Gloria rose unobtrusively and took the teapot to the kitchen for a refill. Her husband stood by the sink moodily drinking whiskey out of the bottle so as to avoid having to wash a glass afterward. Bill muttered—and indeed the professor's mellifluous tones pervaded every nook and cranny of the thin-walled house. Gloria's soft chin trembled, and her blue eyes filled with tears. He was being brutal, but he couldn't help it and didn't want to. Professor Falabella was only the most long-winded of a long series of mystics Gloria was forever dragging into the house. The trouble with the half-educated, he thought bitterly, is that they seek culture in the most peculiar places.
