They have told her that the party can't begin without her--isn't worth calling a party till she's there.

We are always the last to go.

The other people don't matter, but if she goes they will feel the whole thing has been a failure.

She is dead for want of sleep, and they are sick and tired of us; but if I look at my watch they talk as if their hearts were breaking, and she thinks me a brute for wanting to leave friends so passionately attached to us.
"Why do we all play this silly game; what is the sense of it ?" he wanted to know.
I could not tell him..