her that she was safe and secure so long as she accepted the situation and did not herself seek to change it. After that she was more comfortable.
Sometimes they gave parties to their friends and their friends' friends. They would be noisy parties to which the neighbors objected. Lillian would fetch and carry Bromo-Seltzer till she herself passed out and was put to bed by Hubert or Billy. They were not meaningless gay gatherings as so many parties are. People did not merely meet, drink, eat, dance, and say good night. Married couples threshed out their difficulties here and single couples decided to marry or perhaps separate forever. Loves and enmities developed and no one thought of meeting either with subterfuge. Lillian was adept at staving off a fight and warning a flirtatious wife of her husband's disapproval. She knew just the moment when everybody needed a cup of black coffee, but nobody ever knew when she needed it; so frequently she was among the missing.
There were holes in the living-room rug and in the upholstery of the sofa. People were careless with cigarettes, but Hubert and Lillian didn't mind. That all came under the heading of amusement.
Sometimes Lillian sat by her window, and gazing out at the garden court, wondered what it was all for—the parties, the liquor, the two cars, her and Hubert and the whole damn world.
But mostly she could be seen smoking contentedly and sitting somewhere very close to Hubert so that a person could tell at a glance that he was hers.
