Content Warning: This section of the guide describes and analyzes the source text’s treatment of death by suicide.

Frances Price and her son, Malcolm, leave a dinner party on New York’s Upper East Side early. When the hostess, who both admires and is intimidated by Frances, tries to stop them, Frances invents a veterinary emergency for their cat as an excuse. Instead of getting into their car, which is waiting at the curb for them, they sit on a nearby bench. Frances lights a cigarette with her favorite lighter, and they examine the jade picture frame that Malcolm has stolen from the house. He throws away the photo it contains of the hostess and puts the frame in his pocket.

A man asks Frances for money, admitting, when she prods him, that he will use it to buy alcohol. She asks him to describe what he will spend it on, and where and how he will drink it, then gives him $20. A police officer approaches and scares the man off. Although the officer is solicitous of Frances, she rebuffs him, defending the man. She lights another cigarette with a click of her gold lighter, and the officer leaves.