"Of course, my dear girl. Of course." "Winnie!" Alice called. "I'm coming!" Winnie gave him another swift little bitter kiss and slipped from his arms. As she went out she glanced back, smiling and pathetic. He hurt her and she wanted to remind him how pretty she was. She was small and light with dread. His being composed itself in darkness and peace, but his composure was an ache, blank and broad. * * * * * Above the housetops huge masses of cloud, smutted like torrents of gray-white snow, moved steadily, surf of a gigantic tide sweeping the purplish-blue stillness of the far vacant sky. It was noonday. Alice passed briskly up the steps and opened the dusty front door. "Mamma?" Mrs. Farley was in the dusk-shrouded living-room behind drawn shades. She did not answer. When she heard Alice's heavy footsteps she shivered. Alice came to the living-room door and looked in. Her mother squinted at her bewilderedly, then glanced away. "You still here, are you? I've been down and finished up the business Mr. Ridge left me to do." Mrs. Farley rose wearily, as if driven. Her knees were slack under her trailing skirt. Her posture sagged. "I should have started the children's lunch," she said. "I'll start the children's lunch, but it is foolish for you to sit moping here." "Moping!" Mrs. Farley scoffed. Her throat shook. She gulped and her thin neck showed a corded undulation along its length. "Well, what if you did see that Papa had a telegram from Mrs. Wilson? What of it? Is it anything new?" Mrs. Farley's tight mouth puckered along the edges like fruit left too long in the sun. She stared resentfully at Alice. "New?" Mrs. Farley interrogated. Alice took off her hat and whirled it in her hand. "I don't see why the fact that she happens to be passing through town makes the situation between you and Papa worse than it is all the time. You know the relation between them. It's gone on for twelve years now. She probably thinks her claim on him is just as good as yours." For a moment the hard center of Mrs. Farley's vision dissolved in unshed tears and she saw Alice far off as in a vision of the dying. "Why don't you quit this thing if you don't like it?" Alice went on. "You can come and live with me and leave Papa to do what he pleases." Then Mrs. Farley's face went hard again with malice and fear, and her brow flushed with a streak like a whiplash. Her fingers had short, blunt, yellowish nails flecked with white. Her hands made impotent gestures. She was like a sheep searching for a gate when she must leap over a wall. "It's evident how little you understand your father," she said defiantly. Alice gave a disagreeable laugh. She felt herself building her mother's world, sound like her own upon ramparts of pain. "Your father has always felt that he had to make atonement for what he did--that no matter what kind of a woman Mrs. Wilson was that she----" Mrs. Farley could not go on.