them giggling all the way down the hall, the sound broken once by the loud anxious miauw of the cat.
Marise stood perfectly still till she heard the outer door open and close. Then she looked about her wildly. She wanted to run somewhere and hide her face. She wanted to sink down on the floor; she wanted somebody to help her, to make it up to her, some one to wipe it away and put her back where she had been three minutes before, when Jeanne and Isabelle had come in the door. She couldn't go on, living the way she felt now, as though she were dirty inside and couldn't wash herself clean. What was it all about? What had it meant? What was there about having a husband that people thought was so . . .?
At this it came over her in a wave again, so that she started as though she had been struck a slashing blow, and ran, ran breathlessly out to get help.
In the dark hall she stood still, the thump, thump of her heart loud in her ears. A murmur of voices came from the salon. Maman had callers. . . . But even if she hadn't, Marise now knew she could not have spoken to Maman about it. Something came and stood between her and Maman so that she knew she could not tell her. She had a horrible fear that Maman would look that way, too, perhaps she might laugh that way . . . perhaps everybody would. Perhaps that was one of the things they did. Not Father, either . . . no, she'd be ashamed of . . . not . . . why, there was nobody she could tell; there was nowhere to run for help.
She went slowly back to her room. The sight of it brought up before her again the glistening eyes of the two women as they had looked at the cat and laughed. A terrible burning came up all over her so that she was almost suffocated. She wanted to hide her face. She found herself leaning against the dingy, checked red-and-white curtains. They smelled of dust as she buried her face in them, burrowing deeper and deeper among them as though she must hide herself, hide herself from . . . but she couldn't hide herself from what was inside her own mind.
She stood there a long time, her face pressed into the dusty
