Laurence went out of the room, out of the house. A pale fiery mist rose up from between the houses and filled the wet morning street. The houses with lowered blinds were secret and filled with women. Girls going to work came out of the houses like the words of women. Women going to market passed slowly before him with their baskets. Pregnant women walked before him in confidence. The uncolored atmosphere threw back the sky. It was the mirror of women. Laurence felt crowded between the bodies of women and houses. He walked quickly with his head bent. On the concrete pavements, washed white as bones by the storm of the night before, were rust-colored puddles. Dark and still, they quivered now and again, like quiet minds touched by the horror of a recollection. The reflections of the houses lay deep in them, shattered, like dead things. * * * * * Mrs. Farley stumbled up the dark stairway. Her knotted fingers with their tight-stretched skin kept a tense and fearful grasp on the scratched rim of the lacquered tray. On the clean frayed napkin she had put one of her best plates and on it rested a bloody peach and a dull bright knife. The peach, balanced uncertainly, rolled a little as Mrs. Farley moved. The knife clinked. Black coffee beaded with gold turned to saffron when it poured over into the saucer. The toast, burnt a little along the edges, slid back and forth in the napkin which enfolded it. She stopped before Winnie's room. "Winnie!" Her voice sounded cracked with fatigue. With the tip of her black slipper, which was rough and gray with wear, she pushed the door back. The room opened bright before her. Her smile grew hard and solicitous. Winnie sat up straight among the creased pillows against the dark old headboard. Her eyes were red. She smiled, too, and was consciously brave. "Good morning, Mamma Farley! See how you have worked for poor little no-account me! Put the tray down and let me kiss you." "Bobby isn't awake?" Mrs. Farley asked, embarrassed by her own pleasure as she pressed bitter and grateful lips to Winnie's firm cheek. "Are you glad I was happy yesterday?" "I hope you are happy today. You know how glad we all were." "I want to be happy, Mamma Farley." "And you will be, Winnie." Mrs. Farley set the tray shakily on the tossed bed clothes. "You, too, Mamma Farley, dear. I want you to be happy, too." Winnie held out a small inexorable hand, and Mrs. Farley, unable to behave otherwise, took it. Winnie squeezed her mother-in-law's fingers. "I know you haven't always been happy, Mamma, dear." Winnie's dim eyes were lustful with pity. Mrs. Farley was frightened. Her hand trembled and she tried to pull back and resist the invitation of sympathy. "Papa Farley ought to love you more than anybody in the world!" Winnie asserted, passionately tender.