"
She placed her hand in his, this time without hesitation.
"You may write," she said, "and I will reply. I trust it is not
serious."
CHAPTER V
AFTER THE OPERA IS OVER
IN mid-afternoon of the day following the entertainment on board the
"Consternation" our two girls were seated opposite one another under
the rafters of the sewing room, in the listless, desultory manner of
those who have not gone home till morning, till daylight did appear.
The dominant note of a summer cottage is the rocking-chair, and there
were two in the sewing room, where Katherine and Dorothy swayed gently
back and forth as they talked. They sat close to the low, broad window
which presented so beautiful a picture of the blue Bay and the white
shipping. The huge "Consternation" lay moored with her broadside
toward the town, all sign of festivity already removed from hull and
rigging, and, to the scarcely slumber-satisfied eyes of the girls,
something of the sadness of departure seemed to hang as a haze around
the great ship. The girls were not discussing the past, but rather
anticipating the future; forecasting it, with long, silent pauses
intervening.
"So you will not stay with us? You are determined to turn your wealthy
back on the poor Kempt family?" Katherine was saying.
"But I shall return to the Kempt family now and then, if they will let
me. I must get away for a time and think. My life has suddenly become
all topsy-turvy, and I need to get my bearings, as does a ship that
has been through a storm and lost her reckoning.
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