II.
It had been like that for almost a year—a game played with technical mastery, but with the fire and enthusiasm gone—and Josephine was still a month short of eighteen. One evening during Thanksgiving vacation, as they waited for dinner in the library of Christine Dicer’s house on Gramercy Park, Josephine said to Lillian:
“I keep thinking how excited I’d have been a year ago. A new place, a new dress, meeting new men.”
“You’ve been around too much, dearie; you’re blasé.”
Josephine bridled impatiently: “I hate that word, and it’s not true. I don’t care about anything in the world except men, and you know it. But they’re not like they used to be…. What are you laughing at?”
“When you were six years old they were different?”
“They were. They used to have more spirit when we played dro
