had gone in a small masculine company to a fervid musical show the
evening before. While they, in their turn, thick like their brother
or cousin Moses, with time-wasted hair and countenances marked with
the shrewdness in the service of which the greater part of their
lives had vanished, had their little jokes about the "girls" and the
younger and handsomer beaux who threatened their happiness.

At times the topic of business crept into the lighter discussion,
and, in an instant, the gaiety evaporated and left expressionless
men and quick sharp sentences steely with decision, or indirect and
imperturbably blank. A memorandum book and a gold pencil would
appear for an enigmatic note, after which the cheerfulness slowly
revived.

The daughters resembled Judith or the slower placidity of Pansy;
while there was still another sort, more vigorous in being, who
consciously discussed riding academies, the bridle-paths of Central
Park, and the international tennis. Their dress held a greater
restraint than the elders; though Linda recognized that it was no
less lavish; and their feminine trifles, the morocco beauty-cases
and powder-boxes, the shoulder-pins, their slipper and garter
buckles were extravagant in exquisite metals and workings.

They arrived in limousines with dove-colored upholstery and crystal
vases of maidenhair fern and moss-roses; and often, in such a car,
Linda went to the theatre with Judith or Pansy and some cousins.
Usually it was a matinee, where their seats were the best procurable,
directly at the stage; and they sat in a sleek expensive row eating
black chocolates from painted boxes ruffled in rose silk. The
audience, composed mostly of their own world, followed the exotic