Mrs. Farley hurried out. She went into the dining-room. A last streak of sunshine filtered through the clouds and came over the back yard into the room. There were some tumblers in a tray on the sideboard that caught the specks of light that were like bubbles of fire in the colorless glass. Each day the sun touched the same spots with the same light. There was assurance and finality in the undeviating rays of the tired sun. Mrs. Farley felt quiet among the chairs and tables. She saw some lint on the ragged sun-washed carpet, and stooped to pick it off. She craved intimacy with the still things her touch could dominate. They enlarged her. And she was afraid of those who would speak some terrible word of love or money to destroy their permanence.
When she went to the sideboard and opened the drawer in which the tablecloths were kept, her furtive thoughts slipped between the linen, and, as her hands moved over it, the cool glazed feel of the starched fabric was a denial of change and heat.
In the living-room, Mr. Farley leaned back in his chair again, his eyes half closed. In his low chair his gaze was on a level with the polished top of the table, glazed silverish with the dimming light. The arms of the imitation mahogany rocker were as bright and enigmatic as glass. Some pictures on the wall were indecipherable beneath streaked reflections.
An old painting of Lake Lucerne hung over the mantel shelf. The pigment was faded and the canvas was seamed with fine, irregular cracks. When Mr. Farley glanced upward at this picture he experienced a voluptuous sense of futility. He stared at it a long time.
But the spell of inertia did not last. He became uneasy again. He was afraid his wife might come back, so he walked across the hall to the disorderly little room that was called his "study."
There were a desk, and a leather lounge with protruding springs, and, on the walls, two or three old advertising calendars decorated with hunting scenes or full-color pictures of setter dogs.
Mr. Farley sat down before the littered desk and began his letter, "Dear Helen."
He wrote to her about his regard for her and their mutual sense of responsibility toward their son, and he wanted to say something else. But when he attempted to recall more intimate phrases it revived his sense of sin. He felt embarrassed and gave it up.
It was seven o'clock in the evening. The sun had gone. The sky at the zenith was pale, but along the horizon the foam-white clouds glowed with pink. From the city light had receded like a tide and rows of housetops on the length of the sky were like objects left there by a departing sea. They were separate and waited.