"I think I'll run along, Charles. You aren't to hurry." She drifted away before his hesitancy reached action.
III
Snow again in the air, wet on her cheeks. I am going home, to see Bill, in search of ballast. She hurried across the campus. The library windows were dark; two cleaning women, aprons bundled about their heads, clattered ahead of her with their pails.
As she pushed open the apartment door, she saw Bill, standing at the doorway of Marian's room, indistinct in the shadow. He moved violently away.
"Have the children been bothering you?" Catherine listened an instant at the door. Nothing but the faintest possible rhythm of breathing.
"I thought I heard Letty call." Bill retreated into the living room. "Where's Charles? The party over?"
"I ran away." Catherine slipped out of her coat. "Leaving him with Miss Partridge." She drew down her long gloves, laughing, and looked at Bill. Something curiously disturbed in his heavy-lidded glance. How tired and gaunt he looked. "What is it, Bill?"
He waited until she had settled into the wing chair.
"Nice dress, that," he said, as he sat down.
"This?" She smiled at him. Her hands lay idly along folds of the black stuff. "Are you bored, sitting here alone? The children haven't really been awake, have they?"