"Rosie?" asked West.
"Rosie is Stella's sister. We don't know the exact relationship, but we
call her that for convenience."
"There are times," explained Cartwright, "when we forget her face and
let her sit at the table's head, as if she were one of us. As if she
were our hostess. She looks remarkably like a woman, you know. Those
wings of hers are like an ermine cape, and that platinum hair. She
lends something to the table ... a sort of--"
"An illusion of gentility," said Nevin.
"Perhaps we'd better not tonight," decided Cartwright. "Mr. West is not
used to her. After he's been here awhile--"
He stopped and looked aghast.
"We've forgotten something," he announced.
He rose and strode around the table to the imitation fireplace and took
down a bottle that stood on the mantelpiece--a bottle with a black
silk bow tied around its neck. Ceremoniously, he set it in the center
of the table, beside the bowl of fruit.
"It's a little joke we have," said Nevin.
"Scarcely a joke," contradicted Cartwright.