"I used to be so afraid for you, Marcy. Afraid you would take to the make-believe 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."