"You don't need me now at night, do you?" Catherine turned down the covers. "Here, hop in before you are chilly." "I liked that other bed," said Spencer. "It's much softer." "Nonsense!" Catherine laughed at him, tucked him in, kissed his cheek softly, not looking at the pink, wrinkled scar. "Same kind of springs. And you're well now." "Will you be gone in the morning, Mother?" His question halted her at the door. "No, Spencer. What made you ask that?" "I wanted to know." She snapped off the light and closed his door. Then Marian was bathed; scrubbing and spluttering, she repeated with funny little imitations of Charles's phrases, the stories about Mitty Bantam and Mr. Bill's dog. Catherine opened the window to let the steam out of the bathroom, while she hung up limp towels and scrubbed out the tub and restored things to shining order. Her sleeve slipped down on her wet wrist, and she shoved it back impatiently. She'd like a drowsy, warm bath herself, and sleep, dreamless, heavy. But Charles was waiting for her. The interim was over. Pushing her hair away from her forehead with her habitual gesture, she went into the living room. Charles looked up from his paper, smoke wreathing his face. "This has been fine," he said, warmly. "Comfortable home evening." Catherine sat down, brushing drops of water from her skirt. "Hasn't it?" he urged. "Well--" She was staring at her hands, blanched, wrinkled at the finger tips, by their long soaking. "If home is the bathroom!" Under her lowered eyelids she saw Charles watching her, guardedly. He set down his pipe with a click. "If you feel that way!" "Horrid of me to say it, wasn't it?" Catherine relaxed, her hands limp-wristed along the chair. "I suppose you are tired. Awful strain, these last weeks." "Perhaps I am." Catherine twisted sidewise in her chair and smiled at him. "But you look tired, too, poor boy. What have you been doing? I--why, I haven't seen you since I came back." "You certainly haven't. But I didn't mind. Spencer--well, thank God, that's over!" "Yes." Catherine discovered that she was so recently out from the distorting shadow of fear for Spencer that as yet she could not talk about it, as if words might have black magic to recall the fear. "Damned lucky escape." Charles rammed tobacco into the pipe bowl with his thumb. He was thrusting out words in bravado, without looking at Catherine. He, too, had lived in that fear! He sucked vigorously, drawing the match flame down into the pipe. "What are you going to do now?" The muscles of wrists and fingers leaped into tight contraction, and her hands doubled into fists against the chair. "I haven't thought, until to-day." Then, suddenly,--better pour out everything. "Nothing has changed, has it, now that Spencer is well?" "You plan to go back to the Bureau?"