She has grown a crust, thought Cathy, trying again and again to break through the polite veneer, but it was no use. Rita had left childhood.That was as it should be. All these children must grow up. The best equipment for the life that awaited them was a hard endurance and a practical approach, but somewhere deep within her Cathy wept for the vanished softness of a young girl.She found it difficult to follow the advice she had been given in London—not to take an experience too much to heart, never to become too personal. You will get nowhere unless you are firm and practical, she had been told, but even then she would have abandoned the advice had Rita shown one moment of indecision, one fleeting glimpse of her need for help. But Rita didn’t. She was as cool and self-composed as Fayette Dubois herself. When once Cathy murmured something about time passing quickly and that when Rita was ready to take a position they would both go lipstick shopping together, she shrugged an indifference that did not seem assumed.With a sigh Cathy abandoned the matter for more pressing problems.
