They're too like us. That's why I hate them. And then, fiercely, men have climbed out of that. Some ways. But they want to keep us monkey women. Loving our mate and children. Nothing else. She came presently to a stretch of water at the other side of the park, and stopped a moment on the shore. Blue, quiet, with long black reflections of trees from the opposite bank. My mind has made itself up, she thought. Her pallor and sullenness had given place to an intense vitality in her wide, dark eyes, in the curve of her mouth. It isn't selfishness, nor egoism, this hankering of mine. It's more than that. I'll tell Charles--she laughed softly, out of the wholeness of her release from doubt--I'll tell him that I can't be a monkey woman. He'll help me. He must help me. XII She waited until the children were asleep and the house was quiet. Then she knocked at the study door, behind which Charles sat, working on a lecture. She scarcely waited for his "Come" but went in swiftly, closing the door. "Most through work?" She drew a small chair near his desk. "Why, you aren't working." His desk was orderly, bare. "Not just now." Charles leaned back. "I--" he hesitated. "You look stunning in that get-up," he finished. "Yes?" Catherine's smile lingered. "It's not the get-up. It's me, inside." "Handsome wife." Charles touched her fingers, spreading them wide between his own fingers, crumpling them together in a sudden violent squeeze. Then he leaned back again. "Just been thinking about you," he said. "Yes? So've I." Vivacity in Catherine's voice, her gesture, a vivacity which had true life from deep inner light, not an external manner. "I wanted to talk to you." "I've been wanting to talk things over with you." Charles looked away from her somberly. "For some time." "It's about next year," continued Charles slowly, and Catherine thought, I'll leave the monkeys out, at first. "Our plans, you know." Something arrested Catherine at the edge of speech, something like the damp finger of air from a cellar. "I should have brought it up before you went downtown," he was saying. "You were down this morning, weren't you?" She nodded. "I didn't realize you were going. And anyway, to-day sort of brought matters to a head." "Yes?"