Page:The Sick-A-Bed Lady.djvu/291

 shiningly empty as an unfinished house, her brain- cells were packed like an attic with all the inherent experiences of her mother's mother's mother, and she flinched instinctively with a great lurch of her heart.

"Oh, let s talk about something dressy," she begged. "Let s talk about Central Park. Let s talk about the shops. Let s talk about the sub way. "Her startled face broke desperately into a smile. "Oh, don't you think the subway is per- fectly dreadful, "she insisted. "There s so much underbrush in it ! "Even as she spoke, her shoul- ders hunched up the merest trifle, and her head pushed forward, after the manner of people who walk much in the deep woods. The perplexity in her eyes spread instantly to her hands. Among the confusing array of knives and forks and spoons at her plate, her fingers began to snarl nervously like a city man's feet through a tangle of black berry vines.

With a good-natured shrug of his shoulders, the Journalist turned to his more sophisticated neigh- bor, and left her quite piteously alone once more. An enamored-looking man and woman at her right were talking transmigration of souls, but whenever she tried to annex herself to their conversation they trailed their voices away from her in a sacred, aloof sort of whisper. Across the table the people