she was tired, but things began to leap from her hands; she was twitching and throbbing. Her mind seethed with confused thoughts—these torn tissue-paper wings that she had veined and spotted with gold paint for that solid fairy, Charlotte; the gingerbread animals Hope would never eat; the little trickles down the sides of Mrs. Driggs' face this morning, like the rivers marked on a lilac map; the thing Mrs. Driggs had said about loving one person best, so surprising from her.
I love Joe best; Joe loves Evelyn best; Evelyn loves Hope best.
Of course Joe would let Evelyn have Hope if he thought it would make her happier. He still thinks Evelyn's perfect. . . . How can he?
Joe a divorced man
Perhaps she and Joe could go abroad sometime now—not to the France she longed for—that would remind him too much—but Switzerland, maybe. She saw them eating crescent rolls like the ones from the Vienna Bakery, and flower-scented honey, in a chalet like her little old stamp box, or hanging from snowy mountains into the bright blue air, reaching over juting ledges to gather that homely but exciting winter-woolen-underwear flower, the edelweiss.
She could paint, and he could get material for his scenery. She saw herself, gracious in black velvet, sitting in a stage box beside him as a curtain rose. She heard the gasp of delight from the great audience at the beauty of the stage setting. "Whose work is
