"I think that will be satisfactory. It's gone into the budget, your salary, I mean. I don't think the President will suggest cutting it. Not if I make the trip myself. Let me think it over. No, the check is yours." * * * * * Just after twelve, by the jeweler's sidewalk clock. She could reach home for luncheon. But she didn't want to! She turned out of the entrance and moved along, graceful, deliberate, toward the cross street and Amy's club. The housekeeper nodded to her. There were women in a group near the fire, one or two heads turning toward her; no one there who knew her. She sat alone at a small yellow table in a corner of the dining room. She was earlier than her usual hour. That was why she saw none of the women she had talked with. She did recognize several of the faces. Bits of gossip collected about them, highly colored pieces of personal comment, which Amy had thrown off in her intense, throaty voice. That woman who was just seating herself, dropping her heavy, squirrel-lined great coat over her chair, was a successful physician; makes thirty thousand at least. Has to have a young thing adoring her--yes, there's the present young thing, with a sleek bobbed head like a child's, and round, serious eyes. Secretary, housekeeper, chauffeur, slave! Catherine could hear Amy's satiric list. And the two women at the table beyond. Catherine bent over her salad, while the women in the room retreated to some great distance, carrying the bits of gossip like cockleburrs stuck to their garments. It's funny, thought Catherine. I never saw it before. But it is always how they love--how they live--not what they think. Even when Amy talks about them. Even these women. Her thoughts ran on, clearly. She had wished to lunch there, because she needed something to orient herself, to deliver her out of the smother of her life and all its subtle, intimate pressures of love. She wanted to see women in terms of some cold, dignified, outer achievement. And instead, her mind clattered about them with tales of their lovers, their husbands, their emotional bondage. Well, was that her fault, her own prepossession? Or Amy's? From Amy had come these irritating recollections. Or was it that women were like that, summed up in personal emotions? She drew on her gloves and left the club rooms. She would walk up the Avenue and across Central Park. They were having lunch at home, now, Charles, the children. Sometimes in walking her feet seemed to tread thoughts into smoothness; or the swinging rhythm of her body shook some inner clarity up through confused images where she could see it, could lay hold of it. What was she trying to think about, anyway? Women? Herself? Herself and Charles. And the children.