For vaguely she knew that years ago when she herself had come to New York, she too had had dreams and imaginings of what her young sister called "the real thing." And she knew that these had dropped away--at first in the struggle, which for her had been so intense and narrowing, to gain a foothold in the town; then through rebuffs from the clever friends of Joe Lanier when she married him; and later through a feeling of lazy acceptance of her lot.

But Ethel's talk and Ethel's eyes recalled what had been left behind.

And Amy thought of her present friends, and again with a little uneasy pang she put off their meeting with Ethel.

For they did not seem good to her then, and the picture she found herself painting of their lives and her own appeared a bit flat and trivial in the light of Ethel's eagerness.

They dressed and went shopping, they went to tea dances, they dined in cafes or in their homes, rushed off in taxis to musical plays, and had supper and danced.
They loved and were loved, they "played the game." "My dear," she said decisively, "it's not what you say that interests men; it's how you look and what you have on." But despite her air of assurance and her own liking of her life, she felt the picture growing flat, and so she added quietly: "Oh, my friends aren't all I'd like.