"It's queer Charles doesn't come." Mrs. Spencer laid aside her magazine as Catherine entered the living room. "Do you know what dentist he goes to?"
"Dr. Reeves, I think. He had to wait until the doctor came in from dinner."
"Oh, yes." Mrs. Spencer ruffled her fingers through the pages. "Alethea went on Thursday," she said. "I'll be glad to move in here. It's rather queer, staying alone."
"I am glad you want to come." Catherine was grateful. "It relieves me of any anxiety. Things should run smoothly."
"Spencer was quite pitiful." Mrs. Spencer looked like an inquisitive little bird. "He's rather hard to manage. Notional. Marian seems more normal."
"She is more phlegmatic than Spencer." Catherine refused to take up that word, "pitiful," and its implications.
"They're both sweet children. They act well-bred in public. It's a pleasure to take them out. Even when Spencer was so distressed, he didn't make himself conspicuous. And when I promised him you'd really be here, he settled down again."
Catherine again rejected the distress. She wouldn't argue with her mother about going away. Too late, now.
"Miss Kelly is very good with them, I think," she said. "She gives them better training than I ever did. I suppose she sees them more impersonally. Even Letty——"
"I don't think anyone trains children better than their mother." Mrs. Spencer was indignant. "You always did very well. Miss Kelly does seem competent, of course."