course when uncertain, or embarrassed—abrupt action. In this instance she simply opened the door and stepped in. She did this in exactly the way she often spoke when she had no intention of speaking. A man turned from a window where he was leaning looking down into the crowded street watching the people flooding to “The Blue Bird.” He was a youngish man with nice lines around his eyes, smiling lines. But the eyes were very keen. Whether he was truly the manager or not Kate never learned, but he was manager enough for her purposes. She told him her grievance. He listened respectfully without a word until she had finished. Then, still without a word to her, he took up a telephone instrument from his desk and spoke briskly into it: “Box office, any seats left?” he asked. “Good, that’s fine. Give the young lady who was at your window a minute ago one in the lower left.” He hung up and turned to Kate.
“The house is sold out,” he informed her in a voice that was fairly jubilant. “And they said it couldn’t be done in the States in summer!” She felt that he wanted to dance and was constrained only by her presence. “All except a few box seats. They come too high. You can get yours now at the office all right. I’ve fixed it.”
But Kate did not move to go. “There are three of us,” she explained. “We have to stay together. We are with a chaperon. You hung up before I could tell you.”
The manager was dashed. He had expected gratitude. “With a chaperon? Why isn’t she here fixing things instead of you, then?” he asked with reason.
“Well, she didn’t like to. She was willing to sit behind the post. She’s really my cousin’s maid, but my aunt lets her chaperon us.”
“Oh, I see.” There was something of humorous admiration in the manager’s voice now. He liked Kate’s spirit. He snatched up the telephone again. “Three seats for that lady just mentioned,” he commanded into it. “Front ones.”
Then Kate did thank him and smiled—her peculiar, charming smile. He responded to it with a beam of his own. But her last words were, “It was a cheat, wasn’t it, selling that post seat to anybody.”
His reply was simply “Rather!” as he held the door for her. She had read enough to know by his use of that word that he was English. He had spoken his “rather” in the most natural, sincere way possible.
The box-office man eyed her with respect. “Never thought you’d turn the trick,” he said, admiringly. But Kate did not deign to answer. Suddenly she felt her conspicuousness too keenly. She took the tickets he offered her and fled away up the stairs, not looking at any one.
In the upper foyer the detective was on the watch for her. He sighed with relief when she appeared and vanished again through the swinging doors into the balcony. Well, his “party” was safe now until after the play. It was unfortunate that he had not been able to secure a seat inside where he could keep his eye on them directly. When the curtain went up he would slip in and stand in the back, of course. After all, things were pretty satisfactory. They certainly couldn’t escape his attention now. So far their doings had been innocent enough, all except that little excursion of the bobbed-haired one. Had she taken a note to someone? Perhaps he had been foolish not to follow her.
“Seats in a box! Oh, Kate, how did you ever!” Elsie looked at Kate with sincerest admiration shining in her eyes, and Kate felt for ever repaid for all her effort. If Elsie had acquitted herself well at luncheon, Kate had surely acquitted herself well here. They were equals. Comrades?
An usher hurried toward them as they came out into the aisle. “The curtain is about to go up,” she warned. She felt, perhaps, that they had already made too much disturbance.
“Yes, but we have seats down in a box,” Kate said with composure. The usher reached her hand for the tickets. “This way, then. There are stairs behind these curtains. If you hurry you’ll be there before the lights go out.”
“Ha, ha, Mr. Detective!” Kate laughed to herself as she felt her way down the narrow, velvet-carpeted stairs. “You are losing us now. You’ll watch up there in vain.”
Their seats were quite perfect, almost on the stage, three chairs in the very front of the best box in the house, three throne-like chairs with gilded arms and cushioned backs!
“We ought to be more dressed,” Bertha whispered, a little uneasily, as in their conspicuous position she felt that the eyes of the whole great audience were upon them. But Elsie laughed softly. “Who cares!” she exclaimed. “And won’t Aunt Katherine be surprised when she hears of all this state!”
