In the dining room, a few traveling men scattered about at tables sending glances of incurious speculation after her as she chose a seat; a middle-aged waitress whose streaked purplish hair shrieked aloud her effort to keep youth enough to win tips, and whose heavy, laborious tread spoke more loudly of aching, fallen arches. Catherine started at the twin bottles of vinegar and yellowish oil in the center of the table. Letty's just gone to bed, she thought. Mrs. O'Lay is serving dinner. I shouldn't care to be a traveling saleswoman. The hotel drives my job into some remote limbo. I'll go to bed early. To-morrow, at the University, it will be different. Such a cordial note from that history professor's wife, asking me to stay with them. It was nice of Dr. Roberts to write personally to them. Good steak, at least. Fair coffee. Finally, as the waitress set a triangle of pie before her, she saw the clerk in the doorway, his eyes focusing on her. He came slowly toward her. It's come, thought Catherine. He ought not to button that alpaca coat; absurd, the way it creases over his fat stomach. "They just telephoned this from the station," he said, laying a sheet of paper beside her plate. The elaborate scrolled heading, COMMERCIAL HOUSE, wriggled under her eyes, settled flatly away as she read the penciled words. Spencer hurt coasting wired you this morning can you come CHARLES "Hope it's nothing serious, ma'am." Those soft fingers of worry had unsheathed their claws; they tore at her, deep in the unheeded, rhythmic working of her body. She could not breathe, nor see, nor speak. Spencer! "Nothing serious," he repeated, and suddenly her heart was clattering against her ribs. She could lift her eyes from that paper. Why, he had a kindly face, that bald clerk; his flat nostrils had widened a little, in avid human sniffing at disaster, but his eyes were sympathetic. "It's my little boy." She could breathe now. "It says he is hurt. Why--" she thrust back her chair in a violent motion, and wavered as she stood up. "There was a telegram this morning. I should have known this morning!" "That's too bad, Ma'am. It never came here." "I'll have to get a train." Catherine was hurrying out of the dining room, the clerk at her heels. "When can I?" "It don't say how bad he's hurt." She felt his hand close about her arm. "You sit down here, and I'll 'phone to the station for you." He drew her into the enclosure behind his counter, and pushed her gently into an old leather chair. "Little fellows stand an awful lot of knocking around. I've got three, so I ought to know. Now, take it easy. Where you want to go? New York City?" Grateful tears in Catherine's eyes made prismatic edges around his solid figure. As she watched him thumbing a railroad folder, her panic lifted slightly. Perhaps--oh, perhaps Spencer wasn't badly hurt. Charles would be frightened, would want her.