"Have you had any dinner?"
"Can't eat with a nerve howling like a fiend."
"Come along, poor boy. I'll find you something."
"Don't bother."
"Come on, Charles." Catherine went into the kitchen. "Here's a wonderful roast beef," she called back, and Charles came reluctantly. "You sit there—" she pushed the chair near the shining white table. "Coffee, or cocoa?"
"Cocoa, if it isn't too much trouble. I'd like to sleep. Had a cup of coffee."
"Did the dentist keep you all this time in his torture chamber?" Catherine moved swiftly from ice-chest to stove. If I can invoke our midnight lunches, all down the past, she thought—I can't go away, without trying to reach him. It is like death.
"No," said Charles. "I haven't been there all the evening."
Catherine stirred the foaming cocoa. Let's pretend, she wanted to cry out; let's pretend!
"I thought probably you would be asleep. Since you start off to-morrow."