While this story contains some third-person narration, most of the story is told through dialogue. Parker's combination of minimalist narration and dialogue creates for the reader an eavesdropping effect; we feel like we are overhearing a private conversation. This technique downplays the importance of the narrator, suggesting that our best path to fiction's "truths" is through a narrative resembling direct observation. The storyteller, in effect, drops out of the story, or is used sparingly.

Setting is again significant. As in "The Waltz," these two people are in motion—in a train going to New York—but they remain confined in the restricted space of a train compartment. Furthermore, the train itself is on a repetitive and limited route; it reaches its destination and then returns to its place of origin, suggesting a back-and-forth motion that gets somewhere but never breaks out of its pattern. This mirrors...