“I have one thing more to ask.”  It was Kate’s voice was not well controlled this time.

“You may call it a whim, a notion, foolish notion; call it what you like, but I want you to stay here to-night.”

The girl was looking down at her, down into the upturned face, all light and strength and purpose as one standing apart and disinterested might view a spectacle.  Slowly, comprehendingly, dispassionately she shook her head.  “It would be—­no use.”

“Perhaps,” Katie acquiesced.  “Some of the very nicest things in life are—­no use.  But I have something planned.  May I tell you what it is I want to do?”

Still she did not take her eyes from Katie’s kindling face, looking at it as at something a long way off and foreign.

“I am not a philanthropist, have no fears of that.  But I have an idea, a theory, that what seem small things are perhaps the only things in life to help the big things.  For instance, a hot bath.  I can’t think of any sorrow in the world that a hot bath wouldn’t help, just a little bit.”

“Now we have such a beautiful bathroom.  I loathe hot baths in tiny bathrooms, where the air gets all steamy and you can’t get your breath.  Perhaps one thing the matter with you is that all the bathrooms you’ve been in lately were too small.  Of course, you didn’t know that was one thing the matter; like once at a dance I thought I was very sad about a man’s dancing so much with another girl, a new girl—­don’t you loathe ’new girls’?—­but when I got home I found that one of my dress stays was digging into me and when I got my dress off I didn’t feel half so broken up about the man.”

An odd thing happened; one thing struck away came back.  There was a light in the eyes telling that something human and understanding, something to link her to other things human, would like to come back.  She looked and listened as to something nearer.

Seeing it, Katie chattered on, against time, about nothing; foolish talk, heartless talk, it might even seem, to be pouring out to a girl who felt there was no place for her in life.  But it was nonsense carried by tenderness.  Nonsense which made for kinship.  It reached.  Several times the girl who thought she must kill herself was not far from a smile and at last there was a tear on the long lashes.

“So I’m going to undress you,” Katie unfolded her plan, encouraged by the tear, “and then let’s just see what hot water can do about it.  And maybe a little rub.  I used to rub my mother’s spine.  She said life always seemed worth living after I had done that.”  She patted the hand she held ever so lightly as she said:  “How happy I would be if I could make you feel that way about it, too.  Then I’ve a dear room to take you into, all soft grays and greens, and oh, such a good bed!  Why you know you’re tired!  That’s what’s the matter with you, and you’re just too tired to know what’s the matter.”

The girl nodded, tears upon her cheeks, looking like a child that has had a cruel time and needs to be comforted.