Chapters 9 and 10 Summary

Chapter 9 - The reference to the Arapahoe Hotel at the end of the previous chapter leads Starbuck to recall the last time he stayed there - in 1931, on the instructions of Alexander McCone, who had told him specifically how to live and behave when he arrived in New York. This recollection leads to recollections of Sarah Wyatt, one of the four women Starbuck says he ever loved (see Chapter 1) and who had loved him back, agreed to marry him, and eventually jilted him. In narration, Starbuck recounts that Sarah's family made clocks that, in order that the time could be read in the dark, were painted with radioactive radium, which poisoned the women who did the painting. At the end of the chapter, he adds, "the daughter of one of those unfortunate women would become one of the four women I...