It was like a nightmare, through which she moved as two people, one a cool, impersonal, outer self, given to chatter rather more than usual; the other a mocking, irreverent, twisting inner self, mewed up in confusion and injury. Empty, meaningless chatter. What fools people were, dragging themselves together in an enormous room, moving around, busy little infusoria. Charles liked it. He felt himself erect and important, with the crowding people a tangible evidence of his success, the decorum, the polished surfaces clinking out assurance that here was his group, here he was admitted, recognized. Catherine, bowing, smiling, listening to his voice, offering bright little conventional remarks, was conscious of his feeling. He's feeding on it, she thought. Growing smug. How far away from him I am--far enough to see him smug, and hate it. They had drifted away from the formal receiving line. She twisted at her glove, to hide the torn snap. "Well, Mrs. Hammond!" Mr. Thomas was at her elbow, his thick glasses catching the light blankly, his head enormous above the rather pinched shoulders of his dress suit. "This is a pleasure." He shook her hand nervously, oppressed by his social obligation. "A pleasure." Mrs. Thomas bustled up, crisp in rose taffeta, a black velvet ribbon around her pinkish, wrinkled throat. "So long since we've seen you. We were just saying we must have you out for Sunday night supper. Walter does miss Spencer so much." "That would be fine!" declared Charles, heartily. "I haven't forgotten that cake." "We heard such a funny thing." Were the lines in her pink cheeks dented in malice? She bobbed her curly gray head sidewise at Charles. "Someone told Mr. Thomas that your wife had left you, Mr. Hammond." Catherine saw the ominous twitching under Charles's eyes, but Mr. Thomas put in, hastily. "I think it was intended for a jest, you know." He turned to Catherine, his large, gentle mouth agitated, as if in distress at his wife's poor taste. "I met Dr. Roberts last week. I know him quite well, you know. He was speaking about your work, Mrs. Hammond. He was extraordinarily enthusiastic." Catherine took that gratefully, as something in which she was at least not culpable. There was a little eddy of people around them, throwing off several to stop for casual greetings; when they had gone on, Catherine heard Mrs. Thomas's high voice. "The poor boy! I suppose the house seems empty with no mother in it." Her outer self looked across at Charles, calm enough, but her inner self had an instant of rage, a hurling, devastating instant. "Mr. Hammond was just telling me about Spencer's running away." Mrs. Thomas had a peculiarly self-righteous air in her pursed lips and bright eyes. "How worried you must have been!" "Oh, Mr. Hammond found him so promptly." "But just a minute can seem a long time. I remember one day----"