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!"