"What ails her? Has that woman you've got been feeding her pickles?"
The door bell rang. Charles, with a mutter of "Dr. Henry, perhaps," rushed to the door. He came back.
"It's Miss Brown, come to stay the evening. What shall I tell her?"
"Tell her I can't go." Catherine was abrupt. She was disappointed and she was fighting off a sturdily growing fear about the next day,—and she resented Charles's air of injury.
"I hate to, after I begged her to come in."
Catherine brushed hastily past him and went to the door. Miss Brown, a plump, pale, garrulous woman of middle age, a southerner, waited.
"Letty, the baby, isn't very well," explained Catherine. "Nice of you to come in so promptly. Some other night, perhaps." And presently the door could be closed upon Miss Brown's profuseness of pity.
Charles was glooming about his study.
"When you leave them all day for your job," he said, "I should think you might——"
"No, you shouldn't think!" Catherine laughed at him. "You're as bad as Spencer, little boy!"