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Survey
Index
List Of Figures And Tables
Figures
1.1 Business analytics in context (Vidgen 2014)

1.2 Open data available from the London Datastore (LDS) for ‘Crime and
Community Safety’

1.3 The Internet of Things

1.4 Google Glass ( https://www.varifocals.net/google-glass/ )

1.5 A taxonomy of disciplines related to analytics (Mortenson et al. 2015)

1.6 Business analytics function

2.1 Core elements of a business analytics development function

2.2 Steps in the analytics process

2.3 Phases of the CRISP-DM reference model (Chapman et al. 2000, p.13)

2.4 An A/B test

2.5 An A/B test in the UK courts service (Haynes et al. 2012, p. 10, fig. 5)
2.6 Artificial intelligence (AI), machine learning, and deep learning
(reprinted from Chollet 2018, p.4, Copyright (2018) with permission
from Manning Publications)

2.7 Data scientist attributes (Data Science Radar™, Reprinted with

permission from Mango Solutions 2019)

2.8 The DataRobot approach to automated machine learning ( https://

blog.datarobot.com/ai-simplified-what-is-automated-machine-learning )

2.9 Aligning the analytics development function

3.1 From data to wisdom

3.2 Farr’s analysis of mortality data (Farr 1885)

3.3 Farr’s analysis of cholera mortality data (Farr 1852)

3.4 Two movies compared

3.5 Data quality in context

3.6 Data quality in six dimensions

3.7 Normal distribution (mean = 0, sd = 1)

3.8 Exponential distribution

4.1 Anscombe’s quartet

4.2 Scatter plot showing the relationship between television, earnings

and age for a

small sample of the dataset

4.3 Heat map showing the relationship between television, earnings, and
age for the entire dataset

4.4 The top of the SAS VA homepage window

4.5 Data Explorer window

4.6 Data options.

4.7 Automatic chart

4.8 Properties of the automatic chart

4.9 Role tab options

4.10 Bar chart aggregated by the sum of each employee’s age

4.11 Change the aggregation on a bar chart

4.12 Bar chart aggregated by the average age of each employee

4.13 Bar chart of average age across job roles and gender

4.14 How to change properties of a graph so gender is grouped

4.15 Better bar chart of average age across job roles and gender

4.16 Data pane for the dataset country

4.17 Creating a hierarchy for the dataset country

4.18 Creating a custom category for the dataset country

4.19 Creating a new variable for the dataset country

4.20 Viewing the properties of measure data

4.21 Bar chart in SAS VA

4.22 Bar chart with grouping in SAS VA

4.23 Histogram in SAS VA

4.24 Line chart in SAS VA

4.25 Scatter chart in SAS VA

4.26 Bubble charts in SAS VA

4.27 Pie charts

4.28 Bar charts displaying the same information as the pie charts in
Figure 4.6

4.29 Box plot showing outliers

4.30 Tree map

4.31 Heatmap

4.32 Geo map

4.33 Correlation matrix

4.34 Bar chart displaying the proportion of customers who are smokers

4.35 Histogram of the age variable

4.36 Setting a filter

4.37 Creating a new variable, age 2

4.38 Histogram of BMI

4.39 Bar chart visualization showing charges by region and sex

4.40 Bar chart visualization showing average charges by region and

smoker

4.41 Bar chart visualization showing average charges by region, whether

the charge is from a smoker and whether BMI is over or under 30

4.42 Line chart visualization showing average charges by age, whether

the charge was made by a smoker, and whether BMI is over or under 30

4.43 Nested if statements

4.44 BMI and smoker grouped by age

4.45 Bubble chart of BMI and smoker

4.46 Bubble chart grouped by male and female

5.1 Clustering Mario Kart characters

5.2 Example of a dendrogram for hierarchical clustering

5 3 Example of k-means clustering

5.4 Individuality of countries in the dataset (higher scores represent

greater individualism and lower scores represent more collectivist
societies)

5.5 Default clustering of the Hofstede dataset

5.6 Cluster matrix for all six dimensions

5.7 Parallel coordinate plot for three clusters

5.8 Geo map of cultural clusters (based on three cluster groups)

5.9 Geo map cultural clusters (based on ten cluster groups)

6.1 Graph of exam marks – actual versus predicted (mean)

6.2 Scatter plot of hours of revision against exam mark with a fitted
regression line

6.3 Scatter plot of hours of revision against exam mark with a fitted
regression line and error terms

6.4 Creating a simple linear regression model in SAS VA

6.5 Linear regression model results in SAS VA

6.6 Multiple regression visualization produced in SAS VA

6.7 Residuals (scatter plot)

6.8 Residuals (histogram)

6.9 Residual plot – identifying outliers

6.10 Influence plot

6.11 Kitchen quality as a single, categorical predictor of sale price

6.12 Creating an interaction effect

6.13 Setting the variable selection parameter

6.14 House sale price model (variable selection = 0.01)

6.15 House sale price model – variables included

7.1 Online calculator of a natural logarithm for value 3 ( http://www.

1728.org/logrithm.htm )

7.2 Online calculator of a natural anti-logarithm http://www.1728.org/

logrithm.htm )

