"We heard such a funny thing." Were the lines in her pink cheeks dented in malice? She bobbed her curly gray head sidewise at Charles. "Someone told Mr. Thomas that your wife had left you, Mr. Hammond."
Catherine saw the ominous twitching under Charles's eyes, but Mr. Thomas put in, hastily.
"I think it was intended for a jest, you know." He turned to Catherine, his large, gentle mouth agitated, as if in distress at his wife's poor taste. "I met Dr. Roberts last week. I know him quite well, you know. He was speaking about your work, Mrs. Hammond. He was extraordinarily enthusiastic."
Catherine took that gratefully, as something in which she was at least not culpable. There was a little eddy of people around them, throwing off several to stop for casual greetings; when they had gone on, Catherine heard Mrs. Thomas's high voice. "The poor boy! I suppose the house seems empty with no mother in it." Her outer self looked across at Charles, calm enough, but her inner self had an instant of rage, a hurling, devastating instant.
"Mr. Hammond was just telling me about Spencer's running away." Mrs. Thomas had a peculiarly self-righteous air in her pursed lips and bright eyes. "How worried you must have been!"
"Oh, Mr. Hammond found him so promptly."
"But just a minute can seem a long time. I remember one day——"
"Pardon me, please." Charles moved away, restrained eagerness in the forward thrust of his head above his broad, black shoulders.
Catherine saw him edge past a group, saw a pearl-smooth shoulder above a jade-green velvet sheath. The Partridge, of course! What was she doing at a faculty reception? She had a glimpse of the squirrel smile, before she picked up the thread of Mrs. Thomas's domestic lyric.
The Thomases wanted refreshments. Catherine's throat was sticky-dry at the thought of food. She had a sharp longing for her own living room and Bill. He could ease her of these innumerable prickings. She made her way to Charles, and then stood, unnoted, at his elbow. Miss Partridge saw her, and her hand swam up in a leisurely arc. Catherine nodded pleasantly.