ashington with him? Just what were her plans?

But Katie had no plans. And suddenly she realized how completely all
things had been changed by the coming of Ann.

She had spent much of her life in Washington. She loved it; loved its
official life, in particular its army and diplomatic life; and loved,
too, that rigidly guarded old Washington to which, as her mother's
daughter, the door stood open to her. Her uncle, the Bishop, lived in a
city close by. His home was the fixed spot which Katie called home. In
Washington--and near it--she would find friends on all sides. Just
thirty days before she would have gloated over that prospect of next
season there.

But she was not prepared to bombard Washington with Ann. The mere
suggestion carried realization of how propitious things had been, how
simple she had found it.

The little game they were playing seemed to cut Katie off from her life,
too, and without leaving the luxury of feeling sorry for herself. With it
all, Washington did not greatly allure. Washington, as she knew it, was
distinctly things as they were; just now nothing allured half so much as
those long dim paths of wondering leading off into the unknown.

Suddenly she had an odd sense of Washington--all that it represented to
her--being the play, the game, the thing made to order and seeming very
tame to her because she was dwelling with real things. It was as if her
craft of make-believe was the thing which had been able to carry her
toward the shore of reality.

And so she told Wayne that she had no plans. Perhaps she would go back to
Europe with Ann.

He turned quickly at that. "She goes back?"

"Oh yes--I suppose so."

"But why? Where? To whom?"

"Why? Why, why not? Why does one go anywhere? Florence is to Ann what
Washington is to me--a sort of center."

"Katie," he asked abruptly, "has she no people? No ties? Isn't
she--moored any place?"

"Am I 'moored' any place?" returned Kate.

"Why, yes; to the things that have made you--to the things you're part
of. By moored I don't mean necessarily a fixed spot. But I have a
feeling--"

He seemed either unable or unwilling to express it, and instead laughed:
"I'd like to know how much her father made a month, and whether her
mother was a good cook--a few little things like that to make her less a
shadow. Do you really get _at_ her, Katie?"

"Why--why, yes," stammered Katie; "though I told you, Wayne, that Ann was
different. Quiet--and just now,