“I can’t forget,” continued Miss Lois, “having heard Eva say to Nicholas that she needed to feel at home. She sounded forlorn: so there! And I don’t yet see, Mrs. Avery, why Eva shouldn’t feel at home with her husband’s family and their friends.” She wound up with her giggle, which I began to suspect of ramifications. Miss Augusta emitted what in anyone else would have been called a true snort. “She followed that up, if I remember rightly, by saying that she wanted no more condescension. Such ingratitude! After all that Lavinia, and Lavinia’s friends, have tried to do for her!” But I thought that she looked really hurt. The younger Miss Ingoldsby went along her own pleasantly winding way. “Nicholas has learned to curse!” She defied her sister’s outraged parliamentary hand. “Oh, yes, he has, Gussie! The time we ran across them at the speakeasy Tilly took us to----” “Ahem!” hastily interposed Mr. Tillinghast. “I do really suspect that all along Nicholas knew how to curse.” But his eye, taking a furtive survey of the ground with Miss Augusta, showed me that the institution of the speakeasy was one of the lady’s inspirations for battle. “Well, anyway,” continued Miss Lois, “Eva sailed in like a bird. She has a pretty chin; it’s always so high in air. Nicholas was too upset to notice that they were passing our table. And----” Miss Augusta’s frigidity was directed at Mr. Tillinghast who had escorted her to unsuitability. “He didn’t expect to see us in such a place. I refer to what is called a speakeasy.” “He was growling in his throat,” joyfully continued Miss Lois. “And Eva’s skirt went rather billowing down the room. Oh, dear! I’d so like to be young and slim and have my skirts billow! People just have to look at Eva.” “Outside of her appearance, people would stare at Eva,” I said mildly. “Do please remember that she’s tremendously well known. Her name is known, but also her face.” “Oh, of course!” screamed Miss Lois. “That’s what Nicholas didn’t like. I heard him distinctly, roaring--although it was under his breath, it sounded for all the world like a roar--‘Damn her public!’” “Sister Lois!” interrupted Miss Augusta. “Enough! I will not permit such language.” “He was roaring to his own public, which is his intelligence, I daresay,” I suggested amiably. They looked enquiringly at me. “What?” they said. In a nearby apartment someone played badly on the piano. The notes fell indifferently, like drops of water. Life seemed a merry-go-round, getting us nowhere. I sipped tea and looked them over with cool appraisal. I decided that it was a case of dog eat dog: they would eat Eva, if Eva did not eat them first. The game is the same; people may be different, in different cases, but the game remains the same. And the old saws are long-lived because they are true. The piano tinkled, tinkled, tinkled. The tea was awful. I wondered if in decency I could leave and so stop off their discussion.