"They are different." Catherine's voice hardened subtly. "I helped with that book, didn't I?" "Jove! I should say you did. All that typing, and correcting, and then the proof reading." "And now----" Catherine hesitated. "Well, now my work has broadened out so much, and there are the three children. I can afford to hire the typing done now, eh what?" "Yes." "What's the matter with you, Catherine? You've had a kind of chip about you somewhere ever since I came this time. I can't help it if I can't spend all my time playing in the country with you and the children, can I? After all, I have to see to my work, and it's increasingly demanding." "I haven't any chip on my shoulder, Charles?" Catherine caught her breath. "I do want to talk to you." "Fire ahead." Charles tapped out the ashes from his pipe and reached up for her hand. "What's eating you?" "Oh, Charles!" Catherine's slender fingers shut inside his warm palm. "Help me out! You ought to understand." Her laugh shivered off abruptly. "You know I'm proud of you, just puffed up. Do you know I'm jealous, too? Jealous as--as nettles!" "Huh? Jealous? What about? Come down here, where I can hug you." "No. I don't want to be loved. I want to talk. I'm not jealous about your love. I guess you love me, when you think of it----" "Now, Cathy, you aren't turning into a foolish woman." "I'm turning into something awful! That's why I've got to do something. It's your work, I'm jealous of." "Why, my work doesn't touch my feeling about you." "That's not what I mean. I mean I'm proud of you, every one is, and you aren't proud of me. No one is. No one could be. I'm----" "Why, Cathy! I am! You're a wonder with the children. And the way you've stood back of me. What are you talking about?" "I don't want to get emotional. I want to make you see what I've been thinking about. All the nights this summer while I've sat here at the end of the day. I've tried to think--my mind is coated with fat, my thoughts creak. Charles"--her voice trembled--"can you imagine yourself in my place, all summer, or all last year, or the year before? Planning meals or clothes--instead of conferences? Telling stories to Letty. Holding yourself down on the level of children, to meet them, or answer them, or understand them, until you scarcely have a grown-up thought? Before Letty was born, and the year after, of course I wasn't very well. That makes a difference. But now I am. What am I going to do? Could you stand it?" "But, Catherine, a man----" "If you tell me a man is different, I'll stop talking!" Catherine cried out. "I was going to make a scientific statement." Charles stopped, the tolerant good nature of his voice touching Catherine like salt in a cut finger. "To the effect," he went on, "that usually a man's ego is stronger, and a woman's maternal instinct drowns her ego, so that she can live in a situation which would be intolerable to a man."