"I suppose I was mad, clear through." Charles grinned, abashed. Then he stiffened again. "Devilish thing to do. I came home after some lecture notes, for a meeting, and I couldn't even go to the meeting." Miss Kelly came into the hall. She had smoothed her hair into its usual neatness, and her face was roundly pink again. "I am afraid I must go," she said. Her eyes inspected them, gravely. Catherine flushed; Miss Kelly had heard them squabbling and she was reproaching Catherine. "I'm sorry you've been detained. I'll see that Spencer realizes how serious this is," she said. When the door had closed on her sturdy back, Charles broke out, "If you'd been here, this wouldn't have happened. You heard what he said, didn't you?" "Don't say that!" Catherine's exhaustion sent hot tears into her eyes. But Charles had to unload his overcharged feelings somewhere. "You might as well face the truth. If you care more for a paltry job than for your children--" He shrugged. "But you won't see it. I've got to have my dinner. We'll be late to that reception now. If I miss all my appointments because my wife works, I'll have a fine reputation." Incredible! Catherine watched him clump down to the living room. He wanted to hurt her. She pressed her fingers, ice-cold, against her eyeballs. She wouldn't cry. He felt that way. Not just because he had been worried about Spencer. There was a heavy coil of resentment from which those words had leaped. And she had thought, for weeks now, that she had learned to balance on her tight-rope, and keep the balls smoothly in air. While under the surface, this! "Can't we have dinner?" he called to her. "We really must hurry a little, Catherine." She set the dinner silently on the table, avoiding the defiant glance she knew she would meet. "Don't wait for me." She paused, a tumbler of milk in her hand. "I want to talk to Spencer." Charles pulled out his watch and gazed at it impressively. II Catherine, sitting on the edge of her bed, drew on one silk stocking and gartered it. She lifted her head; when she bent over like that, faint nausea, like a green smear, rose through her body behind her eyelids. She shouldn't have eaten any dinner. Or was it just Charles, and his restrained disapproval--or Spencer. She sighed, thinking through her talk with Spencer. With insistent cunning he had offered as excuse, his dislike of Miss Kelly, his distaste for the house without Catherine. "I didn't think it was bad," he said. "I didn't do anything bad." "Inconsiderate," suggested Catherine, looking at the stubborn head on the pillow. Safe! She couldn't scold him, and yet--"You didn't think how we would feel." "Oh, I thought," said Spencer. "I thought you wouldn't know. And my father wasn't very con-sid-'rate." He thrust his head up indignantly. "He yanked me right away, and the fellows all _saw_ him."