“Why it’s in the desk, Miss Kate.  She said you was to look in the desk.”

She ran to it with a sob.  “Nora, how could you let me—­”

Nora was saying again that she was so worried about the champagne glasses—­

The desk, of course, would be the last place one would think of looking for a note!

She found, and with trembling fingers smoothed out the note; it had been crumpled rather than folded.  It was brief, and so written she could scarcely read it.

“You see, Katie, you can’t—­you simply can’t.  So I’m going.  When you come back, you won’t want me to.  That’s why I’ve got to go now.  I’d tell you—­only I don’t know.  I’ll get a train—­just any train.  I can’t write.  Because for one thing I haven’t time—­and for another if I began to say things I’d begin to cry—­and then I wouldn’t go.  I’ve got to keep just this feeling—­the one I told you about its having to be—­

“Katie, you’re not like the rest of your world, but it is your world—­and see what you get when you try to be any different from it!

“Oh Katie—­I didn’t think I’d be leaving like this.  I didn’t think I’d ever say to you—­”

There it ended.

“Miss Kate,” Nora said, “Major Darrett wants to know if he may speak to you in the library.”

She went down mechanically.

“Now, Katie,” he began quietly and authoritatively, “there are several orders you must give, several things you must attend to, in relation to your dinner.  Things seem a little disorganized, and it’s getting late, and it won’t do, you know, to get these people upset.  Now Nora tells me that through some complication or other you’re two champagne glasses short.”

Katie was staring at him.  “And is that all that matters?  Two champagne glasses short!  And here a life—­Why what kind of people are we?”

“Katie,” he said, his voice well controlled, “we’re just that kind of people.  No matter what’s at stake—­no matter what we’re thinking about things—­or about each other—­the thing we’ve got to do now—­you know it—­and you’re going to do it—­is go ahead with this affair.”

“I’m not going to have it!  Why what do you think I’m made of?  I won’t.  Telephone them.  Call it off.  I tell you I can’t.”

“Katie, you think you can’t, and yet you know you will.  I know exactly what you’re made of.  I know what your father was made of.  I know what your mother was made of.  I know that no matter what it costs you—­you’ll go on as if nothing had occurred.  Now will you telephone Prescott, or shall I?  Ask him about the glasses.  And if he can’t do anything for you you’ll have to call up Zelda at Miss Osborne’s and tell the girls they can’t come unless they each bring a glass.  I’ll do it if you want me to.  They’ll think it a great lark, you know, having to bring their own glasses or getting no champagne.”

“Yes,” whispered Katie, “they’ll think it a great lark.  For that matter—­everything’s a great lark.”