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 "I thought you were cake."

"I am, but Marcia was simply distracted. She brought these over with the bluebirds all cut out and everything and said she was nearly out of her mind, so I said I'd help her out, though goodness knows I really haven't the time. I mean, with the cake table and getting the children's summer clothes ready and all."

"You'll find we all lead very busy lives, Evelyn."

Evelyn sat there, warm, humid, faintly fragrant, in dim-pink chiffon edged with fronds of uncurled ostrich, smoking cigarette after cigarette, the full sleeves falling back from her white arms, the twilight-colored feathers floating, stirring. She made Kate in her nice blue silk and her beaded slippers, with her eau de Cologne, and Charlotte in her henna crêpe de Chine (the real Paris model—Miss Gilhooley had brought it over herself), her kinky permanent wave, and the diamond-and-sapphire bar pin Hoagland had given her for having Nancy Lou, the diamond wrist watch for having Sonny Boy, feel heavy and solid—feel that they were just good respectable women.

"I think I'll have a cigarette, Joe," said Charlotte, with a defiant look at Hoagland.

"Try my kind. Mr. Driggs?"

"Oh, now, you mustn't call me Mr. Driggs. Thanks, I never smoke anything but cigars."

"No, Hoagland never smokes cigarettes," Charlotte corroborated him between rapid jerky puffs.

"People often think I disapprove of women smok-