7.3 The logistic function

7.4 Expressing logit as a probability

7.5 Setting the response variable for logistic regression

7.6 Setting the response event

7.7 Setting properties of the analysis

7.8 SAS VA logistic regression results

7.9 SAS VA logistic regression fit summary

7.10 SAS VA logistic regression assessment – misclassification

7.11 SAS VA logistic regression assessment – lift

7.12 SAS VA logistic regression assessment – ROC

7.13 SAS VA logistic regression assessment – inspection of residuals

7.14 SAS VA logistic regression assessment – residuals

7.15 SAS VA generalized linear model (GLM) applied to logistic

regression

7.16 SAS VA GLM model results

8.1 An illustration of a decision tree

8.2 Creating a SAS VA decision tree with Sex as predictor

8.3 Setting the event level to ‘Survived’

8.4 SAS VA decision tree model with Sex as a single predictor

8.5 SAS VA decision tree model with Sex and Age as predictors

8.6 Entropy graph

8.7 SAS VA decision tree variables and growth strategy

8.8 SAS VA decision tree

8.9 SAS VA decision tree model performance

8.10 SAS VA decision tree model performance – misclassification

8.11 SAS VA decision tree model advanced growth strategy

8.12 SAS VA decision tree model advanced growth strategy

8.13 SAS VA decision tree model custom growth strategy

8.14 Model comparison – selecting the models to be compared

8.15 Model comparison – logistic regression vs. decision tree

8.16 Decision tree with a continuous target

8.17 Decision tree with a continuous target

8.18 Variables used to predict house price (partial)

8.19 Model performance (ROC curve)

9.1 Example of a social network diagram

9.2 Unordered and ordered divergent colour spectrums

9.3 Sample idea illustration – publication process

9.4 Sample idea generation – brainstorming for health analytics ( www.

flickr.com/photos/juhansonin/3093096757 ).

9.5 Sample DataViz – a dashboard (commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:

Opsview_Monitor_6.0_Dashboard.jpg)

9.6 Sample visual discovery – exploring countries’ wine by price and

production quantity
9.7 Sample dashboard showing a report on sales execution

9.8 First bar chart in the sample report on sales execution

9.9 Two bar charts for the sample report on sales execution

9.10 First two bar charts with bullet gauges in the sample report on sales
execution

9.11 Formatted bullet gauges in the sample report on sales execution

9.12 Sample report on sales execution with controls to filter data on

Performance and non-auto firms with 100K or less revenue

9.13 Interaction view for the sample report on sales execution

9.14 Using hierarchies in the sample report on sales execution

9.15 Dashboard on sales execution in the Report Viewer

10.1 The DataRobot predictive modelling process

10.2 Creating a new project in DataRobot

10.3 Uploading data

Discovering Diverse Content Through
Random Scribd Documents
She saw her breast. Strange shiver of curiosity about herself. Why
did it hurt her to see her breast? She covered it up.
She looked at herself, into her hot eyes. Something cried inside her
for mercy, but she would not take her hot angry eyes from the face
in the glass. No use to beat about the bush and pretend to be
highfalutin'. Wanted what Winnie wanted. Disliked Winnie. She had a
corroding sensation in her throat as though she tasted metal. Then
shame mounted hot over her as though it were swallowing her. She
resisted being swallowed. Her skin quivered against the hot cold
engulfing sense of degradation. She was like a bird alive in a snake's
body.
Something tightened in her soul, and the emotion she had
experienced the moment before flowed away from her. Receding, it
left a hardened accretion like petrifying lava flowing down cold from
a volcanic crater.
Still she stared at herself. Homely woman. It seemed to her that her
veins crept like snakes along her arms. Life stealing upon one
through the veins. Stealthy life running red and silent in its
bitterness through the body. Where to go to? Horace Ridge. He has
any woman he wants. Famous man. Me.
She felt slightly intoxicated by a frank acknowledgment of her
absurdity. Her horror of herself crept over her body, shameful
because of no use.
I can't endure it!
Her wrist pressed against her teeth and made a mark, but no blood
came. She wanted to tear away her flesh, but it seemed to resist
her. It was full of hurt where her teeth had pressed. Life sucked at
her like a wild beast.
She turned from the mirror and hurled herself face downward
sobbing on the bed. Her body oppressed her.
She cried a long time. The work would have to go. At last she crept
off the bed and undressed herself and put out the light, but she lay
awake, and the darkness remained electric and horrible. She closed
her eyes and tried to shut out its intimacy.
Mamma and Papa Farley. What was wrong between them? Sex.
Horror. She tried to keep her thoughts from integrating. Child. She
bit her wrist again and turned over in bed. Too proud to hate
Winnie. Other girls. Their faces opened against hers. They were
white and flowering in the dark. Eyes open, waiting to receive men.
She shivered. One must think about these things. Winnie's
maternity. Bobby seemed slimed all over with Winnie. To wash
Bobby clean—clean of Winnie!
Alice was still awhile. She was dark inside, but the dark grew calm.
She began to go over things very clearly. What was passion?
Fourteen years old. Pain. Words written on back fences.
I am glad to be out of it. Poor little Winnie.
Outside, cool. Cool ache of being outside life.
Horace Ridge's settled form, quiet against the dancing window. He
turned in his chair. Kind eyes behind glasses. He could keep people
outside him because he had all they could give him already there
behind brown agate eyes.
Albert Price—short trousers, face like a girl's. They knew.
She, twenty-nine years old, outside their lives. She did not want her
body. If she could only make Horace Ridge understand that she had
no body! Clothes made her virgin when she was a mother. If she
could undress herself he would know that she was a mother. Clothes
made him forty-three years old, radical critic of life and manners,
ruined health, blindness incipient. She wanted to undress him to
show him how little he was.
Oh, dear! She cried. It hurt, but less. Oh, dear! Life was a muddle.
When one ceased to desire there was quiet, bitter and beautiful
quiet. Laurence, Winnie, Mamma and Papa, far away from her—
pathetic with distance. Horace Ridge far away from her. Her loving
him cool. Nothing. She wanted nothing. Heart in the breast coolly
melted like water in a still cup. In the bed in the darkness her still
heart reflected the shadows of hot summer pavements, brick houses
with fronts beaten flat and dull by sun, the moment before nightfall
when lights burst from the theater fronts and the streets were gay
with people in pale colored clothes. Then the heart was still, was
cool—was water into which the darkness came gratefully covering
the loneliness.

