"Somebody go up and call Nyoda," said Katherine.

Just at that moment the door of Sylvia's room opened and Nyoda came running downstairs with light, swift footsteps, her face wreathed in smiles.

"Sylvia's better," she called, before she was halfway down. "The fever left her while she was sleeping, and her temperature is normal. The danger of pneumonia is over. I'm so relieved." She skipped down the last of the stairs like a young girl.

Then she caught sight of the telegram in Katherine's hand, and sensed the atmosphere of depression that prevailed in the lower hall. She knew the truth before a word was spoken, and composed herself to meet it.

"They were too late?" she said quietly, as she joined the group, and held out her hand for the bit of yellow paper.

"Poor Sylvia!" she exclaimed huskily. "She would soon be well enough to hear the news-and now there is nothing to tell her. If we had only found that letter a day sooner!"

CHAPTER XVIII KATHERINE GOES TO THE CITY

"Does anyone want to go in to the city this afternoon?" asked Nyoda, as they rose from luncheon. It had been a rather silent, dispirited meal, and quickly gotten over with. "I had planned to go in and take a few things to Mrs. Deane to-day, but now it will be impossible for me to get away. Sylvia has been fretting about her aunt and I think someone ought to go."

"I'll go," said Katherine readily, her spirits rising at this prospect of action. The suspense of the morning, ending in such a disappointment, had begun to react upon her in a fit of the blues. Sahwah and Hinpoha, with Slim and the Captain, had planned during luncheon to go roller-skating that afternoon, but as Katherine could not roller-skate the plan held no attraction for her. Justice had promised Sherry that he would go over the lighting system on his car while he was away and was planning to spend the whole afternoon in the garage; Migwan was going to sit with Sylvia to give Nyoda a chance to rest; and Gladys had a sore throat which made her disinclined to talk. Taking it by and large, Katherine had antic.i.p.ated a rather dismal afternoon, a prospect which was pleasantly altered by Nyoda's request.

"You can make the two o'clock train if you start immediately," continued Nyoda, "and the five-fifteen will bring you back in time for dinner. I have the things for Mrs. Deane all ready."

Katherine rose with alacrity and put on her hat and coat. "Any errands while I am in town?" she asked, hunting for her umbrella in the stair closet.

"None that I can think of," replied Nyoda, after wrinkling her brow for a moment, "unless you want to stop at the jeweller's and get my watch. It's been there for several weeks, being regulated."

"All right," said Katherine, writing down the name of the jeweller in her memorandum book. "You'll notice I'm not trusting my memory this time,"

she remarked laughingly.

"I'll take the five-fifteen train back," she called over her shoulder as she went out of the front door.

"Be careful how you hold that package!" Nyoda called warningly after her.

"There's a gla.s.s of jelly in it that'll upset!"

Gingerly holding the package by the string, Katherine picked her way through the rapidly widening puddles on the sidewalks to the station. By some miracle of good luck the package was still right side up when she arrived at the hospital, and she breathed an audible sigh of relief when it was at last safely out of her hands.

She found Mrs. Deane a frail, kindly-faced woman, bearing her discomfort cheerfully, but, nevertheless, lonesome in this strange hospital ward and very grateful for any attention shown her. Katherine began, as she described it, to "express her sympathy quietly and in a ladylike manner,"

and ended up by delivering her famous "Wimmen's Rights" speech for the benefit of the whole ward. She finally escaped, after her sixth encore, and fetched up breathless on the sidewalk, only to discover that she had left her umbrella behind, and before she retrieved it she had to give her speech all over again, for the benefit of an old lady who had been asleep during the first performance.

There still being three-quarters of an hour before train time after she had called at the jewellers for Nyoda's watch, Katherine dropped into a smart little tea-room to while away the intervening moments with a cup of tea and a dish of her favorite shrimp salad. As she nibbled leisurely at a dainty round of brown bread and idly watched the throngs coming and going at the tables around her, a shrill cry of delight suddenly rang out above the hum of voices and the clatter of dishes.

"Katherine! Katherine Adams!"

Katherine looked up to see an animated little figure in a beaver coat and fur hat coming toward her through the crowd.

"Katherine Adams!" repeated the voice, "don't you know me?"

"Why-Veronica! Veronica Lehar!" gasped Katherine in amazement. "What are you doing here? I thought you were in New York." She caught the little brown-gloved hands in her own big ones and squeezed them until Veronica winced.

