Mrs. Northrup read Brace's letter to Kathryn, and something in the girl rose in alarm. This ignoring of her, for whatever reason, was most disturbing. Brace should have taken her, if not his mother, into his confidence. Instead he had "cut and run"--that was the way Kathryn _thought_ of it. Aloud she said, with that ravishing look of hers: "How very Brace-like! Getting material and colour I suppose he calls it. I wish"--this with a tender, yearning smile--"I wish, for your sake and mine, dear, that his genius ran in another direction, stocks or banking--anything with an office. It is so worrying, this trick of his of hunting plots." "I only hope that he can write again," Mrs. Northrup returned, patting the letter on her knee. Once she had wanted to write, but she had had her son instead. In her day women did not have professions _and_ sons. They chose. Well, she had chosen, and paid the price. Her husband had cost her much; her son was her recompense. He was her interpreter, also. "Where do you think he'll go?" Kathryn asked. "He'll tell us when he comes home." There was something cryptic about Helen Northrup when she was seeking to help her son. Kathryn once more bridled. She was direct herself, very direct, but her advances were made under a barrage fire. Her next step was to go to Doctor Manly. She chose his office hour, waited her turn, and then pleaded wakefulness and headache as her excuse for the call. Manly hated wakefulness and headaches. You couldn't put them under the X-ray; you couldn't operate on them; you had to deal with them by faith. Kathryn was not lacking in imagination and she gave a fairly accurate description of long, black hours and consequent pain--"here." She touched the base of her brain. She vaguely recalled that the nerve centres were in that locality. Manly was impressed and while he was off on that scent, somehow Northrup got into the conversation. "I cannot help worrying about Brace, more for his mother's sake than his." Kathryn looked very sweet and womanly, "He has been so ill and the letter his mother has just received _is_ disturbing." Here Kathryn quoted it and Manly grinned. "That's all right," he said, shaking a bottle of pills. "It does a human creature no end of good to run away at times. I often wonder why more of us don't do it and come back keener and better." "Some of us have duties." Kathryn looked noble and self-sacrificing. "Some of us would perform them a darned sight better if we took the half holiday now and then that the soul, or whatever you call it, craves. Now Northrup ought to look to his job--it _is_ a job in his case. You wouldn't expect a travelling salesman to hang around his shop all the time, would you?" Kathryn had never had any experience with travelling salesmen--she wasn't clear as to their mission in life. So she said doubtfully: "I suppose not."