They were at table. Alice had not come down to dinner. May had been permitted the occasion to eat with her elders. In her small, dumb face, her eyes, turned on her grandmother, were timidly alive with interest. May's face was like a yellow pearl, melting in its coldness with the terrified warmth of her blue-black eyes. She sat squirming in her chair, smoothing her dress down over her stomach, but, when her grandmother frowned at her, she undid herself. "May, do you want----" Mrs. Farley leaned toward the child. May knew what her grandmother thought. May was in terrible fear of being sent off to the toilet before she could tell what she had to say. "Aunt Alice talks to herself!" she blurted out shrilly. Immediately she said it, the table surrounded by grown people melted away from her, and she was in herself, half drowned, as in a lake of pitch tingling with moonlight. When May came out of herself, she saw her grandmother making knowing grimaces at Laurence, and Grandpa Farley looking ashamed and unhappy. Then May was sorry she had told about Aunt Alice. "How do you know Aunt Alice talks to herself?" Laurence asked. May looked at her father intensely, like a little surprised doe. Each experience to her was unique and absolute, like a forest creature's. There was no recognition in her seeing, and because all faces were strange to her she knew them better. "I--I--I heard her--lots of times--in her room and when--when we were out walking." Her small hand continued to smooth her stiff dress over her hollow little belly, and she felt her ring burning a cold circle around her finger--ring that was a pain and a joy to her. Mr. Farley, ashamed for Alice, played with his fork. Mrs. Farley said, "Alice always had a terrible temper and got her feelings hurt needlessly, but I never imagined she would develop the crazy morbidness she has shown lately." Mr. Farley could not bear the talk about pain any longer. He got up. "I think I'd send Alice her dinner," he said to no one in particular. He added, "I have some letters to write so I won't wait until the rest of you are finished." When Mr. Farley was out of hearing, Mrs. Farley said, pursing her lips, "You know there was insanity in your father's family, Laurence." "Yes. You told me once. Aunt Celia." Then Laurence frowned at his mother and nodded toward May. He hated his mother's attitude toward Alice, but, because he loathed it, he always defended it. What his instinct warned him against, he always refused to give up. When his mother, hoop-shouldered, weakly resistant, looked at him with her unyielding, self-enwrapped eyes, it was because of the very shudder which it gave him, that he hardened himself to take it. He was kind to her as an apology for his contempt. Mrs. Farley turned to May. "Fold up your napkin."