And yet as she continued to peer at Eugenia through that dark cloud of tragedy, it seemed to her that Eugenia showed signs of some real human emotion. As she gazed at her in the crude brilliance of the gaudy morning sun, she saw for the first time signs of years in Eugenia's exquisite small face. There was not a line visible, nor a faltering of the firmness of the well-cared-for flesh, but over it all was a faint, hardly discernible flaccid fatigue of texture. But perhaps she imagined it, for even as she looked, and felt her heart soften to think what this would mean to Eugenia, an inner wave of resolution reached the surface of the other woman's face, and there was Eugenia as she always had been, something of loveliness immutable. She said impulsively, "Eugenia, it's a stupidly conventional thing to say, but it's a pity you never married." As Eugenia only looked at her, quietly, she ventured further, "You might really be happier, you know. There is a great deal of happiness in the right marriage." She had never said so much to Eugenia. Eugenia let Marise's hand drop and with it, evidently, whatever intention she might have had of saying something difficult to express. Instead, she advanced with her fastidious, delicate note of irony, "I don't deny the happiness, if that sort of happiness is what one is after. But I think my appetite for it . . . that sort . . . is perhaps not quite robust enough to relish it." Marise roused herself to try to put a light note of cheerfulness into this last conversation. "You mean that it seems to you like the coarsely heaped-up goodies set before a farmhand in a country kitchen . . . chicken and butter and honey and fruit and coffee, all good but so profuse and jumbled that they make you turn away?" "I didn't give that definition of domestic life," corrected Eugenia, with a faint smile, "that's one of _your_ fantasies." "Well, it's true that you get life served up to you rather pell-mell, lots of it, take-it-as-it-comes," admitted Marise, "but for a gross nature like mine, once you've had that, you're lost. You know you'd starve to death on the delicate slice of toasted bread served on old china. You give up and fairly enjoy wallowing in the trough." She had been struck by that unwonted look of fatigue on Eugenia's face, had tried to make her laugh, and now, with an effort, laughed with her. She had forgotten her passing notion that Eugenia had something special to say. What could she have? They had gone over that astonishing misconception of hers about the Powers woodlot, and she had quite made Marise understand how hopelessly incapable she was of distinguishing one business detail from another. There could be nothing else that Eugenia could wish to say.