"I wanted to see you." Catherine poured the cocoa and set it before him. She stood there, one hand spread delicately, the fingers pressed against the oilcloth. "And you—didn't want to see me, did you!" She was supplicating, provocative, leaning above him.
"I had to stop with some manuscript, at Miss Partridge's." Charles buttered a slice of bread deliberately, and forked a slice of pink meat to his place. "Is there any Worcestershire?"
"And she gave you coffee?" Catherine moved hastily away from the table, and felt blindly along the cupboard shelf for the bottle of sauce.
"Yes." Charles was blandly engrossed in his lunch.
He's as much as telling me that he chose to go to her, when he wished comfort. Catherine set the Worcestershire beside his plate. I won't hear him. But what a burlesque, my serving him, when I can't, through any outer humility, reach him.
"Want more sugar?" She asked, casually.
"No. This is fine." His upward glance was puzzled, uneasy.
Ah, I have no pride, no decency! she cried to herself. Her heart was beating in suffocating rhythm; her fingers lifted, undirected, aching for the touch of that stubborn, beloved head—the prominent temples, the hollow above the cheekbones, the old intimate brushing across his eyes, down to cup his strong, obdurate chin.
"Charles," she whispered, and swayed backward from his sudden violent start, which clattered the carving knife to the floor.
"Damn!" he clapped his hand to his jaw. "Oh, damn!"