Would it be possible? Two people had never stood under the reflector together, but surely it would work? I was tempted, but I could not subject Catty to the risk, however slight. Besides, how could I explain?
“But Catty, with you there I’d be thinking of you instead of the problem.”
“Ah, Hodge, have we already been married so long you must get away from me to think?”
“No matter how long, that time will never come. Perhaps I’m wrong, Catty. It’s just a feeling I have.”
Her look was tragic with understanding. “You must do as you think right. Don’t ... don’t be gone too long, my dear.”
I dressed in clothes I often used for walking trips, clothes which bore no mark of any fashion and might pass as current wear among the poorer classes in any era of the past hundred years. I put a packet of dried beef in my pocket and started for the workshop.
As soon as I left the cottage I laughed at my hypersensitivity, at all the to-do I’d made over lying to Catty. This was but the first excursion; I planned others for the months after Gettysburg. There was no reason why she shouldnt accompany me on them. I grew lighthearted as my conscience eased and I even congratulated myself on my skill in not having told a single technical falsehood to Catty. I began to whistle, never a habit of mine, as I made my way along the path to the workshop.
Barbara was alone. Her ginger hair gleamed in the light of a gas globe; her eyes were green as they always were when she was exultant. “Well, Hodge?”
“Well, Barbara, I....”
“Have you told Catty?”