You might suppose I went off every week, thought Catherine.
Letty was in bed, Margaret had gone, and Miss Kelly, before Mrs. Spencer and the children arrived. Catherine listened to their delighted rehearsing of the story. Marian tried to hum one of the songs; Catherine couldn't recall the exact melody. And under the outer pressure ran the slow, warm flood of waiting, waiting until Charles should come in. What she could say or do she did not know. But anything, anything!
"Will I serve up the soup, Mrs. Hammond?" Mrs. O'Lay was reproachful. "It's half after six."
"Mr. Hammond should be in any minute."
The telephone shrilled into her waiting.
"That you, Catherine? I'm at the dentist's. Got a devil of a toothache. Don't wait for me. He's out at dinner, but he's coming in to see to the tooth. No, it's that upper tooth, where the filling was loose."
They dined without Charles.
"Poor fellow!" Mrs. Spencer was gently sympathetic. "There's nothing so upsetting as the toothache."
Some truth in that, thought Catherine, as she sat in Charles's chair and served. A special dinner, too. If the tooth still ached when he came home— The intangible hope which had grown in her through the day was too fragile to withstand such disaster. Perhaps—was he at the dentist's? Was there an aching tooth? She glanced up in a flurry of guilt at a question from her mother. How despicable of her, dropping into suspicion. Spencer was watching her. He was too sensitized, too immediately aware of moods. It would be good for him, perhaps, to live without her for a time. She brushed away the under-thoughts, and held herself resolutely above the surface of their talk.