"I wish something would happen."
"What kind of thing?"
"Oh, just something—any old thing would be a change."
Lorry stopped combing.
"Do you mean that you're dull?" she asked. The worried gravity of her face did not fit the subject.
"That must be it." Chrystie raised her eyes and looked at the cornice, her red lips parted, her glance becoming animated. "Yes, of course, that's it—I'm dull. Why didn't I see it myself? You've put it before me in letters of fire—I'm dreadfully dull."
"What would you like to do?"
"Have some good times, lots of them. There aren't enough of them this way. We can't go to the theater too often or we'd get used to it, and I can't get the Barlows to come up here every week, they have such crowds of engagements."
She sighed at the memory of the Barlows' superior advantages and the sigh sounded like a groan of reproach in Lorry's ears. Innocently, unconsciously, unaccusingly, Chrystie was rubbing in the failure of her stewardship. She combed at the ends of her hair, her eyes blind to its burnished brightness.
"Would you like to have a party here?" she said in a solemn voice.