"Catherine!" He was laughing at her, comfortingly. "What rot!"
"Is it?" She sighed.
"You're tired." His hand enclosed hers warmly for a moment. "Henry says you've been wonderful, but not wise——"
There was a clatter outside the door, a firm, "Now wait one second, Letty!" Bill pulled the door open; Letty, her pointed face framed in a red hood, Marian, pulling her tarn off her tousled dark hair, Miss Kelly behind them.
"Oh, Mr. Bill!" Marian hugged his arm, and Letty clambered onto her go-duck that she might reach his hand, with a lusty, "'Lo, Bill!"
"Come back and play with us, Mr. Bill," Marian cajoled him, her head on one side.
But Bill, grinning at her, eluding Letty's grasp, stepped into the elevator and was gone.
"'S'at Marian?" Spencer was shouting. "Oh, Marian, you come see what I got." Marian darted ahead. As Catherine, with Letty's damp mittened hand in hers, came to the door of the children's room, she heard Spencer determinedly, "No, you can't touch it! It's too delicut. Mr. Bill told me it was too delicut. You keep your hands off it! It's just lent to me."
"Who said I wanted to touch your ole radium?"
"It isn't radium, Marian. Radio. And you were touching it."