At the Crossroads Part 24

Northrup rose stiffly and made his way to his room.

"She was asleep!" he fiercely thought until he was safe behind his locked door!

"Was she?" He had to face that in the silence of the hours after.

"I'll know when I next meet her." This was almost a groan.

CHAPTER IX

Kathryn Morris, as the days of Northrup's absence stretched into weeks, grew more and more restless. She began to do some serious thinking, and while this developed her mentally, the growing pains hurt and she became twisted.

Heretofore she had been borne along on a peaceful current. She was young and pretty and believed that everyone saw her as she wanted them to see her--a charming, an unusually charming girl.

People had always responded to her slightest whim, but suddenly her own particular quarry had eluded her; did not even pine for her; was able to keep silent while he left her and his mother to think what they chose.

At this moment Kathryn placed herself beside Helen Northrup as a timid debutante shrinks beside her chaperon.

"And that old beast"--Kathryn in the privacy of her bedchamber could speak quite openly to herself--"that old beast, Doctor Manly, suggested that at forty I might be fat if----" Well, it didn't matter about the "if." Kathryn did a bit of mental arithmetic, using her fingers to aid her. What was the difference between twenty-four and forty? The difference seemed terrifyingly _little_. "A fat forty! Oh, good Lord!"

Kathryn was in bed and it was nine-thirty in the morning! She sprang out and looked at herself in the mirror.

"Well, my body hasn't found it out yet!" she whispered, and her pretty white teeth showed complacently.

Then she sat down in a deep chair and took account of stock. That "fat-forty" was a mere panic. She would not think of it--but it loomed, nevertheless.

Of course, for the time being, there was Sandy Arnold on the crest of one of his financial waves.

Kathryn was level-headed enough not to lose sight of receding waves but then, on the other hand, the crest of a receding wave was better than to be left on the sands--fat and forty! And Northrup was displaying dangerous traits. A distinct chill shook Kathryn.

She turned her thought to Northrup. Northrup had seemed safe. He belonged to all that was familiar to her. He would be famous some day--that she might interfere with this never occurred to the girl.

She simply saw herself in a gorgeous studio pouring tea or dancing, and all the people paying court to her while knowing that they ought to be paying it to Northrup.

"But he always gets a grubby hole to work in." Kathryn fidgeted. "I daresay he is working now in some smudgy old place."

But this thought did not last. She could insist upon the studio. A man owes his wife _something_ if he will have his way about his job.

Just at this point a tap on the door brought a frown to Kathryn's smooth forehead.

"Oh! come in," she called peevishly.

A drab-coloured woman of middle age entered. She was one of the individuals so grateful for being noticed at all that her cheerfulness was a constant reproach. She had been selected by Kathryn's father to act as housekeeper and chaperon. As the former she was a gratifying success; as the latter, a joke and one to be eliminated as much as possible.

For the first time in years Kathryn regarded her aunt now with interest.

"Aunt Anna"--Kathryn never indulged in graceful tact with her relations--"Aunt Anna, how old _are_ you?"

Anna Morris coloured, flinched, but smiled coyly.

"Forty-two, dear, but it was only yesterday that my dressmaker said that I should not tell that. It is not necessary, you know."

"I suppose not!" Kathryn was regarding the fatness of the woman who was calmly setting the disorderly room to rights. "Aunt Anna, why didn't you marry?"

The dull, fat face was turned away. Anna Morris never lost sight of the fact that when Kathryn married she would face a stern situation unless Kathryn proved kinder than any one had any reason to expect her to be. So her remarks were guarded.

"Oh! my dear, my dear, _what_ a question. Well, to be quite frank, I discovered at eighteen that some men could stir my senses"--Anna Morris t.i.ttered--"and some couldn't. At twenty-two the only man who could stir me was horribly poor; the other stirring ones had been snapped up. You see, there was no one to help me with my affairs.

Your father never _did_ understand. The only thing he was keen about was making money enough to marry your mother. Then you were born and your mother died and--well, there was nothing for me to do but come here and help him out. One has plain duties. I always had sense enough"--Anna Morris moved about heavily--"to realize that senses do not stir when poverty pinches, and this house _was_ comfortable; and duty _can_ fill in c.h.i.n.ks. I always contend"--the dull eyes now confronted Kathryn--"that there _is_ a dangerous age for men and women. If they get through that alive and alone--well, there is a kind of calm that comes."

"I suppose so." Kathryn felt a sinking in the region of the heart.

"Are you ever lonely?" she asked suddenly. "Ever feel that you let your own life slip when you helped Father and me?"

Anna Morris's lips trembled as they always did when any one was kind to her; but she got control of herself at once--she could not afford the comfort of letting herself go!

"Oh, I don't know. Yes; sometimes. But who isn't lonely at times?

Marriage can't prevent that and even your own private life, quite your own, is bound to have some lonely spells. There are all kinds of husbands. Some float about, heaven knows where; their wives must be lonely; and then the settled sort--dear me! I've often seen women terribly lonely right in the rooms with their husbands. I have come to the conclusion that once you pa.s.s the dangerous age you're as well placed one way as another. That is, if you are a woman."

Kathryn was looking unusually serious. While she was in this mood she clutched at seeming trifles and held them curiously.

"What was Brace's father like?" she suddenly asked.

Anna Morris started.

"Why, what ails you, Kathie?" she asked suspiciously. "You've never taken any interest before. Why should you? A young girl and all that--why should you?"

"Tell me, Aunt Anna. I've often wondered."

Anna Morris sat down heavily in a chair. The older Northrup had once had power to stir her; was one of the men too poor for her to consider.

"Well," she began slowly, tremblingly, "he wasn't companionable at the last, but I shall always see _his_ side. Helen Northrup is a fine woman--I can understand how many take her part, but being married to her kind must seem like mental Mormonism. _She_ calls it developing--but a man like Thomas Northrup married a woman because she was the kind he wanted and he couldn't be expected to keep trace of all the kinds of women Helen Northrup ran into and--out of!"

"I don't know what you mean, Aunt Anna. Do talk sense."

Kathryn was almost excited. It was like reading what wasn't intended for innocent young girls to know.

"Well, first, Helen Northrup was just like all loving young girls, I guess--but when she didn't find _all_ she wanted, she took to developing, as she called it. For _my_ part I believe when a woman finds her husband isn't _all_ she expected, she ought to accept her lot and make the best of it."

"And Brace's mother started out to make her own lot? I see."

Kathryn nodded her head.

"Well, something like that. She took to writing. Thomas Northrup didn't know what ailed her and I don't wonder. She should have spent herself on _his_ career, not making one for herself. But I must say when Brace was born she stopped that nonsense but she evolved then into a mother!" Anna sniffed. "A man can share with his children, but when it comes to giving up everything, well!"

"What did he do, Aunt Anna?"

"He went away."