Katie's room. Had Katie
been at home she would have planned it some other way, for above all
things she did not want it to occur to Ann that she was in the way. But
Katie had been very busy talking to the man who mended the boats, and
naturally it would not occur to Wayne that Ann would be at all sensitive
about giving up her room for a few days to accommodate a dear old friend
of theirs. And perhaps she was not sensitive about it, only this was no
time, Katie felt, to make Ann feel she was crowding any one.

And in Katie's absence "Pet" had been shot. Pet had not seemed to realize
that alley methods of defense were not in good repute in the army. He
could not believe that Pourquoi and N'est-ce-pas had no guile in their
hearts when they pawed at him. Furthermore, he seemed to have a
prejudice against enlisted men and showed his teeth at several of them.
Katie began to explain that that was because--but Wayne had curtly cut
her short with saying that he didn't care why it was, the fact that it
was had made it impossible to have the dog around. If one of the men had
been bitten by the contemptible cur Katie couldn't cauterize the wound
with the story of the dog's hard life.

The only bright spot she could find in it was that probably Watts had
taken a great deal of pleasure in executing Wayne's orders--and Caroline
Osborne said that all needed pleasure.

She saw that Ann's hands were clenched, and so had not pursued the
discussion.

Katie was not in high favor with her brother that night. He said it was
outrageous she should not have been there to receive Mrs. Prescott. When
Katie demurred that she would have been less outrageous had she had the
slightest notion Mrs. Prescott would be there to be received, it
developed that Wayne was further irritated because he had come to take
Ann out for a boat ride--and Katie had gone in the boat--heaven only knew
where! Then when Katie sought to demolish that irritation with the
suggestion that just then was the most beautiful time of day for the
river--and she knew it would do Ann good to go--Wayne clung manfully to
his grievance, this time labeling it worry. He forbade Katie's going any
more by herself. It was preposterous she should have stayed so long. He
would have been out looking for her had it not been that Watts had been
able to get a glimpse of the boat pulled in on the upper island.

Katie wondered what else Watts had been able to get a glimpse of.

Wayne was so ben