As she climbed down from the bus and started up the hill toward Broadway, her thoughts still sparkled, spreading out in great circles of light about her, vague projects, shadowy schemes, beautiful structures of clarity and sanity for the world, for the children.
The circles contracted swiftly, and she turned.
"Bill! Hello." She emerged slowly, shreds of the dream still shining. They fell into step.
"How goes it?" His glance veered to her face. "You look as if you'd had your salary raised."
"Better than that." Catherine wanted to break into his dark, withdrawn glance; she wanted, suddenly, to draw him into this glittering mood. "Bill, it's wonderful. I feel my mind budding! It wasn't dead. Like a seed potato--shoots in every direction, out of every wrinkle!"
"You look it." Bill nodded. "I saw that you walked on air."
"I've been recasting the universe." She laughed, as they waited a moment for passing traffic. "That's better than building bridges, isn't it?"
They went quickly past the subway kiosk, dodging the home-pouring workers, past the peanut stand panting warm and odorous at the corner, to the wide hill of steps in front of the University library. A flower vender thrust his bunches of roses at them.
"I want some!" Catherine dug into her purse.
"Aren't they stale?" Bill watched her fasten the creamy, buff-pink buds to her coat.
"Probably. But they look fresh now." Catherine swung into step again. Queer, how that occasional little side glance of Bill's gave assent to her mood, dipped into it, recognized it, without a word.
"I suppose," she said, as they rounded the corner of Amsterdam, "that I can't stay on this level. It's too high. But I've just reached it to-day. Assurance, and a long sight into what I can do."
"There's always, unfortunately, another day." Bill frowned slightly. "Another mood. But you seem to have hit a fair wind. Henrietta told me that Miss Kelly was panning out well."
"Yes." The view ahead, of the dipping, climbing avenue, with its familiar shops, its familiar clatter of the cobblestones, was sharp as a background of relief against which to-day stood out. "I know what I feel like, Bill. If you want to know."
Simple words, but Catherine heard them with faint wonder. Bill was never personal. His profile, with its long nose and lean cheeks, like a horse, was reassuring.