“Very,” said Kate in way less sweet.

“Too bad we missed her,” said Zelda, “especially if she would do us good.  Now Cal here’s going in for doing good, too.  Only she’s not trying to do it to the army.  She’s doing it to the working people.”

“Get the distinction,” laughed the Major.

“I must get hold of some stunt like that,” said Zelda.  “The world’s getting stuntier and stuntier.”  She turned to Major Darrett.  “Whom do you think I could do good to?”

“Me,” he said, and they strolled laughingly away together.

A few minutes later Katie found herself alone with Captain Prescott.

“Katie,” he asked pleadingly, “where has Ann gone?”

“She’s been called away, Harry.  She’s—­gone away.”

“But won’t she be back?”

Katie turned away.  “I don’t know.  I’m afraid not.”

“Katie,” he besought, “won’t you help me?  Won’t you tell me where I can find her?  I know—­something’s the matter.  I know—­something’s strange.  But I want to see her!  I want to find her!”

“I want to see her!—­I want to find her!”—­It invaded the chamber in Katie’s heart she would keep inexorably shut.  She dared not speak.

But he was waiting, and she was forced to speak.  “Harry, I’m afraid you’ll have to forget Ann,” she said unsteadily.  “I’m afraid you’ll have to—­” Because she could not go on, sure if she did she would not be able to go on with the evening, she laughed.  “I’ll tell you what you do,” she said briskly.  “Marry Caroline Osborne.  She’s going to have heaps of money and will go in for philanthropy.  ’Twill be quite stunty.  Don’t you see, even Zelda thinks it stunty?”

He stepped back.  “I had thought, Katie,”—­and his voice pierced her armor—­“that you were kind.”

She dared not let in anything so human as a hurt.  “Well that’s where you’re wrong.  I’m not kind,” she said harshly.

“So I see,” he answered unsteadily.

But of a sudden the fact that he had been drawn to Ann drew her irresistibly to him.  He had been part of all those wonderful days—­days of dream and play, or waking and wondering.  She remembered that other night they had stood on the porch speaking of Ann—­the very night she had become Ann.  That fact that he had accepted her as Ann—­cared for her—­made it impossible to harden her heart against him.  “Oh Harry,” she said, voice shaking, “I’m sorry.  So sorry.  It’s my fault—­and I’m sorry.  I didn’t want you to be hurt.  I didn’t want—­anybody to be hurt.”

Some one called to him and he had to turn away.  She stepped into the shadow and had a moment to herself.

What did it mean—­she wondered.  That one was indeed bound hand and foot and brain and heart and spirit?

What had she done save prove that she could do nothing?

Ann had been driven away.  And in her house now were Zelda Fraser and Caroline Osborne and Major Darrett and all those others who were not dreamers of dreams.  And the dream betrayed—­she felt one with them.