That creak
which lies hidden in every darkness, like a mysterious knee joint. By
three o'clock she was a quivering victim to these petty concepts, and
her pillow so explored that not a spot but was rumpled to the aching lay
of he cheek.

Once Alma, as a rule supersensitive to her mother's slightest unrest,
floated up for the moment out of her young sleep, but she was very
drowsy and very tired, and dream tides were almost carrying her back as
she said:

"Mamma, you all right?"

Simulating sleep, Mrs. Samstag lay tense until her daughter's breathing
resumed its light cadence.

Then at four o'clock the kind of nervousness that Mrs. Samstag had
learned to fear began to roll over her in waves, locking her throat and
curling her toes and fingers and her tongue up dry against the roof of
her mouth.

She must concentrate now--must steer her mind away from the craving!

Now then: West End Avenue. Louis liked the apartments there. Luxurious.
Quiet. Residential. Circassian walnut or mahogany dining room? Alma
should decide. A baby-grand piano. Later to be Alma's engagement gift
from "mamma and--papa." No, "mamma and Louis." Better so.

How her neck and her shoulder blade and now her elbow were flaming with
the pain. She cried a little, quite silently, and tried a poor, futile
scheme for easing her head in the crotch of her elbow.

Now then: She must knit Louis some neckties. The silk-sweater stitch
would do. Married in a traveling suit. One of those smart dark-blue
twills like Mrs. Gronauer, junior's. Topcoat--sable. Louis' hair
thinning. Tonic. O God! let me sleep! Please, God! The wheeze rising in
her closed throat. That little threatening desire that must not shape
itself! It darted with the hither and thither of a bee bumbling against
a garden wall. No! No! Ugh! the vast chills of nervousness. The flaming,
the craving chills of desire!

Just this last giving-in. This one. To be rested and fresh for him
to-morrow. Then never again. The little beaded hand bag. O God! help me!
That burning ache to rest and to uncurl of nervousness. All the thousand
thousand little pores of her body, screaming each one to be placated.
They hurt the entire surface of her. That great storm at sea in her
head; the crackle of lightning down that arm--

"Let me see--Circassian walnut--baby grand--" The pores demanding,
crying--shrieking--

It was then that Carrie Samstag, even in her lovely pink nightdress a
crone with pain, and the cab