"Well, he didn't have a child by her because he preferred you." Mrs. Farley's whole face trembled with her sense of outrage and impotence. Her eyes, squinting a little, were those of a creature who takes no pride in its rage. "Whatever you say, I can't forget my duty to your father. I wish you had never heard of this! You're a coarse, cold woman, Alice." Alice smiled, glad her mother had hurt her. "Yes, you've told me that before." They faced each other, Mrs. Farley trying to speak but unable. Alice saw how ugly her mother was and was ashamed of seeing it. Mrs. Farley turned her head a little and there were spiked wisps of iron-gray hair clinging on the nape of her scrawny, freckled neck. "Let me go out!" Mrs. Farley said, stumbling suddenly toward the door in a blind gesture of protest and escape. "I'm not keeping you," Alice said. "Everything would be well enough if you weren't bent on persecuting me!" Mrs. Farley called back. Alice was very calm. "I'm not persecuting you. If you really prefer to go on this way, tied like a millstone about Papa's neck, it is your own affair, I suppose; though I can't help protesting when I see it." Mrs. Farley was gone. Alice felt a kind of hysterical relief in her mother's exit. * * * * * It was a cool, delicate morning. The curtains swung in the opened windows before the cool, darkened room. The iron rails along the area made light black embroideries of shadow among blobs and flecks of gold on the basement front. Even the tap of hoofs in the street sounded as though the horses trod in hesitation. In Mrs. Farley's dining-room light shivered against the edges of knives and forks laid on the clean cloth, and flew off in needle-fine sparks. Laurence had gone, but Mr. Farley and Alice had just seated themselves at table. Mr. Farley was more abstracted and uncomfortable than usual. "Isn't your mother well, Alice?" he asked in a low voice. "She hasn't sat down and last night she scarcely ate anything. I hate to see her spend so much time in the kitchen." "She saw the telegram you dropped yesterday morning," Alice said. Mr. Farley flushed and fine lines came between his eyes, but before he could say what hovered on his lips, Mrs. Farley came in and he was silent. Mrs. Farley's arms were limp with the weight of the tray she carried. Her fingers clutched at the edges. There was something exasperating in her manner that suggested the senseless tremor of frightened canaries' wings. Her hands were unsteady and some of the contents of the coffee urn splashed on her wrist. Alice got up. "Give me that tray." She took it firmly. "Now you sit down and eat." "I--I've had something to eat," Mrs. Farley said weakly, at the same time sitting down. Mr. Farley glanced at her but looked away quickly. He could not bear to see her fear which was like a fear of him. He cleared his throat. "Aren't you feeling well, Mother?"