s disapproval of her
reluctance to free him from his promise. She remembered one time when
she had come home from school in a pelting rain that had changed,
suddenly, to hail. There had seemed no escape from the hard, little
balls and their cruel bruises. Just so, it seemed to her, from Martin,
outwardly so calm as he read his paper, the harsh, determined thoughts
beat thick and fast. Turn what way she would, they surrounded, enveloped
and pounded down upon her. Her resolution weakened. Wasn't she paying
too big a price for what was, after all, only material? The one time she
and Martin had seemed quite close had been the moment in which she had
agreed so quickly to change the location of the concrete floor. Now she
had utterly lost him. She could scarcely endure the aloofness with which
he had withdrawn into himself.

"Martin," she said a bit huskily, two evenings later, at supper, "I've
decided that you are right. It is foolish and extravagant of me to want
a second story when there are just the two of us. It will be better to
have all those other things you told me about."

Martin did not respond; simply continued eating without looking up. This
was a habit of his that nearly drove Rose desperate. In her father's
household meals had always been friendly, sociable affairs. Patrick
Conroy had been loquacious and by way of a wit; sharpened on his, Rose's
own had developed. They had dealt in delicious nonsense, these two, and
had her husband been of a different temperament she might have found it
a refuge in her life with him. But, somehow, from the first, even before
they were married, when with Martin, such chatter had died unuttered on
Rose's tongue. The few remarks which she did venture, nowadays, had the
effect of a disconcerting splash before they sank into the gloomy depths
of the thick silence. Occasionally, in sheer self defense, she carried
on a light monologue, but Martin's lack of interest gave her such an
odd, lonely, stage-struck sensation that she, too, became untalkative,
keeping to herself the ideas which chased through her ever-active mind.
Innately just, she attributed this peculiarity of his to the fact
that he had lived so long alone, and while it fretted her, she usually
forgave him. But tonight, as no answer came, it seemed to her that
if Martin did not at least raise his eyes, she must scream or throw
something.

"It would be a godsend to be the sort who permits oneself to do such
things," she