Mary giggled. “I knew you’d say that,” she said. “The minute you said it, before you said it, I knew that was what you’d say. I wish I could always look mysterious, this way. I don’t look like myself at all. I could float up and down the main street and I wouldn’t care what anyone said about me. I’d go to Dublin and then to London and I wouldn’t say anything to anybody. And if anybody said anything to me I’d say, ‘I’m Miss Iris Ramsay and I don’t like anything.’ … She makes me sick, that one, the way she goes around the house pretending to talk French. And there’s nothing anybody can do to please her. Her mother is going to do the whole house over for her. That’s why she’s having this party, to get all the good they can out of the place before they start to do it up. They would have had to move everything anyway — the carpets and the furniture and everything. They’re going to get all new curtains and new paint and new wallpaper everywhere, and a new carpet for Miss Iris’s room.”

“They’re going to take down all the curtains?” Rose said.

“All the curtains, downstairs and up here. She says the place is too heavy and old-fashioned. She wants all light colors. And she wants this dressing table for herself. She says it’s not suitable for an older lady. She says it’s suitable for her room. She’s to have it. She means to have it and she will have it. When could I ever put out my hand and see a thing I wanted and say that it was mine? Oh, what difference does it make to me? I have to laugh. What difference does it make where it is? Not a particle of difference. What do I care what room it’s in? Whatever room it’s in, it’s still not mine. This room or that room or her room or some other room, I’ll see it just as much and want it just as much. Tell me something, Rose. I want to know — is Jim Nolan down there?”

“Yes. I saw him. He’s down there,” Rose said.

“I thought I heard him,” Mary said. “First I thought I heard him talking and then I thought I heard him laughing and then — I was in the kitchen; he must have come into the dining room — and just before I came up here I heard him again.”

“I saw him,” Rose said. “Here and there. He was talking to two women from Ramsay’s — Miss Martin, I think her name is, and another one.”