Molly Notkin's party: Joelle's overdose (pp. 228–229)
she feels the desire to raise the veil before a mirror, to refine some of her purse’s untouched Material, raise the veil and set free the encaged rapacious thing inside to breathe the only uncloth’d gas it can stomach; she feels ghastly and sad; she looks like death, her mascara’s all over the place; no one can tell.
Context
The addiction and the despair fused in one image — the thing in the cage is rapacious, and freeing it is the plan. "She feels ghastly and sad… no one can tell" is the veil doing to affect what Hal's wit does to his.