1 "I'm not going to Mrs. Merriman's," she said.
2 "I believe he's paralyzed," laughed Mrs. Merriman.
3 And Mr. and Mrs. Merriman wondered how it could be so late.
4 She sometimes felt very tired of Mrs. Highcamp and Mrs. Merriman.
5 They had also come to invite her to play vingt-et-un one evening at Mrs. Merriman's.
6 She was asked to go early, to dinner, and Mr. Merriman or Mr. Arobin would take her home.
7 Then came Mrs. Merriman, Mr. Gouvernail, Miss Mayblunt, Mr. Merriman, and Mademoiselle Reisz next to Monsieur Ratignolle.
8 Arobin dropped in with a message from Mrs. Merriman, to say that the card party was postponed on account of the illness of one of her children.
9 Mr. Merriman's laugh at this sally was such a genuine outburst and so contagious that it started the dinner with an agreeable swing that never slackened.
10 Mrs. Mortimer Merriman and Mrs. James Highcamp, who were there with Alcee Arobin, had joined them and had enlivened the hours in a fashion that warmed him to think of.
11 There were Mr. and Mrs. Merriman, a pretty, vivacious little woman in the thirties; her husband, a jovial fellow, something of a shallow-pate, who laughed a good deal at other people's witticisms, and had thereby made himself extremely popular.
12 Her attention was never for a moment withdrawn from him after seating herself at table; and when he turned to Mrs. Merriman, who was prettier and more vivacious than Mrs. Highcamp, she waited with easy indifference for an opportunity to reclaim his attention.