She held out a top. For an instant a cold gleam of possession lit Bobby's still eyes in his fat face. He grasped the top and moved a little away from her. His air was suspicious. When he was sure the top was his the cold light died from his face. He was smooth and shut into himself again. He was like a china baby. To get at his soul one needed to break him. "You like it, eh?" Alice demanded. Her eyes were more violently hard than his. She seemed to like him against her will. She bent down. His lips brushed her cheek dutifully and she felt as though a mark had been left there. She imagined it a spot like frost with five points like a leaf. "Tan I go?" As he went away from her the spot burned her. Inexorably Bobby descended to the back yard. He seemed to know how futile a thing Alice was compared to himself. With her face buried on the oilcloth cover of the typewriter Alice's thoughts, all confused, ran on God, art, suggestions that had come to her as Horace Ridge dictated his book. Then in the turmoil she could see Horace Ridge's big figure still against the light of the window where he worked. Alice felt herself light, clear and vacuous, absorbed in the substantiality of this picture. Christ died on a cross. She felt sick as with disgust. Good to others. Hate. Winnie. Alice could not bear to think of the children born of Winnie. Bobby born of Winnie. She could not think of him. Virgin Mary. There seemed something secret and awful in maternity--some desecration. She felt the child helplessly intimate with the mother's body. He did not want her. Other religions. No time to read up. Buddha. Sex. Marriage. Laurie was an atheist. He wanted to be perverse. Must be something. Nice pictures. Art. Beauty. When she said beauty to herself her heart was hard with resentment. Long-haired men. Rot. They did not understand. She cried a few moments thinking of nothing, but it was as if something unseen grew strong with her weakness. It drank her misery and left her dry. She got up, feverish, and stood before the glass, hating herself. Her waist had pulled apart in front and she saw the swell of her big firm breast. Her face was heavy and ugly with rebellion, sallow, the eyes inflamed. She saw her breast. Strange shiver of curiosity about herself. Why did it hurt her to see her breast? She covered it up. She looked at herself, into her hot eyes. Something cried inside her for mercy, but she would not take her hot angry eyes from the face in the glass. No use to beat about the bush and pretend to be highfalutin'. Wanted what Winnie wanted. Disliked Winnie. She had a corroding sensation in her throat as though she tasted metal. Then shame mounted hot over her as though it were swallowing her. She resisted being swallowed. Her skin quivered against the hot cold engulfing sense of degradation. She was like a bird alive in a snake's body.