"Why doesn't that girl come?" asked Charles, his voice muffled by the elevation of his chin as he struggled with his tie. "Time, I should think."
"What girl?" Catherine turned from the mirror. "Oh—" her shoulders sagged in complete dismay.
"Miss Brown. You got her, didn't you?"
Catherine, a whirl of black net, was at the telephone. How could she have forgotten! "No, Morningside!" She waited. She had called once, that morning, and Miss Brown was out. She had meant—"Is Miss Brown in?" Charles was at the door, an image of funereal, handsome dignity. Miss Brown was not in. No, the voice had no idea when she would be in.
"Oh, say it!" Catherine's fingers pushed recklessly through her hair. "Say it, Charles!" He swung on his heel and disappeared.
Perhaps her mother—but no one answered that call, and Catherine remembered that Friday was the night for opera.
A voice in the hall, although she hadn't heard the doorbell. It was Bill.
"Going out, eh?"
"Apparently not." Charles was elaborately, fiendishly jovial. "I thought we were, but Catherine neglected to provide a chaperone for the children."
Catherine pressed her fingers against her warm cheeks. Her quick thought was: just Bill's entrance scatters this murky, ridiculous tension. This ought to be a joke, not a tragedy.