"I don't want to hear it, if you don't mind."

She went to the door and opened it.

"I've hardly spoken a dozen words to him in my life. But just
remember this. When I do find the man I want to marry, I shall make
up my own mind. As you did," she added as a parting shot.

She was rather sorry as she went down the stairs. She had begun to
suspect what the family had never guessed, that Nina was not very
happy. More and more she saw in Nina's passion for clothes and
gaiety, for small possessions, an attempt to substitute them for
real things. She even suspected that sometimes Nina was a little
lonely.

Wallie Sayre rose from a deep chair as she entered the living-room.

"Hello," he said, "I was on the point of asking Central to give me
this number so I could get you on the upstairs telephone."

"Nina and I were talking. I'm sorry."

Wallie, in spite of Walter Wheeler's opinion of him, was an engaging
youth with a wide smile, an air of careless well-being, and an
obstinate jaw. What he wanted he went after and generally secured,
and Elizabeth, enlightened by Nina, began to have a small anxious
feeling that afternoon that what he wanted just now happened to be
herself.