"Mrs. Thomas can't imagine any one liking to walk," said her husband.
"Not a mother and wife, at least. Men don't know what being on their feet means, do they, Mrs. Hammond?"
Inquiries about the children, mutually. Admiration expressed for the view, for the house, room by room, for the poultry run which Theodore had constructed, for the tennis court, for the asparagus bed.
"Now that the Cook's Tour is ended, what about something to eat, Mother?"
The dining room was small, and warm from the sunning of the afternoon; the Thomas children chattered in high voices; Catherine sighed in secret as she looked at the elaborate salad, the laborious tiny sandwiches, the whipped-cream dessert in the fragile stemmed sherbet glasses, the frosted cake. But Mrs. Thomas, the lines in her pink cheeks a trifle more distinct, hovered in anxious delight over each step in the progress of this evidence of her skill and labor.
"No, Dorothy, no cake. She has to be very careful of sweets, they upset her so easily. Do your children hanker for everything they shouldn't have?"
Theodore broke in with an account of the psychological tests he had taken for college entrance; there was a suggestion of pimples on his round, pink chin. Walter wanted to know when Spencer could come out; Walter was Spencer's age, a chubby, choleric boy who kept rabbits and sold them to the neighbors for stews. Clara, just older, had reached an age of gloomy suspicion; her hair, which her mother was allowing to grow, now that Clara was older, fell about her thin shoulders in lank concavity. Catherine wondered whether the contention between Marian and Spencer sounded to outsiders like the bickering which ran so strongly here. Dorothy was a year older than Letty, but she did not talk so plainly. And that other boy, Percy—why name him that!—was being sent away from the table because he had pinched Clara.
Inevitably the talk stayed on the level of the children, in spite of attempted detours on the part of Charles. Mr. Thomas ate with an absent myopic eye on Dorothy and the next older boy.
But when at length they left the dining room, he was saying to Charles, "You recall those songs I spoke of? Thirteenth century? I've found a girl who does beautiful translations. A graduate student. She has an astonishing sense for the form." He had come alive, suddenly, the blank, gentle mask of his face breaking into sharp, vivid animation. Catherine watched him, peering at his wife, glancing back at him. She didn't care about the old verse forms, neither did his wife; but his wife didn't care that he could come alive like that, apart from her. Perhaps when they are alone, thought Catherine, he has some feeling for her that compares with this—but I doubt it!
"He's as keen about those musty old papers as if they were worth huge sums." Mrs. Thomas laid her hand on Catherine's arm, as they stood on the edge of the porch, looking far down the valley. Mrs. Thomas had a way of offering nervous little caresses. "Men are queer, aren't they?" Her forehead puckered.