"Wall papers," read Catherine from the hall sign, but Bill steered her to an opposite door.
"Oh, I do like it." She nodded at Bill's fleet, anxious query.
A long, irregular room, with scattered tables, dull gray enamel, shining in the soft orange light of small lamps, and a great brick fireplace where logs burned.
"Sit here, where you can watch the fire without scorching." Bill chose a table in a small alcove. "Now tell us all about it. Have you been made president of one of these colleges? Or endowed? You look amazingly triumphant."
"Do I strut?" Catherine laughed softly, slipping out of her coat, drawing off her gloves.
"Not quite. But—you could, couldn't you?"
"I've had a wonderful time, Bill. Incredibly wonderful!"
"And you haven't been lonely, or homesick? How long since you left New York?"
"More than two weeks. I've finished Illinois. That's why I'm here to-night. I go on to Ohio at midnight. Homesick? Should I be ashamed not to be? The first day or so, I felt guilty. And I woke up at night, thinking I heard Spencer cry out in his sleep, or Letty. Now I just sleep like a baby—or a spinster."