Chapter 50

So in the next scene, the Peri wears green with black spots. She also wears a small felt hat. She is awful and the audience knows it. But her husband doesn’t. He gives her the money for her permanent, and the music plays, “A life on an ocean wave—” and they go out together. In a second we see them in the hairdresser’s parlor. The infernal machine occupies the center of the stage. The Peri, beholding it, wrings her hands. She is overcome by awful fear. But her husband laughs at her. At last she seats herself beneath…