But Catherine, hurrying into coat and hat, was off. The notary in the tobacco shop at the corner had gone home. After a cold, slipping walk on sleeted streets to Broadway and down, Catherine found another shop, and a man who could put a seal to her oath.
Flora folded the paper. She refused to put it in her pocket.
"I got to get it safe to my lawyer fr'en," she insisted. "I is obliged to you, Mis' Hammond." She turned her homely, dark face passionately toward Catherine, her wide mouth moving grotesquely as she spoke. "Mos' folks is cruel mean to you if your luck is bad! Women are the mostest mean. Sayin' I neglects my chile—all 'count of my being a good worker. You got somebody to work for you now?"
"Mrs. O'Lay, the janitor's wife. You remember her? She can't cook as you could. Mr. Hammond doesn't eat a meal without wishing you were back."
"I—I jus' couldn't come back, Mis' Hammond. I'se obliged to you, but——"
"Are you working somewhere?"
"Washings, at home. I ain't making so much money. But my lawyer fr'en, he ain't charging me but half rates."
"Do you need money?" Catherine's hand moved toward her pocket book.
"I'se too much obliged, Mis' Hammond, to need it." She looked away, and suddenly darted out across the street, her arctics flapping, her dirty yellow coat flopping about her awkward flight.
Catherine went home, stepping gingerly over the glare of ice. A taxi rattled and skidded to a stop at the door just as she reached the apartment house, and her mother came out.