s if determined not to be evaded by
that light mood, but sight of Katie, lying there so much as a child would
lie, seemed to suggest how truly Katie might have spoken and she was
betrayed into the shadow of a smile.

"I suppose there has never been a human being as gifted in balling things
up as I am," meditatively boasted Kate.

"Now here you are," she continued plaintively. "You want to go away.
Well, of course, that's your affair. Why should you have to stay here--if
you don't want to? But in the twenty-four hours you've been here I
presume I've told twenty-four unnecessary lies to my brother. And if you
do go away--as I admit you have a perfect right to do--it will put me in
such a compromising position, because of those deathless lies that will
trail me round through life that--oh, well," she concluded petulantly,
"I suppose I'll just have to go away too."

But the girl put it resolutely from her. A wave of sternness swept her
face as she said, with a certain dignity that made Katie draw herself to
a position more adapted to the contemplation of serious things: "That's
all very well. Your pretending--trying to pretend--that I would be doing
you a favor in staying. It is so--so clever. I mean so cleverly kind. But
I can't help seeing through it, and I'm not going to accept hospitality
I've no right to--stay here under false pretenses--pretend to be what I'm
not--why what I couldn't even pretend to be!" she concluded with
bitterness.

Katie was leaning forward, all keen interest. "But do you know, I think
you could. I honestly believe we could put it through! And don't you see
that it would be the most fascinating--altogether jolliest sort of thing
for us to try? It would be a game--a lark--the very best kind of sport!"

She saw in an instant that she had wounded her. "I'm sorry; I would like
very much to do something for you after all this. But I am afraid this is
sport I cannot furnish you. I am not--I'm not feeling just like--a lark."

"Now do you _see_?" Kate demanded with turbulent gesture. "Talk about
balling things _up_! I like you; I want you to stay; and when I come in
here and try and induce you to stay what do I do but muddle things so
that you'll probably walk right out of the house! Why was I born like
that?" she demanded in righteous resentment.

"'Katherine,' a worldly-wise aunt of mine said to me once, 'you have two
grave faults. One is telling the truth. The other is telling lies. I have
never