Chapter V: Part II: Both Ends of the Candle (2)

"What a stride!"

The circles contracted swiftly, and she turned.

"Bill! Hello." She emerged slowly, shreds of the dream still shining. They fell into step.

"How goes it?" His glance veered to her face. "You look as if you'd had your salary raised."

"Better than that." Catherine wanted to break into his dark, withdrawn glance; she wanted, suddenly, to draw him into this glittering mood. "Bill, it's wonderful. I feel my mind budding! It wasn't dead. Like a seed potato--shoots in every direction, out of every wrinkle!"

"You look it." Bill nodded. "I saw that you walked on air."

"I've been recasting the universe." She laughed, as they waited a moment for passing traffic. "That's better than building bridges, isn't it?"

"It is less confining."

They went quickly past the subway kiosk, dodging the home-pouring workers, past the peanut stand panting warm and odorous at the corner, to the wide hill of steps in front of the University library. A flower vender thrust his bunches of roses at them.

"I want some!" Catherine dug into her purse.

"Aren't they stale?" Bill watched her fasten the creamy, buff-pink buds to her coat.

"Probably. But they look fresh now." Catherine swung into step again. Queer, how that occasional little side glance of Bill's gave assent to her mood, dipped into it, recognized it, without a word.

"I suppose," she said, as they rounded the corner of Amsterdam, "that I can't stay on this level. It's too high. But I've just reached it to-day. Assurance, and a long sight into what I can do."

"There's always, unfortunately, another day." Bill frowned slightly. "Another mood. But you seem to have hit a fair wind. Henrietta told me that Miss Kelly was panning out well."

"Yes." The view ahead, of the dipping, climbing avenue, with its familiar shops, its familiar clatter of the cobblestones, was sharp as a background of relief against which to-day stood out. "I know what I feel like, Bill. If you want to know."

"I do. Always."

Simple words, but Catherine heard them with faint wonder. Bill was never personal. His profile, with its long nose and lean cheeks, like a horse, was reassuring.

"Well, then. Did you ever watch a treadmill? Round and round, all your effort taking you nowhere but around? That's where I've been. That's what I've done. The same circle, day after day. And now I'm out of it, on a long, straight road. Going somewhere!"

"I hope it's straight." They had reached the apartment entrance, and Bill shook his head at Catherine's suggestion that he come in.

"No road is really straight. But as long as it goes somewhere!"

Bill looked at her; Catherine thought he started to speak, and then refused the words.

"Spencer is longing for your next call," she said.

"I'll drop in some evening. Henry's been busy."

"Don't wait for her, then. Just come."

At the door Miss Kelly met Catherine.

"Letty hasn't seemed quite well," she said. "I put her to bed."

"What's wrong?" Catherine stared at Miss Kelly's bland, pink face. "She isn't really sick?"

"It's hard to tell, with a child." Miss Kelly followed Catherine down the hall. "It may be just indigestion."

Letty, her small face flushed and scowling, wrinkled her eyes at her mother.

"Don't want to go to bed. Want to see my Muvver."

"Here I am, Letty." Catherine touched her cheek, felt for her wrist.

"She has scarcely any temperature," announced Miss Kelly. "Just a degree. But I thought----"

"Surely, she's better in bed. Did she have any supper?"

"Broth."

"Don't wait, Miss Kelly. I know you wish to go."

"Well, since you are here."

Catherine removed her coat and hat. The roses dropped to the floor.

"Pretty!" Letty reached for them.

"I'll put them in water." Catherine came back with a vase. "Do you feel sick anywhere, chick?"

"Letty not sick. Get up." Catherine caught the wiggling child, and pulled the blanket into place.

"You lie still, and mother'll be back presently. I must see to dinner for Daddy."

She hurried into the kitchen. Spencer and Marian were under the dining room table, playing menagerie, and unable to answer her except in fierce growls. Charles hadn't come in. Probably Letty wasn't really sick. She had little flurries of indisposition; perhaps she had eaten something.

Charles came in, with a jovial bang of the door, and a shout, "Ship ahoy! Who's at the helm?"

"Don't tell him, Muvver." Marian's head butted the tablecloth aside. "Sh!"

"'Lo, Cath!" He swung her up to tiptoe in his exuberant hug. "Where are the kids?"

"Grrrr!" and "Woof!" The table cloth waggled.

