Chapter 36

• “How is the fair little one this evening?”
• “Tonight I have a little surprise for you, he says. He laughs, it’s most like a snigger. I notice that everything this evening is little. He wishes to diminish things, myself included.”
• “He’s holding a handful, it seems, of feathers, mauve and pink.” [...] "It's a garment, apparently, and for a woman"
• “I’ve never worn anything remotely like this, so glittering and theatrical (…) The closest I ever came were bathing suits, and a camisole set, peach lace, that Luke bought for me once.”
• Freedom, like everything else, is relative."
• "It's a disguise," he says. "You'll need to paint your face too; I've got the stuff for it.
• Nothing can be done about my hair.
• “He goes to the cupboard and gets out a cloak, with a hood. It’s light blue, the colour for Wives. This too must be Serena's."
• “[Nick’s] hat is on straight, he’s sitting up straight, his neck is straight, he is all very straight."
• His posture dissaproves of me, or am I imagining it? Does he know what I've got on under this cloak, did he procure it? and if so, does this make him angry or lustful or envious or anything at all?
• “Chickenshit, Moira would say.”
• “Chickenshit, Moira would say.”
• “Nevertheless my forehead is against his shoes. I have never been this close to his shoes before.”
• “He slips around my wrist a tag, purple, on an elastic band, like the tags for airport luggage.”
• “What I want is a mirror, to see if my lipstick is all right, wheher my feathers are too ridiculous, too frowzy. In this light I must look lurid.'
• “Idiot, says Moira”