Lois accepted the coffee.
"I think you know my brother?" observed Miss Caruthers then, making her observations as she spoke.
"Mr. Caruthers? yes; I believe he is your brother."
"I have heard him speak of you. He has seen you at Mrs. Wishart's, I think."
"At Mrs. Wishart's—yes."
Lois spoke naturally, yet Miss Caruthers fancied she could discern a certain check to the flow of her words.
"You could not be in a better place for seeing what New York is like, for everybody goes to Mrs. Wishart's; that is, everybody who is anybody."
This did not seem to Lois to require any answer. Her eye went over the long tableful; went from face to face. Everybody was talking, nearly everybody was smiling. Why not? If enjoyment would make them smile, where could more means of enjoyment be heaped up, than at this feast? Yet Lois could not help thinking that the tokens of real pleasure-taking were not unequivocal. She was having a very good time; full of amusement; to the others it was an old story. Of what use, then?
Miss Caruthers had been engaged in a lively battle of words with some of her young companions; and now her attention came back to Lois, whose meditative, amused expression struck her.
"I am sure," she said, "you are philosophizing! Let me have the results of your observations, do! What do your eyes see, that mine perhaps do not?"