Mrs. Salisbury went into the kitchen again. She had to pause in the
pantry because the bright squares of the linoleum, and the brassy
faucets, and the glare of the geraniums outside the window seemed to
rush together for a second.

Marthe was on the porch, exchanging a few gay remarks with the
garbage man before shutting the side door after him. The big stove
was roaring hot, a thick odor of boiling clothes showed that Marthe
was ready for her cousin Nancy, the laundress, who came once a week.
A saucepan deeply gummed with cereal was soaking beside the hissing
and smoking frying pan Mrs. Salisbury moved the frying pan, and the
quick heat of the coal fire rushed up at her face--

"Why," she whispered, opening anxious eyes after what seemed a long
time, "who fainted?"

A wheeling and rocking mass of light and shadow resolved itself into
the dining-room walls, settled and was still. She felt the soft
substance of a sofa pillow under her head, the hard lump that was
her husband's arm supporting her shoulders.

"That's it--now she's all right!" said Kane Salisbury, his kind,
concerned face just above her own. Mrs. Salisbury shifted heavy,
languid eyes, and found Sandy.

"Darling, you fell!" the daughter whispered. White-lipped, pitiful,
with tears still on her round cheeks, Sandy was fanning her mother
with a folded newspaper.