They were a group diverse of emotion and perilous to one another's nerves this last morning.
MRS. BECKER: "I think I'd better write my girl another postal to be sure and have supper ready when we get home Thursday night. There is some canned salmon in the grocery closet, I forgot to mention, and she can borrow a few potatoes from the Shriners for frying, until I get a chance to lay in supplies when I get home. Poor Albert! How he loved creamed salmon and fried potatoes! Ben, help me to realize what has happened. O God, I—"
MR. BECKER: "Now, Carrie."
MRS. BECKER: "The Shriners are nice neighbors, Lilly. They are the only ones besides us on the block who stuck after the street began to go down. You'll like Edna Shriner. You remember her? Pock-marked. She used to be in your dancing-school class. She never married, but how she keeps that little home for her old father! Kitchen floor! You could eat off it. And as handy a body with the needle as ever lived. Her French knots. The guest-towels that girl has French-knotted."
LILLY (to herself): "Salmon and fried potatoes. Page Avenue. Shriners.
Funny!—O God!—Why—Oh!—Oh!—Funny!—"
ZOE: "Lilly, feel my heart, how it beats."
It was as if Lilly could not take her eyes from off her daughter.
"Remember what Triest said, dearest, let your nerves be so many violin strings, tightening but not quivering."
"It's your going, Lilly—I—I can't seem quite to grasp it. You will come back to me soon—in two months—one—I couldn't stand it longer!"
"Yes, and, Zoe, you will write every day. Every little single thing.
Your work—your life—your friends—every tiny success—"