In fancy I could see them assembled round
the little card-tables--the well-fed bodies, the well-cared-for skins,
the elaborate toilets, the useless jeweled hands--comfortable, secure,
self-satisfied, idle, always idle, always playing at the imitation
games--like their own pampered children, to be sheltered in the nurseries
of wealth their whole lives through. And not at all in bitterness, but
wholly in sadness, a sense of the injustice, the unfairness of it all--a
sense that had been strong in me in my youth but blunted during the years
of my busy prosperity--returned for a moment. For a moment only; my mind
was soon back to realities--to her and me--to "us." How soon it would never
be "us" again!
"They're mama's friends," Anita was answering. "Oldish and tiresome. When
you leave I shall go straight on up to bed."
"I'd like to--to see your room--where you live," said I, more to myself
than to her.
"I sleep in a bare little box," she replied with a laugh. "It's like a
cell. A friend of ours who has the anti-germ fad insisted on it. But my
sitting-room isn't so bad."
"Langdon has the anti-germ fad," said I. She answered "Yes" after a pause,
and in such a strained voice that I looked at her.
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