That afternoon, after having agreed that Mr. Johnny Martin was a bore,
Mr. and Mrs. Gilson decided to run out to the house of Mr. Johnny
Martin. They bore along the lifeless Claire.
Mr. Martin was an unentertaining bachelor who entertained. There were a
dozen supercilious young married people at his bayside cottage when the
Gilsons arrived. Among them were two eyebrow-arching young matrons whom
Claire had not met--Mrs. Corey and Mrs. Betz.
"We've all heard of you, Miss Boltwood," said Mrs. Betz. "You come from
the East, don't you?"
"Yes," fluttered Claire, trying to be cordial.
Mrs. Corey and Mrs. Betz looked at each other in a motionless wink, and
Mrs. Corey prodded: "From New York?"
"No. Brooklyn." Claire tried not to make it too short.
"Oh." The tacit wink was repeated. Mrs. Corey said brightly--much too
brightly--"I was born in New York. I wonder if you know the Dudenants?"
Now Claire knew the Dudenants. She had danced with that young ass Don
Dudenant a dozen times. But the devil did enter into her and possess
her, and, to Eva Gilson's horror, Claire said stupidly, "No-o, but I
think I've heard of them."
The condemning wink was repeated.
"I hear you've been doing such interesting things--motoring and
adventuring--you must have met some terrible people along the way,"
fished Mrs. Betz.
"Yes, everybody does seem to feel that way. But I'm afraid I found them
terribly nice," flared Claire.
"I always say that common people can be most agreeable," Mrs. Corey
patronized. Before Claire could kill her--there wasn't any homicidal
weapon in sight except a silver tea-strainer--Mrs. Corey had pirouetted
on, "Though I do think that we're much too kind to workmen and all--the
labor situation is getting to be abominable here in the West, and upon
my word, to keep a maid nowadays, you have to treat her as though she
were a countess."
"Why shouldn't maids be like countesses? They're much more important,"
said Claire sweetly.
It cannot be stated that Claire had spent any large part of her time in
reading Karl Marx, leading syndicalist demonstrations, or hemming red
internationalist flags, but at this instant she was a complete
revolutionist. She could have executed Mrs. Corey and pretty Mrs. Betz
with zeal; she disliked the entire bourgeoisie; she looked around for a
Jap boy to call "comrade" and she again thought about the possibilities
of the tea-strainer for use in assassination. She stolidly wore through
the combined and exclamatory explanations of Mrs. Corey, Mrs. Betz, Mrs.
Gilson, and Mr. Johnny Martin about the inherent viciousness of all
maids, and when the storm was over, she said in a manner of honey and
syrup: "You were speaking of the Dudenants, weren't you, Mrs. Corey? I do
remember them now. Poor Don Dudenant, isn't it a pity he's such a fool?
His father is really a very decent old bore."