There wasn't an instant's pause and her departure caused no comment. A' new speaker began.
The world, it may be stated, for the purposes of classification, is divided into four groups: the proletariat, the aristocrats, the middle class, and the artist class. The artist class may be called by any other name, bohemians, anarchists, revolutionists, what you will. It includes those who think and act freely, without traditions or inhibitions, and not all people who write or paint belong to this class at all. The artist class lives the way it wants to live. The proletariat and the aristocrats live the way they have to live. The middle class is composed of members of the proletariat trying to live like the aristocrats. . . .
My mind wandered. I glanced across at Peter. He was still absorbed in Mahalah Wiggins and did not appear to be listening to the speaker. Yet, if he were really writing a realistic novel, the talk, the whole atmosphere of the evening should have interested and enthralled him. He never looked up and he was whispering very rapidly.
Some people resemble animals; some, perhaps, minerals; assuredly, some resemble flowers. Mahalah Wiggins was like a pansy. Her hair was black with purple lights; her eyes were a pale pansy blue; her face bore an ingenuous pansy expression that made one wonder why pansies were for thoughts. She wore a purple velvet dress with long tight sleeves ending in points which reached her