"Ah, wild animals under foot!" Charles gave an elaborate imitation of a big game hunter, creeping toward the table, sighting along his thumbs. "Biff, bang!" He reached under, seized a leg, and drew out Marian, giggling and rolling. "Bagged one! Bang, bang! Got the panther!" He had Spencer by the collar. "Teddy, the great hunter!" He straddled them, his arms folded, while they shrieked in delight.

A wail from the doorway, "Letty play! Shoot Letty!"

Catherine ran past them, gathering the child into her arms. Her hand, closing over the small feet, found them dry, hot, and the weight of the child seemed to scorch through her blouse against her shoulder.

"What's the matter with my baby?" Charles followed them. "Let me have her, Catherine."

"She's supposed to be in bed." Catherine covered her with the blanket. "Now you stay there, young lady! Mother will come in soon."

She touched the scarlet cheek, her fingers feather soft. Letty's eyelids, heavy and dark, drooped, and her protest broke off.

Catherine drew Charles into the hall.

"Would you call up Dr. Henrietta? I think her fever is coming up."

"Is she sick?" Charles looked aggrieved at this intrusion upon his mood.

"I hope not." Catherine gave him a little push. "Call her up, and see when she can come in. I'll have dinner on directly."

The wild animals were washed and combed, and dinner served when Charles came out of the study.

"She's not in. Probably at dinner. I left word with the clerk. But I say, Catherine. I got tickets for 'Liliom' to-night." He looked blankly disappointed. "You said you wanted to see it, and I was downtown. Good seats, too."

"Oh, Charles!"

"And I even called up that girl we had last year, to stay with the children. That graduate student, you know."

"Well." Catherine lifted her hands in a little gesture of resignation. "If Letty's sick-- But 'Liliom'! I do want to go."

"Maybe she'll be all right when she's asleep."

But she wasn't. Eight o'clock came, with Charles fidgeting like a lamprey eel on a hook, and no word from Henrietta. Letty was asleep, her hands twitching restlessly. Catherine shook her head, as she read the thermometer.

"I can't go, Charles. Almost a hundred and one."

"What ails her? Has that woman you've got been feeding her pickles?"

The door bell rang. Charles, with a mutter of "Dr. Henry, perhaps," rushed to the door. He came back.

"It's Miss Brown, come to stay the evening. What shall I tell her?"

"Tell her I can't go." Catherine was abrupt. She was disappointed and she was fighting off a sturdily growing fear about the next day,--and she resented Charles's air of injury.

"I hate to, after I begged her to come in."

Catherine brushed hastily past him and went to the door. Miss Brown, a plump, pale, garrulous woman of middle age, a southerner, waited.

"Letty, the baby, isn't very well," explained Catherine. "Nice of you to come in so promptly. Some other night, perhaps." And presently the door could be closed upon Miss Brown's profuseness of pity.

Charles was glooming about his study.

"When you leave them all day for your job," he said, "I should think you might----"

"No, you shouldn't think!" Catherine laughed at him. "You're as bad as Spencer, little boy!"

The bell rang again.

"That's Henry!" Catherine hurried to the door, and opened it to Stella Partridge's little squirrel smile and extended hand.

"Good evening, Mrs. Hammond. I told Dr. Hammond I'd let him have this outline when it was finished."

"Won't you come in, Miss Partridge?" Catherine heard Charles coming. He lounged beside her, hands in pockets.

"No, thank you. I just brought this outline, Dr. Hammond." She handed him the envelope.

There was a moment of silence, in which Catherine felt a tugging at her will, as if Charles tried to bend her to some thought of his. She glanced at him, still sulky.

"I have it," she said. "Why don't you take Miss Partridge to your show, Charles? If she would like it. Have you seen 'Liliom,' Miss Partridge?"

"Letty is indisposed," said Charles, "thus interfering, after the fashion of children, with her parents' plans."

"Can't I stay with her?" Miss Partridge opened her dark eyes very wide.

"Mrs. Hammond is punctilious."

Catherine withdrew a step. If Charles added another word--she could hear the rest of his sentence, about her leaving them all day! But he merely added, "Would you care to go, Miss Partridge?"

"Ought you to leave Mrs. Hammond, if the baby is ill?"

"It's always a relief to be rid of a disappointed man, Miss Partridge." Catherine was thinking: how disdainful that cold, hard voice makes her words sound! "Letty isn't seriously ill, but I want the doctor to look at her. I shall be happier here."

