The Precipice | Page 8

new sort of 'ribbon sandwich.' Did you ever hear of a ribbon
sandwich? If not, you must be told that it consists of layers and layers
of thin slices of bread all pressed down together, with ground nuts or
dressed lettuce in between. Each entertainer astonishes her guests with
a new variety. That furnishes conversation for several minutes.
"How long can I stand it, Honora, my dear old defender of freedom?
The classrooms are mine no more; the campus is a departed glory; I
shall no longer sing the 'Alma Mater' with you when the chimes ring at
ten. The whole challenge of the city is missing. Nothing opposes me,
there is no task for me to do. I must be supine, acquiescent, smiling,
non-essential. I am like a runner who has trained for a race, and, ready

for the speeding, finds that no race is on. But I've no business to be
surprised. I knew it would be like this, didn't I? the one thing is to
¸make and keep mummy happy. She needs me so much. And I am
happy to be with her. Write me often--write me everything. Gods, how
I'd like a walk and talk with you!"
Mrs. Barrington did not attempt to conceal her interest in the letters
which Ray McCrea wrote her daughter. She was one of those women
who thrill at a masculine superscription on a letter. Perhaps she got
more satisfaction out of these not too frequent missives than Kate did
herself. While the writer didn't precisely say that he counted on Kate to
supply the woof of the fabric of life, that expectation made itself
evident between the lines to Mrs. Barrington's sentimental perspicacity.
Kate answered his letters, for it was pleasant to have a masculine
correspondent. It provided a needed stimulation. Moreover, in the back
of her mind she knew that he presented an avenue of escape if
Silvertree and home became unendurable. It seemed piteous enough
that her life with her parents should so soon have become a mere matter
of duty and endurance, but there was a feeling of perpetually treading
on eggs in the Barrington house. Kate could have screamed with
exasperation as one eventless day after another dawned and the blight
of caution and apprehension was never lifted from her mother and
Martha. She writhed with shame at the sight of her mother's cajolery of
the tyrant she served--and loved. To have spoken out once, recklessly,
to have entered a wordy combat without rancor and for the mere zest of
tournament, to have let the winnowing winds of satire blow through the
house with its stale sentimentalities and mental attitudes, would have
reconciled her to any amount of difference in the point of view. But the
hushed voice and covertly held position afflicted her like shame.
Were all women who became good wives asked to falsify themselves?
Was furtive diplomacy, or, at least, spiritual compromise, the miserable
duty of woman? Was it her business to placate her mate, and, by
exercising the cunning of the weak, to keep out from under his heel?
There was no one in all Silvertree whom the discriminating would so
quickly have mentioned as the ideal wife as Mrs. Barrington. She

herself, no doubt, so Kate concluded with her merciless young
psychology, regarded herself as noble. But the people in Silvertree had
a passion for thinking of themselves as noble. They had, Kate said to
herself bitterly, so few charms that they had to fall back on their virtues.
In the face of all this it became increasingly difficult to think of
marriage as a goal for herself, and her letters to McCrea were further
and further apart as the slow weeks passed. She had once read the
expression, "the authentic voice of happiness," and it had lived
hauntingly in her memory. Could Ray speak that? Would she, reading
his summons from across half the world, hasten to him, choose him
from the millions, face any future with him? She knew she would not.
No, no; union with the man of average congeniality was not her goal.
There must be something more shining than that for her to speed
toward it.
However, one day she caught, opportunely, a hint of the further
meanings of a woman's life. Honora provided a great piece of news,
and illuminated with a new understanding, Kate wrote:--
"MY DEAR, DEAR GIRL:--
"You write me that something beautiful is going to happen to you. I can
guess what it is and I agree that it is glorious, though it does take my
breath away. Now there are two of you--and by and by there will be
three, and the third will be part you and part David and all a miracle. I
can see how it makes life worth