"Do you really care to know how I feel about it?" Catherine's voice was low and tense. "I feel as if I'd escaped from solitary confinement. At hard labor, too! I feel as if I could hold up my head and breathe. And then, underneath, I feel you pulling at me, wresting me back. Oh, you say you don't mind, but----" "Catherine, see here." Charles stood up and leaned toward her. "I--I haven't meant to be a hog. But a man has a kind of knock-out, to find he isn't enough, with his home and all. Here, let's forget it. I've had a hard week-end, and last week was a fright. That's all." "It's not that you aren't enough." Catherine flung herself at that phrase. "You know about that! Any more than I'm not enough, for you. There's more to you than love, isn't there? Why isn't there more to me? If you'd only see----" "The only thing that bothers me is the children. Now, take Letty----" "But I have left them with Flora many times. I've had to. And they bump their heads when I'm home. That's not the point. It's your blaming me." "All right!" Charles threw up his hands in a sweep of mocking surrender. "I won't say a word." "I want you to say it, not hint it." "Anything you like." His hands closed on her shoulders. "Here, you haven't kissed me since I came home." There were sudden wild tears under Catherine's lids, and she thought desperately, oh, not that! Not kisses as the only way--to touch, to reach each other! "Didn't even kiss me good-by. Nice kind of wife." Charles pushed her chin up with a firm finger. "There now----" "You didn't give me a chance." Catherine was quiet, thrusting under her rebellion. Suddenly, through her misted lashes, she saw just for a flash, an echo of that wary, investigatory glance. She swung out over a great abyss. Bill had seen him, with Miss Partridge. Nothing to that, surely, except this feeling, which was not jealousy, but fear of what he was defending himself against. "I wanted to find you, but I didn't like to come up to the Bureau," he was saying. "So I went down to the clinic and talked over things with Stella Partridge." The brisk, matter-of-course words drew her back sharply from the abyss. "It took the edge off, not finding you here, this morning." He was threading his fingers through her hair. "You're spoiled rotten!" Catherine could laugh at him now. He meant that for his apology, and she would let it lift her out of fear and hurt. V The week settled into a steady march. Flora had taken on the marketing, Miss Kelly had agreed never to leave the house until Catherine arrived, Charles was amiably preoccupied with the rush of the opening semester. It hadn't been so hard to adjust things, thought Catherine. Takes a little planning--I was too impatient.