They were locked in embrace again, Mrs. Becker blown hot and cold by the ever-shifting clouds of her emotions, the two men standing by in a state of helplessness that was always in inverse proportion to the lavalike eruptions from the crater of her nerves. "Mother, father and I will leave you alone for a while and you have your talk together first--" "No! She's your wife. You have yours first! It's about time you were coming into some of your rights!" Such a fiery redness was out in Albert's ears that against the lights they were of the translucency of red-hot iron, and even through her pity for his _malaise_, her old poignant distaste of him would not be laid. She wanted him to lunge somehow with that bull-like head of his with the bashedin squareness to its top, but since nothing like that happened, she sprang up instead, grasping her mother's hand. "Not now," she cried. "I want to tell you all something first, and then I want to take you--to my place--to see where--the way I live--" "Yes," said Mrs. Becker, rising with a crinkling of nose and drawing her marabout boa about her, "I want to see the way you live--first. Guests of hers at a hotel like this. A position, she tells me. Lilly--Lilly--for God's sake tell me you've been a good girl--" "Carrie!" At the sound of rare thunder in her husband's voice she did subside then. Later she began. "Nice rooms. Nicer than in Chicago that time. Albert, let me give you a clean handkerchief out of the valise.... No, you don't know where they are. Don't like that shirt waist. Too mannish. Don't worry about those pillows, Albert. I brought your little one along. Glass tops. That's nice, isn't it? How would you like one for your chiffonier at home, Albert? Quit whittling toothpicks on the floor, Ben--Oh dear! if somebody don't say something, I'll scream--" "Come, mamma--papa--Albert. I want to take you--home, and while we drive up there I want to talk to you." But once within the cab and with her mother's constant runnel of talk and its threat of hysteria, courage failed Lilly, so she sat back, holding herself against rising panic and her mind refusing to hook tentacles into the situation toward which they were speeding. "You look mighty well, Lilly," her father would repeat, gently; "not much changed, but a little more settled--in the bones--" "Who does your darning and mending?" "I do, mamma. See, this is Broadway, papa. We're just rounding the famous Columbus Circle." "I don't see much difference between this and St. Louis. Do you, Ben? Just stores and stores like there are on Olive Street. Oh, look! There is one of the Ryan Cut Price Drug Stores, just like we have at home. Look at the crowds around that thing--what's that? 'Subway,' it says--" "Lilly, Lilly, it makes me tremble when I think of you in this great city alone." "Why, papa, I never was so safe." "It's not decent, that's what it's not." "Now, Carrie--" "Stop cutting me off every time I open my mouth."