It's a game now--fair game--and you're glad you came to the tea!
"Healthy, you say? How nice. It's perfectly lovely to be healthy. Do you live in the country?"
"Not exactly the country. We live in Madison Square, under the trees."
"Yes; we have all the advantages of the city and the delights of the country. I got a permit from the Board of Education to put up a little bungalow alongside the Worth monument, and the children bathe in the fountain every morning when the weather is cold enough."
"Oh, how charming! How many children have you?"
"Only seven. The oldest is five and the youngest is six."
"Just the interesting age. Don't you think children fascinating?"
Again the roaming eye and the vivacious smile.
"Yes, indeed. My oldest--he's fourteen and quite original. He says that when he grows up he doesn't know what he'll be."
"Yes, he says it every morning, a half-hour before breakfast."
"Just seventeen, but perfectly girl-like and masculine."
She nods her head, bows to an acquaintance in a distant part of the room, and murmurs in musical, sympathetic tones:
"Yes, his name's Ethel. He's a great help to her mother."
"Yes; I tell them there may be city advantages, but I think they're much better off where they are."
"On the Connecticut shore. You see, having only the one child, Mrs. Smith is very anxious that it should grow up healthy" (absent-minded nods indicative of full attention), "and so little Ronald never comes to the city at all. He plays with the fisherman's child and gets great drafts of fresh air."
"Oh, how perfectly entrancing! You're quite a poet."
Now she is really attentive. She thought you were just an ordinary beast, and she finds that you may be a lion. Smith? Perhaps you're Hopkinson Smith.
"Oh, do you paint? How perfectly adorable! What do you paint--landscapes or portraits?"
Again the eye wanders and she inventories a dress, and you say:--
"Do you ever allow visitors come to your studio?"
"Why, I never prevent them, but I'm so afraid it will bore them that I never ask them."
"Oh, how could anybody be bored at anything?"
"But every one hasn't your enthusiasm. My studio is in the top of the Madison Square tower, and I never see a soul from week's end to week's end."
"Dear, no; a man who is wedded to his art mustn't commit bigamy."