"I suppose it's because you've been busy--as much as anything else,"
smiled Mrs. Gilbert somewhat ambiguously. The "as much as anything else"
she used to balance all her more rickety sentences. She had two other
ones: "at least that's the way I look at it" and "pure and
simple"--these three, alternated, gave each of her remarks an air of
being a general reflection on life, as though she had calculated all
causes and, at length, put her finger on the ultimate one.
Richard Caramel's face, Anthony saw, was now quite normal. The brow and
cheeks were of a flesh color, the nose politely inconspicuous. He had
fixed his aunt with the bright-yellow eye, giving her that acute and
exaggerated attention that young males are accustomed to render to all
females who are of no further value.
"Are you a writer too, Mr. Pats? ... Well, perhaps we can all bask in
Richard's fame."--Gentle laughter led by Mrs. Gilbert.
"Gloria's out," she said, with an air of laying down an axiom from which
she would proceed to derive results. "She's dancing somewhere. Gloria
goes, goes, goes. I tell her I don't see how she stands it. She dances
all afternoon and all night, until I think she's going to wear herself
to a shadow.
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