Warm and at home, solidly and actually when she was with Bake, in retrospect or anticipation when they were apart. The company house near the mine tipple, the dormitory room at college, the various apartments and houses where she and Bill had lived during the seventeen years of their married lifethese were nothing but sojourning places, temporary shelters without meaning or comfort. And without warmth. It was foolish, it was fantastic, because the house on the South Side, for example, had a perfectly good gas furnaceindeed, the first thing Bill did when he came in after work was to throw the windows open and "get some fresh air in here," while she shivered. But she felt that some residue of chill, lingering in the center of her bones, was melted now for the first time. I've thawed out, she decided solemnly, curled up on Bake's sofa, listening to the rattling of dishes as Bake cooked dinner, while she (presumably) took a nap because she had a sniffly cold. She had known real, physical cold, of course.