Alice was sorry for herself because she had a mother like Mrs. Farley.
Poor Papa Farley. Alice loved him and despised him. She did not love
her mother.
On Sunday when Alice went downstairs Mrs. Farley had on her gray
taffeta dress and was intent on setting the house right. She walked
stooped a little forward, her shoulders drawn together. The
eyeglasses that hung on her chest twinkled. Short straight soft hairs
floated, unpinned, at the nape of her neck. When she turned her
head the withered skin made fine swirls of wrinkles about her throat.
She walked very fast about the parlor putting the chairs in place.
She took short steps so that her haste appeared feverish. The
occasion seemed to fill her with a kind of worried happiness.
Mr. Farley had put on his frock coat. He had no dignity in it.
"Don't work too hard, Mother." He went into the dining-room smiling
in bland anticipation of whomever should be there.
Alice was at table. She was ashamed of her red eyes and barely
glanced up. "What would Mamma do if we forgot for one day to
object to her working so hard?"
Mr. Farley spread his coat-tails and sat down on the oak chair with
the imitation leather seat. Alice's remarks about her mother made
him feel guilty.
"We should have gotten up earlier so your mother wouldn't have the
dishes to worry about."
"I'm going to wash 'em," Alice said shortly.
It was a hot day. The clouded sky was a colorless glare. A thick wind
stirred the ragged awnings upstairs before the bedroom windows.
For a moment the sun came out as though an eye had opened. The
house fronts were a pale bright pink. Dust made little eddies in the
empty Sunday street. The awnings lifted, then hung inert like broken
wings. When a wagon passed you could hear, above the rattle of the
wheels, the muffled thud of the horse's feet striking the soft asphalt.
May was on the front steps. She wore a very stiffly starched white
dress and a pink sash, wilted and wrinkled by many tyings. Her hair
was brushed back very smooth and gathered away from her
forehead with a flapping bow. Pale with interest, her small face
turned toward the corner of the square as she watched for the
Prices to come.
In the parlor, Winnie stood out of sight behind the freshly laundered
curtains, and watched too. Laurence had left the house. She
wondered if he were going to avoid her parents.
As the time passed the sun disappeared again and shadows flowed
into the street which was as gray and still as water.
When the equipage with shining lacquered sides flashed into the
empty place May looked at it bewildered, but Winnie had seen it
through the window and recognized her parents.
The carriage drew up before the house and the wheels scraping the
curb made a long rasping sound. The chestnut horses were fat.
Their harness twinkled. They wriggled the stumps of their clipped
tails against the cruppers that constrained them. On their breasts
where the circingles had rubbed and on their flanks and buttocks the
hair was darkened and matted with lather.
May was afraid and proud because the beautiful horses stood before
her home. They stamped. A shiver ran along their satin bellies. Their
breasts and forelegs quivered with tension as they jerked their heads
in the check reins and pressed the street with harsh hoofs below
their rigid ankles. Watching them, May uttered a little cry of terror
and delight; but she thought some one had heard her and she
clapped her hand over her mouth.
The footman had jumped from his place, and Mr. and Mrs. Price
were descending from the carriage.
Indoors, Winnie felt her heart swell with a pain of pride. These were
her parents. All these years she had been robbed of this!
"Oh, Mamma Farley! They've come! They've come! I thought I
should never see them again!" Winnie's smooth fingers clutched Mrs.
Farley's stiff nerveless palm. "What shall I do? It hasn't been my
fault, has it, Mamma Farley?" Winnie's soft relentless gaze clung to
her mother-in-law's face.
Mrs. Farley nervously desired to evade. Winnie made her feel guilty
of the situation with which she had nothing to do.
"Now, dear! Now, dear! We won't talk about who's to blame. Could
your mother have written the note she did if she intended to
reproach you?"
"But Papa——And Laurence hasn't come back yet! He and Papa will
quarrel again! You shouldn't have let him do this way, Mamma
Farley! Oh, feel my hands! They're so cold!" Her eyes, large and
dark, shone with a languid and deliberate excitement. She wished
that Alice were in the room to see her. Wry thoughts of Laurence.
Resentment in Winnie's mind was like grit in something that
otherwise would have moved oiled.
"What must I do, Mamma Farley? Shall I go to the door?" Winnie
wrung her hands.
"I think you ought to meet her first. She would like to speak to you
before the rest of us come in."
"Oh, I can't! How can Laurence leave me like this?"
Mrs. Farley, called on again to explain Laurence, made some
meaningless gestures—clasped and unclasped her hands. Her
fingers, pressed hard as they intertwined, made her knuckles glow
white.
"Now, dear! Now, dear!"
"You must go with me! I can't bear it if Papa says anything to me
about Laurence! What shall I do?" Winnie dragged Mrs. Farley across
the brightly swept parlor carpet and into the hall.
May had already opened the front door. Mr. and Mrs. Price stood
against the light of the street, their faces in shadow. Behind them
the coachman was turning the carriage away. The footman sat very
straight with his arms folded. The wheel spokes flashed. The
polished black sides glistened.
Mrs. Price's flat face was very white above her elegant black dress.
There were fine lines of strain under her pale eyes staring wide
through her delicate pince-nez. The nostrils of her flat nose quivered
a little. She had a thin narrow body and broad flat hips. She was
breathing quickly. On her drawn lips there was a labored smile.
Mr. Price removed his beaver hat and revealed the top of his broad
flat head, bald and bright, above his hard eyes which were like
cloudy stones of pale blue. His thick under lip, thrust sullenly
forward, showed under his thin yellow-gray mustache. There was no
color anywhere about his face. Only under his chin where he had not
shaved clean you might detect his beard by a colorless shining.
There was a moment of silence and hesitation. "Winnie!" Mrs. Price's
voice shook. "Mamma!" They lay in each other's arms.
Mrs. Price's fragile hand moved uneasily over her daughter's hair.
Mr. Price, gruff and uncomfortable, his face unmoved, said, "Where
do I come in?"
Winnie reached out and patted her father's arm. He took her hand.
She kissed him, not wanting to. He made her think of herself. She
wanted to relax in joyous agony. Lifting her soft strange eyes to her
mother, Winnie was double, knowing, as before a mirror, how she
looked. Sweet to have people unkind when you could forgive them!
But behind everything the recollection of Laurie intruded harshly.
In the background Mrs. Farley stood uneasily, and May, afraid to
enjoy the family happiness, yet unable to leave, hopped from one
foot to the other with subdued exclamations, her face alternately
blank with confusion or atremble with response.
"Don't cry, Winnie, dear. We are all so glad, Mrs. Farley." Mrs. Price
pushed Winnie gently aside and put out a frail hand, determined,
though it shook a little. Mrs. Farley's fingers were clumsy, fumbling
for Mrs. Price. Mr. Price shook hands in a fat abrupt fashion. They
passed into the house.
"Not too much emotion. Not too much emotion," Mr. Price grumbled.
May retreated before him wonderingly. No one had noticed her.
