"Poor Virginia!"
II: LAMPS
"I love you so." The wheels of the taxi were the counterpoint to his voice.
"What is the good of my turning away when every bit of him bites into my consciousness?" she thought.
The road stretched ahead of them like ciré satin with a piping of lights. She had changed her position a little, restless under the constraint of his eyes. A lamp lit her up for him, her face white and drawn, her eyelids pulled over her eyes like a heavy curtain.
"One feels that one could skate down the street," she murmured, "it looks like stuff worn thin with time and use—the shabby shiny surface of the night."
On and on they went.
"We can't get anywhere," he said.
A lamp lit up her face.