What were they swooping over, those gull-thoughts? Better to scatter them and see. Not that he had missed the train; not even that he had not troubled to run in for a moment that afternoon; nor that he had chosen to see Miss Partridge. That might so easily be explained. No. Just that queer, investigating glance, that deliberate offhand manner, when he had told her. It set a wall between them.
The telephone rang distantly, behind the closed door. The children lifted their heads to listen. A rumble of Charles's voice. Then silence again.
When Spencer and Marian had laid away their books and gone to bed, Catherine returned to her seat at the empty table. I want him, she thought. But if I open his door and go in, then I become, in some way, a propitiator. Perhaps I only imagine all this. I am tired. She drew the pins from her hair and let the heavy coil slip over her shoulder. Elbows on the table, fingers cool and firm against her forehead, as if she might press order into her thoughts, she waited.
Suddenly she rose, shaking her hair back from her face. That is grotesque, she thought, sitting here, and hastily she went through the hall to the study door, flinging it open.
"Oh, hello." Charles looked up alertly from his book. He, too, had been waiting. "Kids in bed?"
"Aren't you through?" Catherine yawned gently, drawing her fingers across her lips. "I'm sleepy, and lonesome."
But under her lightness sounded a plunk, as of a stone dropping, a confirmation of a fear, as she saw the wary alertness on Charles's face vanish in quick relief.
"Just through," he announced. "Come on in. It's curious, how stale these lectures seem, after a year. Have to refurbish them entirely." He slipped the sheets into a manila cover. "That one's ready, at least."
Catherine sat on the corner of his desk, her fingers sliding through a strand of her hair.
"Did you have a good trip?" she asked. Anything, to banish this separateness. "I haven't heard a word about it."
"You weren't home. I was bursting with news this morning."
"I might try." Charles leaned back, his thumbs caught in his belt. As he talked, Catherine listened for the under-tones, so much more significant than the events. It had been a good trip. The men had received him rather flatteringly, praised his latest monograph, shown interest in the new psychological clinic. He had a comfortable, well-nourished look; around his eyes, with the prominent jutting of socket above, the lines were quite smoothed away. Catherine looked at him, at the strong, slightly projecting chin, at the smooth hard throat above the neat collar.
