children very much as a tree puts out leaves every spring. This year it
seemed to have occurred to her that she would not have a baby. At least
she did not. Instead of that she had taken a verdant new lease on life
herself, apparent in the figured muslins which she got from the
Cooeperative Store. Coleman attributed her activities, which he called
"social," to the fact that she could "go out."

She looked now in the soft lamplight like an enormous azalea in full
bloom. She sat with folded hands humming a tune, not any known air, but
one of those nasal harmonies women sometimes accomplish through their
noses as a cat purrs to signify content.

The humming annoyed Coleman. Everything annoyed him these days. He
fidgeted, slapped one knee violently over the other, and jerked the
_Signal_ open as if he would rend it sheet from sheet.

"Hu-u-m, hu-e-e-u-m hum!" droned Mrs. Coleman, her eyes fixed upon a
large chromo of the Virgin Mary and the Infant Jesus hanging upon the
opposite wall.

Perspiration broke out in beads upon her husband's brow. He uncrossed
his legs and brought his foot down with a bang on the floor. Surely she
would understand that he was disturbed. She did not. She went on.

"H-u-m, hu-e-e-um, hum----"

He leaped from his chair, strutted into the hall and out upon the
veranda.

"Hu-u-e-e hum!"

It followed him through the windows of the library, which were open.

He rushed back, his hands clenched behind his back, his whole body
inflated with rage.

"Agatha!" he exclaimed, planting himself squarely in front of her. "Will
you stop making a trombone of your nose?"

"You must be nervous," she said, looking up at him serenely.

"I _am_ nervous, I'm nearly crazy. This town is going to hell!"

"Your language, Stark! If----"

"Don't talk to me about my language, Agatha! The native speech of hell
is blasphemy, and I've been in it for two months. I should think you
would have noticed the condition I'm in."

"I have."

"Then why do you make that infernal noise through your nose?"

"I suppose it's because I am happy." She said that!

"Happy! Look here, I must prepare you for what's coming. The bank's
going to fail."

"Oh, no!"

"Yes, it is. We haven't made a loan in six weeks. We've been obliged to
turn down nearly fifty thousand dollars' worth of investments since that
woman became director. She represents a majority of the stocks and she
refuses to lend a dollar or to risk a single cent on