Yes, she ate in the kitchen; but she would have been a fit subject for
the fastidious Fragonard. Kitty was naturally an exquisite. Everything
about her was dainty, her body and her mind. The background of pans and
dishes, gas range and sink did not absorb Kitty; her presence here in
the morning lifted everything out of the rut of commonplace and created
an atmosphere that was ornamental. Pink peignoir and turquoise-blue
boudoir cap, silk petticoat and stockings and adorable little slippers.
No harm to tell the secret! Kitty was educating herself for a husband.
She knew that if she acquired the habit of daintiness at breakfast
before marriage it would become second nature after marriage. Moreover,
she was determined that it should be tremendous news that would cause a
newspaper to intervene. She had all the confidence in the world in her
mirror.

She got her breakfast this morning, singing. She was happy. She had
found a door out of monotony; theatrical drama had given way to the
living. She had opened the book of adventure and she was going straight
through to finis. That there was an undertow of the sinister escaped her
or she ignored it.

In all high-strung Irish souls there is a bit of the old wife, the
foreteller; the gift of prescience; and Kitty possessed this in a mild
degree. Something held her here, when for a dozen reasons she should
have gone elsewhere.