“Oh, well, you can use the same line of argument, anyhow; I forgot to tell you that I had changed my mind. Girls, do be quiet while she reads her paper on—”
“Oh, but I am not prepared, anyhow,” said the girl with the Roman nose. “I was obliged to stop in the midst of it to write the invitations for my five o’clock tea. A nice job it was, too, for I just couldn’t get all I wanted to say on a card!”
“Why, I heard a man saying only the other day, that you write the most charming notes he ever read,” said the girl with the classic profile.
“Thank you for telling me, dear. I shall use the telephone exclusively after this—the idea of living to know that everybody says when you are spoken of, ‘Yes, what charming notes she does write.’ Think of knowing that you are expected to be brilliant when you write to say you can’t come to dinner because your face is swollen, or to ask how to take coffee stains out of your new evening gown.”
“I know all about that,” groaned the brown-eyed blonde; “once in an evil hour somebody called me ‘vivacious,’ and I’ve cultivated three wrinkles in trying to live up to it. Think of having to be vivacious at a church sociable, or when the man to whom you have just been revealing your views on the subject of friendship turns out to be engaged!”
“Awful!” shuddered the girl with the eyeglasses, “but pity me, all of you. People who like me always say that I am a delightful conversationalist; those who do not, simply remark that I talk all the time. Sometimes, when I am low-spirited, it seems to me that there is not much difference between the two.”
“Yes, but think of me!” moaned the girl with the dimple in her chin. “Somebody once discovered that I had a ‘little head running over with curls,’ I calculate that I have spent a fortune in patent curlers and alcohol lamps since then!”
“I suppose that is why you wouldn’t go to the seashore with me last summer,” remarked the president. “Well, for my part, I only wish I knew who it was that first called me a ‘nice little woman’—it’s as bad as being named Smith or living in a row!”
“Pshaw, I wouldn’t mind that a bit,” said the girl with the Roman nose, “there’s nothing like a reputation for amiability—you can be as ill-natured as you please, once it is gained.”
“Humph, you seem to forget that I have a husband to remind me of things,” said the president. “Well, there is one person I don’t envy, and that is Barbara.”