Then Winnie said, "This is May, Mother."
They all stopped. May stopped inside herself. "Dear!" Mrs. Price had
kissed her. May knew the kiss to be stale, dry, with a bitter middle-
aged smell, and was ashamed of knowing. The dry bitter kiss drank
of May's coolness. She was dumb under the caress of the sick hand.
The parlor was clean and gloomy.
"Sit down, sit down," Mrs. Farley said. "I—we——" She was
trembling all over. She wept because of the rightness of things.
"Such a glare!" She tottered to the shade. Her silk dress rustled.
"There, Mrs. Farley. We're all right. An experience like this is good
for all of us. Christ has taught us to forgive our enemies and when
we do I believe we never have cause to regret it."
Mr. Price sat down awkwardly and coughed severely into his
mustache. His furtive gaze traveled malignantly about the shabby
room.
"How-d'ye-do, Mrs. Price? Mr. Price?" Alice walked heavily in among
them. Mrs. Price turned around, disconcerted. Their hands touched.
Alice seemed to take charge of things. Mrs. Price suddenly felt weak
and was obliged to seat herself.
Winnie was annoyed. She went up to Alice plaintively. "Oh, I'm so
happy, Alice!" She wept.
Alice was still, like a warm rock. "We're happy to see you happy."
As Alice remained gruff and unmoved Winnie became more humble.
"You don't look like it. Please let me be happy, Alice. I can't if—if
——"
"Nonsense," Alice said.
Winnie smiled mistily at everybody.
"Come sit by me. I want to see my dear little girl." Mrs. Price disliked
Alice, who remained hard and kind while Winnie cried with
happiness. "You're not well, I know. Mrs. Farley wrote me. There,
there. We must begin to take better care of you." Mrs. Price pulled
Winnie to her. Winnie's eyes, rapacious with humility, were lifted
again.
Mr. Farley came in, casting a rapid glance around the group. His
smile was patient. Fear made him tired.
"Well, well—we're so—Mrs. Price." He stopped before her, not sure
that she would shake hands with him. She gave him her finger tips
and he took them miserably.
"Yes, I'm sure you all enjoy seeing Winnie happy," Mrs. Price said.
She was cold and kind. Mr. Farley knew what she was thinking of—
Helen out in Kansas City. They had spoken of the old scandal in
objecting to Winnie's marriage.
"Mr. Price?"
"Hello, Farley. Hello." Mr. Price got up reluctantly. His hand clasp was
a condescension.
Mr. Farley had given his hand limply. His mouth bent with
acceptance. His smile was still tolerant but a little bitter, and he did
not look up.
"Winnie comes first, Farley. Time to disagree about other things
later."
"I hope we are through with disagreements."
"Yes, Farley, I hope we are. Ahem."
Mr. Price sat down again abruptly.
"I'm so happy, Papa Farley!"
Winnie's eyes. He shuddered, trying not to see them, fearful that he
would forget to smile. "I'm glad you are, dear."
Winnie clapped her hands and turned once more to her mother.
"Bobby! You haven't seen Bobby! Oh, he's the dearest——He's
upstairs taking a nap."
Alice stood defiantly in the center of the gloomy room, her feet
apart, her stout hips set out. "Want me to see if he's awake?"
"Suppose we all go out and leave Winnie alone with her parents for
a few minutes," Mrs. Farley suggested, her voice quavering slightly.
She puckered her lips and frowned, smiling about her at the group.
When she stood up her gray taffeta dress settled slowly, with a calm
sound, in folds about her. The hem lay out on the carpet. She had a
scrap of yellow lace at her neck and above it in her withered loose
skin you could see the flutter of a pulse.
"We certainly should," Alice said.
"Why, that's very nice. I don't——" Mrs. Price looked around,
uncertain, well-bred.
"Yes, yes. Come, May." Mrs. Farley took May's small cold hand, moist
in her dry one. Alice went first and Mr. Farley shuffled after the
others, head bent, smiling, not sure why they were going out.
Mrs. Price had risen with her husband and stood, sad and calm,
watching them leave. Life had wrung her, but she had grown sure in
compromise. There was dignity in her sureness.
"Well," said Mr. Price shortly, "I don't see that husband of yours
about!"
Winnie started tremulously. She smiled at him with a relaxed mouth.
"Papa, dear, I know——" She gulped, still smiling.
"Yes, I know. I know. I suppose he's run away from us."
"He'll probably be in later, won't he, dear?" Mrs. Price's transparent
smile was a thin shield guarding Winnie from her father.
Winnie tried to speak. Then she gave way and flung her white arms
about her mother's throat. "Oh, M-mother!"
"There, there. I know."
"Confound him!" said Mr. Price very savagely, biting his mustache.
"Please, Perry!"
"Oh, that's all right. That's all right. I'm not going to lose my
temper."
"Don't cry, Winnie. Sweet Winnie."
"What I want to know is whether that—whether he refused to meet
us or not?" Mr. Price asked.
"Oh, Mother—Papa—I——"
"Don't cry, Winnie. It's all right. Your father has resolved to overlook
things and if he can bring himself to do that about what has already
happened this last little rudeness certainly won't matter."
"But he said he—he would come."
"He did, eh? And then went out."
"Now, Perry—please?" Replying to his wife's pale smile, Mr. Price
coughed ambiguously.
"You need never be afraid of your father conducting himself in
anything but a generous manner, Winnie. I wish you might have
been at church last Sunday when he presented the new organ!"
"I know, but——"
"That's all very well, dear." Mrs. Price's voice had a disappearing
quality. It floated and drifted from her lips and her words died away
from her like the shed petals of a flower.
"I want—I want you and Papa to let me be happy! I—I——
Sometimes I think nobody's happy. Mamma and Papa Farley are not.
I——"
Above Winnie's bowed head Mr. and Mrs. Price exchanged glances.
"They don't deserve to be!" Mr. Price snorted after a minute.
Winnie glanced up. Mrs. Price's face twitched with worry.
"Now, Perry, dear, please? Remember! We decided not to speak of
that again." She nodded toward the closed door of the hall. "I
suppose by now you have heard all about Mamma and Papa Farley,
Winnie—all the things that worried your father so, that he tried to
tell you about when you and Laurence ran away—but living here
with them as you are, I think it best for us to try to forget it. Mrs.
Farley is a very long-suffering woman and has borne her lot very
patiently."
Winnie wanted to ask more. She hid her face again. Once Laurie——
"Laurence never talks of it, and you know before, when Papa tried to
tell me, how it was—you wouldn't let him. What was it, Mamma?"
"Do we need to talk about it, dear?" Mrs. Price stroked Winnie's hair.
"It was the talk about the town. I don't see why she shouldn't hear
it! I wanted her to know it all before so that she could understand
my objection to such a match."
"But we never understood clearly how it was ourselves, Perry. You
know when Winnie was married and you wanted to tell her I thought
it was no fit topic for a young girl. I said——"
"Yes, I know you said, but if she had known all about the thing from
the start she might have made a better match for herself. At any
rate, she's old enough to hear things now."
Winnie looked up and stood away from her mother. "Please, Papa,
Laurie——"
"Yes, Perry, it isn't right to Winnie. We mustn't feel this way about
her husband."
Winnie's little face was hard and a small soft fire of malice burned in
her eyes. Though she resented Laurence, she was with him against
her parents. She would have exulted in making them feel his
inexorableness. Because he was strong against them she seemed to
