"I was going to make a scientific statement." Charles stopped, the tolerant good nature of his voice touching Catherine like salt in a cut finger. "To the effect," he went on, "that usually a man's ego is stronger, and a woman's maternal instinct drowns her ego, so that she can live in a situation which would be intolerable to a man."
"Well, then, I'm egoistic to the root." Catherine jerked her hand away from his grasp. "At any rate, the situation is intolerable."
"Poor old girl!" Charles patted her knee. "The summer has been dull, hasn't it?"
"It's not just that. Do you know, I was almost happier while you were in France and I was working—than I am now!"
"Didn't care if I did get hit by a shell, eh? Didn't miss me at all?"
"I did, and you know it." Catherine was silent, her eyes straining toward him in the darkness.
"That was part of the war excitement, wasn't it?"
"No. But something happened in me when you told me you were going. I had been living just in you, you and the two children. I thought that was all I ever wanted. And I thought you felt toward me the same way. Then—you could throw it over—because you wanted something else."
"Catherine, we've had that out dozens of times. You know it was a chance for the experience of a lifetime, psychological work in those hospitals. And then—well, I had to get in it."