The woman laughed. "Don't ask me. Ask The Kitten. She named him long ago. I think it has something to do with always losing sheep."
At this moment, the now almost drunken Vicky claimed her and Jean looked up, to find The Kitten's eyes just turning away, and a scowl of anger on Herrick's face. The fingers crumbling his bread tightened and then he said something to The Kitten that made her drop the match, with which she was about to light her cigarette, and stare at him. After a moment she began to laugh as if the full force of the thing had come to her gradually. With a shrug, Herrick left his place and wedged a chair between Jean and the dumpy woman.
"I'm afraid we didn't get a very good night. They're all rather keyed up. They are sometimes."
The impersonal criticism in his voice linked him with the charter members who never came, separated him from The Kitten and the noisy enthusiasm that glittered like veneer over what Jean instinctively felt was real boredom and disillusion. It drew her to him and she said in a low tone:
"Who's The Kitten?"
He hesitated, and then answered in the same low tone:
"An unhappy woman with claws that tear herself and every one else who gets too near, and she's in the devil of a mood to-night. Poor Kitten, she will never learn."
Jean looked across the table with more pity in her eyes than she realized, until The Kitten's laughter ceased suddenly, and leaning to Jean, she said:
"Don't be too sweet to Boy Blue, Azalea. He can't stand azaleas. I saw him get disgustingly drunk once, just because the room was hot and there was a big bunch of azaleas in it. Don't you remember, Boy?"
"I can't say that I do, Kitten," Franklin answered quietly. "But you remember such a lot of things."