"But you can't come in, Frona. Don't you hear them?"
"But I must," she insisted. "My feet are freezing."
With a gesture of resignation he stepped aside and closed the door
after her. Coming suddenly in from the darkness, she hesitated a
moment, but in that moment recovered her sight and took in the scene.
The air was thick with tobacco smoke, and the odor of it, in the close
room, was sickening to one fresh from the pure outside. On the table a
column of steam was ascending from the big mixing-pan. The Virgin,
fleeing before Cornell, was defending herself with a long mustard
spoon. Evading him and watching her chance, she continually daubed his
nose and cheeks with the yellow smear. Blanche had twisted about from
the stove to see the fun, and Del Bishop, with a mug at rest half-way
to his lips, was applauding the successive strokes. The faces of all
were flushed.
Vance leaned nervelessly against the door. The whole situation seemed
so unthinkably impossible. An insane desire to laugh came over him,
which resolved itself into a coughing fit. But Frona, realizing her
own pressing need by the growing absence of sensation in her feet,
stepped forward.
"Hello, Del!" she called.
The mirth froze on his face at the familiar sound and he slowly and
unwilling turned his head to meet her. She had slipped the hood of her
parka back, and her face, outlined against the dark fur, rosy with the
cold and bright, was like a shaft of the sun shot into the murk of a
boozing-ken.
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