I can't go, thought Catherine. Ridiculous to consider it.
"Don't decide immediately. Think it over. Let me know—why, after Christmas. Late in January would do to start. You can no doubt arrange matters at home. You'd like to talk it over with Dr. Hammond, of course."
"How long a trip would it be?" Catherine was vibrating under the clanging of that bell. No, it wasn't a bell, it was a pulse beating just back of her ears.
"You can decide that yourself, practically. Perhaps a month. Depends upon your arrangement of your route. I say, that's fine!" He rose, slapping his hands against his pockets. "You'll think it out! It's by far the best way to convince Waterbury you are serious, and worth a real salary."
Think it out! Catherine let the idea play with her. Trains, new cities, new people, herself as dignified representative of the Bureau. But the children! She couldn't leave them—and Charles. Her clothes weren't up to such a position. She could buy more! Her salary would grow to cover—anything!
When she went home in the cold winter twilight, she had coiled the project into a tight spring, held firmly down below thought. She couldn't go. How could she? But she had a week before she must reject it openly. The pressure of that coiled spring was terrific. At any instant it might tear up through thought and feeling.
Mrs. O'Lay had been persuaded to divide her day so that she spent part of the afternoon in her own basement, and then stayed to serve dinner and clear up the kitchen for Catherine. Charles said he felt as if an Irish hippopotamus hovered at his elbow at the table, but Catherine stretched luxuriously into freedom from dinner responsibility. If Mrs. O'Lay had a sketchy art as a cook, Catherine found dinner more palatable than when she had flown into domestic harness at the end of the day.
The children were full of whispering excitement; the house was made up of restricted zones. Marian wasn't to put her head inside Spencer's door, and mother shouldn't look into his closet. Charles had brought home a tree as tall as Spencer, which spread its branches drooping and green in front of the living room windows. Miss Kelly, calmly methodical as ever, helped the children string cranberries and popcorn to wind through the needles.