Miss Partridge seated herself in the living room, and Catherine, after a glance at Letty, and a moment of search for the tie Charles wished, sat down opposite her. She was charming to look at, Catherine realized; a soft, fawn colored suit, exquisitely tailored over her slender, sloping shoulders; a long brown wing across the smart fawn hat, a knot of orange at her throat. She drew off her wrinkled long gloves, and revealed a heavy topaz on her little finger.

"Your work, Mrs. Hammond? You are finding it interesting?"

"Very." Catherine felt as expansive as an exposed clam.

"Mr. Hammond was saying you had some kind of educational research in hand."

"Yes." Was that Letty, crying? Charles came in, rubbing his sleeve over his hat.

"I don't need glad rags, do I, since you aren't in evening dress?"

"No gladder than those." Miss Partridge rose.

Catherine stood at the living room door, listening for the sound of the elevator. Charles came rushing back.

"You're sure you'll be all right?" That was his little flicker of contrition. "I don't like to leave you this way, but the tickets might as well be used."

"Have a good time." Catherine kissed him lightly.

"Wish it was you, going!" He was in fine fettle again, offering a small oblation before his departure.

* * * * *

Letty woke, complaining that she wanted a drink. Catherine sat beside her, smoothing the silky fair hair, until she slept again. Her forehead didn't feel so parched. But Catherine went to the telephone and called Henrietta. Bill answered.

"Oh, Catherine! Henry got your message. She had to stop at the hospital first. She'll be in. Is Letty really sick?"

"I hope not. But I need Henrietta's assurance."

"She'll be along."

Spencer looked up from his books.

"I think Daddy ought to stay home if you have to," he said, frowning.

"Daddy isn't any use if the children are sick," announced Marian, with dignity. "Is he, Muvver?"

"Not as a nurse," said Catherine. "But he's a great comfort to me, you know."

"How?" Spencer was still accusing.

"Just being." Catherine smiled at him. Spencer had a curious way of reaching out, thrusting fine feelers about him, investigating subtleties of relationship. He was staring at her intently, as if he pondered her last words. Then with a sigh, postponing judgment, he closed his book.

"My home work's all done, and I did it alone, because Letty is sick. Is that a comfort to you, Mother?"

"It is." Catherine was grave.

When they had gone to bed, Marian in Catherine's room, so that Letty would not disturb her, Catherine moved restlessly about the apartment. She was thinking about them, her children. What they needed. More than food and shelter, more than physical safety. They needed a safety in the _feeling_ around them. A warm, clear sea, in which they could float, unaware that the sea existed. Tension, ugly monsters, frighten them, disturb them out of their own little affairs. Spencer especially, but Marian, too. Letty was such a baby, still, but she was growing; she was still turned inward. Catherine wandered to the door and listened. She was breathing too rapidly. If Henry would only come!

She sat down at the window, staring out at the dull yellow glow which held the city as a mass and dimmed the stars. You can't pretend for them, she thought. They catch the reality under the surface. But that perfect safety of feeling--who has it! She felt herself opposed to Charles, struggling with him, toward that intense calm that might hold the children free and unaware. Perhaps some women could attain that--she was abject, despairing--women who could lose their own struggling selves. But what then? The children grew up, and made their own circles, never reaching anything but this going-on. Surely somewhere, along the way, there should be something beside immolation for the future, otherwise why the future? Marian, Letty--I can't do it, she thought. Drown myself to make that quiet, white peace. I won't drown. I keep bobbing up, trying to be rescued. Something in me, shrieking. If I can rescue that shrieking something, and silence it, then surely there's more in me, more poise, more love, to wrap them--no, not wrap them, to float them in. If Charles will help!

She had a sharp vision of Charles and Stella Partridge, sitting side by side in the darkened theater, their eyes focussed on the brilliant fantasy of the stage. Charles had been delighted to go. He didn't have play enough, these last years. I wish I were beside him,--her hand reached out emptily, as if to grasp his. Good for him, seeing other people, other women. They stimulate him, even if I don't like them. She caught, like a reflection in a mirror, the tone of that short walk from the bus with Bill. Something exciting about that--an encounter with another person.

A ring of the bell; Dr. Henrietta at last.

Catherine stood behind her, as she examined Letty, drowsily fretful at the disturbance. What strong, white, competent fingers Henry had! They went into the living room.

