t Sunday afternoon. She connected him vaguely with Mary.

"I suppose you're one of the people who think we should all have
professions," she said, rather distantly, as if feeling her way among
the phantoms of an unknown world.

"Oh dear no," said Mary at once.

"Well, I think I do," Katharine continued, with half a sigh. "You will
always be able to say that you've done something, whereas, in a crowd
like this, I feel rather melancholy."

"In a crowd? Why in a crowd?" Mary asked, deepening the two lines
between her eyes, and hoisting herself nearer to Katharine upon the
window-sill.

"Don't you see how many different things these people care about? And
I want to beat them down--I only mean," she corrected herself, "that I
want to assert myself, and it's difficult, if one hasn't a profession."

Mary smiled, thinking that to beat people down was a process that should
present no difficulty to Miss Katharine Hilbery. They knew each other
so slightly that the beginning of intimacy, which Katharine seemed to
initiate by talking about herself, had something solemn in it, and they
were silent, as if to decide whether to proceed or not. They tested the
ground.

"Ah, but I want to trample upon their prostrate bodies!" Katharine
announced, a moment later, with a laugh, as if at the train of thought
which had led her to this conclusion.

"One doesn't necessarily trample upon people's bodies because one runs
an office," Mary remarked.

"No. Perhaps not," Katharine replied. The conversation lapsed, and Mary
saw Katharine looking out into the room rather moodily with closed lips,
the desire to talk about herself or to initiate a friendship having,
apparently, left her. Mary was struck by her capacity for being thus
easily silent, and occupied with her own thoughts. It was a habit that
spoke of loneliness and a mind thinking for itself. When Katharine
remained silent Mary was slightly embarrassed.

"Yes, they're very like sheep," she repeated, foolishly.

"And yet they are very clever--at least," Katharine added, "I suppose
they have all read Webster."

"Surely you don't think that a proof of cleverness? I've read Webster,
I've read Ben Jonson, but I don't think myself clever--not exactly, at
least."

"I think you must be very clever," Katharine observed.

"Why? Because I run an office?"

"I wasn't thinking of that. I was thinking how you live alone in this
room, and have parties."

Mary reflected for a second.

"