"Yes, isn't it?" Miss Partridge's smile was tolerant, amused, just a flicker of pointed teeth. But she thrust the bag under her arm. "I hope you have a pleasant trip. You go soon, don't you?" A truck came booming through the tunnel, and under cover of its din, Catherine nodded and hurried on. "You knew she had it," she cried out, half aloud. "You knew it!" At the gate she stopped, pretending to adjust her hat. She had known it, but the sight of it, the actual visible contact with it, had sent a sharp wave of nausea through her. How could she have spoken of it! She was aghast--the words had pounced out, she hadn't said them. There, the nausea had passed, and with her head up to the wind which blew along the Avenue, she could go on, across the street, and up the hill toward home. She doesn't love him. Catherine was sure of that. She wanted to show off--her power. That's all. She has no tenderness in her. And as Catherine went silently past the door of the study where Charles sat writing, not looking up, pity moved in her. Why, she thought, he will be hurt, out of this, and I can't save him. * * * * * Henrietta came in that evening, and Charles emerged, ruffled and absent-eyed, from the study. He was working on a paper he was to deliver before a meeting of psychologists. On clinic practice, he explained in answer to Henrietta's inquiry. "You know"--he slouched down in his chair--"we're going to run you poor old-fashioned doctors right out of business. Once we have these psychological methods established, there won't be much left for you to do." "Whooping cough a mere instinct, or is it a habit? And croup and measles and broken legs?" Henrietta waved her eyeglasses at him. "If you psychologists knew a little anatomy and materia medica----" She and Charles squared off for a friendly skirmish on their pet field of contention. Catherine, listening, watching Charles's lazy delight as he parried phrases and thrust out in pointed words, felt a sudden wash of tears too close to her eyes, and a constriction in her throat. He would come out of his tent, genial, casual, for Henrietta, for anyone. But when they were alone--silence, heavy and uncommunicative. How long since they had laughed, at any silly thing? "Here, help me out!" Henrietta was flushed with amusement. "He's delivering his whole speech on my head! Oh, I mustn't forget to give you Bill's address." She broke off, fumbling in a pocket of her suit. "Here. Chicago office. A note there will reach him. Aren't you proud of her, Charles?" Henrietta stuck her glasses on the bridge of her nose and stared at Charles. "Just pouncing ahead!" "Of course Catherine has brains." Charles had withdrawn, his foils sheathed. "Always knew that." "But these Bureaus and Foundations are so conservative. It's splendid to see them forced into recognition of a woman's ability, I think."