"I've got to pay for these sometime!" Catherine slipped out of the dress. "You beguiled me into awful extravagance."
"Just because I made you buy with a near eye instead of a far eye." Margaret sewed busily. "The middle-class married eye is a far eye, Cathy. It never sees clothes as they are. It sees how they'll look three years hence, and then five years, made over. No wonder you look dubby. Can't ever get style that way." She snapped her thread, and folded the dress over tissue paper. "There, that'll ride. Taking just your steamer trunk?"
"And a bag." Catherine pulled her nasturtium silk kimono over her shoulders. "Too many stops for a large trunk. It's good of you to spend your Saturday here. I'd sent off everyone, so that I could get ready in peace. But there are endless things to see to."
"You're a handsome thing in that rag, too." Margaret rose from the half full trunk. "Wish I'd found an evening dress that color."
"That would have been nice and inconspicuous! And I may not need one. I'll stick this black one in." There was a faint glow on Catherine's cheeks; her dark hair swept in a long curve from brow to heavy coil at the nape of her smooth neck.
"Where are the children?" Margaret seized the black dress and folded it dexterously.
"At the opera—'Hansel and Gretel.' Mother took them. Miss Kelly has Letty in the park."
"Won't they love it!" Margaret whistled the gay little dance melody from the opera. "Do they mind your going?"
"Marian thinks it will be rather fun to have Gram here. Spencer wants to go with me."