Music. The asbestos curtain rolling up, revealing night-coloured velvet curtains with a huge gold shield. Lights out. The two girls, recently so estranged, were for the hours of this play closest sisters. In Fairyland all are friends. They gripped hands. Soon they simply sat close together, arm-in-arm, entranced. The theatre, the huge audience, dissolved for them in mist. The stage was not a stage. They were moving with Mytil and Tyltyl through frightening or lovely or saddening scenes, all equally enthralling. They were moving bodiless. They were Tyltyl and Mytil.
Not until the very last minute of the play, when the night-coloured curtains had drawn together for the last time and the blue bird was at large again, perhaps somewhere in the upper reaches of the gilded theatre, did the girls again take up their habitations in their own minds and bodies. They looked at each other then and sighed, waking as from a dream they had shared. Bertha was quite pale with emotion and surreptitiously wiping away her tears.
The first waking thought that Kate had was gratefulness that Bertha had seen the play as it ought to be seen and not cut in two by a post, since she cared for it so much.
All three were almost silent on the journey to the station, wrapped in the afterglow of the play’s thraldom. But just outside the gates of the train shed Elsie looked all about and asked a question: “That young man in the polka-dotted tie seems to have disappeared,” she observed. “He was here when we came, outside of Madame Pearl’s in that taxi, in the hallway to the club and upstairs at the theatre. What’s happened to him now?”
“Oh, did you notice him, too?” Kate asked, surprised. “And in the club? I missed him there. How did he get in?”
“He was talking to the telephone girl and watching us while we had lunch. I saw through the door. He acted like a detective, or something. I was going to point him out to you, and then every time I got interested in what we were saying and forgot. What do you suppose he was doing?”
Kate was suddenly embarrassed. She knew very well what he was doing, but of course she was bound not to tell.
“He acted like a detective,” Elsie said, musingly. “Just exactly the way they act in books.”
“Yes. And we might have been thieves, or something,” Kate took it up.
But at her words Elsie stiffened. Although Kate at the minute was not looking at her she felt the stiffening. And when they were established in their coach and Kate did turn to look at Elsie she saw at once that the comrade had vanished again! What had she done? And how could she bear it after this perfect day? Oh, no, it was not to be borne. Things couldn’t happen like that. She leaned toward Elsie and spoke quickly, urgently but softly.
“Don’t get icy again,” she pleaded. “If I’ve offended you, I truly don’t know how. And we’ve had such a splendid day of it. Deep down everything seems to be all right with us. It’s only on top things keep going wrong. Don’t look like that. Don’t.”
But Elsie did not respond to Kate’s pleading. She kept on looking “like that” and merely commented coldly, “You do say such queer things. I don’t know what you mean.”
And from then on Elsie, dropping all her city bearing, curled one foot up under her on the car seat, turned her shoulder to Kate, leaned her chin on her hand, and gazed out of the window. Kate sat biting her lips with clutched hands. After a while, when she realized that Elsie’s “cold shoulder” was to be permanent, she got up and crossed the aisle to sit by herself at a window.
“Why am I not furious with her?” she asked herself. “She has no right to treat me like that! And I am angry, of course. But I’m not very angry. Why am I not very angry?”
The conclusion she finally arrived at was that she couldn’t be very angry until she understood what it was all about. There was a mystery that needed solving. Kate felt herself destined to solve it. There was an elation in that prospect that bore her up above the moment’s worries and confusions. “If you’re going to live you’ve got to be willing to suffer,” she told herself sententiously. “And certainly I am living!” Then her eyes crinkled into their nicest Chinese smile. For Kate was perfectly capable of being amused at herself.
Miss Frazier approved, and was even delighted with the frocks when she came up to view them after breakfast next morning.
“Shall we try them on for you?” Kate offered eagerly.
“No, I don’t believe so. I can trust Madame Pearl, I am sure, to say nothing of you girls yourselves! And there is a lot to be done now to get ready for the party.”
