"Well, well. I thought that dust cloth was here." She fumbled among the chairs. She was very matter-of-fact and intent. She saw that he was depressed and it made her uneasy. Mr. Farley could see her profile: her lined, withered lips, her dry, finely wrinkled skin which was a thin film of disguise over her melting flesh. The expression of nervous good humor in her evasive eyes was like a gauze scarf laid over a spectacle of horror. The two people, afraid of their fear of each other, were like alien creatures haltered with one chain. "Can I help you?" Mr. Farley asked. "No. No. Alice hasn't come home, has she?" "As far as I know, she hasn't. Shall I send her to you when she comes?" "No. That's all right! That's all right!" Mrs. Farley hurried out. She went into the dining-room. A last streak of sunshine filtered through the clouds and came over the back yard into the room. There were some tumblers in a tray on the sideboard that caught the specks of light that were like bubbles of fire in the colorless glass. Each day the sun touched the same spots with the same light. There was assurance and finality in the undeviating rays of the tired sun. Mrs. Farley felt quiet among the chairs and tables. She saw some lint on the ragged sun-washed carpet, and stooped to pick it off. She craved intimacy with the still things her touch could dominate. They enlarged her. And she was afraid of those who would speak some terrible word of love or money to destroy their permanence. When she went to the sideboard and opened the drawer in which the tablecloths were kept, her furtive thoughts slipped between the linen, and, as her hands moved over it, the cool glazed feel of the starched fabric was a denial of change and heat. In the living-room, Mr. Farley leaned back in his chair again, his eyes half closed. In his low chair his gaze was on a level with the polished top of the table, glazed silverish with the dimming light. The arms of the imitation mahogany rocker were as bright and enigmatic as glass. Some pictures on the wall were indecipherable beneath streaked reflections. An old painting of Lake Lucerne hung over the mantel shelf. The pigment was faded and the canvas was seamed with fine, irregular cracks. When Mr. Farley glanced upward at this picture he experienced a voluptuous sense of futility. He stared at it a long time. But the spell of inertia did not last. He became uneasy again. He was afraid his wife might come back, so he walked across the hall to the disorderly little room that was called his "study." There were a desk, and a leather lounge with protruding springs, and, on the walls, two or three old advertising calendars decorated with hunting scenes or full-color pictures of setter dogs. Mr. Farley sat down before the littered desk and began his letter, "Dear Helen."