"Why, so you did." Catherine looked at her dismantled forces. She couldn't even keep her mind on those disks of wood. "There." She moved. "Oh, Moth-er!" Spencer was gathering in the last of the red checkers. "You're a punk player. You're a dumb-bell!" "What a name! Where did you find that word?" Catherine watched him; he was teasing her--that funny little quirk in his eyebrows. "Oh, the fellers say it." Suddenly he swept the checkers into a heap. "I'm sick of checkers." "Want to read a while?" "I'm sick of reading. Staying in the house just wears me out, Mother." The doorbell broke the quiet of the house, and Catherine, with a relieved, "Now we'll see what's coming!" went out to the door. Her mother, perhaps, or Margaret. "Hello, Catherine." It was Bill, shifting a large package that he might extend his hand. She hadn't seen him since that night in Chicago. She had an impression of herself that night, confident, radiant, but vague and blurred, as if Bill showed her a faded photograph he had kept for years. "Henry said she thought I might call on Spencer," he was saying. Catherine was grateful for the lack of inquiry. He would know that she had dropped everything in a heap, and that all the ends were tangled and confused. But knowing, he would ask her nothing, would not even indicate his knowledge. "I've brought something for him." He jerked the arm which held the package. "Spencer's in here." Catherine led the way to the living room. "Here's a caller for you," she announced. "Hello, Mr. Bill!" Spencer lunged forward in his chair, but Bill set the box promptly before him. "This table is just what we need. I thought you might help me with this radio." Bill shook himself out of his overcoat. And Catherine, with a smile at the sudden lifting of Spencer's clouds of ennui, left them. There were things to be done. She might as well shake off her lethargy and attack them. She heard Spencer's eager voice, Bill's deliberate tones, pronouncing strange phrases--amperes, tuning up, wave lengths. The laundry. Prosaic, distasteful enough. If she began with that, she might find a shred of old habit which would start her wheels running.