Last night, when her mother had come in, and Bill and Dr. Henrietta, her mother with several amusing little stories about the friend who had come from Peoria, Illinois, to spend the winter with her—too plump to fit easily into the kitchenette—Charles, with his affectionate raillery of Mrs. Spencer—her mother was fond of Charles. But he needn't have made a jest of Saturday morning, and his refusal to give up his job to stay home with Letty. "That's what poor men are coming to, I'm afraid," her mother had told him. Henrietta had jibed openly at him, so openly that only Mrs. Spencer's gentle and fantastic mockery had smoothed his feathers. And Bill had said nothing. Catherine drew her collar closely about her throat. She had found him looking at her, and in his glance almost a challenge, a recall of that brief walk on Friday. "I hope it's straight, your road," he had said then. She shrugged more deeply into her coat. Straight! Was it a road? Or merely a blind alley? Or a tight-rope, and she had to poise herself and juggle a hundred balls as she crossed; the house, the children, the bills, Charles, always Charles, and her work. She came back to the thought of Dr. Roberts and the explanation she must offer.
Dr. Roberts, however, seemed miraculously to need no explanation. He had called to tell her that the committee was to stay over Monday, and that she could meet the two men after all. With sudden release from the tension of the past days, Catherine moved freely into this other world, and her road seemed again straight. She was quietly proud of the conservative response her suggestions met; her mind was agile, cool, untroubled. There grew up a plan for a first-hand study of several of the normal schools. Someone from the Bureau might go west. Catherine brushed aside her sudden picture of herself, walking among the bricks and stone, the people, for which these dust-grimed catalogues stood.
As she went home that evening, little phrases from the day ran like refrains. "A masterly analysis, Mrs. Hammond. Your point of view is interesting." And Dr. Roberts, after the men had gone—"I call this a most encouraging meeting, Mrs. Hammond. Sometimes the personal equation is, well, let us say, difficult. But you have tact."
Oh, it's worth any amount of struggle, she thought. Any amount! I'll walk my tight-rope, even over Niagara. And keep my balls all flying in the air!
PART III
BLIND ALLEYS
I
Margaret and Catherine were lunching together in a new tea room, a discovery of Margaret's. The Acadian, Acadia being indicated in the potted box at the windows, the imitation fir trees on the bare tables, and the Dresden shepherdess costume of the waitresses.