in the bare, orderly room, the two women--their girlhood definitely
behind them--faced each other. Kate noted a curious retraction in
Honora, an indescribable retrenchment of her old-time self, as if her
florescence had been clipped by trained hands, so that the bloom should
not be too exuberant; and Honora swiftly appraised Kate's suggestion of
freedom and force.

"Kate," she announced, "you look like a kind eagle."

"A wounded one, then, Honora."

"You've a story for me, I see. Sit down and tell it."

So Kate told it, compelling the history of her humiliating failure to
stand out before the calm, adjudging mind of her friend.

"But oughtn't we to forgive everything to the old?" cried Honora at the
conclusion of the recital.

"Oh, is father old?" responded Kate in anguish. "He doesn't seem
old--only formidable. If I'd thought I'd been wrong I never would have
come up here to ask you to sustain me in my obstinacy. Truly, Honora, it
isn't a question of age. He's hardly beyond his prime, and he has been
using all of his will, which has grown strong with having his own way,
to break me down the way most of the men in Silvertree have broken their
women down. I was getting to be just like the others, and to start when
I heard him coming in at the door, and to hide things from him so that
he wouldn't rage. I'd have been lying next."

"Kate!"