"Me? Of course. Reasonably."
"You don't want any children?"
"Good heavens, no! I see enough of children."
"But you like them. You couldn't handle them as you do——"
"I take out my well-known maternal instinct that way, if you like."
"You're hard as nails, Henry."
"Catherine"—Henrietta's face was grim under its fair placidity—"when I was sixteen, I saw my mother die in childbirth. She had eight children. Two of them are alive now. She was only thirty-three when she died. She died on a farm in Michigan, and my father thought she picked a poor time, because he was haying. I swore then I'd be something besides a female animal. William knew what I wanted. It's a fair deal to him. He knew he was getting a wife, but not a mother. That's all there is to that. I like you. When you fell for Charles so hard, I was afraid you were ended. Now I have hopes!" Her hand, firm and hard, shut about Catherine's. "Only, don't handicap yourself with this clutter of feelings."
Something in the clutch of the firm fingers gave Catherine a quick insight. Henrietta wasn't hard! Not porcelain. A shell, over a warm, soft creature—a barnacle, hiding from injury as deep as that her childhood had shown her.
"You're a nice old thing." Catherine laid her other hand over Henrietta's. "And"—she came back to her own maelstrom—"you think it will be fair to the children? I ought to be more decent—better for them—if I can get some self-respect."