"Couldn't you get a cigar?
Why do you smoke that awful thing ?" "It is an altar of the past, and on it I burn the memories of its day," he answered, smiling.
"Well, I think I would get a new altar and burn incense for the present! Oh, but I've had the stupidest evening." "Wasn't the play good ?" "No, it was talk, talk, with a stress laid on nothing.

And then my escort wasn't particularly entertaining." "Who ?" "Oh, a Mr.Somebody.What have you been doing all the evening ?" "Something that I found to be worse than useless.

Father and I have been locking horns over the--not exactly the labor question, but over the wretchedness of working-women." "What do you know about the wretchedness of working-women ?" she asked.
"What do I know about it?
What can I help knowing about it?
How can I shut my eyes against it ?" "I don't see why they are so very wretched.

They get pay, I'm sure.
Somebody has to work; somebody has to be poor.

What are you writing ?" "The necessary rot of an editorial page." he answered.
"Why, how your handwriting has changed," she said, leaning over the table.
"How so ?" "Why, this is so different from the letters you wrote before you came home." He did not reply immediately; he was thinking.