Catherine went home, stepping gingerly over the glare of ice. A taxi rattled and skidded to a stop at the door just as she reached the apartment house, and her mother came out. "Here, you'll slip." Catherine seized her arm, and engineered her passage. "Has Charles come home?" "Yes, poor boy. He's had an awful time. Tell the driver to go very slowly!" Mrs. Spencer disappeared in the cab. VIII "'At Flora, she coming back to wuk for you-all?" Sam made friendly inquiry as he stopped the elevator at Catherine's floor. "No." "She say she got grand job for some elegant folks. Sma't worker, Flora is." Poor Flora--Catherine unlocked the door quietly--lying to Sam, to save her face some way, of course. If Charles is miserable--hope thrust out a new tendril, waveringly, in a blurred picture of herself ministering to him, pretending tenderly that nothing ever had been wrong. "Hello." She smiled as he turned from the window, draped in a melancholy air of pain nobly borne. "You have had a horrid time, haven't you?" "Just a jumpy tooth." He sat down, reaching for the paper. "Your mother was worried about you. Said you went off with a darky hours ago." "She didn't seem worried. I met her at the door." Catherine went out to the hall closet with her wraps. Her fingers brushed the sleeve of his heavy coat. If I can pretend, she thought. "It was only Flora," she said as she returned. "She wanted a statement from me, evidence as to her character. That man, you remember, her puhfessional gentleman? He seems to have a scheme to save himself at her expense. We went out to hunt up a notary." "You committed yourself legally to some defense of her?" "Yes, indeed. Poor Flora!" "Unwise, wasn't it? How do you know what she'll do with such a paper?" "It seemed little enough to do for her. They want to prove she neglected her children." "Didn't she?" Catherine wondered; did he mean that implied comparison? At least he wouldn't drag it out, openly, if she ignored it. "Have you had any dinner?" "Can't eat with a nerve howling like a fiend." "Come along, poor boy. I'll find you something." "Don't bother." "Come on, Charles." Catherine went into the kitchen. "Here's a wonderful roast beef," she called back, and Charles came reluctantly. "You sit there--" she pushed the chair near the shining white table. "Coffee, or cocoa?" "Cocoa, if it isn't too much trouble. I'd like to sleep. Had a cup of coffee." "Did the dentist keep you all this time in his torture chamber?" Catherine moved swiftly from ice-chest to stove. If I can invoke our midnight lunches, all down the past, she thought--I can't go away, without trying to reach him. It is like death. "No," said Charles. "I haven't been there all the evening." Catherine stirred the foaming cocoa. Let's pretend, she wanted to cry out; let's pretend! "I thought probably you would be asleep. Since you start off to-morrow."