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The excerpt represents the core issue or deciding factor on which you must meditate, and is drawn from Early Short Fiction of Edith Wharton by Edith Wharton: The ladies were both out . . . the parlor-maid stood waiting for
a card. Julia, with a vague murmur, turned away from the door
and lingered a moment on the sidewalk. Then she remembered that
she had not paid the cab-driver. She drew a dollar from her
purse and handed it to him. He touched his hat and drove off,
leaving her alone in the long empty street. She wandered away
westward, toward strange thoroughfares, where she was not likely
to meet acquaintances. The feeling of aimlessness had returned.
Once she found herself in the afternoon torrent of Broadway,
swept past tawdry shops and flaming theatrical posters, with a
succession of meaningless faces gliding by in the opposite
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