"The end of the month. You'll have this work in shape by that time." Dr. Roberts jumped to his feet. "I'll make that appointment with Waterbury myself. This is a good one on Smithson! He counted on your being merely half-hearted about the work." He went briskly out.
Catherine's fingers moved idly among the pens and pencils on the tray. Behind her the winter sun made pale blotches on the floor. I've done it, she thought. It's only the beginning! If I hang on, things may work out. A flashing picture of Charles at breakfast, dignified, reticent. Even that! She wondered a little at herself. It's because I've found something beside feelings to live by, perhaps, and so I can endure feelings. I can wait.
She brushed all that away, as with a quick gesture she pulled open the drawer and lifted out the pile of notes.
Margaret telephoned. Would Catherine lunch that day with Amy and her? At Amy's luncheon club. Catherine made a note of the address. At quarter to one, sharp. Upstairs. We'll meet you there.
They would be interested in her news. Approvingly interested. Discomfiting, how eagerly you ran to lap up little crumbs of approval. Get approval out of yourself, Henrietta had told her. Childish of her to crave it outside herself. As if, some way, she had to make up for Charles, to throw something into the other side of the scale along with her own conviction.
She wanted Margaret's advice about shopping, too. New clothes. She would have to look her part.
It was one o'clock when Catherine hurried along the side street, looking anxiously for the number Margaret had given her. The interview with the President had delayed her; it had left her in a state of pleasurable excitation, like the humming of many tiny insects. Across Madison Avenue. She came to a group of old gray buildings, houses, with excrescenses of recent date on the ground floor,—a cleaning establishment—funny how you always saw clothes you liked in cleaners' windows!—an interior decorator's, with heavy tapestry draped over an amazing gilt chair. There, the entrance was just between those shops. Didn't look much like a club. She climbed the stairs cautiously; a door above her opened, and two women came past her, sending her expectant glances, their voices sharp and bright against the confusion of sound into which she climbed. She stopped at the door, keenly self-conscious, as if the pattern of voices was complete, and her entrance might break through the warp. The pattern broke as she looked about the room, large and low, with separate nodules of women. Margaret's bright head shot up from the group near the fireplace, and Margaret swung across the room toward her, slim and erect in her green dress. Amy strolled after her; she had removed her squirrel turban, but her dark hair still made a stiff flange about her thin face.
"This is fine! We've saved a table—" and Catherine, following them into the dining room, edging between the little tables, found herself drawn into the pattern of sound.
"I'm sorry I am late." She slipped her coat over the chair. "The President was talking to me"—she had to release some of the tiny, humming insects—"about my trip west." She told them about that trip. It stepped forward out of dream regions into reality as she talked, as they put in questions, sympathetic, approving questions.