After an absence from Prouty of several weeks, Kate stepped off the train alone one afternoon and furnished the town with the liveliest sensation of its kind that it had known since the Toomeys had gone "on East."
Through the cooperation of the telephone and of breathless ladies dashing across lots and from house to house, the town, by night, had a detailed description of the clothes which had altered Kate's appearance beyond belief.
Mrs. Abram Pantin expressed the opinion that Kate's Alaskan-seal coat which, in reality, represented the price of a goodly band of sheep, was merely native muskrat rather skilfully dyed.
This verdict rendered before the Thursday afternoon session of the Y. A. K.'s, which had gathered to hear a paper by Mrs. Sudds upon the Ming Dynasty, afforded its members immense relief. Their fears, too, that the smart ear-rings Kate wore might be real pearls were assuaged by Mrs. Neifkins, who declared she had seen their counterpart in Butte for seventy-five cents.
But the fact had soaked into the average citizen that Kate had "arrived."
Among those who admitted this was Mrs. Toomey, who lingered at the breakfast table the morning after Kate's return, thinking of many things while she absently clinked her spoon against the edge of her cup. Jap had just left after an animated argument as to whether policy demanded the entertainment at dinner of the barber and his wife, who contemplated buying a sewing machine of a make for which Toomey was now the agent. Recalling the time when they had refused invitations right and left because there was no one in Prouty whom they had cared to know, a smile of bitterness came to her lips. Since then, she had eaten the pie of humbleness to the last crumb. She had become a self-acknowledged toady, a spineless sycophant, and for what? For the privilege of being invited to teas, bridge whists, of being sure of a place in the local social life.
This morning she was doubting the wisdom of her choice. Kate's sincere unswerving friendship might have been compensation enough for the anguish of being "left out." Yet she could not exactly blame herself, for who could have foreseen that things would turn out like this? It was not remorse that Mrs. Toomey felt, but regret for not arraying herself on the side which ultimately would have brought her the most benefits.
Mrs. Toomey never had been able to gather anything from Kate's expression upon the few occasions that they had met since the girl had called her a "Judas Iscariot" and left the house, but she recalled that at each later encounter she had experienced the same sense of uneasiness.