"They'll be gone in a minute; don't look so worried." Nan looked in his face with a little mocking smile that faded out tremulously as she spoke. "Do wait, Wenny, I want to talk to you."
He followed the swish of her dress down the corridor. Richly the curve of her neck caught a glow of creamy rose from the pearlcolored silk.
"Have a cup of tea," she said in her hostess voice after introducing him to a large woman with beaded tragedy eyes and a lean whiny-voiced man who stood beside the teatable. Balancing a cup, Wenny settled himself against the wall beside the mantel, tried to think of nothing.
"... Dreadful, isn't it, how Boston is being transformed?"
"No, really, you wouldn't know it any more."
"We'd got used to the Irish, but now walking across the Common you don't see a soul who's not a Jew or an Italian."
"But don't you think they bring us anything?" Nan's voice, indifferent, from the teatable.
"What can they bring but fleas? The scum of south Europe...
"... O, Nancibel, you do have the most delightful teas."
"Why, Jane, I often wonder why on earth I do it. Doesn't it seem the height of absurdity to collect a lot of indifferent people, a regular zoo, in a room and pour a little tea down their throats and tell them: Now, have a good time?"