He took up the card that announced her, and looked again at the lower left-hand corner.

"I do remember, but I don't understand.

Is this one of them ?" he asked.
Something, something absolutely unintentional and of the slightest quality, in his voice operated to lower her estimate of the announcement on the card, and she flushed a little.
"It's--it's a way," she said.

"But it was stupid -- bourgeois--of me to send up a card--such a card.

With most of these people it is necessary; with you, of course, it was hideous! Give it to me, please," and she proceeded to tear it slowly into little bits.