CHAPTER XI

KATE TAKES THE HELM

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.