she had learned to dread pictures. She had to say things about them,
and she didn't know what to say. She used to murmur, "marvelous," and
feel that it was not enough. But nobody minded. Nobody listened.
Nobody took any notice of Mrs. Wilkins. She was the kind of person who
is not noticed at parties. Her clothes, infested by thrift, made her
practically invisible; her face was non-arresting; her conversation was
reluctant; she was shy. And if one's clothes and face and conversation
are all negligible, thought Mrs. Wilkins, who recognized her
disabilities, what, at parties, is there left of one?

Also she was always with Wilkins, that clean-shaven, fine-looking
man, who gave a party, merely by coming to it, a great air. Wilkins
was very respectable. He was known to be highly thought of by his
senior partners. His sister's circle admired him. He pronounced
adequately intelligent judgments on art and artists. He was pithy; he
was prudent; he never said a word too much, nor, on the other had, did
he ever say a word too little. He produced the impression of keeping
copies of everything he said; and he was so obviously reliable that it
often happened that people who met him at these parties became
discontented with their own solicitors, and after a period of
restlessness extricated themselves and went to Wilkins.

Naturally Mrs. Wilkins was blotted out. "She," said his sister, with
something herself of the judicial, the digested, and the final in her
manner, "should stay at home." But Wilkins could not leave his wife
at home. He was a family solicitor, and all such have wives and show
them. With his in the week he went to parties, and with his on Sundays
he went to church. Being still fairly young--he was thirty-nine--and
ambitious of old ladies, of whom he had not yet acquired in his
practice a sufficient number, he could not afford to miss church,