"Nobody does, dearest. If you are really up-to-date you breakfast and
dine--the other meals are vague--illusory."

"People in my time----" Aunt Maude had stated.

"People in your time," Evelyn had interrupted flippantly, "were wise and
good. Nobody wants to be wise and good in these days. We want to be smart
and sophisticated. Your good old stuffy dining-rooms were like your good
old stuffy consciences. Now my breakfast room is symbolic--the green and
white for the joy of living, and the black for my sins."

She stood up on tiptoe to feed the parrot. "To-morrow," she announced, "I
am to have a black cat. I found one at the cat show--with green eyes. And
I am going to match his cushion to his eyes."

"I'd like a cat," Aunt Maude said, unexpectedly, "but I can't say that I
care for black ones. The grays are the best mousers."

Eve looked at her reproachfully. "Do you think that cats catch mice?" she
demanded,--"up-to-date cats? They sit on cushions and add emphasis to the
color scheme. Winifred Ames has a yellow one to go with her primrose
panels."

The telephone rang. A maid answered it. "It is for you, Miss Evelyn."

"It is Pip," Eve said, as she turned from the telephone; "he's coming
up."

Aunt Maude surveyed her. "You're not going to receive him as you are?"

"As I am? Why not?"

"Eve, go to your room and put something _on_," Aunt Maude agonized; "when
I was a girl----"

Evelyn dropped a kiss on her cheek. "When you were a girl, Aunt Maude,
you were very pretty, and you wore very low necks and short sleeves on
the street, and short dresses--and--and----"

Remembering the family album, Aunt Maude stopped her hastily. "It doesn't
make any difference what I wore. You are not going to receive any
gentleman in that ridiculous jacket."

Eve surveyed herself in an oval mirror set above a console-table. "I
think I look rather nice. And Pip would like me in anything. Aunt Maude,
it's a queer world for us women. The men that we want don't want us, and
the men that we don't want adore us. The emancipation of women will come
when they can ask men to marry them."

She was ruffling the feathers on the green parrot's head. He caught her
finger carefully in his claw and crooned.

Aunt Maude rose. "I had twenty proposals--your uncle's was the twentieth.
I loved him at first sight, and I loved him until he left me."

"Uncle was a dear," Eve agreed, "but suppose he hadn't asked you, Aunt
Maude?"

"I should have