"She's not very sick." Henrietta sank into a chair and snapped open her cigarette case. "I'm not sure--tell better to-morrow. I'll come in early. You better keep the other children away from her. It might be something contagious."

"She's had measles." Catherine was openly dismayed, as the bugbear of contagion rose. "Good land, if she has, it means they all get it, just like a row of dominoes. Henry! What shall I do?"

"Oh, get a nurse and quarantine them. You don't need to stay in. Charles doesn't."

"I couldn't."

"Well, wait until to-morrow. May be just indigestion. I've given her a dose for that." Dr. Henrietta stretched in her chair, crossing her ankles, slim and neat in heavy black silk above small, dull pumps. "We don't want your career busted up yet. How's it going? And where's friend husband?"

"I sent him off to the theater with Miss Partridge." Catherine grinned. "He had the tickets, and was sure' I needn't stay with Letty."

"I never yet saw a man who was worried about his child when he had something he wanted to do." Henry puffed busily. "They regard children as pleasant little amusements, but put them away if they bother."

"Charles isn't quite like that----"

"No defense necessary. I'm just offering an observation. Sorry I had to be late. I stopped to watch Lasker do a Cæsarian on a case of mine. Beautiful job. But how's your work? Bill said he ran into you, spoke of your looking well."

"My job is fine." Catherine saw, at a great distance, the mood in which she had come home. "Henrietta, I must go down to-morrow. There's a conference. I've been getting ready for it all the week."

"Miss Kelly will be here, won't she?"

"It's Saturday. She'll have to take Spencer and Marian--although I suppose Letty has exposed them already."

"She may have nothing at all, you know. I'll come in as early as possible. What time is this conference?"

"Ten."

"Um. I'll try to make it. I promised to stop in at the hospital. Charles can stay, can't he, if I should be detained?"

"Don't you let her have anything that will quarantine me! If I am thrown out now, I'll never get back."

"All righty." Henrietta rose, shaking down her skirt. "I won't." She ground out her cigarette in the ash tray, with a shrewd upward glance at Catherine. "You go to bed. You look too frayed. This is just a first hurdle, you know. I'll come in before nine to-morrow. But you make Charles stay, if I should be later."

VI

Catherine woke into complete alertness. Charles had come in. She heard his cautious step in the hall. Letty was sleeping easily, her breathing soft and regular again. Catherine slipped noiselessly out of the room.

"Hello!" She brushed into Charles at the door. "Marian's in my bed," she whispered. "Have a good time?"

"Oh, fair." Charles yawned. "How's Letty?"

"Asleep. Tell me about it in the morning. We might wake her."

* * * * *

In the morning Catherine was fagged. All night the awareness of Letty had kept her at the thin edge of sleep, drawn out by the faintest stirring. The child was sitting up in bed, now, clamoring for her doll, her bwekkust, and her go-duck; her cheeks were pink, but they seemed flower-cool to Catherine's fingers.

"Let's see if you have any speckles, Letty." She peeled the night dress down; one round red spot in the shell-hollow of her knee. "Is that a speckle, Letty Hammond, or a mosquito bite!" Letty gurgled deliciously as Catherine's fingers tickled. "Let's see your throat. No, wider? Does it hurt?"

"Uh huh. Hurt Letty." Letty's arms were tight around her neck, and she bounced vigorously up and down on her pillow.

"Here, stop it." Catherine pinioned her firmly. "Where does it hurt?"

"Hurt Letty. Here." Letty sat down with a plump, and pointed at her toe.

"Well, you don't look sick, I must say. But that spot--" Catherine imprisoned her in the night dress again, and tucked her firmly under the blanket. "I'll bring Matilda, and you can put her to bed with you. Dr. Henrietta's coming to see you soon."

Marian appeared at the door.

"Daddy's asleep and I didn't know he was in his bed." She giggled. "I most woke him up jumping on him."

"Hurry and wash, dear. And don't come in with Letty, please."

Catherine sighed a little as she hurried to thrust herself into the shafts of the morning.

Letty's frequent interruptions, and Charles's reluctance to wake; the discovery that there were no oranges; the demoniac speed of the clock--it was after eight when they sat down to breakfast. Catherine drank her coffee, and hurried off to dress.

Flora came in. Catherine heard her, with relief, offering to make fresh toast for Charles. Miss Kelly appeared. She was calmly solicitous as Catherine explained Dr. Henrietta's visit. "Of course, I couldn't go into quarantine," she said, "on account of my mother."

