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"I forgot! Wallie's downstairs, Elizabeth. Really, if he wasn't so
funny, he'd be tragic."
"Why tragic? He has everything in the world."
"If you use a little bit of sense, you can have it too."
"I don't want "Pooh! That's what you think now. Wallie's a nice person. Lots of girls
are mad about him. And he has about all the money there is." Getting
no response from Elizabeth, she went on: "I was thinking it over last
night. You'll have to marry sometime, and it isn't as though Wallie was
dissipated, or anything like that. I suppose he knows his way about, but
then they all do."
She got up.
"Be nice to him, anyhow," she said. "He's crazy about you, and when I
think of you in that house! It's a wonderful house, Elizabeth. She's got
a suite waiting for Wallie to be married before she furnishes it."
Elizabeth looked around her virginal little room, with its painted
dressing table, its chintz, and its white bed with the blue dress on it.
"I'm very well satisfied as I am," she said.
While she smoothed her hair before the mirror Nina surveyed the room and
her eyes lighted on the frock.
"Are you still wearing that shabby old thing?" she demanded. "I do wish
you'd get some proper clothes. Are you going somewhere?"
"I'm going to the theater on Wednesday night."
"Who with?" Nina in her family was highly colloquial.
"With Doctor Livingstone."
"Are you joking?" Nina demanded.
"Joking? Of course not."
Nina sat down again on the bed, her eyes on her sister, curious and not
a little apprehensive.
"It's the first time it's ever happened, to my knowledge," she declared.
"I know he's avoided me like poison. I thought he hated women. You know
Clare Rossiter is--"
Elizabeth turned suddenly.
"Clare is ridiculous," she said. "She hasn't any reserve, or dignity,
or anything else. And I don't see what my going to the theater with Dick
Livingstone has to do with her anyhow."
Nina raised her carefully plucked eyebrows.
"Really!" she said. "You needn't jump down my throat, you know." She
considered, her eyes on her sister. "Don't go and throw yourself away on
Dick Livingstone, Sis. You're too good-looking, and he hasn't a cent. A
suburban practice, out all night, that tumble-down old house and two
old people hung around your necks, for Doctor David is letting go pretty
fast. It just won't do. Besides, there's a story going the rounds about
him, that--"