He could watch her profile, in the lamp’s withdrawn glimmer. She stared stonily down the room, away from him; there was no harm in observing her unbeknown. Her hair was knotted in the back, a skimpy knot; it lay flat and black above her forehead ... black, like her dress. Her cheeks were thinner than he remembered seeing her have. Her teeth stuck out, as always. They seemed the whitest thing in the room; their stony inactivity held his imagination. He licked his lips unconsciously. There had not been a sound from the house for half an hour. He stirred uncomfortably; the chair squeaked. “It doesn’t set comfortable, to some,” she said, shortly. “Not very.” “Some folks think they’ve a right to be partic’lar.” Her tone was sour, complaining. He did not answer. Time drawled along; the tired minutes plodded unendingly. Funny of Charley to want him and--her, who’d never teamed a bit. Think of being married to such as her! Who wouldn’t die?... Well, talk would make the night pass quicker. He broke the icy silence. “Crowded tonight?” His right hand gestured a vague circle. “Yes. Two to a bed upstairs. Aunt Teby and Mary--cot in the kitchen. Two of the boys in the dining room. Lucky yer don’t have to be fixed for. Nowhere left.” She laughed without mirth. His curious eyes travelled around. “Nothing to sleep on here.” They returned to the middle of the room in fascination, as if he had waited this excuse to revisit what was there. Afraid that she had caught the morbid fancy, that there was a gruesome, yet possible, couch, he hastened on. “Not that I can’t sleep in a chair, though. But I reckon we won’t do much sleeping tonight.” “No.” The spiteful warning that she would not trust herself asleep, with him around, spoke in the sneering monosyllable. In the hush that followed, his mind returned to the cold body lying near. He fought against thinking of Charley Hawkins as a corpse; it was of the young Charley, the chum of the years before the marriage, that thoughts came. Memory after memory woke to life out of him, with dizzying rapidity: memories remote from this musty, close room; memories stained with vivid sunlight on fields of black-eyed Susans, with shadow-dapple on the creek’s windings, with starry stretches of windy night. A lively, vigorous Charley Hawkins had featured these ... a good looker, not like himself, his face spoiled from birth.... Yes, Charley had been a lively kid.... Baseball, a scrap, a hay-ride to the river, especially whenever a girl was mixed up in it--Charley was chain-lightning. There was that kid widow, Mamie Fagin. Just one trick she had: when you kissed her--God! Her teeth against your neck! The teeth were like Louella’s, he reflected, looking over at Charley’s widow. Maybe Charley liked ’em with teeth that way; they were always livelier to love.