While Gallito talked to Seagreave and Mrs. Nitschkan and José argued
over certain rules of the game they had been playing, Mrs. Thomas sidled
up to Pearl and stood looking at her with the absorbed unconsciousness
of an admiring child.

"I s'pose," she began, swaying back and forth bashfully and touching the
pink bow at her throat, "that it does look kind of queer to any one
that's so up on the styles as you are to see me wearing a pink bow at my
neck and a crêpe veil down my back?"

Pearl looked up in wearied surprise. "It does seem queer," she said
indifferently.

"'Course I know it ain't just citified," Mrs. Thomas hastened to
affirm; "but the veil and the bow together's got a meaning that I think
is real sweet." She waited a moment, almost pathetically anxious for
Pearl to see the symbolism of her two incongruous adornments, but her
listener was too genuinely bored and also too self-absorbed to make the
attempt. "It's this," said Mrs. Thomas, determined to explain. "The pink
bow kind o' shows that I'm in the world again and," bridling
coquettishly, "open to offers, while this crêpe veil shows that I ain't
forgot poor Seth in his grave and can afford to mourn for him right."

But Pearl had not waited to hear all of these explanations. Without a
word to the rest of the parting guests, and with a mere inclination of
the head toward Seagreave, she had slipped away.

Alone in her small, bare room, undressing by the light of a single
candle, the brief interest and curiosity which Seagreave had aroused in