"Well, it's my job. I went in to see the Head, to-day." Charles faced her, his eyes deprecating. "You gave me nerve to do that, Cathy. I'd been knocked so confoundedly hard--but I felt better to-day. That's you." Catherine's hands clung together in her lap. "I wanted to have exact data on where I stood. The trouble is, this place is too big. I mean the institution, not my own job. There are too many men eager for a foothold. The Chief was rather fine about it--about my work, especially. Praised it. You know. But he said I'd stepped somewhat out of rank, going abroad. Two men are ahead of me, in line for promotion. Can't have too many professors. Isn't room. All that guff, you know what it is." Charles brought his fist down on the desk. "I should like to get to a place where I can march ahead as fast as I can go. I talked over the whole situation with him, including the Buxton offer." His eyes were suddenly wary, inquisitive. "You remember that, of course? And he agreed with me." "He advised you to leave the University?" Catherine heard her own voice, like a thin wire. "He agreed that the chance for advancement, for future accomplishment, lay there rather than here." "And you wish to go?" "I had another letter to-day from the president there. It's a remarkable place, Cathy. Small, but endowed to the neck. A few of those small colleges are, you know. I'd have the entire department in my hands, with freedom to work out anything I liked. They want a strong department. Want a good man to build it up." His wariness, his searching of her face had dropped away in a rush of genuine enthusiasm. His words ran on, building the picture, his work, his opportunity. Then he switched, suddenly. "And the place is fine, too. Pretty little town, college community. Wonderful place for the children. The other night, as I told them about my childhood, I felt we had no right to imprison them here. It isn't decent. Shut up in a city, when they are just growing up. Do you think so? All this awful struggle to stretch our income, too. That would be over. More salary, almost twice as much. Living conditions infinitely better. Pleasant people to live near." "When you got your appointment at the University here, you thought it was perfect. The institution, the city. Do you remember how you felt?" "It did seem so, didn't it? But you have to watch a thing work out." "You are sure you are judging Buxton fairly, and not in the light of what's happened in the clinic?" "I've been thinking about it for months. I spoke about it in the fall----" He stopped suddenly, and Catherine saw the phantom that he had evoked: his own voice, harsh, "I think I'll take that Buxton offer, just to get you out of town," and her own answer, thrown back as she fled, "You'd have to be sure I would go!" "I can't decide it alone," he went on hastily. "I'm just trying to show you how it looks to me."