laugh; his eyes, morose and cynical, held her there.

"That's what you want.... At least I hope you do. If you didn't----"

She fenced off the danger. "Do _you_ want _me_ to be miserable,
then?"

At that he laughed out. "No. I don't. I don't care how happy you are."

She took the pain of it: the pain he meant to give her.

That evening he hung over Priscilla with a deliberate, exaggerated
tenderness.

"Dear.... Dearest...." He spoke the words to Priscilla, but he sent out
his voice to Harriett. She could feel its false precision, its intention,
its repulse of her.

She was glad to be gone.



VII


Eighteen seventy-nine: it was the year her father lost his money. Harriett
was nearly thirty-five.

She remembered the day, late in November, when they heard him coming home
from the office early. Her mother raised her head and said, "That's your