"Jimps is fine. . . . He's terribly sick of newspaper work. I do wish he could get something he really enjoyed doing."
"He'll always be a restless sort of person. Oh Elaine I was so happy when I heard about your being married. . . . I acted like a damn fool. I cried and cried. . . . And now with Martin and everything you must be terribly happy."
"Oh we get along all right. . . . Martin's picking up, New York seems to agree with him. He was so quiet and fat for a long while we were terribly afraid we'd produced an imbecile. Do you know Ruth I don't think I'd ever have another baby. . . . I was so horribly afraid he'd turn out deformed or something. . . . It makes me sick to think of it."
"Oh but it must be wonderful though."
They rang a bell under a small brass placque that read: Hester Voorhees Interpretation of the Dance. They went up three flights of creaky freshvarnished stairs. At the door open into a room full of people they met Cassandra Wilkins in a Greek tunic with a wreath of satin rosebuds round her head and a gilt wooden panpipe in her hand.
"Oh you darlings," she cried and threw her arms round them both at once. "Hester said you wouldnt come but I just knew you would. . . . Come wight in and take off your things, we're beginning with a few classic wythms." They followed her through a long candlelit incensesmelling room full of men and women in dangly costumes.
"But my dear you didn't tell us it was going to be a costume party."
"Oh yes cant you see evewything's Gweek, absolutely Gweek. . . . Here's Hester. . . . Here they are darling. . . . Hester you know Wuth . . . and this is Elaine Oglethorpe."
"I call myself Mrs. Herf now, Cassie."
"Oh I beg your pardon, it's so hard to keep twack. . . . They're just in time. . . . Hester's going to dance an owiental dance called Wythms from the Awabian Nights. . . . Oh it's too beautiful."
When Ellen came out of the bedroom where she had left her
