"Faugh!"
"Cincinnati, dear, is a metropolis."
"No, no! You don't understand. I hate littleness. Even little metropolises. Cheapness. I hate little towns and little spenders and mercerized stockings and cotton lisle next to my skin, and machine-stitched nightgowns. Ugh! it scratches!"
"And I—I just love you in those starchy white shirt waists, Hester.
You're beautiful."
"That's just the trouble. It satisfies you, but it suffocates me. I've got a pink-crêpe-de-Chine soul. Pink crêpe de Chine—you hear?"
He sat back on his heels.
"It—Is it true, then, Hester that—that you're making up with that salesman from New York?"
"Why," she said, coloring—"why, I've only met him twice walking up High
Street, evenings!"
"But it is true, isn't it, Hester?"
"Say, who was answering your questions this time last year?"