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After the first expression of surprise had vanished from her face, she smiled affably and seemed not unpleasantly affected at seeing him. She was going to see an acquaintance who lived a little further out, and they went on together. He found her changed, fuller than before and redder in complexion, as if she had drunk a good deal of beer. She asked where he had been all the long time that they had not seen each other. He felt a certain satisfaction in her not seeming to know of his “second trip,” and he improvised something about a lengthy illness and employment for a while with a tailor in a neighboring town.

Edith chattered incessantly. She talked of common acquaintances and lamented over wrongs she had suffered. Tekla had been worst of all to her. But now she was married to a street-cleaner who had already drunk up her money and who beat her every day; and it served her right. She related besides a great deal about herself, but in a style that hardly seemed to make any pretence to veracity.