Wayne had gone over to Colonel Leonard's for bridge. Kate was to have
gone too, but had pleaded fatigue. The plea was not wholly hollow. The
last thirty hours had not been restful ones.

And now she was to go upstairs and do something which she did not know
how to do, or why she was doing. Sitting there alone in the library she
grew serious in the thought that a game was something more than a game
when played with human beings.

Not that seriousness robbed her of the charm that was her own. The
distinctive thing about Katie was that there always seemed a certain
light about her, upon her, coming from her. Usually it was as iridescent
lights dancing upon the water; but to-night it was more as one light, a
more steady, deeper light. It made her gray eyes almost black; made her
clear-cut nose and chin seem more finely chiseled than they actually
were, and brought out both the strength and the tenderness of her not
very small mouth. Katie's friends, when pinned down to it, always
admitted with some little surprise that she was not pretty; they made
amends for that, however, in saying that she just missed being beautiful.
"But that's not what you think of when you see her," they would tell you.
"You think, 'What a good sort! She must be great fun!'" And there were
some few who would add: "Katie is the kind you would expect to find doing
splendid service in that last ditch."

Yet even those few were not familiar with the Katie Jones of that moment,
for it was a new Katie, less new when leaning forward, tense, puzzled,
hand clenched, brow knitted, her whole well-knit, athletic body at
attention than when leaning back--lax, open to new and awesome things.