"I understand. If you'll just take the other children outdoors for the morning----"

They had gone. It was nine, and no Dr. Henrietta. Catherine fastened a net carefully over her coiled hair, brushed her hat, poking at the limp bow of ribbon, and then went slowly to the study, where Charles was rummaging through a drawer of his desk.

"You have no classes this morning, have you?" she began.

"No, I haven't. Do you know where I put that outline Miss Partridge left?"

"Here it is." Catherine lifted it from beneath the evening paper. "Charles, Henry is coming in. She said as early as possible. I can't wait for her. Would you mind?"

"What's she coming for? Isn't Letty all right?"

"I don't know. She has a red spot. Henry thought she might have something--scarlatina----"

"I thought they'd had 'em all, those red diseases."

"Her fever is down. I think she's not sick. But Henrietta wanted to be sure. Would you mind--waiting till she comes?"

"Stay here this morning?" Charles looked up, an abrupt frown between his eyes. "I can't, Catherine. I can't play baby tender. I've got a meeting."

"So have I." Catherine stood immobile in the doorway. "A very important one. Those men from the West are here. At ten. I am to present the work I've been doing."

"Can't Flora keep an eye on Letty till Henry comes?"

"I think one of us ought to be here."

"Good Lord, Catherine! I have to meet the committee on choice of dissertation subjects. Do you want me to telephone them that I have to stay home with the baby?"

"You couldn't stay just an hour?"

"Be reasonable, Catherine. I can't make myself ridiculous."

"No?" Catherine stared at him an instant. Then she turned and left him.

He followed her into the living room, where she stood at the window.

"Call up your mother," he suggested. "She can probably drop in."

"Why," said Catherine evenly, "does it make you more ridiculous than me? That dissertation committee meets a dozen times this fall. Letty is your child, isn't she? Don't tell me I'm her mother!"

"I expected something of this sort, when you announced that you had to have a career." Charles walked briskly in front of her, stern and determined. "We might as well fight it out now. Do you want me to take your place? You said not. Do be reasonable."

"I'm so reasonable it hurts." Catherine's laugh was brittle. "Go on, to your meeting. I'll stay, of course."

"Well, really, I'm afraid you'll have to." Charles hesitated, and then added, gruffly, "It's unfortunate it happened just this way." His gesture washed his hands of the affair.

As he strolled importantly out of the room, Catherine's hand doubled in a cold fist against her mouth. He can't see, she thought. There's no use talking.

When he had gone, Catherine hovered a moment at the telephone. No use calling her mother; she wouldn't be able to come up from Fiftieth Street in time to do any good. She sat down at the desk, her hands spread before her, her eyes on her wrist watch. Henrietta might still come. The minutes were thick, cold liquid, dripping, dripping. Letty's loud call summoned her, and she hunted up the dingy cotton duck, while that slow, cold drip, drip continued. Half past nine. The minutes split into seconds, heavy, cold, dripping seconds. Time could drive you mad, thought Catherine, while the seconds dripped upon her, if you waited for it long enough.

It was almost ten when she telephoned the Bureau.

Dr. Roberts' neat accents vibrated at her ear.

"I am sorry," she said, "but I cannot get away. One of the children is ill. I've been waiting for the doctor. You have the final sheets and graphs I made, haven't you? There's a list of questions and notes in the left drawer of my desk. I regret this. If you wish any explanation of the graphs, please call me."

He sounded abrupt, irritated, under his perfunctory regret. As Catherine hung away her hat and coat, she felt a cold, heavy weight back of her eyes, deep in her throat. Time had lodged there! I can't sit down and cry, she thought. No wonder he is angry. It's my business to be on hand. She had once, swimming at low tide, found herself in a growth of kelp, the strong wet masses tangling about her frightened struggles. Charles had dragged her out, to clear green water and safety. She laughed, and pressed her fist again against her mouth. He wouldn't drag her out of this tangle, not he!

She sat beside Letty, reading to her, when Dr. Henrietta finally came.

"Catherine! You stayed!" Her round face set in dismay. "I tried once to call you. That baby died, the one we delivered last night. I've been working there."

"I knew you'd come when you could." Catherine pushed her chair away from the bed. Henrietta pulled off her coat, pushed up her cuffs from her firm wrists, and bent over Letty.

"She's all right," she said, presently. "Just a touch of stomach upset last night. That's good."

"Ducky sick." Letty waved her limp bird at Henrietta.

