I was tired, and out of my weariness I demanded: “Why do we all hang together, do you suppose? Are we afraid to be alone? Tell me, Eva: are you afraid of loneliness because of what you might dig out of the bottom of your heart?” At the moment I might have been wound up, like a watch spring, and bound to go on until I ran down. She gave me a perfunctory smile. “Cheer up,” she said carelessly; “you’ve no troubles.” After a moment of apprehension, however, she added hastily: “But don’t tell them, anyway. I’m not equal to hearing troubles.” She began tapping her foot on the floor: tap, tap, tap. I felt like shrieking. “Besides, do you know that there was something indecent in what you said? Don’t let a tendency to rawness get the better of you, Dinah. It’s of the crystalline purity of unspoken thoughts that art is made.” I relapsed into helpless laughter. “Eva, you are perfectly delicious, and unexpected, and so provoking that I often wonder how a man can live with you without blowing his brains out!” She became brusque. “I’m in no mood for that sort of thing. You should know it without my telling you.” Her attention, in short, could not be diverted from whatever had taken place between herself and Nicholas, with, superimposed, what was now taking place in the room. For that the Onion Party was being directed against her we could no longer doubt. The opera star, swimming in her path, paused long enough to say: “Why not move around and show yourself, Miss Litchfield?” Eva looked questioningly at her. I felt a surge of anger at the woman: Eva had the resilient faith of a child who does not look for a blow. The singer continued, speaking kindly: “There’s Florence Quincy, thinking of herself as a blonde planet and waiting for adulation. Go and catch an orbit around the planet and make her happy.” I swore that I hated females. The opera star swam on, through the firmament of stars, and collided with the Theatre Guild. I said aloud: “Don’t mind, Eva!” It occurred to Eva--and devastated her--that she had never faced the question of how much sincerity there might be in these people, her friends. Did they ever give whole-hearted praise to each other? Did they--by her sudden pallor I knew that her heart skipped a beat--did they believe in her? What, behind her back, did they say of her and of her work? Never before had she speculated along this line. But the atmosphere of the large room filled with women who were by now stripped of the rags of convention, and their jibes, had shaken her. For a ghastly moment, she wondered if this party would undermine her faith in herself. Instantly, she answered her own query: “No! No, never that! Without my faith in myself--without the knowledge of what I can do--there would be no Eva Litchfield.”