“I think the Dawkter is acquiring quite a pragmatic walk. And it’s especially conspicuous in church.”
“Yes, isn’t it?” assented Miss Brant, hastily, and wondering if Azalea referred to some physical disability that had resisted the effects of Anti-Agony. “There! They’ve been put with the Pratts. Confidentially, I’ll tell you that she bought rather a good bit, too . . . didn’t want to be eclipsed by the Prendergasts, you know. Isn’t their rivalry amusing?”
“And lucrative, I should say.”
Miss Brant veered away from the sordid business angle. “Look at them, now,” she cried. “Mrs. Pratt has the floor. She doesn’t even pause for breath. Azalea, what can she be saying?”
“Words—words—words! I’m afraid Mr. Pratt frequently regrets ignoring Nietzsche’s advice.”
“Whose?”
“Nietzsche’s. Don’t you remember, he said, ‘Before marriage this question should be put—Will you continue to be satisfied with this woman’s conversation until old age? Everything else in marriage is transitory’.”
Miss Brant cast an inward glance upon her own conversational powers, and wondered if there was anything personal behind Azalea’s remark. Aloud, she said,
“How clever of you to remember all those quotations, my dear! I always wish—Oh, there goes Mrs. Dilling! Heavens, doesn’t she look like a ghost?”
Azalea had already noted the haggardness of Marjorie’s appearance, and, knowing nothing of her encounter with Mr. Sullivan, attributed it solely to the over-strain of War Work.