to Kate. How could she be resting in an hour which had just been tacked
on to her life? And then it came to her that perhaps it was a long time
since the girl had sat in a chair like that. If she had had a chance,
when things were going badly, to sit in such a chair and rest, might the
river have seemed a less desirable place? She had always supposed it was
_big_ things--queer, abstract, unknowable things like forces and traits
that made life and death. Did _chairs_ count?

As the girl's eyes closed, surrenderingly, Katie was glad that no matter
what she might decide to do about things she had had that hour in the
big, tenderly cushioned wicker chair. It might be a kinder memory to take
with her from life than anything she had known for a long time.

Katherine had grown very still, still both outwardly and inwardly. People
spoke of her enviously as having experienced so much; living in all parts
of the world, knowing people of all nations and kinds. But it seemed all
of that had been mere splashing around on the beach. She was out in the
big waves now.

She looked at the girl; looked with the eyes of one who would understand.

And what she saw was that some one, something, had, as it were, struck a
blow at the center, and the girl, the something that really _was_ her,
had gone to pieces. Everything was scattered. Even her features scarcely
seemed to belong to each other, so how must it not be with those other
things, inner things, oh, things one did not know what to call? Was it
because she could not get things together it seemed to her she must make
them all stop? Was that it? Did people lose the power to hold themselves
in the one that made you _you_?