long stretches of dingy streets, then cleaner ones, with their old and
comfortable houses; the park, with its bare trees and shrubs, and
finally the Avenue, with its smooth paving and pretentious homes, its
hurrying cars of luxurious make, its air of conscious smartness. As
contrast to my present home it interested greatly.

Kitty's house is very beautiful. She is that rare person who knows she
does not know, and the house, bought for her by her father as a
wedding-gift, she had put in the hands of proper authorities for its
furnishings. It is not the sort of home I would care to have, but it
is undeniably handsome, and undoubtedly Kitty understands the art of
entertaining.

Her dinner-party was rather a large one, its honor guest an English
writer whose books are unendurably dull; but any sort of lion is
helpful in reducing social obligations, and for that purpose Kitty had
captured him. She insisted on my coming, but begged me not to mention
horrid things, like poor people and politics and babies who died from
lack of intelligent care, but to talk books.

"So few of the others talk books, except novels, and he thinks most
modern novels rotten," she had told me over the telephone. "So please
come and splash out something about these foreign writers whose names I
can't remember. Bergyson is one, I believe, and Brerr another, and
France-Ana--Ana something France. He's a man. And there's another
one. Mater. . . Yes, that's it. Maeterlinck. And listen: Wear that
white crepe you wore at my wedding; it's frightfully plain, but all
your other things are black. I don't see why you still wear black.
Aunt Matilda hated it."