They drove over to the theatre and although it was half an hour late, nothing had started. A crowd of costumed people were in the lobby. Gin paused at the door and looked around for Flo. She was over in the corner with Russell and a party of friends.
“Wait a minute,” she told Harvey. “I’ve got to talk to Flo.”
Holding her roses carefully, she wedged a way through the crowd to Russell and plucked at her roommate’s arm.
Russell turned and greeted her. “Golly, who’s your beau?” he asked. “Flo, look at the flowers.”
Gin pulled Flo off a little way. “I’ve been dying to find you,” she said. What was it she had to tell? Then she remembered Wally. Even now, soon as it was after the catastrophe, she was shamedly conscious of a sort of pleasant anticipation, the prospect of causing a sensation with her news, the expression that she could foresee on Flo’s brightly interested face.
“I heard about something this afternoon,” she went on. Again she was swamped by the calamity and carried out of herself. The truth of it hit her again, as it had on the road home.
Dead and buried. She pictured to herself his closed eyes and the clay.
She stopped smiling. The corners of her mouth dulled and her eyes grew wide.
“You know Wally....”