Catherine retreated a step. Her glance winged about the quiet, pleasant room. That little table—they had found it in a Third Avenue store. "It smells like mahogany," Charles had insisted. She could see it in the kitchen, newspapers spread under its spindle legs, and Charles scraping away at the old paint. Their house, built piece by piece. They had never had money enough for more than one chair at a time. And they had loved the building. Now—her glance included Charles, lowering, defensive, unhappy.
"But I am concerned," she said, "as much as ever. You should know that."
"No! You aren't. I come home from class, and you aren't here. I come home at night, from a committee meeting, and you've gone to sleep because you need to be fresh for your own work. This isn't complaining. I just want you to see how you've changed. Why, take this matter of the Buxton professorship. When I spoke of it, the one thing it meant to you was that you might have to leave New York. That's all you could see in it. I haven't been able to discuss it with you, although it might seem important."
Perhaps all that was true. Catherine felt a trickle of doubt through the solid wall of her intention. She had been tired—had she seemed indifferent, absorbed? In a wave of heat the trickle was consumed. She wanted to cry out, "It's not with me that difference lies. It is in you! You wish to blame me, for your turning away—to Stella Partridge. You think I don't know about that!"
He moved uneasily, fidgetting with the painted silk shade of the table lamp.
"All right," she said brusquely. "We'll leave it at that. I am self-absorbed. Selfish."
"I expected you would tire of it long before now," said Charles. "Long hours in an office, at someone's beck and call. When you might be perfectly free to do as you please. I swear I don't see what you get out of it."
"You don't see, do you?" Catherine's eyes were suddenly piteous. "You don't see at all."
"It's evident enough that you can't swing the two jobs, home and office. You're worn out all the time. Irritable."
"Oh!" Catherine's hand pressed against her breast. Something extraordinary in his ingenuous construction of a case against her.