Finally she leaned back in her chair, twisting her wrist for a glimpse of her watch. Whew! Half past twelve, and she was to meet her sister Margaret for luncheon. She stood a moment at the window. Beyond the neighboring buildings the spires of the Cathedral splintered the sunlight; a flock of pigeons whirled into view, their wings flashing in the light, then darkening as they swirled and vanished--like the cadence of a verse, thought Catherine. Far beneath her lay an angle of the Avenue, with patches of shining automobile tops crawling in opposing streams. She gave a great sigh as she turned back to the office. A long, narrow room, scarcely wider than the window, lined with shelves ceiling-high, between them the flat desk piled with her work. Her work! Almost a week of it, now, and already she had won back her old ability to draw that thin, sliding wall of steel across her personal life, to hold herself contained within this room and its contents. She hadn't seen Margaret since her return from Maine. She was to meet her at the St. Francis Luncheon Club for Working Women. As she stepped into the sunlight of the street, the slow flowing of the emulsion of which she was suddenly another particle, she had a sharp flash of unreality. Was it she, walking there in her old blue suit, her rubber heels padding with the other sounds, her eyes refocusing on distance and color after the long morning? She loved the long, narrow channel of the Avenue, hard, kaleidoscopic; the white clouds above the line of buildings, the background of vivid window displays. She laughed softly as she recalled the early days of the week. Rainy, to begin with. She had thought, despairingly, that she couldn't swing the job. The children stood between her and the sheets of paper. She had flown out at noon to telephone Miss Kelly, to demand assurance that life in the apartment hadn't gone awry in the four hours since she had left. Queer. You seized your own bootstraps and lugged, apparently in vain, to lift yourself from your habits of life, of thought, of constant concern, and then, suddenly, you had done it, just when you most despaired. She walked with a graceful, long stride, her head high. An excellent scheme, Dr. Roberts had said. He had really entrusted her with the entire plan for this investigation. And she could do it!