"Only for a short time, of course. Don't you think we all need some kind of respite?"
"Well, I remember the doctor sent me to Atlantic City, after Dorothy's birth." And Mrs. Thomas related with gusto her homesickness, her dire imaginings each hour of absence. "You never know what might happen! Even now, I can't help wondering if they are covered warmly enough, although Mrs. Bates promised to stay till we came home."
Inconsequential, drifting bits of conversation—the minutes until they should go were thin wires, drawing Catherine to the brink of the whirlpool. Charles was laboriously talkative, and she heard the rushing of his winds of grievance.
They were going!
"You'll send Spencer out, then, some day. He could come with Mr. Thomas. For a week-end, say. Walter would be so pleased."
And then, as they stood in the hall, Mr. Thomas dropped another bomb.
"You haven't decided, I suppose, about that western position, Hammond? Your husband was talking it over with me at luncheon one day," he added to Catherine. "There's something gratifying in the idea of controlling a department and the entire policy, I think."
It was Charles's turn now to hurry into words, vague, temporizing words.
Catherine returned to the living room and sat down. She had a queer illusion that if she moved too quickly, she might break; she was brittle, tight. Charles came back to the doorway, his chin thrust out. Why, it was funny, ridiculous—caught out, each of them. This must be a dream. It was too absurd for reality. She began to laugh. She didn't wish to laugh, but she was helpless, as if some monstrous jest seized her and shook her. Was it she, laughing, or the jest, outside her, shaking her? She couldn't stop.
"Evidently you are amused." Charles strode past her. She wanted to deny that, to explain that it wasn't she laughing. But she couldn't stop that gasping ribald sound. "Catherine!" he stood above her, enormous, magnified by the tears in her eyes. "Catherine!"