feel herself inside his strength, corroding it with her weakness.
Mingled with her desire to swallow her world was a vague terror of
her loneliness when it should happen.
"Well, that's all right, Vivien. I'll say nothing about her husband, but
that father-in-law of hers——It seems to me the more she knows
about him the better!"
"Perry, but in their house!" Mrs. Price was weary. Her smile seemed
to hurt her. Her white hands shook.
Winnie was drawn up taut, cautious like a savage on a spoor.
"Perhaps Father ought to tell me all of it," she said.
"But not now! Not here! You said you knew——"
"I did know there was some reason Mamma and Papa Farley didn't
get along. I knew there was a woman——"
"Yes! That miserable woman he was entangled with in that filthy
affair. I don't remember whether I told you that he tried to leave
Mrs. Farley and live with her. Helen—Wilson—something—Mrs.
Wilson. The husband had him up as co-respondent. Then they
discovered she was going to have a child." Mr. Price spoke gruffly
and hurriedly in a low voice and chewed his mustache.
Winnie trembled with excitement. Mamma and Papa Farley. Laurie.
She felt crafty and sure of herself. Why had Laurie never told her all
of this? He did not like to have her speak of it.
"Perry, we can not! We must not! For Winnie's sake!"
"Did Papa Farley and the woman have the child, Papa?"
"Oh, Winnie," Mrs. Price protested, "how can you ask such things!"
Mr. Price, hands in pockets, rose on his toes and sucked his
mustache in and out.
"They committed every sin which the flesh has been heir to since the
fall of man, so I suppose they had a child too."
"You don't know?"
"I have it on very good authority that they did."
"The child, of course, was spirited away."
"And where did the woman go?"
"Out West. To Kansas or Texas. Something." Still he rose on his toes.
The flavor of his mustache seemed to give him a peculiar relish.
"Oh, Papa, how awful! I didn't know it was as bad as that." Winnie
dilated with her secret. A quick passionate resolution of triumph shot
through her. Her eyes shone tragically.
"Winnie—my dear—you are in no state to hear things like this," Mrs.
Price said. There was a light knock at the door. "Psh!"
Mr. Price started a little, but continued to elevate and lower himself
on his toes and stare at the ceiling. Winnie clutched her hands to her
breast.
"Come in." Mrs. Price lifted her trembling voice.
Alice's face in the doorway. None of them could look at her. Winnie
met the face at last.
"Bobby's awake."
"Isn't that nice. Now I will see the dear baby."
"Yes, Mother. Come, Father." Winnie, with a high dreamy expression
of conscious pain, followed Alice out.
The bedroom, dark, cluttered by too great an attempt at coziness,
had grown a little shabby. The yellow shades were drawn under the
lace curtains. The blue carpet showed here and there a warp of
colorless cords. On the sofa the velvet and plush pillows were
embroidered with mottos and flowers. There were a heavy bureau,
an old-fashioned bed, and Bobby's crib. May slept in the nursery
across the hall.
Bobby, his eyes still opaque with sleep, sat upright in bed, a dreamy
look of disapprobation on his face.
Mrs. Price could say nothing for a moment, then, "How lovely! How
lovely! What a beautiful healthy child!"
Winnie caught him in her arms.
Mrs. Farley moved forward, feebly shocked. "He's too heavy! Oh,
you mustn't do that, Winnie!"
Winnie turned and gave him to her mother. Bobby's fat body was
sodden and relaxed in his grandmother's arms. Mrs. Price's resigned
hands moved over him agitatedly. "He's so beautiful!" Feeling
ashamed, she knew not why, she kissed him. "Look, Perry!"
"Fine boy," said Mr. Price.
Winnie danced about. "I knew you'd think so."
Mr. Farley waited sheepishly, approving with his patience.
"We're all proud of him," said Alice shortly. Mrs. Price glanced up
with a start. "He's a fine grandson," she declared after a minute.
There was something defiant in the way she stroked his hair, but she
remained very gentle and ladylike.
May stood to one side, quivering. She wanted them to see her but,
for fear they might send her away, kept very quiet. When Bobby did
not want to be petted she was uncomfortable and when he liked it
she was happy too.
Laurence had come into the house and, finding the lower floor
deserted, had gone upstairs. He stood in the bedroom doorway.
Winnie saw him first. She was disconcerted for a moment. A little
shiver of excitement went through her. But she recovered herself as
she gazed at him and felt small and strong.
"Laurie!" She made a cooing sound of pleasure. She turned to her
mother. "Oh, Mamma, I want you and Laurie to hug!"
Mrs. Price's face was stained with faint color. She grew brittle and
tense in her uncertainty. Holding Bobby on her arm, she put her
hand out. It was as if she put her hand between herself and
Laurence. "I hope we both love Winnie enough to overlook things,"
she said.
"I hope so, Mrs. Price," he agreed, coming forward, his lids drooping
as if to shut out the painful sight of them all. He smiled in shame.
They shook hands.
"Now, Papa!" Winnie led her father forward by his coat sleeve.
"How-d'ye-do, Farley? How-d'ye-do?" Mr. Price was bluff and
reluctant. Their hands barely touched. Laurence kept his glance on
the carpet.
"Now I am so happy!" Winnie clung to her husband's arm. Her
softness sank into him. He felt that if he lived he must harden
himself against it. When she finally freed him he drew a deep
unconscious breath. Then he forced his somber eyes full on Mrs.
Price's face. "I am thankful, for Winnie's sake, that you and Mr. Price
made up your minds to this," he said.
"We won't reproach ourselves with the past, Mr. Farley," Mr. Price
interrupted. He would not allow his wife to be addressed in lieu of
himself.
"I've never reproached myself, Mr. Price," Laurence answered coldly.
Still he looked away.
"I don't doubt it, Mr. Laurence Farley! I don't doubt it!" Mr. Price's
manner was full of secret scorn. He rocked on his toes and sucked
his mustache ends again.
"The babies are dears," Mrs. Price said. "Bobby is wonderful."
Laurence regarded Bobby. "Sit up. Hold your head up. Don't act as
though you were half asleep."
"Don't be cross with him, Laurie!" Winnie pouted. Laurence was
torn. He must refuse to praise Bobby as the Prices praised him.
Laurence felt that he could not protect his child against the
approbation of his enemies. May sidled up to her father. When she
touched him he did not look down at her, but put his arm about her.
He held his shame of her close in his heart like a wound that he
would not let be seen. He stroked her hair.
"Bobby is too heavy for you, Mrs. Price," Mrs. Farley protested,
coming forward with an air of furtive protest.
"No, no!" Mrs. Price, exaggeratedly polite, held him closer and
smiled. The smile made Mrs. Farley helpless. Mrs. Price knew it.
Mr. Farley had been outside the group. Now he moved nearer Mrs.
Price and, leaning forward, shook Bobby's inert fist. "You like your
old grandad, eh? You like your old grandad?"
Bobby scowled on them all and put his thumb to his mouth.
"What did I tell you about sucking your thumb?" Laurence
demanded sternly.
Winnie's sweet eyes, covert with knowledge, gloated on her
husband's face. "Don't be cross to him, Laurie, when everything's so
nice."
"Stop sucking your thumb." Laurence took Bobby's thumb down
from his mouth.
"For Heaven's sake, leave him alone. You'll nag him to death. All this
ohing and ahing is enough to drive him to something worse than
sucking his thumb," Alice said shortly.
Laurence gave her a swift contemptuous glance of anger, but
