"I promise it, Katie."
"Show it to me," said Katie laconically. "And don't go to picking up
anything you drop!"
Sidney came home at half-past two--came delicately flushed, as if she had
hurried, and with a tremulous smile that caught Katie's eye at once.
"Bless the child!" she said. "There's no need to ask how he is to-day.
You're all one smile."
The smile set just a trifle.
"Katie, some one has written my name out on the street, in chalk. It's with
Dr. Wilson's, and it looks so silly. Please go out and sweep it off."
"I'm about crazy with their old chalk. I'll do it after a while."
"Please do it now. I don't want anyone to see it. Is--is Mr. K.
upstairs?"
But when she learned that K. was upstairs, oddly enough, she did not go up
at once. She stood in the lower hall and listened. Yes, he was there. She
could hear him moving about. Her lips parted slightly as she listened.
Christine, looking in from her balcony, saw her there, and, seeing
something in her face that she had never suspected, put her hand to her
throat.
"Sidney!"
"Oh--hello, Chris."
"Won't you come and sit with me?"
"I haven't much time--that is, I want to speak to K."
"You can see him when he comes down."
Sidney came slowly through the parlor. It occurred to her, all at once,
that Christine must see a lot of K., especially now. No doubt he was in
and out of the house often. And how pretty Christine was! She was
unhappy, too. All that seemed to be necessary to win K.'s attention was to
be unhappy enough. Well, surely, in that case-"How is Max?"
"Still better."
Sidney sat down on the edge of the railing; but she was careful, Christine
saw, to face the staircase. There was silence on the balcony. Christine
sewed; Sidney sat and swung her feet idly.
"Dr. Ed says Max wants you to give up your training and marry him now."
"I'm not going to marry him at all, Chris."
Upstairs, K.'s door slammed. It was one of his failings that he always
slammed doors. Harriet used to be quite disagreeable about it.
Sidney slid from the railing.
"There he is now."
Perhaps, in all her frivolous, selfish life, Christine had never had a
bigger moment than the one that followed. She could have said nothing,
and, in the queer way that life goes, K. might have gone away from the
Street as empty of heart as he had come to it.