“They were.” She called up the unhatted figures moving about among the guests in trailing gowns,—keeping something up, pretending to be interested, being cattishly nice to the visitors, and thinking about other things all the time.... I can’t stand them, oh, I can’t stand them.... But the girls would not have seen them in that way; they would have been interested in them and their dresses, they would have admired the prettiness of some of them and found several of them ‘charming’ ... if Mag were an artist’s wife she would behave in the way those women behaved....
“Were they all alike?” that was half sarcastic....
“Absolutely. They were all cats, simply.”
“Isn’t she extraordinary?”
“It’s the cats who are extraordinary. Why do they do it girls! Why do they do it?” She flushed feeling insincere. At this moment she felt that she knew that Mag in social life, would conform and be a cat. She had never thought of her in social life; here in poverty and freedom she was herself.
“Do phwatt me dear?”
“Oh let them go. It makes me tired, even to think of them. The thought of the sound of their voices absolutely wears me out.”
“I’m not laaazy—I’m tie-erd—I was born tie-erd.”
“I say girls, I want to ask you something.”
“Well?”