When you’ve been stared at and cut dead, you are in danger of taking it out on the next person you encounter. Francie remembered the impulse from the rugged days of school in England: spite leads to spite. Therefore she tried extra hard to be polite to the next person she saw who, as it happened, was a customer—a woman who dropped into the Birthday Box a minute after Francie clambered out of the show window and put on her shoes. It wasn’t easy to be courteous. She was still smoldering with rage. Moreover, the Box should rightly have been closing, if not already closed with shuttered and locked doors, at that moment. The woman seemed to her just the sort of person who typified everything unsatisfactory about unsatisfactory Jefferson—provincial, Philistine, Middle West Jefferson that produced snobs like Chadbourne Fredericks. This woman was just a nice middle-aged creature who looked eager and innocent. That was enough for Francie, in her mood; she condemned the lady. Why should anyone look eager about the crummy stock in that shop, for goodness’ sake?
