“He wishes to be remembered to you, Kate.”

She did not hint:  “He saw you only a second.”  Honora was not one of those persons who take pleasure in pricking bubbles.  She perceived the beauty of iridescence.  If her odd friend and her inexplicable cousin had any satisfaction in remembering a passing encounter, they could have their pleasure of it.

Kate, for her part, would not have confessed that she thought of him.  But, curiously, she sometimes dreamed of him.

At last Ray McCrea was coming home.  His frequent letters, full of good comment, announced the fact.

“I’ve been winning my spurs, commercially speaking,” he wrote.  “The old department heads, whom my father taught me to respect, seem pleased with what I have done.  I believe that when I come back they will have ceased to look on me as a cadet.  And if they think I’m fit for responsibilities, perhaps you will think so, too, Kate.  At any rate, I know you’ll let me say that I am horribly homesick.  This being in a foreign land is all very well, but give me the good old American ways, crude though they may be.  I want a straightforward confab with some one of my own sort; I want the feeling that I can move around without treading on somebody’s toes.  I want, above all, to have a comfortable entertaining evening with a nice American girl—­a girl that takes herself and me for granted, and isn’t shying off all the time as if I were a sort of bandit.  What a relief to think that you’ll not be accompanied by a chaperon!  I shall get back my self-respect once I’m home again with you nice, self-confident young American women.”

“It will be good to see him, I believe,” mused Kate.  “After all, he always looked after me.  I can’t seem to remember just how much pleasure I had in his society.  At any rate, we’ll have plenty of things to talk about.  He’ll tell me about Europe, and I’ll tell him about my work.  That ought to carry us along quite a while.”

She set about making preparations for him.  She induced Honora to let her have an extra room, and she made her fine front chamber into a sitting-room, with a knocker on the door, and some cheerful brasses and old prints within.  She came across oddities of this sort in her Russian and Italian neighborhoods, but until now she had not taken very much interest in what she was inclined to term “sublimated junk.”

Mary Morrison took an almost vicious amusement in Kate’s sudden efforts at aesthetic domestication, and Marna Fitzgerald—­who was delighted—­considered it as a frank confession of sentiment.  Kate let them think what they pleased.  She presented to their inspection—­even Mary was invited up for the occasion—­a cheerful room with a cream paper, a tawny-colored rug, some comfortable wicker chairs, an interesting plaster cast or two, and the previously mentioned “loot.”  Mary, in a fit of friendliness, contributed a Japanese wall-basket dripping with vines; Honora proffered a lamp with a soft shade; and Marna took pride in bestowing some delicately embroidered cushions, white, and beautiful with the beauty of Belfast linen.