Therefore she controls herself and her family to avoid gossip. She laughs at the world around her, as she "passes" within it as a white woman and almost climbed into a taxi, admitted to the top floor of the Dayton where she stares at the people below, "thinking about how silly they looked" (Larsen9). She laughs uncontrollably at Claire's openly racist husband. She is unnerved that he is criticizing her ethnic group, but her laughter is about dominance and influence. To Irene, in that split second he is a rich, rude white man. She is later brought to tears when she remembers Claire's face at that moment, "she had tried to laugh a little and was annoyed to find that she was close to tears"."