Alice had followed her mother into the room and halted abruptly behind her.
Mrs. Farley did not see Alice. Mr. Farley started a little, glanced at his daughter, and looked away again.
Alice, watching the two people, felt the atmosphere of the room weighted with inertias. These people forced her back into herself, into her own dumbness. She wanted to shatter her silence with their cries.
"Turn around here and look at Papa, Mamma," Alice said suddenly.
Mrs. Farley would not look. "Your father knows what I think," she said after a minute. She glanced at Alice.
Mrs. Farley wore her pince-nez and the irridescence of glass added remoteness to her hostile uneasy eyes. The gold clasp drawing the flesh together on her nose gave a twist of severity to her dry obscure face. Her hate seemed to flow uncertainly through the crystals and flash defiance in the gold center. The little gold clasp of the pince-nez was like the claw of impotence buried in its own flesh.
Alice tapped the floor with her foot. "Do you know what Mamma thinks, Papa? I'm sure I don't."
Mr. Farley stared under his fingers at the floor where the dim pattern of the carpet grew more dim. "I know what you have told me."
"I can't stand the atmosphere here. If you and she don't find some way to talk it out you'll drive Laurence and me insane."
Mr. Farley sighed deeply. "I'm ready and willing to discuss anything. I have felt lately that I have become an intruder in your mother's eyes, but I hardly know what has happened, Alice."