* * * * * One evening, after an early dinner, May and Bobby ran out, bent on their own affairs, and left Julia and Laurence in the dining room alone. Without looking at Julia, Laurence rose. She recognized, beneath his quiet manner, the furtive haste with which she had become so painfully familiar. She touched his coat. "Laurence?" She picked up some embroidery which lay on a chair near the table and began to thrust the needle, which had lain on it, in and out of the coarse-woven brown cloth. She stared down at her trembling fingers--at the long third finger where the thimble should be. Laurence waited without speaking. When she touched him like that he could scarcely bear it. Her long hands and her aching, drooping shoulders were a part of him. Even the sound of her voice was something that she dragged out of him that he found it hard to endure. He kept his head bent away from her. His mouth contorted. Frowning, he passed his fingers slowly across his face and covered his lips. "Dudley Allen and I have separated. Everything between us seems to have been a mistake. I didn't know whether I had made you understand that." Her voice was weak, almost whispering. As she watched her needle she pricked herself and a drop of blood welled, slowly crimson, from the hand that held the cloth. She went on pushing the needle jerkily through some yellow cotton flowers. The late sunshine was pale in the room. Nellie was singing in the kitchen. Laurence saw the blood spread on the embroidery and make a stain. He was all at once insanely amused. What she was saying seemed an absurd revelation of their distance from each other. She never considered him as distinct from herself. He found it ludicrous. His finger tips moved along the edge of the table. He picked up a dish and set it down. In his heart he knew that Dudley was her only lover, but he was jealous of his right to suspect that it was otherwise. It made him cruel toward her when he realized how seldom it occurred to her that he might disbelieve what she said. "That is your affair--between you and him, Julia. I'm not interested in it." She watched him helplessly. "Laurence, why is it always like this?" He saw her hands shaking. He wanted them to shake. All grew dim before his eyes. He turned quickly from her and walked out of the room. He could not hurt her. It was terrible not to be able to hurt her. He fancied that he hated her more because he was so unable to revenge himself for her manner of ignoring him. He went on through the hall into the street. He knew that Julia was robbing him of the detachment in which he had taken refuge from earlier suffering. He no longer possessed himself. Not even his own pain belonged to him.