happen to her if I would die or a sandbag would fall on me from the flies and I'd have to be in a wheelchair."
"Lucy, for heaven's sake!"
"I get this way on Sundays. That's my blue day, except I'm not blue today. Don't you have a blue day?"
"Not in New York, but at home Sunday was my blue day too. I used to feel closed in, as if my mother and father and all Twelfth Street were the jailers. After Sunday dinner usually I read in my room or studied—I had a lot of that so I could finish school in three years. Pa slept off his Saturday night jag and Ma sometimes went to call on her cousins in the country. To get eggs. Sometimes I went to the movies. I used to see Semy's sister there alone too. Sometimes I'd go to Clem's later and we'd have sandwiches from the delicatessen, and Henkel and Larson would come and Clem would make that good Italian coffee or we'd have red ink. But that was mostly the first year and a half after you left because after he painted Councilman Lauter's portrait he became very popular and spent week ends with the country club set or went to Lincoln or Omaha. I wonder if he really is coming here for an exhibition? I promised to write, but I've only written once. About you and the exhibitions I've seen."
"I'm really glad Clem is so successful, he's such a nice man," Lucy said indifferently. While she still felt friendly, she had no interest in him whatever. She was grateful he had helped to make New York possible and it would only be right to pretend to be glad to see him again if he came.
She went to examine her wardrobe and decide what to wear on this important afternoon. She preferred the black satin dress and matching velvet coat, but black looked better at night though on the other hand it was more formal and the sort of thing an artist of the theatre should wear. She put it on, and the black velvet cloche with its white gardenia on the brim hugging the left ear, and took a good look at herself.
Vida leaned against the door of the bedroom. "Are you going to a party after Calvette's?"
"I was just thinking myself I looked too dressed up," Lucy said and, stripping, started again, replacing the black lace panties and slip with shell pink, ending with a new pearl-grey ensemble with a matching fox collar.
"What did you have to change your underwear for?" Vida asked, impressed as always with her friend's care in dressing.
"I like to feel everything goes together, and besides you never
