Addis Wickersham lingered behind the table on which he continued to mix drinks for his wife’s woman-party. He mixed the drinks automatically, his eyes fixed and glassy, staring at no woman in particular but surprised by all, shuddering at no one incident but revolted by the sum total of womankind in the raw. He murmured, as if to his secret locked-away mind: “What a ghastly sight--a lot of women stuffing onions down their gullets!” Onions disagreed with him. He continued, however, in a spirit of masochism, to stare at the party, and his occasional shudders rippled unperceived over the immaculate surface of his pose. It was with what appeared to be amusement that he called out to his wife: “Winfreda, my spouse, this is intolerable!” Winnie Conant never cared whether she talked with a man or a woman, for she wished to force either sex to spread before her excited eyes the map of their emotions. Stating openly that only women comprehend other women’s troubles, she also held that only men possessed the gift of sympathy. She went through her party like a plow, forcing issues, disorganizing what groups might have been headed in another direction. For she considered human beings unable, from lassitude, to help themselves. At her husband’s hail, she halted so suddenly that her mouth remained open with the choked-off words that she had had ready for an important woman with an heroic diaphragm--a star from the opera and therefore new material for Winnie’s studies; she emitted an infantile grunt. The opera star, her own mouth distended to accommodate a slice of Bermuda onion, spoke in her stead. “Onions,” pronounced the star, “are good for the larynx.” Addis Wickersham’s voice rolled through his splendid library, and reverberated against his lofty ceiling, and fell upon the star. “Your own larynx is a fine one, madame. I saw it distinctly.” Eva stood tapping her foot on the floor. The sound of these light but steady taps served to keep her shoulders from jerking; she listened, and regulated the rhythm of her jazz-time tapping. It gave her something to do. It was almost dreadful, to see the close attention she gave to her rhythm. She had reached the point where she could no longer sit and wait for the moment when the pressure of her agony would tear her to pieces. She caught Winnie by the arm. Winnie was immersed in a discussion with several women who, they said, contemplated leaving their husbands. Her mouth open and ready for a release of words, she got the chance to shout: “Why change the shape of the man, when the new spirit is bound to be a duplicate of the old?” As if she had been brought up short by Winnie’s general question, Eva cried: “How can you invariably speak from your own standpoint? How can you be so sure of what other people should do?” Winnie went on with it as if she believed what she said. “I don’t think, mind you, that any man is possible as a life companion; but what’s the sense in changing?”