In one way or another, he saw nearly as much of Kate Waddington, that winter, as he did of Eleanor. Kate, too, was a ray of light. She--"the little sister of the clever" her enemies called her--made the Tiffany house a bourne between her stops at her home in the Mission and her rangings about Russian Hill. Bertram noticed with sentimental pleasure that the two girls were a great deal together. He found them exchanging the coin of feminine friendship in Eleanor's living-room, he met them on shopping excursions in Post street. When the three met so, Kate always sparkled with her best wit, her most cheerful manner; but she showed, too, a kind of deference toward Eleanor, an attitude which said, "He is yours; I am intruding only by accident." The meaning in this attitude bore itself in, at length, even upon Bertram Chester; and he did not fail to glow with gratitude. He expressed that gratitude once or twice when he was alone with Kate. Somehow, it was easy for him to talk to her about such things. CHAPTER IX "Are you off the job to-night?" came the resonant voice of Bertram Chester over the telephone. "Yes!" Eleanor laughed. "Are you coming to play with us?" "No. You're coming to play with me. One of our best little playmates leans over my elbow as I indite these few lines--little Katie. Mark Heath is reporting great doings in Chinatown to-night, and he wants assistance. Do you suppose your Aunt Mattie will object to Chinatown?" "Aunt Matilda never dictates--" "Then it's Chinatown! We'll be along for you in half an hour. We're dining with the Masters, who have inconsiderately refused to come along. What's happened to you?" "Nothing--why?" "Your voice sounds so chipper!" "That shows I'm in a mood to play!" "Then we'll be along in a _quarter_ of an hour." "And I'll be waiting at the garden gate!" The swish and murmur of night, the rustle of a steady sea breeze, the composite rumble of the city far below, tuned with the song in Eleanor's blood as she stood waiting by the front gate. She looked down on the pattern of light and heavy shadow that was the city, and a curious mood of exultation came over her. Light foreshadowings of this mood had touched her now and again during the past two months; never before had these transitory feelings piled themselves up into such a definite emotion.