"Keep him very quiet, then." Henrietta poked the duck down beside Letty, and shook herself briskly into her coat.

Catherine followed her into the hall.

"I might as well have gone down to the office." She was ironic.

"Exactly. I'm awfully sorry, Catherine, that I am so late. It's almost noon, isn't it? I thought I could keep life in that little rag." Her eyes looked hot and tired. "But I couldn't. Just keep Letty from tearing around too much to-day. She'll be sound as a whistle to-morrow again."

"Well, at least we escaped a plague." Catherine leaned against the wall, inert, dull.

"Wouldn't Charles stay?" Henrietta peered at her. "Too busy, eh? Well, Monday you'll be free as air again."

"I wonder."

"Now, Catherine, don't be so serious. A year from now you won't know you weren't there!"

"It's not just that, Henry. It's the whole thing." Catherine flung open her hands. "Am I all wrong, to try it?"

"You know what I think. Here, put on your hat and come out in the sunshine. Haven't you some marketing to do?"

"No. Flora does it. But I will go to the corner with you."

Flora could keep an eye on Letty. Catherine hurried for her wraps, and joined Henrietta at the elevator.

"You've had a horrid morning, haven't you?" she said, swinging up from her inner concentration. "The poor baby----"

"If we can pull the mother through. She's been scared for months. She doesn't know, yet."

They stood at the corner, the clatter of the street bright about them.

"I've another call at Ninetieth. I'll ride down." Henrietta signaled the car. "Buck up, Cathy. It's all part of life, anyway. Death--" She shrugged. "That's the queer thing." Her placid mask had slipped a little. "Pleasant words to leave with you, eh?" She jeered at herself. "So long!"

As Catherine recrossed the street, she hesitated, glancing back into the shade behind the iron palings of the little park. Was that Charles, just within the gate, and that slim, elegant, tan figure beside him? She turned and fled. She wouldn't see them, not now. Not until she had fought through this thicket of resentment. After all, she had known, all the time, that what fight there was to make she must make unaided. The sun was warm and golden, and there came Spencer and Marian, shouting out, "Moth-er!" as they chased ahead of Miss Kelly.

"Oh, we had a nice time." Marian danced at her side, clinging to her arm. "Miss Kelly told us a new game."

How well they looked, and Miss Kelly, trudging to catch up with them, was serene and smiling. Letty wasn't sick. It was all a part of life. She could manage it, everything, someway!

Miss Kelly, puffing and warm, was delighted with the news about Letty.

"I was trying," she said, "to figure out some way about mother, so I wouldn't have to desert you." Catherine's quick smile saw Miss Kelly as a sunlit rock, equable, sustaining.

Flora shooed the children out of the kitchen. She was engrossed in the ceremonial preparation of stuffed peppers with Spanish sauce. Catherine, preparing orange juice for Letty, was secretly amused at the elaborate rites. Not until Flora had closed the oven door on the pan did she look up at Catherine. Then----

"Gen'man called you up, Mis' Hammond. I plumb forgot to tell you. He pestered me 'bout where you was, and I told him you was out for the air."

"Who?" Catherine poured the clear juice in to a tumbler. "Did he----" She turned quickly. "Who was it?"

"Lef' his number. I put it on the pad."

Catherine flew into the study, deaf to Letty's shrill call. It was the Bureau. Her voice, repeating the number, was imperative. She had forgotten that Dr. Roberts might call. The whir of the unanswered instrument pounded on her ear drum. After one. The Bureau was deserted. What _would_ he think! Why, it looked--she pushed the telephone away, dull color sweeping up to her hair. It looked as if she had lied. But it had been so late when Henrietta had come that any thought of the conference had been worn down. She would have to explain, Monday, as if she had been caught malingering.

"Hello." Charles stood at the door, uncertainty in his greeting. "What's the verdict? Pest house?"

"No." Catherine was jamming the whole dreadful morning out of sight, stamping on the cover--"Henry says it was just indigestion. She's all right."

"Did you get down to your meeting?"

Catherine shook her head.

"Now that's a shame," Charles advanced tentatively. "I hoped Henry would come in time."

Easy to say that now, thought Catherine. Then--I won't be ugly. I can't endure it.

"I felt an awful brute." Charles threw his arm over her shoulders. "But you saw how it was."

"Oh, I saw!" An ironic gleam in Catherine's eyes.