Miss Frazier was moving and speaking in suppressed excitement, any one could see that. This party to her was to be a significant moment in her own life as well as in the girls’!
“What can we do?” Kate asked.
“You may help me to decorate the drawing-room and hall. If I engage a professional person he will simply load the whole place with flowers in a set and stuffy way. Besides, this is an informal party, and we want the decorations to be very simple and unstudied.” Then Miss Frazier added with a twinkle in her eye, “That’s why we must study very hard and fuss and consult.”
Both girls laughed at that.
“I’m expecting a man now to help Timothy move the furniture back for dancing. As soon as they are done we can begin. The dresses are charming, and I congratulate you.”
Since getting into the train the afternoon before the comrade in Elsie had not been visible. The girls had spoken to each other only in monosyllables and with eyes usually averted. Almost as though they had agreed upon it, however, they played up a little in the presence of their aunt. She had been so kind to them and counted so much on the day together to have made them friends, they had not the heart to let her see just how things stood between them. So at dinner they had told her of the day’s adventures vivaciously, dwelling most on their reactions to “The Blue Bird” and the episode of the post. For some reason Elsie did not mention the young man who had shadowed them in such an unshadowy way. That omission surprised Kate and gave her pause. What did such reticence mean? Aunt Katherine had been much diverted by Kate’s account of her interview with the box-office clerk and the manager. Her comment had been, “You are a Frazier, Kate! You have a spine. I imagine the manager sensed that.”
After dinner the three had settled to a quite exciting game of Mah Jong. No need for Elsie and Kate to pretend friendliness then, for the game took all their attention, and they could forget each other as persons. After that there was a brief stroll in the garden, Aunt Katherine walking between the girls, their arms drawn through hers. It had all seemed very peaceful and congenial. But there had been no “good-nights” upstairs, though in accordance with Aunt Katherine’s will the doors stood open between the two bedrooms.
So now, when Aunt Katherine left to attend to the moving of the furniture, Kate turned to Bertha and said, “I shall be in the garden over by the Dentons’ hedge, writing letters. Will you call me when Miss Frazier is ready, Bertha?”
Without a glance at Elsie she picked up her pad and hurried out. She hoped that Elsie realized she was avoiding using the sitting-room and the desk they were supposed to share; and she would not have minded knowing that Elsie’s conscience bothered her about it. But if it did, Elsie gave no sign. She herself simply turned away about some business of her own.
There was so much for Kate to tell her mother in this letter that was interesting and wonderful! First, of course, there was Madame Pearl and her most unique shop that didn’t look like a shop a bit. She must describe the frocks they had chosen, or rather that Madame Pearl had chosen for them; Kate realized now that they themselves had done no choosing at all. Then dining in the luxurious club—she would describe that in detail. She had never in her life had quite such a stimulating conversation with any one before as that conversation at luncheon. She recalled it now as an hour during which she had thought, and thought rapidly, and expressed her thoughts to an attentive listener who in her turn thought and came back at her in a most provocative manner. Ideas had spun in the air between them like iridescent bubbles, changing colour as they turned and you viewed different sides of them. The truth about that was that two most congenial minds had discovered each other, and that is as exciting an adventure as there is in the world, and not at all an ordinary one. The thing that gave this experience its final tang was that the two minds, though comprehending each other perfectly, worked entirely differently. It followed that for each other they had great discoveries and surprises. Together they danced as one in figures new to both!—Of course, Kate could not tell her mother exactly this, but she could tell her enough so that she would understand a little what had happened. But she must begin.
Instead, unhygienically, she sucked the end of her pencil.
Would Mother approve of her having accepted the party frock? That bothered her a little. Knowing Aunt Katherine now she understood her mother much less than ever before on these points. The dress must have cost—no, she would not imagine what it must have cost since Aunt Katherine had told her not to give that end of it a thought. Still, she would describe the dress to Mother, and she could come to conclusions for herself.