It interested her for a time, as things that were live always interested Katie.  The city’s streets had always been for her as waves which bore her joyously along.  But after a time, perhaps just because she was so live, it made her unbearably lonely.

The things they might do together in Paris!  The things to see—­to talk about.

And still filled with her revolt against Clara’s self-delusions, she asked of herself how much the demand of her spirit to soar was prompted by the hunger of her heart to love.

She could not say.  She wondered how many of the world’s people would be able to say.  How many of the spacious countries would have been gained had men been fighting only for their philosophies, pushed only by the beating of wings that would soar.  But did that make the distances less vast?  Less to be desired?  Though visioning be child of desiring—­was the vision less splendid, and was not the desire ennobled?

Her speculations were of such nature as to make her hurry home to see whether there was American mail.

A certain letter which sometimes came to her was called “American mail.”  All the rest of the American mail which reached Paris was privileged to be classed with that letter.

Katie had come over in October with her Aunt Elizabeth, who felt the need of recuperation from the bitter blow of her son’s marriage.  Katie, too, felt the need of recuperation—­she did not say from what, but from something that made her intolerant of her aunt’s form of distress.  Her aunt said that Katie was changing:  growing unsympathetic, hard, unfeminine.  She thought it was because she did not marry.  It would soften her to care for some one, was the theory of her Aunt Elizabeth.

She had remained in order to be with Worth; and, too, because there seemed nothing to go back to.  Mrs. Prescott had come over to be for a time with a niece who was studying music, and she and Katie were together.  Now the older woman was beginning to talk of wanting to go back; she was getting letters from Harry which made her want to see him.  The letters sounded as though he were in love again.

And Katie was getting letters herself, letters to make her want to see the writer thereof.  They, too, sounded as if written by one in love.  With things as regards Worth adjusted, Katie would be free to go with her friend, and she was homesick.  At least that was the non-committal name she gave to something that was tugging at her heart.

But—­go home to what?  For what?

Her vision had not grown any clearer.  It was only that the “homesickness” was growing more acute.

And that night’s mail did not fill her with a yearning to become an expatriate.

In addition to the “American mail” there was a letter from Ann.  That evening after Worth was asleep and Mrs. Prescott had gone to her room, Katie reread both letters, and a number of others, and thought about a number of things.