controlled himself. "That's a good boy," he said more kindly as Bobby
lifted himself straighter and stared around.
"Oh, everything's so nice! I was so afraid it wouldn't be!" Winnie
sighed again with happiness. Laurence passed his hand over his
eyes, the delicate hand that, below the coarse sleeve of his coat,
was like the revelation of a secret.
"You didn't think your husband was going to refuse to shake hands
with me, I hope?" Mr. Price demanded. His unsmiling joviality was
terrifying. No one could ever say exactly when he became serious
and he was perfectly aware of the tremors of uncertainty that stirred
in his hearers. He enjoyed disturbing them.
"We are exercising mutual forbearance," Laurence put in quietly. In
the irritation of Mr. Price's presence something was slipping from
Laurence's grasp. It was only half-heartedly that he continued to
hold himself.
"Forbearance toward me! I hope you don't think I want you to
exercise forbearance toward my religious views, young man! Has he
come to his senses since you married him, Winnie?"
Winnie smiled feebly. Laurence looked at the floor. His lip twitched.
Mr. Price seemed to wish to drown out the echo of his words in the
ears of those present and began to talk fiercely to Bobby. "Fine child.
Father not going to raise you up to be a prizefighter, is he? Wouldn't
surprise me. I hope your mother'll bring you up as a Godfearing
man. She mustn't leave your education regarding the next world to
your father. You'd better take him in hand, Winnie." He stared at his
daughter with his vague hard eyes.
Laurence felt his parenthood raped. "Winnie and I have come to a
perfect understanding regarding Bobby's education," he sneered.
Mr. Price glanced up at Laurence. "Have, eh? Ain't you an atheist?
Last time I talked with you, didn't you tell me you were an atheist?"
"I did, Mr. Price. I'm afraid I am deficient in tact." Smiling, Laurence
lifted eyes in which the light of hate was drawn inward toward some
obscure point of agony.
Mrs. Price set Bobby on the floor. His legs were stiff with being held
and he made a few steps away from her uncertainly like a drunkard.
"The dear child!" she murmured uneasily. Her quiet smile was over
her face like the still surface of a pool filled underneath with little
frightened fish.
"Tact, eh?" Mr. Price was not sure what the remark meant, but, to
give himself time, permitted a knowing twinkle to creep into his
eyes. He rose on his toes. "If you'll leave off trying to set up science
in the place of God we'll overlook your lack of tact," he conceded
finally.
Laurence bit his lips. He assumed an irritating air of indulgent
amusement. It was irresistible. He dared not look at Winnie. "I've
sworn to preserve a reverential silence in regard to all of your pet
fallacies, Mr. Price."
"My pet fallacies, eh! The years haven't taught you respect for the
opinions of your betters, then?"
"I've never met them," Laurence said. Mr. Farley coughed. Mrs. Price
had called Bobby back and was talking to him in a low tone, very
intently. Mrs. Farley talked to Bobby too. Alice made with her tongue
a clicking sound of impatience. Laurence had moved away from May.
She watched the men in controversy. Her mouth hung stupidly open.
She had a shivering white face and her eyes were all pupil. She
looked as though she had drowned herself in the darkness of her
own eyes.
"Please, you two!" Winnie laced and unlaced her fingers.
"You haven't? You know when you're in the wrong, do you?"
"On the rare occasions when that happens," Laurence said with an
ostentatious affectation of good humor.
"And you haven't found out yet that you're committing a sin when
you set yourself up in opposition to Divine Truth! You're very
complaisant, young man! Very complaisant! But I'll tell you that
Natural Science is out of date. The Darwinists and Haeckelists and
the rest of the dirty crew have to come crawling back to the Creator
they denied, with their tails between their legs."
"You're making a dangerous admission in acknowledging such an
appendage, Mr. Price." Smiling at the floor, Laurence reached out
and drew May to him again. He defied them with his loyalty to her.
"Am I? The devil had a tail before he ever heard of Darwin, seems to
me!" Mr. Price was still uneasy, but swelled a little with the readiness
of his retort.
"Laurie!" Winnie patted Laurence's sleeve, her voice humble.
The humility in her voice inferred something in him which outraged
his self-respect. "And I haven't a doubt that as in the present case
the ass had ears!" he said sharply.
Winnie began to cry.
"I'll go, Winnie," he told her. It was inevitable. He had been that way
before with Mr. Price. His hand fell from May's shoulder. He walked
out. In the silence the group could hear the thick beat of his feet as
he descended the carpeted stairs, and the reverberation of the front
door which he slammed as he passed into the street.
Mr. Price's face was a dull red. He puffed out his cheeks. "That's
what it comes to!" He shrugged his shoulders unutterably and
turned with a gesture of departure and dismissal.
"Please don't go, Father!"
Mrs. Farley was wringing her hands. As May watched she seemed to
be weeping from her own eyes her mother's tears.
"For Heaven's sake, don't take Laurence seriously, Mr. Price," said
Alice.
Mr. Price lifted both hands with the palms out. "I don't! I don't! God
forbid that any one should take that foolhardy blasphemy seriously."
Mr. Farley passed his hand over his face as though to brush away a
cloud. His eyes were uneasy, his smile one of apology. "Laurence will
regret it as soon as he is in the street."
"Regret! Regret's not the right emotion to recall that kind of talk. I
take no account of what he said to me, but no one can go about in
contempt of the God who made him and not suffer for it."
"I know——" Mr. Farley hesitated. His lips quivered a little.
"Oh, I knew I couldn't be happy!" sobbed Winnie.
Mrs. Price took her daughter in her arms. "Now, dear, your father
has made up his mind to be forbearing. He won't go back on his
word."
"No, I won't go back on my word, but I don't know whether I can
ever bring myself to the point of coming into this house again. Not
when that man's here."
"You oughtn't to take Laurence seriously, Mr. Price," Alice repeated.
"I think we ought to forget about him and not spoil Winnie's day."
"I can't forget about him, Alice!" Winnie lifted her head indignantly
from her mother's shoulder. Deep in her imagination Winnie, in a
lace nightdress, was putting her arms about Laurie's neck. Her veins
swelled strong and taut with confidence. She resented the injustice
of being forced to choose between Laurence and her parents.
Because of other things she could not forgive she would pardon him
the day's scene, but she would not pardon her parents yet.
"It's all right, dear. Miss Farley don't mean that. She only wants us to
forget the things your husband said to your father and I think that is
exactly right. After he considers it I am sure he will come to the
conclusion that he acted wrongly and be sorry too."
"I've had so much trouble," Winnie went on.
"Come, Bobby, let us all go downstairs and play games and help
Mamma to forget her troubles." Alice jerked Bobby's hand. Leaning
on her mother, Winnie followed. Mrs. Farley, her eyes red-rimmed
with unshed tears of perplexity, shambled after, her dress rustling
and disturbing her desire for self-effacement. Mr. Farley descended
the stairs with finger tips gliding along the rail, smiling the abased
smile of a blind man. May, hesitating on each step, dragged
unnoticed a long way behind.

