They walked on. Alice's heavy skirt beat her ankles above her stout shoes. Mr. Farley's coat-tails flapped. Paper rustled in the gutter. "You make me sick about being just to Mamma," Alice said almost tenderly. "Whom was she ever just to? What about being just to yourself?" "We can't ask too much for ourselves in this life," Mr. Farley said soberly. "Bosh! I wish to Heaven you had left her that time when you wanted to!" Mr. Farley was shocked. Alice had never spoken to him like this. His arm quivered more than ever. Unable to reply to her for the moment, he was a dung-beetle, rolling his astonishment over and over and making it ready for speech. "I hardly know how to answer you, Alice. I don't think there ever was a time when I could have taken any joy which came through a sacrifice of other people's happiness. I----" He was confused by his own words. He stopped talking suddenly: Alice could feel that his body was rigid against hers. He could not forgive her. "Not even when you loved that Mrs. Wilson, eh?" She remembered the name all at once, having heard it long ago. Mr. Farley stopped, still. He put his hand to his forehead. His other arm fell away from Alice. It took him an instant to answer her. She tapped her foot on the pavement. The wind whizzed in their ears. "Alice, I--you are referring to things too personal to--I ought to resent it." "Resent it. I'd be glad to see you resent something." She wanted him to strike fire against her mother's dullness. He could not bear her smile. "Your mother is a good woman----" "I suppose she is. God save us from good women!" Mr. Farley walked on slowly. He walked like an old man. It made him feel tired when he thought that anyone questioned the nobility and excellence of his resolution. "When you have had more experience of life, Alice, you will see how easily we err, and how it's always better to accept the weight of old burdens rather than assume new ones." "I'm not likely to be offered new ones." "What do you mean?" "What I say. Ugly old maid at twenty-nine. My life will go on like this forever and ever." Mr. Farley was ashamed with Alice because she told the truth about herself. It hurt him to face her ugliness and not be allowed to lie to her. "That's morbid talk," he said, walking more slowly and rubbing his forehead again. "Bosh! I'm not morbid. My life ends where it began--that's all. You're the one who makes me sick. Why don't you kick out of this? Why don't you find somebody with some self-respect who means something to you, and go off and be happy? Some people may admire you for all this giving up your soul and allowing it to be spit on, but I don't." Her heart was hard against him. It relieved her to push her father from her out into life. It helped her to make him live in her stead. Large round raindrops pressed their foreheads softly like rounded lips. The rain falling through the chill air was warm.