"Huh? Jealous? What about? Come down here, where I can hug you."
"No. I don't want to be loved. I want to talk. I'm not jealous about your love. I guess you love me, when you think of it——"
"Now, Cathy, you aren't turning into a foolish woman."
"I'm turning into something awful! That's why I've got to do something. It's your work, I'm jealous of."
"Why, my work doesn't touch my feeling about you."
"That's not what I mean. I mean I'm proud of you, every one is, and you aren't proud of me. No one is. No one could be. I'm——"
"Why, Cathy! I am! You're a wonder with the children. And the way you've stood back of me. What are you talking about?"
"I don't want to get emotional. I want to make you see what I've been thinking about. All the nights this summer while I've sat here at the end of the day. I've tried to think—my mind is coated with fat, my thoughts creak. Charles"—her voice trembled—"can you imagine yourself in my place, all summer, or all last year, or the year before? Planning meals or clothes—instead of conferences? Telling stories to Letty. Holding yourself down on the level of children, to meet them, or answer them, or understand them, until you scarcely have a grown-up thought? Before Letty was born, and the year after, of course I wasn't very well. That makes a difference. But now I am. What am I going to do? Could you stand it?"
"But, Catherine, a man——"
"If you tell me a man is different, I'll stop talking!" Catherine cried out.