In the early morning the cloudy air had a texture like wet wool. The
sky radiated colorless heat like a pool of warm water which one saw
into from the depths. Work had not yet begun on the corner house,
but in front of it dangled platforms suspended from pulleys. The
vacant windows smeared with paint gave the house the look of a
silly face smeared with weeping, an expression of tortured
immobility.
Alice, on her way to work, had just emerged from her front doorway.
As she descended to the street she watched ahead of her a tall, very
thin woman in a worn silk blouse and an old skirt that still smacked
of an ultra mode. The woman dragged beside her a very little boy in
tight pants and a gay shirt. The little boy, swinging by her hand,
leaned heavily away from her to pull a small red wooden wagon
after him.
When the woman turned her head Alice saw her bright blonde hair
combed in glossy and salient puffs, a cheap and unconscious
defiance above her wasted face and her breasts, sucked dry on her
flat body.
Alice walked after her. Life. Thinking of money. In the hot bed they
touched each other. Rent due. The child began to cry.
Old maid barricaded behind ridicule. Coolness of being outside.
Loneliness like a cool wound.
The woman went on. Taller, narrower in distance, with her long
limbs and graceful stoop she resembled a sculptured angel. Tomb.
Apartment. The woman walked before Alice into a narrow marble
doorway. The stone rolled back and the angel went into the tomb.
Haggard and bitter face. A little rouge put on carelessly. Despair. No
one knows why.

