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"What's character?" demanded Patricia.

"My dear child!" expostulated Amy, screwing her face under the smarting onset of cigarette smoke.

"Well, what is it?" This time it was Jack, dangerously bellicose.

"It's what everybody thinks they've got," said Patricia.

"When they haven't got it," added Jack.

"Oh, not nowadays," urged Monty, correcting that assumption with a quite lordly indifference. "We're all so self-conscious."

"I mean...." Jack was at a loss. Patricia's brain supplemented his deficiency; but she had not the courage to say her thoughts aloud. He meant that it was not of character that people were vain. It was of accomplishments; of quickness, skill, beauty. And yet....

"It all goes much deeper than you think," she announced; and by provoking sharp laughter from them all by this profundity, Patricia saved the argument about reality from becoming a real argument. It was a lively contribution to the evening.

"A philosopher!" cried Monty, in his slow, rather jeering way, very easily and as if all views were one to him.