She brought her apron up over her head with a quick movement that was half shame, half reticence. He went toward her, tearing the covering from her face. The look she gave him betrayed her secret. He felt a curious impotence as if the shaft he had sent winging toward her had been turned back on him. He turned awkwardly away, slipping into his coat again. The sound of the barking dog came nearer. He wondered what he had better do.

A child! A boy . . . perhaps a girl.

Somehow, the wings of his imagination sped upward for a fluttering moment, lighting on a vague, intangible hope, an impersonal hope that he could not define. It had nothing to do with him and yet it was in every sense a part of his being a sort of vicarious impulse toward perfection. It was like smiling back at a babe. As wistful and irrational and full of faith as that-and almost as fleeting.

Instantly he felt ashamed of his weakness. Like a boy caught in an act of gentleness, he began to swagger again. He looked at the woman sharply. She had recovered from her confusion and her face had a new dignity as if she felt herself standing on firmer ground. But, he knew, even now, that her integrity still hung in the balance. This knowledge completely recaptured his old insolence. What did he care?

The money, lying on the table, meant nothing. There were other farmhouses with cracked teapots. But he would tramp many a mile without a chance to match the general prospect before him. The thrill of the woman's touch still shook him, but his pride discounted this circumstance. He admitted difficulties, but tough propositions always had challenged him-won him. In town, among his associates he had been noted for his ability to put over the impossible. He liked to get his teeth into the hide of intrenched respectability. He liked to He liked to

ready he hated this woman's husbandhated his complacency. He was a man who ordered his wife to keep the door closed against vagabondage, was he?... Well, one could see how she obeyed.

The barking of the dog came nearer and nearer. The woman was regarding him with a sort of anxious terror.

"Why don't you go?" she cried out suddenly. "Why don't you take the money and leave?"

"Money-I don't want your money!" he said with a sneer. "I want your husband to give me a job. . . . You act as if you were afraid to have me round."

She faced him desperately. "If you don't leave I'll lie about you!" she shrilled. "I'll tell my husband you insulted me."

"Try it!" he returned coolly. "You know what he'll say: 'What did you let him in for?""

"But he'll settle with you first."

"Perhaps but I won't have to live with him after, and you will.... 'Now, if you'd done what I told you,' that's what you will hear morning, noon, and night!"

"How do you know so much about it?"

"Oh, I've lived with married couples," he said, ironically.

"With-with that family in Minnesota, you were telling me about? . . . I knew you were that man!"

He answered with a venomous laugh. She turned suddenly white and sat down. A heavy step clattered along the low, rickety porch.

"That's Jim!" she said in a frightened whisper.

He threw back his head. "Call him in! I'm ready for him!"

She began to scream with diabolic vehemence like a woman in the grip of nightmare. The door flew open: Finderson made a quick movement toward his hip pocket.

They stood glaring at each other, Jim's head thrust slightly forward, a

pistol already in his hand. Every muscle of the two men was taut with instinctive hostility of males unsettled by a woman. Finderson had to admit that the man opposite him would prove an equal match, but he had worsted better men in his day. He was dealing with a man quick to settle an account but, once past the point of violence, one who would have the sense to think in terms of expediency. Finderson knew that he must direct his first move toward the drawn pistol. He was clever enough to keep his hand suggestively where it had flown at the first hint of danger on his hip pocket, but he decided against anything beyond a hint of readiness. How could he get the woman's husband to put up his gun? ... Quite suddenly it flashed upon Finderson that the unborn child was his strongest ally; upon the child hung the whole adventure; the child that would one day be watching its mother drop marital plunder into a cracked teapot. He spoke calmly, yet with the cautious lightness of a skater aware of the thinness of the ice. "This kind of a scene ain't the best thing in the world for the little lady, is it?" he drawled significantly.

Jim stared, looked at his wife, put up his pistol. Finderson had won the first victory.

The interrogative silence fell again; Finderson was determined that this time the woman should break it. Already, with his usual facility, he was framing replies to any charges she might make. The more desperate her claims the more convinced he would be that he had her in his power. Her weakness would be in proportion to the extent of her lies. He knew enough about innocence to know that it came pretty near being invincible. You couldn't confuse a man who hadn't trespassed. And she knew, as well as he did, that she couldn't bring a single charge against him. Beyond suggesting that she fetch him the cracked teapot, he hadn't even

given her an arrogant order. The cracked teapot! It lay upturned upon the table with its loot circling it. He wondered just what she would say about that. If she would only lie! . . . If she would only lie, both she and her husband were as good as delivered into his hands. He wouldn't even have to prove himself-the candor and fearlessless of his replies would save him, would win the husband over. The man couldn't help but see he was telling the truth. Yes, it would be as simple as that. He had been accused too many times of misdeeds-falsely or otherwise, not to know the confidence with which one faced empty charges.

