said.
“Who am I?”
Catherine felt a sudden tension within her. The bantering was over and a new note
had crept into the conversation. An exciting note, a disturbing note. She did not answer.
Fraser looked at her for a moment, then smiled. “I’m a dull subject. More dessert?”
“No, thank you. I won’t eat again for a week.” “Let’s go to work.”
They worked until midnight. Fraser saw Catherine to the door, and Talmadge was
waiting outside to drive her back to the apartment.
She thought about Fraser all the way home. His strength, his humor, his compassion.
Someone had once said that a man had to be very strong before he could allow himself to
be gentle. William Fraser was very strong. This evening had been one of the nicest
evenings of Catherine’s life and it worried her. She was afraid that she might turn into one
of those jealous secretaries who sits around the office all day hating every girl who
telephones her boss. Well, she was not going to allow that to happen. Every eligible
female in Washington was throwing herself at Fraser’s head. She was not going to join the
crowd.
When Catherine returned to the apartment, Susie was waiting up for her. She pounced
on Catherine the moment she came in.
“Give!” Susie demanded. “What happened?”
“Nothing happened,” Catherine replied. “We had dinner.”
Susie stared at her incredulously. “Didn’t he even make a pass at you?”
“No, of course not.”
Susie sighed. “I should have known it. He was afraid to.”
“What do you mean by that?”
“What I mean by that, sweetie, is that you come off like the Virgin Mary. He was
probably afraid if he laid a finger on you, you’d scream ‘rape’ and faint dead away.”
Catherine felt her cheeks redden. “I’m not interested in him that way,” she said
stiffly. “And I don’t come off like the Virgin Mary.” I come off like the Virgin Catherine.
Dear old Saint Catherine. All she had done was to move her holy headquarters to
Washington. Nothing else had changed. She was still doing business at the same old
church.
During the next six months Fraser was away a good deal. He made trips to Chicago
and San Francisco and to Europe. There was always enough work to keep Catherine busy,
and yet the office seemed lonely and empty with Fraser gone.
There was a constant stream of interesting visitors, most of them men, and Catherine