Horace Ridge was going to Europe to remain two years. He might get well. He might die. His eyes. She felt herself lost in the darkness of his eyes.
Then something broke in her. I'll tell him. I'll go with him.
She dared not see herself in the glass opposite. Once she had abandoned herself to her desire to be beautiful. She remembered, with a horrible sense of humiliation, the hours spent behind locked doors when she had tried to make herself into something men would like. One day she had done her hair a new way, and, going into the living-room, had caught Laurence's ridiculing eyes upon her. That was before he married Winnie. Alice realized that something had gone wild in her. She had picked a paper knife from a table and hurled it at him and it had cut his hand. His face had turned scarlet, then white, then scarlet again. He had gone out as if he were glad, without speaking to her.
After that she fixed her hair the old way and avoided the mirror. She did not want to realize what she was. Nothing existed but work.
When she met a pretty woman in the streets Alice had a sense of outrage. A self-righteous flame burnt in her. Then she tried to be patient and it grew cool. She wore heavy careless clothing. She was generous to Winnie. Most of all it relieved Alice to buy presents for the children.
It was the evening before when she came home from work that Bobby met her in the hall. Then there was jam on his unperturbed face. "You donna bring me sumpin'," he reminded her.
She held out a top. For an instant a cold gleam of possession lit Bobby's still eyes in his fat face. He grasped the top and moved a little away from her. His air was suspicious. When he was sure the top was his the cold light died from his face. He was smooth and shut into himself again. He was like a china baby. To get at his soul one needed to break him.
"You like it, eh?" Alice demanded. Her eyes were more violently hard than his. She seemed to like him against her will. She bent down. His lips brushed her cheek dutifully and she felt as though a mark had been left there. She imagined it a spot like frost with five points like a leaf.
"Tan I go?"
As he went away from her the spot burned her.