Alice Knight's color of skin led to an indifference with Mrs. Gib Taylor, who would later die of a heart attack. The two women were guests at the Rest House, which was located in the Berkshires, for the Annual August Conference on Christianity in the Modern World. Even though the two of them were staying at the same place, they both came from two different aspects of life; two aspects which led towards harsh words said by Mrs. Taylor. These words said by her, would then lead to Alice making serious decisions on whether or not she should knock on Mrs. Taylor's door. Alice eventually declined from knocking which lead to Mrs. Taylor's death in her sleep.
Alice and Mrs. Taylor are women who attended a conference on Christianity. This conference was of high class not just because of its location in the Berkshires and its valuable look, "bowls of white phlox on the windowsills and a long T-shaped table" (775) and "the big dining room" (778), but also because of the conversation that the women were engaged in, such as "minority groups in England" (776). Alice, unlike Mrs. Taylor, was a black woman who came from Washington that taught grammer to hihgh school students. Mrs. Taylor on the other hand, was a white-haired white lady who came from Mississipi. She had been a member of the conference for some time now, "She's been a member of this Conference for years." (778). .
The conflict of this short story starts when Mrs. Taylor makes a rude gesture to Alice's face, "I've never eaten with a nigger and I"m too old to begin now" (777). Seeing that Alice was the only black person at the conference, "The room was filled with women, all of them white" (776), those words effected her emotionally. "She had forced every muscle in her body into immobility," and "Her vision became strangely distorted" were the first signs of Alice's distress. Because it was an all womans group, Alice felt that if she had left, that the rest of the women there would take pity on her, "They would have pitied her.
