"Same things. Babies, clinics, babies. Bill's had a bridge over in Jersey. The Journal's taken a series of articles I did on that gland work last year. Public school on the East Side is going to let me run sort of a laboratory clinic on malnutrition. Mother instinct down there feeds its infants on cabbage, fried cakes, and boiled tea."
"You're a wonder, Henry." Catherine sighed. "Putting over what you want."
"It's only these last few years, you know, that I've had any recognition."
"You're a wonder, just the same. Isn't she, Bill?"
"Um." Bill's grunt gave complete assent.
Catherine looked steadily at her friend. Even in the soft firelight Dr. Henrietta Gilbert retained her smooth, competent neatness. A smoothness like porcelain, thought Catherine. Porcelain with warmth in it, she added hastily to herself, as if she had made an unfair accusation. Firm, kindly lips; contented, straightforward blue eyes; plump, ungraceful body; Dr. Henrietta had a compact, assured personality, matter of fact, intelligent, enduring. Catherine wondered: do I give, as she looks at me, as complete an impression of me? I feel hidden away. Then she thought, quickly, of the grim days when Spencer lay so piteously still except when he struggled for breath, when he had so nearly died—pneumonia—and Henrietta had seemed to hold herself between the child and death itself, calm, untroubled. She was a wonder!
"You couldn't have done it, could you," she said suddenly, "if you had had children?" Then she stopped, aghast at her heedlessness. She had never said that when Bill was there to hear her. But Henrietta's response was cheerful and prompt.
"Certainly not. That's why we haven't any."
Catherine glanced shyly toward Bill. His eyes, inscrutable as ever, did not lift from the fire.
"That's"—Catherine hesitated—"that's what I want to talk about."