"Probably the trolley cars are stuck," said Spencer, full of delight at possible catastrophes the snow might bring.
Catherine left a note for Flora, with the day's instructions, and hurried off. She had swung free of the night in a long arc of release.
The Drive had a dramatic beauty; white morning sunlight piercing the gaps made by cross streets, long blue shadows stretching from the buildings, the river gray blue under the clearing sky, the clean, soft lines of snow turned back by the plows, snow caught in the branches of trees and shrubbery, like strange fruit; gulls wheeling like winged bits of snow. By nightfall all the beauty might be trampled and turned dingy; now—Catherine sat erect, drawing long breaths.
That noon she would squeeze out a few minutes for some Christmas shopping. Saturday wasn't a good day, but if she found a doll for Marian, she could begin to dress it. She thrust her foot into the aisle and peered down at it. Those shoes wouldn't last until January. Well, she would have her third check on the twenty-third, and she had repaid Charles. Funny, how much more it cost to dress herself as working woman than as mother and wife. Perhaps with the first of the year that increase would gain material shape. Dr. Roberts had hinted at it again.
The bus left the Drive and rattled through the city; one note everywhere, the squeak of shovels against the sidewalks, piles of grime-edged snow, files of carts heaped and dripping.
She shivered, hugging her arms close; the last few blocks were always chilly. Wonderful colors in the great shop windows, exotic, luxurious, and bevies of shop girls, stepping gingerly over dirty puddles in their cheap, high-heeled slippers.
Just a half day of work to-day. She could finish the chapter she had been writing. As she waited for the elevator, she had a sharp renewal of herself as a part of this great, downward flood. The morning ride was a symbol, a bridge across which she passed. She nodded to the elevator boy; his grin made her part of the intimate life of this huge building. You'd expect to shrink, she thought, as the elevator shot upwards—swallowed up, and instead you swell, as if you swallowed it all yourself.
Dr. Roberts hadn't come in. Dropping into her work was like entering a quiet, clean place of solitude. She reread the pages she had written, the beginning of her full report, and then wrote slowly, finding pleasure in the search for a phrase which should be clear glass through which the idea, the hard, definite fact, might be visible. The jangle of the telephone bell broke into a sentence.
It was Miss Kelly. Flora hadn't shown up. What did Mrs. Hammond wish done about luncheon?
"Hasn't she sent any word?" The picture of her kitchen, empty, and confused, rose threateningly in the quiet office. "Well, you can find something for the children. I'll be home early."