"Of course he doesn't need you! You ought to have found that out the time he tried to get a divorce from you!" Alice, mysteriously urged to cruelty, bore down upon her mother. Alice's eyes glittered inscrutably. Mrs. Farley could not bear them. She stood at last, tottering a little. Her breath came quickly and raspingly. "Hush, I tell you! Hush! You've brought this up before. There's something cruel in you makes you want to go over and over things that are done with!" "I suppose you think I'm an interfering old maid?" "I don't know what you are." "And you don't want to know." Alice sounded amused. It was an unpleasant sound. Mrs. Farley, gazing very deliberately at the carpet, blew her nose. "I've never discussed my relation to your father with his children and I'm not going to now. I've sacrificed myself for what I thought best and it's nobody's business but my own." "Sacrificed!" echoed Alice contemptuously. "I won't listen to you and that's all there is to it. I never expected gratitude so I'm not disappointed." Mrs. Farley, not looking back, dragged into the hall. Alice lay still an instant, her expression one of relentless retrospect. Her eyes were enigmatic but her mouth was twisted with disgust and her nostrils were wide and tense. She reached above her head and turned out the light. The curtain flapped. Staccato fingers of rain tapped on the pane. In the room it was dark. The narrow dark. The walls of the room drew near. She felt herself pressed between them. Alice tossed from side to side. When she lay quiet finally the darkness receded from her, touched her lids softly in passing. Death! Oh, my God, I want life! She sat up in bed holding her heavy breasts. Father! A great body unmotivated. Alice's hot will sought for a world to impregnate. Wish-washy mother who had given birth meaninglessly. Horace Ridge. She grew cool with despair--desireless. The hot sheets turned cool. Far away the beat of rain on the window. Under the lifted sash the rain-wet wind swept through the room, frozen pain, threads of frozen wonder embroidering the hot dark. Wet wind beat the soggy awnings against the glass. A dank smell came in. * * * * * It was a cold August morning. The pale sky was filled with a dim still light. In the dining-room the yellow shades, half lowered, strained the gloomy radiance through them and made it a heavy orange. The tablecloth, splattered with coffee stains like old blood, was overcast with trembling reflections of yellow. The morning meal was over. The empty plates were scattered about smeared with hardened egg. The half of a muffin was mashed on the dingy carpet. Mr. Farley, a little away from the table, sat reading his paper. Mrs. Farley was collecting the débris of breakfast. Her feeble hands moved among the dishes with shaken determination. "Was your egg fried enough?" she asked.