The Precipice

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The Precipice

The Project Gutenberg EBook of The Precipice, by Elia Wilkinson Peattie This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.net
Title: The Precipice
Author: Elia Wilkinson Peattie
Release Date: April 27, 2004 [EBook #12177]
Language: English
Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1
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THE PRECIPICE
A Novel BY
ELIA W. PEATTIE
BOSTON AND NEW YORK
HOUGHTON MIFFLIN COMPANY
The Riverside Press Cambridge
1914

_A fanfare of trumpets is blowing to which women the world over are listening. They listen even against their wills, and not all of them answer, though all are disturbed. Shut their ears to it as they will, they cannot wholly keep out the clamor of those trumpets, but whether in thrall to love or to religion, to custom or to old ideals of self-obliterating duty, they are stirred. They move in their sleep, or spring to action, and they present to the world a new problem, a new force--or a new menace_....

THE PRECIPICE

I
It was all over. Kate Barrington had her degree and her graduating honors; the banquets and breakfasts, the little intimate farewell gatherings, and the stirring convocation were through with. So now she was going home.
With such reluctance had the Chicago spring drawn to a close that, even in June, the campus looked poorly equipped for summer, and it was a pleasure, as she told her friend Lena Vroom, who had come with her to the station to see her off, to think how much further everything would be advanced "down-state."
"To-morrow morning, the first thing," she declared, "I shall go in the side entry and take down the garden shears and cut the roses to put in the Dresden vases on the marble mantelshelf in the front room."
"Don't try to make me think you're domestic," said Miss Vroom with unwonted raillery.
"Domestic, do you call it?" cried Kate. "It isn't being domestic; it's turning in to make up to lady mother for the four years she's been deprived of my society. You may not believe it, but that's been a hardship for her. I say, Lena, you'll be coming to see me one of these days?"
Miss Vroom shook her head.
"I haven't much feeling for a vacation," she said. "I don't seem to fit in anywhere except here at the University."
"I've no patience with you," cried Kate. "Why you should hang around here doing graduate work year after year passes my understanding. I declare I believe you stay here because it's cheap and passes the time; but really, you know, it's a makeshift."
"It's all very well to talk, Kate, when you have a home waiting for you. You're the kind that always has a place. If it wasn't your father's house it would be some other man's--Ray McCrea's, for example. As for me, I'm lucky to have acquired even a habit--and that's what college is with me--since I've no home."
Kate Barrington turned understanding and compassionate eyes upon her friend. She had seen her growing a little thinner and more tense everyday; had seen her putting on spectacles, and fighting anaemia with tonics, and yielding unresistingly to shabbiness. Would she always be speeding breathlessly from one classroom to another, palpitantly yet sadly seeking for the knowledge with which she knew so little what to do?
The train came thundering in--they were waiting for it at one of the suburban stations--and there was only a second in which to say good-bye. Lena, however, failed to say even that much. She pecked at Kate's cheek with her nervous, thin lips, and Kate could only guess how much anguish was concealed beneath this aridity of manner. Some sense of it made Kate fling her arms about the girl and hold her in a warm embrace.
"Oh, Lena," she cried, "I'll never forget you--never!"
Lena did not stop to watch the train pull out. She marched away on her heelless shoes, her eyes downcast, and Kate, straining her eyes after her friend, smiled to think there had been only Lena to speed her drearily on her way. Ray McCrea had, of course, taken it for granted that he would be informed of the hour of her departure, but if she had allowed him to come she might have committed herself in some absurd way--said something she could not have lived up to.
* * * * *
As it was, she felt quite peaceful and more at leisure than she had for months. She was even at liberty to indulge in memories and it suited her mood deliberately to do so. She went back to the