he saw there
was something of the Iowa girl. One woman walked as she did, another
made a gesture with her hand that reminded of her. All the women he saw
except only his wife and his mother-in-law were like the girl he had
taken inside himself.

The two women in his own house puzzled and confused him. They became
suddenly unlovely and commonplace. His wife in particular was like some
strange unlovely growth that had attached itself to his body.

In the evening after the day at the factory he went home to his own
place and had dinner. He had always been a silent man and when he did
not talk no one minded. After dinner he, with his wife, went to a
picture show. When they came home his wife's mother sat under an
electric light reading. There were two children and his wife expected
another. They came into the apartment and sat down. The climb up two
flights of stairs had wearied his wife. She sat in a chair beside her
mother groaning with weariness.

The mother-in-law was the soul of goodness. She took the place of a
servant in the home and got no pay. When her daughter wanted to go to a
picture show she waved her hand and smiled. "Go on," she said. "I don't
want to go. I'd rather sit here." She got a book and sat reading. The
little boy of nine awoke and cried. He wanted to sit on the po-po. The
mother-in-law attended to that.

After the man and his wife came home the three people sat in silence for
an hour or two before bedtime. The man pretended to read a newspaper. He
looked at his hands. Although he had washed them carefully grease from
the bicycle frames left dark stains under the nails. He thought of the
Iowa girl and of her white quick hands playing over the keys of a
typewriter. He felt dirty and uncomfortable.

The girl at the factory knew the foreman had fallen in love with her and
the thought excited her a little. Since her aunt's death she had gone to
live in a rooming house and had nothing to do in the evening. Although
the foreman meant nothing to her she could in a way use him. To her he
became a symbol. Sometimes he came into the office and stood for a
moment by the door. His large hands were covered with black grease. She
looked at him without seeing. In his place in her imagination stood a
tall slender young man. Of the foreman she saw only the gray eyes that
began to burn with a strange fire. The eyes expressed eagerness, a
humble and devout eagerness. In the presence of a man with such eyes she
f