"What?" Henrietta was on her guard.
"Oh, I don't mean you. I mean me?" She balanced the letter on her knee and pointed at it. "That letter. I haven't opened it, but it's an omen."
"Don't be mysterious," Henrietta jibed at her.
"I want to go to work. I wrote to the Bureau, where I had that job while Charles was in France. This is their answer."
Bill leaned forward to tap his pipe out on the fire tongs. Catherine felt his eyes on her face.
"Catherine! Bully for you!" Henrietta clapped her hand on Catherine's shoulder. "Have you told Charles? Can you manage it?"
"I told him." Catherine drank eagerly of the bluff encouragement in Henrietta's voice. "He calls it my 'unsatisfied trend.' But he wouldn't object, of course."
"I thought you didn't care much for that work. Statistics, wasn't it?" Bill put his question quietly.
"Part of it I didn't." Catherine admitted that reluctantly. "But a new investigation is being started, on teaching. I am interested in that. I taught, you know, before I married, and I think that is as important as anything in the world."