Then her bag, the beaded one on the end of the divan. The slow taut
feeling for it and the floor that creaked twice, starting the sweat out
over her.
It was finally after more tortuous saving of floor creaks and the
interminable opening and closing of a door that Carrie Samstag, the
beaded bag in her hand, found herself face to face with herself in the
mirror of the bathroom medicine chest.
She was shuddering with one of the hot chills, the needle and little
glass piston out of the hand-bag and with a dry little insuck of breath,
pinching up little areas of flesh from her arm, bent on a good firm
perch, as it were.
There were undeniable pock-marks on Mrs. Samstag's right forearm.
Invariably it sickened her to see them. Little graves. Oh, oh, little
graves. For Alma. Herself. And now Louis. Just once. Just one more
little grave--
And Alma, answering her somewhere down in her heart-beats: "No, mama,
no, mama. No. No. No."
But all the little pores gaping. Mouths! The pinching up of the skin.
Here, this little clean and white area.
"No, mama. No, mama. No. No. No."
"Just once, darling?" Oh--oh--graves for Alma and Louis. No. No. No.
Somehow, some way, with all the little mouths still parched and gaping
and the clean and quite white area unblemished, Mrs.
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