"Yes, she writes brilliantly." Francon's mouth snapped shut.
"Really, Guy, I'd love to meet her."
Francon looked at him and sighed wearily.
"You know she's not living with me," said Francon. "She has an apartment of her own — I'm not sure that I even remember the address ... Oh, I suppose you'll meet her some day. You won't like her, Peter."
"Now, why do you say that?"
"It's one of those things, Peter. As a father I'm afraid I'm a total failure ... Say, Peter, what did Mrs. Mannering say about that new stairway arrangement?"
Keating felt angry, disappointed — and relieved. He looked at Francon's squat figure and wondered what appearance his daughter must have inherited to earn her father's so obvious disfavor. Rich and ugly as sin — like most of them, he decided. He thought that this need not stop him — some day. He was glad only that the day was postponed. He thought, with new eagerness, that he would go to see Catherine tonight.
Mrs. Keating had met Catherine in Stanton. She had hoped that Peter would forget. Now she knew that he had not forgotten, even though he seldom spoke of Catherine and never brought her to his home. Mrs. Keating did not mention Catherine by name. But she chatted about penniless girls who hooked brilliant young men, about promising boys whose careers had been wrecked by marriage to the wrong woman; and she read to him every newspaper account of a celebrity divorcing his plebeian wife who could not live up to his eminent position.
Keating thought, as he walked toward Catherine's house that night, of the few times he had seen her; they had been such unimportant occasions, but they were the only days he remembered of his whole life in New York.
He found, in the middle of her uncle's living room, when she let him in, a mess of letters spread all over the carpet, a portable typewriter, newspapers, scissors, boxes and a pot of glue.
"Oh dear!" said Catherine, flopping limply down on her knees in the midst of the litter. "Oh dear!"
She looked up at him, smiling disarmingly, her hands raised and spread over the crinkling white piles. She was almost twenty now and looked no older than she had looked at seventeen.
"Sit down, Peter. I thought I'd be through before you came, but I guess I'm not. It's Uncle's fan mail and his press clippings. I've got to sort it out, and answer it and file it and write notes of thanks and ... Oh, you should see some of the things people write to him! It's wonderful. Don't stand there. Sit down, will you? I'll be through in a minute."
"You're through right now," he said, picking her up in his arms, carrying her to a chair.
He held her and kissed her and she laughed happily, her head buried on his shoulder. He said:
"Katie, you're an impossible little fool and your hair smells so nice!"
She said: "Don't move, Peter. I'm comfortable."
"Katie, I want to tell you, I had a wonderful time today. They opened the Bordman Building officially this afternoon. You know, down on Broadway, twenty-two floors and a Gothic spire. Francon had indigestion, so I went there as his representative. I designed that building anyway and ... Oh, well, you know nothing about it."
"But I do, Peter. I've seen all your buildings. I have pictures of them. I cut them out of the papers. And I'm making a scrap-book, just like Uncle's. Oh, Peter, it's so wonderful!"
"What?"
"Uncle's scrapbooks, and his letters ... all this ... " She stretched her hands out over the papers on the floor, as if she wanted to embrace them. "Think of it, all these letters coming from all over the country, perfect strangers and yet he means so much to them. And here I am, helping him, me, just nobody, and look what a responsibility I have! It's so touching and so big, what do they matter — all the little things that can happen to us? — when this concerns a whole nation!"
"Yeah? Did he tell you that?"
"He told me nothing at all. But you can't live with him for years without getting some of that ... that wonderful selflessness of his." He wanted to be angry, but he saw her twinkling smile, her new kind of fire, and he had to smile in answer.
"I'll say this, Katie: it's becoming to you, becoming as hell. You know, you could look stunning if you learned something about clothes. One of these days, I'll take you bodily and drag you down to a good dressmaker. I want you to meet Guy Francon some day. You'll like him."
"Oh? I thought you said once that I wouldn't."
"Did I say that? Well, I didn't really know him. He's a grand fellow. I want you to meet them all. You'd be ... hey, where are you going?" She had noticed the watch on his wrist and was edging away from him.
"I ... It's almost nine o'clock, Peter, and I've got to have this finished before Uncle Ellsworth gets home. He'll be back by eleven, he's making a speech at a labor meeting tonight. I can work while we're talking, do you mind?"
"I certainly do! To hell with your dear uncle's fans! Let him untangle it all himself. You stay just where you are."
She sighed, but put her head on his shoulder obediently. "You mustn't talk like that about Uncle Ellsworth. You don't understand him at all. Have you read his book?"
"Yes! I've read his book and it's grand, it's stupendous, but I've heard nothing but talk of his damn book everywhere I go, so do you mind if we change the subject?"
"You still don't want to meet Uncle Ellsworth?"
"Why? What makes you say that? I'd love to meet him."
"Oh ... "
"What's the matter?"
"You said once that you didn't want to meet him through me."
"Did I? How do you always remember all the nonsense I happen to say?"
"Peter, I don't want you to meet Uncle Ellsworth."
"Why not?"
"I don't know. It's kind of silly of me. But now I just don't
want you to. I don't know why."
"Well, forget it then. I'll meet him when the time comes. Katie, listen, yesterday I was standing at the window in my room, and I thought of you, and I wanted so much to have you with me, I almost called you, only it was too late. I get so terribly lonely for you like that, I ... "
She listened, her arms about his neck. And then he saw her looking suddenly past him, her mouth opened in consternation; she jumped up, dashed across the room, and crawled on her hands and knees to reach a lavender envelope lying under a desk.
"Now what on earth?" he demanded angrily.
"It's a very important letter," she said, still kneeling, the envelope held tightly in her little fist, "it's a very important letter and there it was, practically in the wastebasket, I might have swept it out without noticing. It's from a poor widow who has five children and her eldest son wants to be an architect and Uncle Ellsworth is going to arrange a scholarship for him."
"Well," said Keating, rising, "I've had just about enough of this. Let's get out of here, Katie. Let's go for a walk. It's beautiful out tonight. You don't seem to belong to yourself in here."
"Oh, fine! Let's go for a walk."
Outside, there was a mist of snow, a dry, fine, weightless snow that hung still in the air, filling the narrow tanks of streets. They walked together, Catherine's arm pressed to his, their feet leaving long brown smears on the white sidewalks.
They sat down on a bench in Washington Square. The snow enclosed the Square, cutting them off from the houses, from the city beyond. Through the shadow of the arch, little dots of light rolled past them, steel-white, green and smeared red.
She sat huddled close to him. He looked at the city. He had always been afraid of it and he was afraid of it now; but he had two fragile protections: the snow and the girl beside him. "Katie," he whispered, "Katie ... "
"I love you, Peter ... "
"Katie," he said, without hesitation, without emphasis, because the certainty of his words allowed no excitement, "we're engaged, aren't we?"