"And here Letty didn't need you, anyway. You might even have gone last night."

"I must see to her lunch." Catherine twisted out of his arm, adding with a touch of malice--"You know you had a good time."

"Oh, fair." Charles was indifferent. "Left me sort of done this morning. Miss Partridge wanted me to thank you for her pleasant evening."

"I thought I saw you at the gate just now," said Catherine.

"Yes. I just ran into her on my way home."

"Don't look at me that way!" Catherine cried out sharply.

"What way?" Charles expanded his chest, bristling.

"As if you expected to see me--_suspecting_ you!"

"Well, good Lord, you sounded as if you thought I'd spent the morning with Stel--Miss Partridge."

"I hadn't thought so. Did you?"

"Of course not." Charles began, with elaborate patience. "I told you that dissertation committee--" Catherine's laugh interrupted him, and he stared at her. "I don't know what you're trying to do," he said slowly. "I'm sick of this guilty feeling that's fastened on me. Last night because I wanted you to go to the theater, this morning because I had to go to a legitimate meeting. You don't act natural any more."

Catherine went quickly back to him, her finger tips resting lightly against his shoulders.

"And so he deposited the blame where it wouldn't bother him--on her frail shoulders!" Her eyes, mocking, brilliant in her pale face, met his sulky defiance. "Philander if you must, but don't act as if you'd stolen the jam!"

"I'm not philandering."

"No, of course he isn't." Catherine brushed her fingers across his cheek. "Not for an instant. Now come, luncheon must be ready."

"But I may!" His voice came determinedly after her, as she went into Letty's room, "if I don't have more attention paid to me at home!"

VII

Saturday, Sunday, Monday morning again. Catherine, shivering a little in the wind from the gray river, as the bus lumbered down the Drive, tried to escape the clutter of thoughts left from the week-end. She had borrowed twenty-five dollars from Charles that morning, for Miss Kelly. She had pretended not to see his eyebrows when she laid the market bills in front of him. Flora had said, when Catherine suggested more discretion in shopping: "Yes'm, I'll make a 'tempt. But charging things in a grocery store jest stimulates my cooking ideas."

Perhaps I'll have to take back the shopping. A gust caught her hat, wheeled it half around. And clothes! I've got to have some. How? I won't have a cent left out of that first check. It's like an elephant balancing on a ball, or a tight-rope walker without his umbrella, this whole business.

Last night, when her mother had come in, and Bill and Dr. Henrietta, her mother with several amusing little stories about the friend who had come from Peoria, Illinois, to spend the winter with her--too plump to fit easily into the kitchenette--Charles, with his affectionate raillery of Mrs. Spencer--her mother was fond of Charles. But he needn't have made a jest of Saturday morning, and his refusal to give up his job to stay home with Letty. "That's what poor men are coming to, I'm afraid," her mother had told him. Henrietta had jibed openly at him, so openly that only Mrs. Spencer's gentle and fantastic mockery had smoothed his feathers. And Bill had said nothing. Catherine drew her collar closely about her throat. She had found him looking at her, and in his glance almost a challenge, a recall of that brief walk on Friday. "I hope it's straight, your road," he had said then. She shrugged more deeply into her coat. Straight! Was it a road? Or merely a blind alley? Or a tight-rope, and she had to poise herself and juggle a hundred balls as she crossed; the house, the children, the bills, Charles, always Charles, and her work. She came back to the thought of Dr. Roberts and the explanation she must offer.

Dr. Roberts, however, seemed miraculously to need no explanation. He had called to tell her that the committee was to stay over Monday, and that she could meet the two men after all. With sudden release from the tension of the past days, Catherine moved freely into this other world, and her road seemed again straight. She was quietly proud of the conservative response her suggestions met; her mind was agile, cool, untroubled. There grew up a plan for a first-hand study of several of the normal schools. Someone from the Bureau might go west. Catherine brushed aside her sudden picture of herself, walking among the bricks and stone, the people, for which these dust-grimed catalogues stood.

As she went home that evening, little phrases from the day ran like refrains. "A masterly analysis, Mrs. Hammond. Your point of view is interesting." And Dr. Roberts, after the men had gone--"I call this a most encouraging meeting, Mrs. Hammond. Sometimes the personal equation is, well, let us say, difficult. But you have tact."

Oh, it's worth any amount of struggle, she thought. Any amount! I'll walk my tight-rope, even over Niagara. And keep my balls all flying in the air!