Laurence had come in during the night and gone to sleep on the box
couch without disturbing Winnie. In the morning she was the first to
awaken.
It had rained before dawn. The hot sun floated outside the window
in voluptuous mists. The white curtains seemed stained with the
pinkish-brown light. They swayed and parted and between their
folds the moist air flowed heavily from the steaming street.
Winnie could hear the staccato tap of a hammer on the house next
door. Horses' hoofs rang on the asphalt with a flat sound.
The curtains opened like lips and made a whispering noise. Then
Winnie could see the wet bronze roof opposite shining blankly
against the faint bright sky.
The room was crowded with the atmosphere of two people who
have quarreled. They were oppressed by their consciousness of each
other. Through the darkness of his shut lids Laurence, only feigning
sleep, tried to ascend above the close room and his almost
intolerable awareness of Winnie's presence.
She had seen his lids flutter. Tired and sweet, she regarded him
mercilessly. She could see how tense the lines of his body were
under the couch cover he had drawn up over his feet. His lids,
pressed tight together, twitched a little.
"Laurie!"
With a helpless feeling, he opened his eyes.
Winnie's heart beat combatively, triumphantly. "I've been lying here
looking at you," she said, her plaintive pout begging him to infer
everything. "Bobby's still asleep."
Bobby lay in his little bed relaxed like a drowned child. His lips were
pale. His face damp with the heat. His shock of blonde hair fell back
on the pillow away from his head. Winnie, beside her big baby,
abandoned herself to a sense of dependence which she felt him to
justify.
"Yes? I must have slept very hard." In an effort to hide his surprise
Laurence responded quickly to her overture. He sat up, smiling
elaborately, and began rubbing his eyes.
Winnie would not let him escape through such casualness. "Are you
still angry with me, Laurie?" She lifted herself among the pillows and
rested on one elbow. There was a terrible youngness about her soft,
hungrily uplifted face, her thin neck, the collar bones showing below
her white throat. Her eagerness was too vivid. He was conscious of
her rapacious youth. It made him tired. Youth demanding of him life
and more life. Winnie was ill, but there was no rest for them even in
her pain. He felt old and afraid of her, as though he would never be
able to get up from the couch.
"Angry with you? Was I angry with you?" He covered his eyes. His
lips, smiling below his fingers, were deprecating. He stood up slowly
and lifted his trousers from a chair. He felt ridiculous to himself
putting them on.
"Laurie? Please? Don't be angry with me for wanting to see
Mamma!"
He was hurt without knowing how she hurt him.
"Please kiss me, Laurie, dear! Don't be angry! I can't bear to have
you angry with me!" Her eyes, strangely defenseless, opened softly
to his. Their softness enveloped him and drew him down against the
harsh little sparks of reserve that burnt in their depths.
"Kiss you?" he said. He took her fingers in his and kissed them. His
lips were grudging. He still smiled. "Don't accuse me of being angry
with you, Winnie. I want you to have your mother back."
"But I want you, too. Kiss me! Really! Not like that."
He leaned forward and his lips brushed hers. But she would not let
him go. She was so slight, pulling him down, that he could not resist
her. She pressed her mouth hard against his face.
"Don't be angry with me."
"I'm not angry—wasn't angry." Each word was a little shake to
loosen himself from her.
"You won't talk to Papa that way again?"
"I won't give myself the opportunity. I won't see him again."
"Oh, Laurie!"
He withdrew above her, making himself paternal. "You must be
sensible about this thing, Winnie. It's all right. I want you to see and
be with your parents. If I avoid them it will be only for your sake.
You're not well, Winnie. You're a little unreasonable."
"I can't bear being sick! Oh, Laurie, I won't be operated on! I can't
bear it!" Her voice was passionate. She shrank, looking smaller
among the big pillows. He pushed her into the limbo of invalidism.
She did not know how to get out. His kindness was a wall between
them.
He smoothed her hair. She was crushed under his tolerant hand
smoothing away curls from her tear-wet face. "Shall I tell Mamma
Farley you are ready for your breakfast?"
She gazed at him. Her eyes hurt him. They stabbed him through the
silence she made. "Laurie, I think we are going to be so happy and
then all at once when you talk about my being sick you seem so far
away. You do love me?" She clung to his arm.
"Of course."
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