CHAPTER VII

“EVEN SO——”

Elsie was a very long time in coming. As the minutes dragged themselves along Kate’s cheeks began to get hot even before she realized that she was angry. But after she had waited so long that she was convinced Elsie was not coming at all she got up with a shrug. Any one who knew Kate would have seen at once that she was in no ordinary mood; for shrugs or any such Latin methods of self-expression were quite foreign to this girl, New England bred.

She went up to her room for paper. Now was the time to write to her mother and Sam and Lee. Certainly she had enough to tell them!

The door to the sitting-room across the hall was standing open and a glance assured Kate that it was empty. And while she did not actually look into Elsie’s room she heard no sound and felt that Elsie was not there. But she had no idea where Bertha had put the writing paper when she unpacked the suitcase and the envelopes and stamps. She searched through the drawers of the dressing table. But there were only her ribbons, her handkerchiefs, her underclothes arranged artistically. No sign of paper or fountain pen. So, although she had meant never to go into the sitting-room, she was forced to now. Her writing materials must be in the desk there.

She found them at once. And now being in the room, she took the occasion to look all about. It was the jolliest place imaginable for a girl to call her own! And since the morning had grown rather oppressively hot it was a refuge, too; for there was a breeze on this side of the house and it was the coolest spot Kate had found herself in that morning. Tree shadows stood on the walls, and leaf shadows shook in a green, cool light. It would be very nice to sit here and write. But Kate could not bring herself to do it. She reminded herself that this was Elsie’s desk and room, and therefore hateful.

Picking up her own property she hurried out and down the stairs. Once in the garden she made directly for the apple orchard. She would allow herself to walk along the edge viewing the orchard house from that angle. If Elsie called that prowling, let her! As she walked she felt the brass key in her pocket. But though now her whole mind was on the house and her desire to go into it, it never entered her head to break her promise. Elsie certainly deserved her anger, but revengeful thinking was quite outside of Kate’s mentality.

When she had walked the whole length of the orchard she came to a low, broad hedge that marked the termination of Aunt Katherine’s grounds. Near it she sat down, not in the orchard but in its shade, and placing her block of paper on her knee began to write.

“Dearest Mother”:—And then so suddenly that it startled her, tears blotted the two words. At the same minute she heard running feet. Kate winked fast and furiously and looked up. Elsie was standing over her. She was flushed from running in the heat and her eyes were very bright and soft. Again she was radiating happiness as on Kate’s first glimpse of her. On her arm swung a straw basket and one hand held a pair of shining shears. Kate felt that she would rather die on the spot than let Elsie guess that she was crying. But if Elsie saw the tears she showed no sign.

“I’m sorry I didn’t get here sooner, and that I asked you to wait.” She spoke in a conciliatory tone. “Truly I’m not so rude as I seemed. But I had an unexpected opportunity to attend to something that needed attention and there wasn’t time to run down and tell you. It had to be done quickly. But now I’m ready. I thought as we walked around I’d cut some flowers for our rooms. Aunt Katherine likes me to keep my vases filled.”

Now it was Kate who was cold and distant. Her shame in her tears made that necessary. “I’m writing to my mother,” she answered. “And I don’t need to be entertained a bit. Some other time I’ll help you with the flowers.”

Elsie’s glow flickered and went out. “Very well,” she said, and turned away sharply to cut some nasturtiums growing around the foot of an apple tree.

But just as she turned there came a shout from over the hedge. A boy older than themselves, in fact a young man of seventeen probably, had come to the tennis court, only a few paces beyond the hedge, with a racket and balls in his hand. He was calling to a girl on the steps of the piazza of the house next door. “Hurry up,” he shouted. “Come on.”

“Yes. Just a minute.” The girl was bending over on the steps, tying her shoe perhaps. In a minute she had come bounding down the long slope of the lawn and joined her brother.

Kate looked at them interestedly. “Who are they?” she asked of Elsie. Elsie gave her the information without turning. “That’s Rose Denton and her brother Jack. And they’d ask you to play, probably, if they saw you, and I weren’t here. They just barely speak to me.”

“Barely speak to you? And they live right next door?”

“Yes, queer, isn’t it!” The voice above the nasturtiums was sarcastic. “Only get yourself noticed and you’ll soon know them. Hope you have a good time.”

Elsie straightened up, adjusted her basket on her arm, and moved away. But Kate called after her, her voice shaking with anger, “I don’t know why you are so queer, Elsie Frazier, or why you haven’t friends. But while I’m visiting you it isn’t likely I’d play with people who won’t play with you, no matter how much they asked me. That’s that.”

Elsie turned and walked backward now. “Well, Kate Marshall, I’m afraid you’ll have just a horrid month then,” she prophesied. And with a strange, almost strangled little laugh she whirled about and was really off with her basket and shears.

Kate watched her as she went, floating toward the gardens across the smooth lawn. “She walks like a dryad,” she thought, “and she looks like a Dorothy Lathrop fairy.” Then she smiled a little woefully at her own fancy. “She may look like a fairy but she’s a horrid, stuck-up thing just the same,” she reminded herself.

But she found relief for her overcharged emotions when she came to the compositions of her letter to the Hart boys. There she described Elsie just as she was and had behaved. Not one unpleasant thing that Elsie had done was forgotten. Perhaps it was rather horrid of Kate to complain so unrestrainedly and set down so much criticism. But she did not give that a thought—not then. When the letter was finished and in its envelope she pulled it out again to add a postscript.

P. S. It’s all true what I have told you about Elsie Frazier, every bit. But _even so_, I don’t hate her and now that I’ve written about her I’m not even angry any more. She’s hardly said a friendly word or acted a bit as you would expect her to to a guest, but even so if she only were nice to me I’d be quite crazy about her. That isn’t just because she’s so pretty, either. I don’t know why I feel that way, but I do. She’s exactly the sort of chum I’ve always imagined having some day. And there’s one thing good I can tell you about her. She likes “The King of the Fairies,” I think. Anyway, she owns it. So what do you make of it all? And what about the light in the orchard house? And why do you suppose Elsie is so set against my using the key? And why did she buy those groceries and take them up to her room? Don’t tell Mother a word I’ve told you about how mean Elsie is. _She_ must think I’m having a _lovely_ time—at least, until I know whether I can stick it out or not. K.M.