"Not just now." Charles leaned back. "I—" he hesitated. "You look stunning in that get-up," he finished.
"Yes?" Catherine's smile lingered. "It's not the get-up. It's me, inside."
"Handsome wife." Charles touched her fingers, spreading them wide between his own fingers, crumpling them together in a sudden violent squeeze. Then he leaned back again. "Just been thinking about you," he said.
"Yes? So've I." Vivacity in Catherine's voice, her gesture, a vivacity which had true life from deep inner light, not an external manner. "I wanted to talk to you."
"I've been wanting to talk things over with you." Charles looked away from her somberly. "For some time."
"It's about next year," continued Charles slowly, and Catherine thought, I'll leave the monkeys out, at first. "Our plans, you know."
Something arrested Catherine at the edge of speech, something like the damp finger of air from a cellar.
"I should have brought it up before you went downtown," he was saying. "You were down this morning, weren't you?"
She nodded.