"Oh, that would be charming, Mrs. Babcock," Julia would say, "if you'll let me run away at three, for I must positively keep an appointment with Carroll at three, if I'm to have my gown for dear Mrs. Morton's bal masque Friday night. And if I'm just a tiny bit late you won't be cross? For we all do German at twelve now, you know, and it will run over the hour! Oh, you're very sweet! Oh, no, Mrs. Talcott spoke to me about it, but we can't—we're both so sorry, but this week seems to be just full—no, she said that, but I told her that next week was just as bad, so she's to let me know about the week after. Oh, I know she is. And I did want to give her a little tea, but there doesn't seem to be a moment! I think perhaps I'll ask Mrs. Castle to let us dine with her some other time, and give Betty a little dinner Monday—"
And so on and on, in the quick harassed voice of one who must meet obligations.
"You're a great social success, Ju," Jim said, smiling, one morning.
Julia made a little grimace over her letters.
"Oh, come off, now!" her husband railed good-naturedly. "You know you love it. You know you like to dress up and trot about with me and be admired!"
"I like to trot about with you," Julia conceded, sighing in spite of her smile. "But I get very tired of dinners. Some other woman gets you, and some other woman's husband gets me, and we say such flat things, about motor cars, or the theatre—nothing friendly or intimate or interesting!"
"Wait until you know them all better, Ju. Besides, you couldn't get intimate at a dinner, very well. Besides"—Jim defended the institutions of his class—"you didn't look very gay when young Jo Coutts seemed inclined to get very friendly at dinner the other night!"
"Jo Coutts was drunk," Julia asserted briefly. "As they very often are," she added severely. "Not raging drunk, but just silly, or sentimental and important, you know."
"I know," Jim laughed.
"And it makes me furious!" Julia said. "As for knowing them better, they aren't one bit more interesting when they're old friends. They're more familiar, I admit that, but all this cheeky yelling back and forth isn't interesting—it's just tiresome! 'I'm holding your husband's hand, Alice!' 'All right, then I'm going to kiss your husband!'" Her voice rose in mimicry. "And then Kenneth Roberts tells some little shady story, and every one screams, and every one goes on telling it over and over! Why, that little silly four-line verse Conrad Kent had last night—every one in the room had to learn it by heart and say it six hundred times before we were done with it!"