ear Ann grow a little more plump, a little rosier, a
little more smiling. She could understand perfectly, as she had made them
understand, why Ann did not talk more of Italy and the things of her own
life. Life had crowded in too hard upon her, that setting of the other
days made other days live again too acutely. Ann was taking a vacation
from her life, she had laughingly put it to Wayne. That was why she
played so much with Worth and the dogs and talked so little of grown-up
things. Though one could never completely take a vacation from one's
life; that was why Ann looked that way when she was sometimes sitting
very still and did not know that any one was looking at her.

Persuasion was the easier as fabrication was but a fanciful dress for
truth. Imagination did not have it all to do; it only followed where Ann
called--blazing its own trail.

Yet there were times when the country of make-believe was swept down by a
whirlwind, a whirlwind of realization which crashed through Katie's
consciousness and knocked over the fancyings. Those whirlwinds would come
all unannounced; when Ann seemed most Ann, playing with Worth, perhaps
wearing one of the prettiest dresses and smilingly listening to something
Wayne was telling her had happened over at the shops. And on the heels of
the whirlwind knocking down the country of make-believe would come the
girl from a vast unknown rushing wildly from--what? What had become of
that girl? Would she hear from _her_ again? It was almost as if the girl
made by reality had indeed gone down under the waters that day, and the
things the years had made her had abdicated in favor of the things Katie
would make her. And yet did the things the years had made one ever really
abdicate? Was it because the girl of the years was too worn for
assertiveness that the girl of fancy could seem the all? Was it only that
she slumbered--and sometimes stirred a little in her sleep?--And when
_she_ awoke?

Even to each other they did not speak of that other girl, as if fearing a
word might wake her. Sometimes they heard her stir; as one day soon
after Ann's coming Katie had said: "Ann, just what is it is the matter
with your vocal chords?"

"Why I didn't know anything was," stammered Ann.

"But you seem unable to pronounce my name."

Ann colored.

"It is spelled K-a-t-i-e," Kate went on, "and is pronounced K--T. Try it,
Ann. See if you can say it."

Ann looked at her. The look itself crossed the border