"That'll be fine!" cried she.
She saw it would have taken nearly all the money she possessed to have paid that bill. About four weeks' wages for one dinner! Thousands of families living for two weeks on what she and he had consumed in two hours! She reached for her half empty champagne glass, emptied it. She must forget all those things! "I've played the fool once. I've learned my lesson. Surely I'll never do it again." As she drank, her eyes chanced upon the clock. Half-past ten. Mrs. Tucker had probably just fallen asleep. And Mrs. Reardon was going out to scrub—going out limping and groaning with rheumatism. No, Mrs. Reardon was lying up at the morgue dead, her one chance to live lost forever. Dead! Yet better off than Mrs. Tucker lying alive. Susan could see her—the seamed and broken and dirty old remnant of a face—could see the vermin—and the mice could hear the snoring—the angry grunt and turning over as the insects——
"I want another drink—right away," she cried.
"Sure!" said Howland. "I need one more, too."
They drove in a taxi to Terrace Garden, he holding her in his arms and kissing her with an intoxicated man's enthusiasm. "You certainly are sweet," said he. "The wine on your breath is like flowers. Gosh, but I'm glad that husband came home! Like me a little?"
"I'm so happy, I feel like standing up and screaming," declared she.
"Good idea," cried he. Whereupon he released a war whoop and they both went off into a fit of hysterical laughter. When it subsided he said, "I sized you up as a live wire the minute I saw you. But you're even better than I thought. What are you in such a good humor about?"
"You couldn't understand if I told you," replied she. "You'd have to go and live where I've been living—live there as long as I have."
"Convent?"
"Worse. Worse than a jail."