“I really don't know--I smelled the potatoes burning some time ago. I'll see, however.” She brushed her hands with her handkerchief, pushed back the lock of hair that was always falling across her temple, and, because she was really offended by Manley's attitude and tone, she sang softly all the way to the house, merely to conceal from him the fact that he could move her even to irritation. Her best weapon, she had discovered long ago, was absolute indifference--the indifference which overlooked his presence and was deaf to his recriminations. She completed her preparations for his supper, made sure that nothing was lacking and that the tea was just right, placed his chair in position, filled the water glass beside his plate, set the tea-pot where he could reach it handily, and went into the living room and closed the door between. In the past year, filed as it had been with her literary ambitions and endeavors, she had neglected her music; but she took her violin from the box, hunted the cake of resin, tuned the strings, and, when she heard him come into the kitchen and sit down at the table, seated herself upon the front doorstep and began to play. There was one bit of music which Manley thoroughly detested. That was the “Traumerei.” Therefore, she played the “Traumerei” slowly--as it should, of course, be played--with full value given to all the pensive, long-drawn notes, and with a finale positively creepy in its dreamy wistfulness. Val, as has been stated, could be very exasperating when she chose. In the kitchen there was the subdued rattle of dishes, unbroken and unhurried. Val went on playing, but she forgot that she had begun in a half-conscious desire to annoy her husband. She stared dreamily at the hill which shut out the world to the east, and yielded to a mood of loneliness; of longing, in the abstract, for all the pleasant things she was missing in this life which she had chosen in her ignorance. When Manley flung open the inner door, she gave a stifled exclamation; she had forgotten all about Manley. “By all the big and little gods of Greece!” he swore angrily. “Calves bawling their heads off in the corral, and you squalling that whiny stuff you call music in the house--home's sure a hell of a happy place! I'm going to town. You don't want to leave the place till I come back--I want those calves looked after.” He seemed to consider something mentally, and then added: “If I'm not back before they quit bawling, you can turn 'em down in the river field with the rest. You know when they're weaned and ready to settle down. Don't feed 'em too much hay, like you did that other bunch; just give 'em what they need; you don't have to pile the corral full. And don't keep 'em shut up an hour longer than necessary.”