"That tooth. Hell, I've yanked that filling out." He was on his feet, his face contorted under his hand. "Get me some iodine. He said iodine would stop it."
The tooth was treated. Charles, a little sheepishly, admitted that the pain was less.
"Guess I'll crawl right into bed, before it jumps again. If I can get to sleep----"
Catherine filled a hot-water bag and slipped it under his cheek.
"That feels fine." He looked up at her. "Thanks."
Catherine bent quickly and brushed her lips on his forehead.
"Good night," she said steadily. "Go right to sleep." She lay wakeful for a long time.
"When I come back," she thought, at last-- She twisted restlessly. "That tooth--I was a little mad, and it destroyed my frenzy. I ought to be glad, and I'm not."
The hours on Sunday between breakfast and time for her train were telescoped into a band of pressure. Directions to Mrs. O'Lay; final arrangements for her mother; engrossing details devouring the few hours.
The taxi was announced. Letty burst into wails because she couldn't go; she had been discovered busily emptying her bureau drawers into an old suitcase. Catherine, distracted, kissed her mother and hurried away, hearing the determined shrieks until the elevator reached the ground floor. Charles, Spencer, and Marian climbed into the taxi after her.
"You look lovely," said Marian, over and over, stroking the soft fur at the throat of her jacket. "You look just lovely."
Spencer snuggled close against her, without a word. Charles, after a businesslike inquiry into the state of her tickets, was silent. And Catherine's one clear thought was: it is lucky that I can't escape now--like a moving stairway, and I've stepped squarely on it. I couldn't, to-day, furnish the energy, the motive power, to go and leave them.
Catherine moved slowly up the covered stairway from the Randolph Street station, sniffing at the strange smell of Chicago. What did make it so different from New York? Smoke, blown whirling back in the sharp east wind over the grinding of ice along the lake shore, something more composite than that, which, if she could but decipher, would give her the essential difference between the cities. She snatched at her hat, as she reached the gusty platform. There was Bill, lounging against the paper stand! As she edged through the home-bound crowd, he saw her, with a sharp lifting of his negligent, withdrawn look, and started toward her.
