Bobby cried louder. When she came down the path her undeviating approach made him mad with passion. "Dow 'way!" he shouted. When Aunt Alice reached him he pounded against her stomach with his fists. She clasped his plump wrists folded in fat and held them while he struggled until the dirt and sweat with which they were grimed rolled up under her fingers. At this moment she loved him more intensely because she could hurt him. "Dow 'way!" he kept shouting. His hair was tumbled about his face. He was red with passion. When he had freed himself he ran toward the house. "I hate Aunt Alice! I hate Aunt Alice! I wants my dranma!" he called back. With sudden confidence, May sidled toward her aunt. "We've been makin' mud pies and coverin' 'em with sand like icin'," she said. Alice looked down. Pale. May's hair shining like a dead sun. Alice all at once hated May's hair because it was pale and bright. "It's too chilly to make mud pies. For Heaven's sake don't put your dirty hands on me, May!" With a violent push Alice put the little girl aside and walked briskly up the path. A few surprised tears trickled from the resigned and shining misery of May's eyes. She watched her aunt move toward the house. Conscious of May's pale hair floating after her in unsubstantial brightness, Alice rushed up the stairs to her room. She pulled down the shades, longing for the heaviness of dark. The room in shadow was a pool on which Alice's unhappiness, dreamy and intermittent, floated like a swamp light. Outside the softness of the room, where solitude allowed her to relax, the soul of her family surrounded her, rearing its ramparts of towers beaten in the iron of years. Where will my light go to? Ugly old maid. Emancipation of women. Why did I not tell him that I loved him? Darkness floated from her words. * * * * * The morning was gray. The windows along the street were fathomlessly blank. Across the asphalt wet wheel tracks stretched glistening and sinuous like black rubber snakes. Mr. Farley stepped into the street and closed the front door stealthily behind him. Too agitated to endure breakfast with his family, he remembered the cheap restaurant around the corner, a place lined with grotesque mirrors and white and narrow like the corridor of a ship. When he went in he found the floor, covered with brick-colored linoleum, smeared and darkened with grease, and the cloth on the table where he seated himself was stained with pink-brown splashes of wine. The waiter came up, a soft heavy man whose feet pressed the floor as soundlessly as those of a panther. Mr. Farley took the list of dishes from the waiter's hand, fat like the hand of a corpse. The waiter's sad little eyes were set in a broad white face stubbled with bluish beard. When he moved away he was like a ghost. His large hips swayed, woman-wise. His soiled apron floated over a generous belly as profound as sleep.