do you think any of them would even so much as send a bunch of flowers to the funeral?”
Luke laughed with jeering scorn: “W-w-w-wy,” he said, “it is to laugh! It is to laugh! They w-w-wouldn’t send a G-g-g-g-God-damn thing—n-n-n-not even a ten-cent b-b-b-bunch of-of-w-w-w-w-wy—of turnip-greens!” he said.
“All right! All right!” Helen again cried furiously through the door, as Barton sounded a long imperative blast of protest and impatience on his horn. “All right! Hugh! I’m coming! Good heavens, can’t you leave me in peace for just five minutes?… Hugh, please! Please!” she stormed in a tone of frenzied exasperation as he sourly answered her. “Give me a little time alone, I beg of you—or I’ll go mad!”—And she turned to them again, panting and with the racked and strained expression of hysteria on her big-boned features. In a moment, her harassed and driven look relaxed somewhat, and the big rough bawdy smile began to shape itself again around the corners of her generous mouth.
“My God, Mama,” she said in a tone of quiet and weary despair, but with this faint lewd smile about her mouth and growing deeper as she spoke, “what am I going to do about it? Will you please tell me that? Did you have to put up with that when you and Papa were together? Is that the way it is? Is there no such thing as peace and privacy in this world? Now, I’d like to know. When you marry one of them, does that mean that you’ll never get a moment’s peace or privacy alone as long as you live? Now, there are some things you like to do alone”—she said, and by this time the lewd smile had deepened perceptibly around her mouth. “Why, it’s got so,” she said, “that I’m almost afraid to go to the bathroom any more—”
“Whew-w!” shrieked Eliza, laughing, putting one finger underneath her nose.
“Yes, sir,” Helen said quietly, with the lewd smile now deep and loose around her mouth. “I’ve just got so I’m almost afraid to go, I don’t know from one moment to the next whether one of them is going to come in and keep me company or not.”
“Whew!” Eliza cried. “Why, you’ll have to put up signs!’No Visitors Allowed!’—that’s exactly what you ought to say! I’d fix’em! I’d do it like a shot,” she said.
Helen sniggered hoarsely, and absently began to pluck at her chin.
