after dinner, and Kate would hasten her modest dinner toilet in order to
have these few marginal moments with this palpitating young creature who
moved to unheard rhythms, and whose laughter was the sweetest thing she
had yet heard in a city of infinite dissonances.

"You don't know how to account for me very well, do you?" taunted Marna
daringly, when they had indulged their inclination for each other's
society for a few days. "You wonder about me because I'm so streaked. I
suppose you see vestiges of the farm girl peeping through the operatic
student. Wouldn't you like me to explain myself?"

She had an iridescent personality, made up of sudden shynesses, of
bright flashes of bravado, of tenderness and hauteur, and she contrived
to be fascinating in all of them. She held Kate as the Ancient Mariner
held the wedding-guest.

"Of course I'd love to know all about you," answered Kate.
"Inquisitiveness is the most marked of my characteristics. But I don't
want you to tell me any more than I deserve to hear."

"You deserve everything," cried Marna, seizing Kate's firm hand in her
own soft one, "because you understand friendship. Why, I always said it
could be as swift and surprising as love, and just as mysterious. You
take it that way, too, so you deserve a great deal. Well, to begin with,
I'm Irish."

Kate's laugh could be heard as far as the kitchen, where Mrs. Dennison
was wishing the people would come so that she could dish up the soup.
Marna laughed, too.