“I should have said: ‘What a bright, smart, intelligent, and rarely beautiful girl! So well dressed, too, and slender as a worm! A queen of society. I do like her looks! She’s the spittin’ image of my little friend Hattie Carver, 71the schoolmarm in East Boston, that I used to know!’ Oh, Hat, the queerest thing! What do you suppose I saw this evening at that lovely house full of lovely people? I was in the library learning to dance. And I looked up and there was what I took to be a young man smoking a cigarette. Next thing, I saw that his dress was low-necked almost down to the waist. Hat, it was a woman smoking! a woman with her hair cut short. I never saw anything like it, except an old Irishwoman once, with her pipe.”
“Seems to me I’ve heard of ladies in Europe doing it, and it being considered all right. I have heard that some do it in New York, but I guess they’re careful not to be seen.”
“Well, it does seem a queer thing to do!–Go ahead, Hat; what was the compliment?”
“Sure, now, you’ve got one for me?”
“Sure.”
“It was What’s-his-name, the English fellow we see every time we go in to Cook’s–Mr. Dysart. Leslie says he comes of a very good family. He said to me, ‘How very charming Mrs. Hawthorne is looking this evening!’”
“Hattie, that man’s a humbug, that man’s leading a double life. He said to me, ‘How very charming Miss Madison is looking this evening!’ He did.”
“Go ’way! You’re making it up to save trouble.”
“No, I ain’t! Stop, Hattie! I know! I am not. Confusion upon it! You’ve made me so nervous when I talk that I can’t say ain’t without jumping as if I’d sat on a pin!”
“Nell Goodwin, look me square in the eye. How many times did you say ain’t at the party this evening?”