If I pretend that I have noticed nothing, she thought at last, then it may be in the end that there was little to notice. If I can cling to my love, it may be like that old man of the sea, changing into horrible shapes under my hands, but changing back, if I have courage to hang on, into its true shape. "Time for bed-ne-go," came Charles's voice down the hall. "Please, can I finish this chapter, Daddy?" Spencer begged. "Better put your book mark right there, son, and run along." He had read himself into a better humor, thought Catherine. She brushed the bills into the drawer. Her check would be larger this month. "Come along, chickens." She stood at the doorway; her glance at Charles gathered him clearly--the line of lower eyelid, the angle of his chin. Marian slid down from his knee, sighing. "Daddy read me a lovely story, all about a fairy prince." She bent to kiss Marian good night, with a final pat to the blankets. "I'll dream about a fairy prince, Muvver," came the child's voice, muffled as she snuggled out of reach of the cold wind. Spencer's arms shot up about her throat, tugging her down where he could whisper. "Moth-er, do you think I could have a radio receiving set?" Catherine smiled. "Well--" she hesitated. "You have a birthday before long. In March. I'll have to find out more about them. Could you wait?" "Oh, Moth-er!" His hug was exuberant. "Moth-er darling!" Catherine closed his door, and poised an instant in the hall, priming her courage. "Now!" she said, under her breath. Before she had moved, however, the doorbell clattered, smudging her flame of determination. Charles came briskly through the hall. "Oh, you there?" But he went on to the door. III It was the Thomases, Mrs. Thomas explaining wordily that they had spent the day in town, luncheon, matinee, dinner, and thought they would just drop in for a time, before the ten-thirty train home. More than an hour to their train time. To Catherine, let down so suddenly from her peak of resolution, the evening was garbled, like a column in a newspaper struck off from pied type, with words and phrases at random making sense, and all the rest unintelligible. Mrs. Thomas was full of holiday vivacity; the plumes on her black hat quivered in every filament. Those plumes bothered Catherine; she had seen them before, perhaps not at that angle, or perhaps not on that hat. No, they were generic plumes; eternal symbol of the academic wife and her best hat, her prodigious effort at respectable attire. Mr. Thomas wanted to talk shop, if Charles would permit him. One leg crossed over his knee jerked absently in rhythm as he spoke. A student of his was working on psychological tests for poetic creation, an analysis of the poetic type of thought processes. Against their talk, like trills and grace notes against the base chords, rippled Mrs. Thomas in little anecdotes of Percy, of Clara, of Dorothy, of Walter.