There was no mistaking her delight in seeing Katie and Worth.  And a sense of the old relationship was there—­deep and tender sense of it; but something had gone from it, or been added to it.  It was not the all in all.

Truth was, Ann was more at home with her than she was with Ann.

After luncheon they went up to Katie’s room for a little chat.  Katie talked about stenography and soon came to be conscious of that being a vapid thing to be talking about.

“What pretty furs,” she said, in the pause following the collapse of stenography.

That seemed to mean more.  “Yes, aren’t they lovely?” responded Ann, with happy enthusiasm.  “They were my Christmas present—­from Wayne.”

The way Ann said Wayne—­in the old days she had never said it at all—­led instantly, though without her knowing by what path, to that strange fear of hers in finding Ann so free from fear.

Ann was blushing a little:  the “Wayne” had slipped out so easily, and so prettily.  “He thought I needed them.  It’s often so cold here, you know.”

“Why certainly one needs furs,” said Katie firmly, as if there could be no question as to that.

Katie’s great refuge was activity.  She got up and began taking some dresses from her trunk.

Then, just to show herself that she was not afraid, that there was nothing to be afraid about, she asked lightly:  “What in the world brings Wayne up to New York so much?”

Ann was affectionately stroking her muff.  She looked up at Katie shyly, but with a warm little smile.  There was a pause which seemed to hover over it before she said softly:  “Why, Katie, I think perhaps I bring him up to New York.”

Everything in Katie seemed to tighten—­close up.  She gave her most cobwebby dress a perilous shake and said in flat voice:  “Wayne’s very kind, I’m sure.”

Ann did not reply; she was still stroking her muff; that smile which hovered tenderly over something had not died on her lips.  It made her mouth, her whole face, softly lovely.  It did something else.  Made it difficult for Katie to go on pretending with herself.

Though she made a last stand.  It was a dreadful state of affairs, she told herself, if Ann had been so absurd as to fall in love with Wayne—­Wayne—­just because he had been kind in helping her get a start.

She followed that desperately.  “Oh yes, Wayne’s really very kind at heart.  And then of course he’s always been especially interested in you, because of me.”

Ann looked up at her.  The look kept deepening, sank far down beneath Katie’s shallow pretense.

“Well, Katie,” Ann began, with the gentle dignity of one whom life has taken into the fold, “as long as we seem into this, I’d rather go on.  Wayne said I was to do just as I liked about telling you.  Just as it happened to come up.  But I think you ought to know he is not interested in just the way you think.”  She paused before it, then said softly, with a tremulous pride:  “He cares for me, Katie—­and wants to marry me.”