The woman would lie and Finderson would reply calmly; truthfully, to every accusation. The husband would question her then, his voice tinged with baffled suspicion. At this she would protest too much, become hysterical. Then Finderson would step in:

"It doesn't matter. . . . I understand. . . . It's her condition. . . . I'm the oldest of ten-I know all about such things."

She'd never stand up under that. Jim would be embarrassed, ashamed, grateful. She'd fling herself out of the room, weeping. Then over a pipe the men would talk self-consciously of far-removed topics. He'd stay on, of course that was inevitable, for a week, a month until he'd accomplished his twofold purpose. .. Before he had finished with them both, Jim would be glad to come through handsomely. Jim wouldn't flash a gun again. That moment had passed.

The woman had risen, in a moment she would be speaking. Finderson's lip curled with satisfaction. The lies were to begin.

"I dunno what's the matter with me," she began. “I just had a sort of sinking feeling. . . . I was that scared!" Finderson blinked in confusion. "This manhe wants a job! . . . I told him to wait."

That was the woman for you! You never could tell about a woman. A

moment before she had been screaming out at him, asking him to go! Now, she was calmly giving in to him. Did she want him to stay or was she trying to confuse him?

Finderson could have predicted the husband's course down to a hair's breadth. But this woman! Damn her, you'd never be sure of her!

Jim was talking to him—asking him where he'd come from. Did he really want a job?

Well, he could play her game: he could confuse her with the unexpected. Besides, in the long run, a little urging from Jim would strengthen his position.

. . No, he didn't want a job. He just had been longing for a warm hour by the fire. He'd be moving on right away.

A nasty frown was curdling Jim's forehead and his questioning glance traveled between his wife and Finderson with unpleasant directness. Finally his eyes fell upon the silver coins encircling the cracked teapot. The woman saw it. What would she say, now? How would she explain the presence of the money to her husband?

"You don't want to forget your money!" She was talking to him, Finderson.

Finderson gasped. Imagine her having the wit to get around it like that. God, she was clever! . . . She'd have made a magnificent pal! For the second time she had disarmed him with an unlooked-for move.

woman. "You're right!" he laughed. "There's a new one born every minute!" She flushed.

Finderson made a pretense of moving toward the door. The woman's husband took the pipe out of his mouth. "I'd like it fine, if you'd stay!" he exclaimed with some warmth. "It ain't often I run into a likely man. . . . I want to apologize for that pistol stuff. Of course, soon as I really seen yer I realized you was all right. . . . But, then, when a woman hollers, yer know.

And then the wife Well, I guess yer know how things is with her."

He broke off in confusion and Finderson found the words that he had planned only a few moments ago rising to his lips:

"Yes, I understand. . . . I'm the oldest of ten. . . . I know about such things!"

"That's another reason I'd like yer to stay," Jim mumbled awkwardly. “I could pick up a lotta rotten trash-but -well, at a time like this I wanta feel comfortable about the man who's here with me and the wife-you know!"

Finderson smiled inwardly. This woman's husband was too easy! Yes, easier than that man in Minnesota. He glanced at the woman; she had the look of a fluttering bird charmed by a reptile, at once terrified and expectant. A sense of his power over the two people standing before him almost brought a chuckle to his lips. He liked the sensation of Jim's importunities. "Oh, I guess I'd better be on my way," he murmured, continuing his

He scooped the coins loosely into his coat pocket. Jim's face cleared and Finderson knew that the implication of resources had raised him immeasurably in the other's eyes.

"That's a fool way to carry money," Jim commented. "Don't you realize how many crooks there are in the world?"

Finderson looked directly at the

His eyes fell again on the woman. She had caught up the cracked teapot and she was holding it almost fiercely at her breast.

"Couldn't yer stay on for a couple of weeks?" Jim was saying. "A week even?-it would help out lots."

Finderson cleared his throat to answer, and at that moment the cracked teapot fell in a shattered heap to the floor.