knew she was as different from these people as her mother had been from the old aunts—she was as different, she told herself passionately, as Mrs. Hulburt's thin, lovely china was from her aunts' thick blue dishes. There was something about the way Sally wore her clothes—she had not even dressed for dinner, but had kept on a sleeveless little coat of pale yellow over a straight dress of white silk. Hildegarde, in her long black serge, with her mother's pearls about her neck, felt awkward and over-dressed against the elegance of Sally's simplicity.
She wondered if Meriweather were in love with Sally. She thought he ought to be. If she were a man she would, she was sure, fall in love with Sally.
She was aware, as they sat by the fire, that Sally was trying to set her at her ease.
"You are all to come here on election night for dinner. Neale Winslow, a friend of Louis', will be down, and there'll be just the six of us. I wanted some younger men. But Merry won't let me have them. He's a dog in the manger. He's not in love with me, and he won't let anybody else be."
Meriweather defended himself. "Sally's a perfect queen bee, Miss Carew; she always has a swarm of adorers. I'm trying to keep away from the honey-pot—self-preservation—"
Hildegarde spoke out of her honest conviction. "I'd be in love with her if I were a man."
Sally liked that. But she laughed with the rest of them. "Why would you love me? Tell me that. The men say it's because of my hair or my eyes. Please don't say you'd like me because of my eyes or hair—"