THE PRECIPICE
A Novel
BY
ELIA W. PEATTIE
1914
A fanfare of trumpets is blowing to which women theworld over are listening. They listen even against their wills, andnot all of them answer, though all are disturbed. Shut their earsto it as they will, they cannot wholly keep out the clamor of thosetrumpets, but whether in thrall to love or to religion, to customor to old ideals of self-obliterating duty, they are stirred. Theymove in their sleep, or spring to action, and they present to theworld a new problem, a new force--or a newmenace....
THE PRECIPICE
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I
It was all over. Kate Barrington had her degree and hergraduating honors; the banquets and breakfasts, the little intimatefarewell gatherings, and the stirring convocation were throughwith. So now she was going home.
With such reluctance had the Chicago spring drawn to a closethat, even in June, the campus looked poorly equipped for summer,and it was a pleasure, as she told her friend Lena Vroom, who hadcome with her to the station to see her off, to think how muchfurther everything would be advanced "down-state."
"To-morrow morning, the first thing," she declared, "I shall goin the side entry and take down the garden shears and cut the rosesto put in the Dresden vases on the marble mantelshelf in the frontroom."
"Don't try to make me think you're domestic," said Miss Vroomwith unwonted raillery.
"Domestic, do you call it?" cried Kate. "It isn't beingdomestic; it's turning in to make up to lady mother for the fouryears 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 comingto see me one of these days?"
Miss Vroom shook her head.
"I haven't much feeling for a vacation," she said. "I don't seemto fit in anywhere except here at the University."
"I've no pa