She repeated these by
request at intervals throughout the evening with such frank conviviality
that Anthony, far from being annoyed, was gratified at this fresh source
of entertainment. The occasion was memorable in other ways--a long
conversation between Maury and a defunct crab, which he was dragging
around on the end of a string, as to whether the crab was fully
conversant with the applications of the binomial theorem, and the
aforementioned race in two hansom cabs with the sedate and impressive
shadows of Fifth Avenue for audience, ending in a labyrinthine escape
into the darkness of Central Park. Finally Anthony and Gloria had paid a
call on some wild young married people--the Lacys--and collapsed in the
empty milk bottles.
Morning now--theirs to add up the checks cashed here and there in clubs,
stores, restaurants. Theirs to air the dank staleness of wine and
cigarettes out of the tall blue front room, to pick up the broken glass
and brush at the stained fabric of chairs and sofas; to give Bounds
suits and dresses for the cleaners; finally, to take their smothery
half-feverish bodies and faded depressed spirits out into the chill air
of February, that life might go on and Wilson, Hiemer and Hardy obtain
the services of a vigorous man at nine next morning.
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