He was back again, a stocky figure against the pale square of window as he shoved it open. He was scurrying for bed. "Charles!" Catherine's cry leaped out. "Come here!" "Well?" He stood above her. "Brr! It's chilly." She reached up for his hands, dragged him down beside her, her arms slipping up to his shoulders, clasping behind his neck. He resisted her; she felt stubborn hardness in his muscles. "Charles," she begged, "what's happening to us! Don't----" "I'm all right," he said. "I thought you were off color." Catherine let her hands drop forlornly away. "You've been sort of touchy." He cleared his throat. "I'm not perfect. But I hate this feeling--that you're standing off, waiting to be critical of me." "Oh, I'm not!" Catherine sighed. "All right, then." Charles bent down, brushed his lips against her cheek, and stood up. "Go to sleep. You're tired, I guess." Catherine lay motionless, listening to the creak of his bed, the soft pulling and adjusting of blankets. The wind was cold on her eyelids, on the tears that crept down. She was humiliated, shamed. She had dropped her pride and evoked touch--passion--only to find him--her hands flung open, to escape the lingering sensation of that obdurate, resisting column of his throat. Unbidden, racking, a swift visual image of Stella Partridge, smooth ivory and jade. She fled away from it. Not that! She wouldn't add jealousy to her torment. But that eager, forward thrust of his head as he made his way across the room toward her, and that secret, honey-mouthed deference in the casual talk of the woman. Oh, no! Then, rudely, as if she turned to face some monstrous shape that pursued her, she looked at the image. Perhaps, if Charles was injured, outraged, under his reasoning surface, he might turn to Stella. She wanted something of him, that woman. Perhaps it was love she wanted, although the hard metallic gleam under the softness of her eyes seemed passionless, egocentric. "Charles," she whispered. What else she might have said, she didn't know. But Charles was asleep. IV The next morning, in the accustomed flurry of baths, breakfast, dressing, Catherine jeered at her nightmares of the dark. She would not be a fool, at least. The children were ecstatic about the snow, which lay in caps and mounds and blankets on the roof tops below the windows. Marian made snowballs from the window ledge, and tried, giggling, to wash her father's face. Charles was jovial, amusing himself with the rôle of good-natured father. Yes, he might go coasting with them that afternoon. He'd see if he couldn't get away from the office early. Miss Kelly could telephone him at noon. Miss Kelly came in; Flora was belated. "Probably the trolley cars are stuck," said Spencer, full of delight at possible catastrophes the snow might bring. Catherine left a note for Flora, with the day's instructions, and hurried off. She had swung free of the night in a long arc of release.