Lillian ran her hand over her thick, wavy hair. A sudden thought had come to her. Shocking and terrifying, it came like a jeer from an angry mob. She sank an inch lower in the chair and looked at the room and gave herself up to disquieting thoughts. There seemed to be a curious brittle silence. Everything waited with a pitying politeness while Lillian Cory's little brain struggled to encompass a fact. Only the water continued to drip into the sink with a nerve-racking regularity. The small room seemed to grow smaller and hotter. The furniture seemed shabbier, dustier, more rickety. She thought of the roaches, the people upstairs, the garbage-laden dumb-waiter. She thought of the butcher who never let her see the meat he chopped, the one unblemished pair of stockings she owned, the haircut she needed.
Was it true that things would never be better? That Hubert would never be on his feet again? She tried to brush the doubt from her mind, but it would not go, and she knew that it would not go because it belonged there. It was the truth. This period of getting by on nothing was not the tedious intermission she had thought it. This was the show. The two cars, the shopping orgies, the long drives and carefree days—that had been the intermission. Of course. Hubert had sold his business and had had money to burn. They had spent it. There was nothing now and he could not even get a job. Perhaps he was incompetent. Certainly. Funny how thick she had been. He was never going to be able to furnish another home for her, replace her roadster, or trick her out again in new outfits. He wasn't able to.
