She lowered her head again, murmured an inaudible
acknowledgment of Joe's greeting.
"Your wife is at home?" said I. If one was at home in the evening, the
other was also, and both were always there, unless they were at some
theater--except on Sunday night, when they dined at Sherry's, because many
fashionable people did it. They had no friends and few acquaintances.
In their humbler and happy days they had had many friends, but had lost
them when they moved away from Brooklyn and went to live, like uneasy,
out-of-place visitors, in their grand house, pretending to be what they
longed to be, longing to be what they pretended to be, and as discontented
as they deserved.
"Oh, yes, Mrs. B.'s at home," Joe answered. "I guess she and Alva
were--about to go to bed." Alva was their one child. She had been
christened Malvina, after Joe's mother; but when the Balls "blossomed out"
they renamed her Alva, which they somehow had got the impression was
"smarter."
At Joe's blundering confession that the females of the family were in no
condition to receive, Anita said to me in a low voice: "Let us go."
I pretended not to hear. "Rout 'em out," said I to Joe. "Then, take my
electric and bring the nearest parson.
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