"Katherine! Dear old K! How I've missed you!" Veronica cried rapturously, and drawing her hands from Katherine's grip she flung her arms impulsively around her neck, regardless of the curious stares of the onlookers.

"Let them stare!" she murmured stoutly, seeing Katherine's face flush with embarra.s.sment as she encountered the quizzical gaze of a keen-eyed young man at the next table. "If they hadn't seen their beloved K for nearly two years they'd want to hug her, too."

She released Katherine after a final squeeze, and stood staring at her with a puzzled expression on her vivacious face.

"What's the matter?" asked Katherine wonderingly. "Have I got something on wrong-side before?"

"That's just what _is_ the matter," replied Veronica, her bewilderment also manifesting itself in her tone. "You _haven't_ anything on wrong-side before. You don't look natural. What has happened to you?"

"Nothing," replied Katherine, laughing, "and-everything. I've just learned that clothes _do_ matter, after all."

"Why, Katherine Adams, you're perfectly stunning!" exclaimed Veronica in sincere admiration. "That shade of blue in your dress-it was simply _made_ for you."

"I just happened to get it by accident," said Katherine deprecatingly, almost sheepishly, yet thrilled through and through with pleasure at Veronica's words of appreciation. It was no small triumph to be admired by Veronica, whose highly artistic nature made her extremely critical of people's appearance.

"How I used to make your artistic eye water!" said Katherine laughingly.

"It's a wonder you stood me as well as you did."

"It was not I who had to 'stand' you, but you who had to 'stand' me,"

said Veronica seriously. "In spite of your loose ends you were-what do you call it? 'all wool and a yard wide,' but I was the original prune."

Veronica, while a perfect master of literary English, still faltered deliciously over slang phrases.

Katherine, as usual, steered away from the subject of Veronica's former att.i.tude toward her. When a thing was over and done with, Katherine argued, there was no use of dragging it out into the light again.

"You haven't told me yet how you happen to be here in this tea-room this afternoon," she said, by way of changing the subject, "when you told us, over your own signature, that you would have to stay in New York all this week. What do you mean," she finished with mock gravity, "by deceiving us so?"

"I have to play at a concert here in town to-night," explained Veronica.

"It will be necessary for me to be back at the Conservatory to-morrow, and am returning by a late train to-night. I didn't know about it when I wrote to Nyoda, or I should have insisted on her coming in for the concert and bringing all the girls along. It's an emergency case; I'm just filling in on the program in place of a 'cello soloist who was taken suddenly ill with influenza. The concert managers sent a hurry call to Martini last night, asking him to send over the first student who happened to be handy, and as I happened to be taking a lesson from Martini at the time, I was the lucky one. I just came over this afternoon."

Veronica modestly suppressed the fact that it had been the great Martini himself who had been urgently requested to play at the concert, but having a previous engagement, had chosen her, out of the whole Conservatory, to play in his stead.

"My aunt is here with me," continued Veronica. "She's over at that table in the far corner behind that palm. I suppose she is wondering what has become of me by this time. When I saw you over here I just jumped up and ran off without a word of explanation. She's probably eaten up my nut rolls by this time, too; they were just being served when I rushed away.

Come on over and see her."

Katherine followed Veronica through the crowded room to the far corner, where, at a little table beneath a softly shaded wall lamp Veronica's aunt, Mrs. Lehar, sat placidly sipping tea and eating cakes. She did not recognize Katherine at first, never having seen her otherwise than with clothes awry and hair tumbling down over her eyes, and Katherine was secretly amused at the gentle lady's look of astonishment upon being told who it was.

"She did eat my rolls, after all," said Veronica to Katherine. "I knew she would. But I'm glad she did; I am in far too exalted a mood for nut rolls now. Nothing but nectar and ambrosia will do to celebrate our meeting. Look and see if there's any nectar and ambrosia on your menu card, will you, Katherine dear? There doesn't seem to be any on mine."

"None here, either," reported Katherine, after gravely reading her card through.

"Then let's compromise on lobster croquettes," said Veronica. "I never eat them ordinarily, but I feel as though I could eat a dozen to celebrate this occasion."

"Be careful what you eat, now," warned her aunt. "It would be rather awkward if you were to be taken with an attack of acute indigestion just when you are due to appear on the platform."

"Never fear!" laughed Veronica. "I am so transported over meeting Katherine that nothing could give me indigestion now. What an inspiration I shall have to play to-night!"

Then, taking Katherine's hand, she said coaxingly, "You will come and hear me play, won't you?"