Alice watched him narrowly and saw him loving himself in his tears. "I didn't suppose you'd have the courage to go out and commit murder--if that's what you mean," she said sharply. Her chair bumped against the floor and she stood up. Mr. Farley was desperate. "There is more than one kind of perfectly genuine affection." His voice was unsteady. He drew lines and cross lines on the table cloth with his knife. Alice laughed and tapped her foot on the floor. He was hurt by her laughing, but he would not look at her. He felt that he had allowed his parental advantage to escape him and he did not know how to reassert it. Mrs. Farley, made uneasy by the murmur of monotonously subdued voices, was afraid to stay away any longer. She came in very intent on the plate of biscuits she carried, pretending that she considered nothing unusual afoot. "The atmosphere of this moral cellar has ruined mine and Laurie's life!" Alice said angrily, as if driven to the words by the sight of her mother's face. Mr. Farley was bewildered and angry. Mrs. Farley slipped the plate of biscuits to the table and sank weakly in a chair. Mr. Farley rose. "I won't have you talk this way before your mother, Alice." In the depths of him he was profoundly alarmed, but on the surface he was sure of himself again. Alice hated herself, but she stood at bay. "I respect your mother," he said, "and you should do far more than respect her." "I want to respect her, but she doesn't respect herself." Mrs. Farley wept helplessly in silence. "I won't have you insult her, Alice." "I'm not insulting her. I'm not the one who takes it for granted that she is willing to go on forever and ever in this equivocal fashion. I've done her the honor of thinking she might be glad to separate from you and leave you free to live decently." "I'll go away, Alice! I'll go away! My children don't love me!" Mrs. Farley squinted her lids together and, throwing back her head, wrung her hands abandonedly. "Mother!" Mr. Farley laid a soothing hand on her mouse-gray hair, dry and silky like fur. She moved away from him, shaking her hands. Her lids relaxed smoothly over her eyes and the tears coursed more easily through her worn lashes, and fell upon the nose glasses dangling from the gold hook on her breast. "You'll probably be glad I'm gone. Oh, my God, this is the reward of my life!" "Hush, Mother! Hush! You're talking nonsense. Nobody even dreams of you going away. Why, it's preposterous." "Alice says you want me to go!" she moaned. "Alice doesn't know what she is talking about. I need you as much as you need me." "But Alice wants me to go. My children don't want me!" She opened eyes that were blank with the abnormality of her passion. "You don't want me!" "Mother!" She struggled to her feet and brushed past him. He began to follow her, but halted half way to the door with an air of helpless indecision. "I'm sorry, Papa," Alice said after a minute.