"Not furnished. Why, I've sat on the couch myself."
"Yes," said Salvina, a faint smile tempering her deadly gravity. "You are the only person who has ever done that. But there's no couch now. Father smuggled all the furniture away in a van."
Again Kitty's silver laughter rang out unquenchably.
"And you don't call that funny! Eloped with the chairs! I call it killing."
"Yes, for mother," said Salvina.
"Pooh! She'll outlive all of us. I wish you were as sure of getting the furniture back. She's not a bad mother, as mothers go, but you take her too seriously."
"But, Kitty, consider the disgrace!"
"The disgrace of having a wicked parent! I've endured for years the disgrace of having a poor one—and that's worse. My people—the Samuelsons, I mean—will never even hear of the pater's escapade—gossip keeps strictly to its station. And even if they do, they know already my family's under a cloud, and they have learned to accept me for myself."
"Well, I am glad you don't mind," said Salvina, half-relieved, half-shocked.
"I mind, if it makes you uncomfortable, you dear, silly Sally."