"You're mixing your metaphors!" Burgoyne laughed.
"Maybe I am—but she'll not get mixed in her purposes. Have another drink?—No?—Then let us go up and sit on the piazza, and look at the real thing—the butterflies whose frivolities and frivoling make a country club endurable."
"Or unendurable!" his friend added.
"Depends on your point of view—and also your digestion. For my part, my digestion being normal I enjoy watching them—their methods: their little schemes, their jealousies, their punishments, their petty deceptions and meannesses—all interest me in a casual way. I like to sit back and study them—they amuse me."
"Is that all they do—amuse you?" Burgoyne asked. "Haven't they any kindness or generosity or unselfishness?"
"Not much—certainly not here at the Club. Every woman's hand is against every other woman, and she usually has a hat-pin concealed in it—if that's possible. It's trite but true that a woman is a good hater and a poor forgetter, and is utterly without conscience in matters of friendship or of truth."
"Where did you acquire all your cynicism?" Burgoyne demanded.
"With my years—and on the piazza!"
"Well, you would better find an optimistic chair and a clearer vision. You're flocking too much to yourself."
"Take the four yonder playing Auction," Pendleton continued, when they had settled into a retired corner. "They are as lovely young matrons as you will meet anywhere—far above the average indeed—and they are inseparable; yet I myself have heard every one of them put the knife into the other three, and then give it a twist besides."