Summary

On the night of the retrospective, Elaine dresses in her new black dress and goes to the gallery early. She walks around the exhibit, studying her paintings. After her time of reflection she has come to believe that she may have misunderstood the motives of Mrs. Smeath, and has gone for vengeance instead of justice in painting her. Her newer paintings depict other significant events and people in her life.

During the event, Elaine keeps searching the crowd for Cordelia; she knows now what happened, but she wants to ask why. Talking to all the strangers makes her feel anxious, and she is so exhausted by the end of the event that she turns down a dinner invitation from Charna. She is disappointed, not in the retrospective, but in her failure to find Cordelia. She had prepared herself for almost anything. What she did not...