Ruby

[jbor]

Perhaps there is something later on which makes it clearer. It doesn't seem
to me that McLintic is paying her, or that she is in fact sleeping with
anyone else (particularly Roony and Pig!) I get the impression that she's
still rooming with Rachel and Esther as well. The fact that she wrote the
note back at 51.7, and that she mentions McLintic by name in it, makes me
think that she has pursued him: a groupie, of sorts perhaps? I hadn't got
the cathouse = brothel thing (there's me thinking of little old Matilda W.
surrounded by orange tabbies!), but the "in a sense" does throw a cat
amongst the pigeons (so to speak) there as well. Perhaps Mrs Winthrop simply
turns a blind eye to what the girls who board there do for a living?

Either way, there doesn't appear to be any infidelity going on with either
McLintic or Paola: they are besotted with one another, in this chapter at
least.

best


----------
>From: Terrance <lycidas2 at earthlink.net>
>

> Well, I'm not so sure I disagree, although I think  the
> wife/whore/virgin/woman/girl theme requires this in a sense,
> remember that the novel opens with *certain* sailor's wives
> turned barmaid hookers and Paola is working there, but your
> explanation doesn't seem right either.