She sat down at the window, staring out at the dull yellow glow which held the city as a mass and dimmed the stars. You can't pretend for them, she thought. They catch the reality under the surface. But that perfect safety of feeling—who has it! She felt herself opposed to Charles, struggling with him, toward that intense calm that might hold the children free and unaware. Perhaps some women could attain that—she was abject, despairing—women who could lose their own struggling selves. But what then? The children grew up, and made their own circles, never reaching anything but this going-on. Surely somewhere, along the way, there should be something beside immolation for the future, otherwise why the future? Marian, Letty—I can't do it, she thought. Drown myself to make that quiet, white peace. I won't drown. I keep bobbing up, trying to be rescued. Something in me, shrieking. If I can rescue that shrieking something, and silence it, then surely there's more in me, more poise, more love, to wrap them—no, not wrap them, to float them in. If Charles will help!
She had a sharp vision of Charles and Stella Partridge, sitting side by side in the darkened theater, their eyes focussed on the brilliant fantasy of the stage. Charles had been delighted to go. He didn't have play enough, these last years. I wish I were beside him,—her hand reached out emptily, as if to grasp his. Good for him, seeing other people, other women. They stimulate him, even if I don't like them. She caught, like a reflection in a mirror, the tone of that short walk from the bus with Bill. Something exciting about that—an encounter with another person.
A ring of the bell; Dr. Henrietta at last.
Catherine stood behind her, as she examined Letty, drowsily fretful at the disturbance. What strong, white, competent fingers Henry had! They went into the living room.
"She's not very sick." Henrietta sank into a chair and snapped open her cigarette case. "I'm not sure—tell better to-morrow. I'll come in early. You better keep the other children away from her. It might be something contagious."
"She's had measles." Catherine was openly dismayed, as the bugbear of contagion rose. "Good land, if she has, it means they all get it, just like a row of dominoes. Henry! What shall I do?"
"Oh, get a nurse and quarantine them. You don't need to stay in. Charles doesn't."
"I couldn't."
"Well, wait until to-morrow. May be just indigestion. I've given her a dose for that." Dr. Henrietta stretched in her chair, crossing her ankles, slim and neat in heavy black silk above small, dull pumps. "We don't want your career busted up yet. How's it going? And where's friend husband?"
"I sent him off to the theater with Miss Partridge." Catherine grinned. "He had the tickets, and was sure' I needn't stay with Letty."