Catherine returned to the living room and sat down. She had a queer illusion that if she moved too quickly, she might break; she was brittle, tight. Charles came back to the doorway, his chin thrust out. Why, it was funny, ridiculous--caught out, each of them. This must be a dream. It was too absurd for reality. She began to laugh. She didn't wish to laugh, but she was helpless, as if some monstrous jest seized her and shook her. Was it she, laughing, or the jest, outside her, shaking her? She couldn't stop. "Evidently you are amused." Charles strode past her. She wanted to deny that, to explain that it wasn't she laughing. But she couldn't stop that gasping ribald sound. "Catherine!" he stood above her, enormous, magnified by the tears in her eyes. "Catherine!" Abruptly the monstrous jest dropped her, limp, and the laughter had burst through the thin partition into sobs. She twisted away from him, flinging an arm up to shield her face, her body pressed against the chair, seeking something hard, immovable, to check its convulsive racking. She knew that Charles bent over her. She wanted to scream at him to go away, to leave her alone, but she doubled her first against her lips. She struggled back heavily to the narrow, tortuous path of control. For days she had walked too near the edge for safety. She could breathe now. If she could lie there, quiet, for a time--but Charles was waiting. Her hands dropped to her lap, she relaxed, emptily, and slowly she turned her face. Charles watched her; alarm, and a sort of scorn on his face. He thought she had chosen that as a weapon--feminine hysterics. "Well?" His gruffness was a shield over his alarm, she knew. "I am sorry." Her voice had the faint quiver of spent tears. "I really didn't intend--but it suddenly looked--ridiculous." "I don't see what's funny." Charles sat down stiffly. "In my hearing of my wife's plans from outsiders." Catherine drew a long breath. She was back on that narrow path, now. "And my hearing of yours?" she asked. "I told you about that offer several months ago." Charles was dignified. "You seemed so little interested." "Let's not quibble!" Catherine exclaimed. "I can't bear it. It's bad enough--I was coming in to talk with you, when they rang. I hadn't known"--she stared a moment; that was, after all, the dreadful sign-post, indicating their diverging roads--"that you considered that offer seriously." "Exactly. But you will admit I had spoken of it?" Ah, he wouldn't take that as parallel. His silence there was to be her fault, too. Only his cold, dead side toward me--Catherine had again that phantasy that he had swung in his orbit. If I go under now, it's for all time. He must swing back to find me as I am, now. Pride poured through her, hardening in the mold of her intention.