Listening to them as to a play, Claire suddenly desired to scream, "Oh,

for heaven's sake quit fussing! I'm going up and drown myself in the

blue-room tap! What does it matter! Walk! Take a surface car! Don't fuss

so!"

Her wrath came from her feeling of guilt. Yes, Milt had been

commonplace. Had she done this to him? Had she turned his cheerful

ignorances into a careful stupor? And she felt stuffy and choking and

overpacked with food. She wanted to be out on the road, clear-headed,

forcing her way through, an independent human being--with Milt not too

far behind.

Mrs. Gilson was droning, "I do think Mattie Vincent is so nice."

"Rather dull I'd call her," yawned Mr. Gilson.

Mattie was the seventh of their recent guests whom he had called dull by

now.

"Not at all--oh, of course she doesn't dance on tables and quote

Maeterlinck, but she does have an instinct for the niceties and the

proprieties--her little house is so sweet--everything just exactly

right--it may be only a single rose, but always chosen so carefully to

melt into the background; and such adorable china--I simply die of envy

every time I see her Lowestoft plates. And such a quiet way of reproving

any bad taste--the time that crank university professor was out there,

and spoke of the radical labor movement, and Mattie just smiled at him

and said, 'If you don't mind, let's not drag filthy lumberjacks into the

drawing-room--they'd hate it just as much as we would, don't you think,

perhaps?'"

"Oh, damn nice china! Oh, let's hang all spinsters who are brightly

reproving," Claire was silently raging. "And particularly and earnestly

confound all nicety and discretion of living."

She tried to break the spell of the Gilsons' fussing. She

false-heartedly fawned upon Mr. Gilson, and inquired: "Is there anything very exciting going on at the mills, Gene?"

"Exciting?" asked Mr. Gilson incredulously. "Why, how do you mean?"

"Don't you find business exciting? Why do you do it then?"

"Oh, wellllll---- Of course---- Oh, yes, exciting in a way. Well----

Well, we've had a jolly interesting time making staves for candy

pails--promises to be wonderfully profitable. We have a new way of

cutting them. But you wouldn't be interested in the machinery."

"Of course not. You don't bore Eva with your horrid, headachy

business-problems, do you?" Claire cooed, with low cunning.

"Indeed no. Don't think a chap ought to inflict his business on his

wife. The home should be a place of peace."

"Yes," said Claire.

But she wasn't thinking "Yes." She was thinking, "Milt, what worries me

now isn't how I can risk letting the 'nice people' meet you. It's how I

can ever waste you on the 'nice people.' Oh, I'm spoiled for

cut-glass-and-velvet afternoons. Eternal spiritual agony over blue-room

taps is too high a price even for four-poster beds. I want to be

driving! hiking! living!"




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