hands it looked small, absurd.

"I--I want to tell you something, Tillie. Don't count on it too much;
but Mrs. Schwitter has been failing rapidly for the last month or two."

Tillie caught his arm.

"You've seen her?"

"I was interested. I wanted to see things work out right for you."

All the color had faded from Tillie's face.

"You're very good to me, Mr. Le Moyne," she said. "I don't wish the poor
soul any harm, but--oh, my God! if she's going, let it be before the
next four months are over."

K. had fallen into the habit, after his long walks, of dropping into
Christine's little parlor for a chat before he went upstairs. Those
early spring days found Harriet Kennedy busy late in the evenings, and,
save for Christine and K., the house was practically deserted.

The breach between Palmer and Christine was steadily widening. She was
too proud to ask him to spend more of his evenings with her. On those
occasions when he voluntarily stayed at home with her, he was so
discontented that he drove her almost to distraction. Although she was
convinced that he was seeing nothing of the girl who had been with
him the night of the accident, she did not trust him. Not that girl,
perhaps, but there were others. There would always be others.

Into Christine's little parlor, then, K. turned, the evening after he
had seen Tillie. She was reading by the lamp, and the door into the hall
stood open.

"Come in," she said, as he hesitated in the doorway.

"I am frightfully dusty."

"There's a brush in the drawer of the hat-rack--although I don't really
mind how you look."

The little room always cheered K. Its warmth and light appealed to his
aesthetic sense; after the bareness of his bedroom, it spelled luxury.
And perhaps, to be entirely frank, there was more than physical comfort
and satisfaction in the evenings he spent in Christine's firelit parlor.
He was entirely masculine, and her evident pleasure in his society
gratified him. He had fallen into a way of thinking of himself as a sort
of older brother to all the world because he was a sort of older brother
to Sidney. The evenings with her did something to reinstate him in his
own self-esteem. It was subtle, psychological, but also it was very
human.

"Come and sit down," said Christine. "Here's a chair, and here are
cigarettes and there are matches. Now!"

But, for once, K. declined the chair. He stood in front of the fireplace
and looked down at her, his head