She divined suddenly something of the tragedy and despair of this inarticulate creature whose body had borne her, who had once been as her daughter was now. Before her mental vision unfolded a vast and sordid tapestry—a patchwork-thing made up of hints, innuendoes and snatches of half-remembered conversations, heretofore meaningless, of a thousand-and-one insignificant circumstances, individually valueless, assembling into an almost intelligible whole: picturing in dim, distorted perspective the history of her mother, drab, pitiful, appalling....
Abruptly, bending forward, Joan touched her lips to the sallow cheek.
"Good-bye," she said stiffly; "I got to go."
She rose. Her mother did not move. Edna stared wonderingly, as though a bystander at a scene of whose meaning she was ignorant. Joan took up her suit-case and went to the door.
"S'long, kid," she saluted her sister lightly. "Take good care of ma while I'm away. See you before long."
She hesitated again in the open doorway, with her hand on the knob.
"And tell Butch I said thanks."
She was half-way down to the next landing before she became aware of Edna bending over the banisters.
"Joan—"
"What?"