To understand Kitty at this moment one must be able to understand the Irish; and nobody does or can or will. Consider her twenty-four years, her corpuscular inheritance, the love of drama and the love of adventure. Imagine possessing sound ideas of life and the ability to apply them, and spiritually always galloping off on some broad highway - more often than not furnished by some engaging scoundrel of a novelist - and you will be able to construct a half tone of Kitty Conover.
That civilization might be actually on its deathbed, that positively half of the world was starving and dying and going mad through the reaction of the German blight touched her in a detached way. She felt sorry, dreadfully sorry, for the poor things; but as she could not help them she dismissed them from her thoughts every morning after she had read the paper, the way most of us do here in these United States. You cannot grapple with the misery of an unknown person several thousand miles away.
That which had taken place during the past twenty-four hours was to her a lark, a blindman's buff for grown-ups. It was not in her to tremble, to shudder, to hesitate, to weigh this and to balance that. Irish curiosity. Perhaps in the original that immortal line read: "The Irish rush in where angels fear to tread," and some proofreader had a particular grudge against the race.
When the elevator reached the seventeenth floor, the passengers surged forth. All except Kitty, who tarried.
"We don't carry to the eighteenth, miss.
"I am Miss Conover," she replied. "I dared not tell you until we were alone."
"I see." The boy nodded, swept her with an appraising glance, and sent the elevator up to the loft.
"You understand? If any one inquires about me, you don't remember."
"Yes, miss. The boss's orders."
"And if any one does inquire you are to report at once."
"That, too."
The boy rolled back the door and Kitty stepped out upon a Laristan runner of rose hues and cobalt blue. She wondered what it cost Cutty to keep up an establishment like this. There were fourteen rooms, seven facing the north and seven facing the west, with glorious vistas of steam-wreathed roofs and brick Matterhorns and the dim horizon touching the sea. Fine rugs and tapestries and furniture gathered from the four ends of the world; but wholly livable and in no sense atmospheric of the museum. Cutty had excellent taste.
She had visited the apartment but twice before, once in her childhood and again when she was eighteen. Cutty had given a dinner in honour of her mother's birthday. She smiled as she recalled the incident.
Cutty had placed a box of candles at the side of her mother's plate and told her to stick as many into the cake as she thought best.
"Hello!" said Cutty, emerging from one of the doors. "What the dickens have you been up to? My man has just telephoned me that he lost track of you in Wanamaker's."
Kitty explained, delighted.
"Well, well! If you can lose a man such as I set to watch you, you'll have no trouble shaking the others."
"It was Karlov, Cutty."
"How did you learn?"
"Searched the morgue and found a half tone of him. Positively Karlov. How is the patient?"
"Harrison says he's pulling round amazingly. A tough skull. He'll be up for his meals in no time."
"How do you do it?" she asked with a gesture.
"Do what?"
"Manage a place like this? In a busy office district. It's the most wonderful apartment in New York. Riverside has nothing like it. It must cost. like sixty."
"The building is mine, Kitty. That makes it possible. An uncle who knew I hated money and the responsibilities that go with it, died and left it to me."
"Why, Cutty, you must be rich!"
"I'm sorry. What can I do? I can't give it away."
"But you don't have to work!"
"Oh, yes, I do. I'm that kind. I'd die of a broken heart if I had to sit still. It's the game."
"Did mother know?"
"Yes."
With the toe of a snug little bronze boot Kitty drew an outline round a pattern in the rug.
"Love is a funny thing," was her comment.
"It sure is, old-timer. But what put the thought into your head?"
"I was thinking how very much mumsy must have been in love with father."
"But she never knew that I loved her, Kitty."
"What's that got to do with it? If she had wanted money you wouldn't have had the least chance in the world."
"Probably not! But what would you have done in your mother's place?"
"Snapped you up like that!" Kitty flashed back.
"You cheerful little - little - "
"Liar. Say it!" Kitty laughed. "But am I a cheerful little liar?
I don't know. It would be an awful temptation. Somebody to wait on you; heaps of flowers when you wanted them; beautiful gowns and thingummies and furs and limousines. I've often wondered what I should do if I found myself with love and youth on one side and money and attraction on the other. I've always been in straitened circumstances. I never spent a dollar in all my days when I didn't think I ought to have held back three or four cents of it. You can't know, Cutty, what it is to be poor and want beautiful things and good times. Of course. I couldn't marry just money. There would have to be some kind of a man to go with it. Someone interesting enough to make me forget sometimes that I'd thrown away a lover for a pocket-book."
"Would you marry me, Kitty?"
"Are you serious?"
"Let's suppose I am"
"No. I couldn't marry you, Cutty I should always be having my mother's ghost as a rival."
"But supposing I fell in love with you?"
"Then I'd always be doubting your constancy. But what queer talk!"'
"Kitty, you're a joy,! Lordy, my luck in dropping in to see you yesterday!"
"And a little whippersnapper like me calling a great man like you Cutty!"
"Well, if it embarrasses you, you might switch to papa once in a while."
Kitty's laughter rang down the corridor. "I'll remember that whenever I want to make you mad. Who's here?"
"Nobody but Harrison and the nurse. Both good citizens, and I've taken them into my confidence to a certain extent. You can talk freely before them."
"Am I to see the patient?"
