"I don't care whether I have anything or not," she answered, dubiously.
"Neither do I, my dear," I assented.
"Then put on your hat and coat and come to the flat. I have half a cold chicken in the icebox and a bottle of beer. I don't want to go to Camus."
So we departed, dully, passing before the door that had been denied us for the first time in lo, these many months. The loose stair creaked dismally under Frieda's weight, and the dim hall lights reminded me of Eulalie's churchly tapers. On the way to the flat I stopped at a bakery and purchased four chocolate éclairs wherewith to help console Frieda. Once in the apartment, my friend seemed to regain some of her flagging spirits. She exhumed the fowl from her icebox and cut slices from a loaf of bread, while I opened a can of small French peas, which she set in a saucepan placed on her gas-stove. Also, I laid the éclairs symmetrically on a blue plate I took from the dresser, after which Frieda signalled to me to open the bottle of beer and our feast began in silence.
"I wonder how Trappists enjoy their meals," I finally remarked.
"They don't!" snapped out Frieda.
Yet a moment later she was talking as fast as usual, giving me many interesting details in regard to the effects of sick-headache on womankind and gradually abandoning the subject to revert to painting.
"I have sold Orion," she said. "He is going to Chicago. I have been thinking of a Leda with a swan, but I'm afraid it's too hackneyed. Why don't you suggest something to me? That beer is getting flat in your glass; you haven't touched it. Hand me an éclair."
I held the plate out to her, the while I sought to remember something mythological, and she helped herself. With profound disdain she treated the few suggestions I timidly made.
"You had better go home, David," she told me at last. "We are as cheerful as the two remaining tails of the Kilkenny cats. Good night, I am going to darn stockings."