folks. The play people. The theater. I used to fear for
you! The Pullman car. The furnished room. That going to the hotel
room, alone, nights after the show. You laugh at me sometimes for just
throwing a veil over my face and coming home black-face. It's because
I'm too tired, Marcy. Too lonesome for home. On the road I always used
to think of all the families in the audience. The husbands and wives.
Brides and grooms. Sweethearts. After the performance they all went to
homes. To brownstone fronts like the Grosbecks'. To cottages. To flats.
With a snack to eat in the refrigerator or laid out on the dining-room
table. Lamps burning and waiting. Nighties laid out and bedcovers turned
back. And then--me. Second-rate hotels. That walk through the dark
downtown streets. Passing men who address you through closed lips. The
dingy lobby. There's no applause lasts long enough, Marcia, to reach
over that moment when you unlock your hotel room and the smell of
disinfectant and unturned mattress comes out to you."

"Ugh!"

"Oh, keep to the safe people, Marcia! The unexciting people, maybe, but
the safe home-building ones with old ideals and old hearthstones."

"Nonie says they have one in their library that comes from Italy."

"Hitch your ideal to a hearthstone like that, Marcia."

"Nonie goes to riding academy."

"So shall you."

"It's six dollars an hour."

"I don't care."

"Her father's retired except for being director in banks. And,
momie--they don't mind, dear--about us. Nonie knows that my--father
is--is separated and never lived at home with us. She's broad-minded.
She says just so there's no scandal, a divorce, or anything like that.
She said it's vulgar to cultivate only rich friends. She says she'd go
with me even if she's forbidden to."

"Why, Marcy darling, why should she be forbidden?"

"Oh, Nonie's broadminded. She says if two people are unsuited they
should separate, quietly, like you and my father. She knows we're one of
the first old Southern families on my father's side. I--I'm not trying
to make you talk about it, dear, but--but we are--aren't we?"

"Yes, Marcy."

"He--he was just--irresponsible. That's not being--not nice people, is
it?"

"No, Marcy."

"Nonie's not forbidden. She just meant in case, momie. You see, with
some old families like hers--the stage--but Nonie says her father
couldn't even say anything to that if he wanted to. His own sister went
on the stage once, and they had to h