Virginia had explained to these friends some three hours before that she could not go with them that afternoon as she must attend a musicale some friends of her mother's were giving. Being friends of her mother's, she expatiated, she would have to go.
Recollecting this, also for the first time remembering the musicale, she bowed with the hauteur of self-consciousness.
Right there her friend contributed to the tragedy of a sheep's death by dropping the yellow opera cloak. While he was stooping to pick it up the violet velvet gown slid backward and Virginia had to steady it until he could regain position. The staring in the corner gave way to tittering—and no dying sheep had ever held its head more haughtily.
The death of this particular sheep proved long and painful. The legs of Virginia's friend and the legs of the tea-table did not seem well adapted to each other. He towered like a human mountain over the dainty thing, twisting now this way and now that. It seemed Providence—or at least so much of it as was represented by the management of that shop—had never meant fat people to drink tea. The table was rendered further out of proportion by having a large box piled on either side of it.
Expansively, and not softly, he discoursed of these things. What did they think a fellow was to do with his knees? Didn't they sell tea enough to afford any decent chairs? Did all these women pretend to really like tea?
Virginia's sense of humour rallied somewhat as she viewed him eating the sandwiches. Once she had called them doll-baby sandwiches; now that seemed literal: tea-cups, petit gateau, the whole service gave the fancy of his sitting down to a tea-party given by a little girl for her dollies.
But after a time he fell silent, looking around the room. And when he broke that pause his voice was different.
“These women here, all dressed so fine, nothing to do but sit around and eat this folderol, they have it easy—don't they?”
The bitterness in it, and a faint note of wistfulness, puzzled her. Certainly he had money.
“And the husbands of these women,” he went on; “lots of 'em, I suppose, didn't always have so much. Maybe some of these women helped out in the early days when things weren't so easy. Wonder if the men ever think how lucky they are to be able to get it back at 'em?”