CHAPTER XXVII

THE VICIOUSNESS OF NICE THINGS

"What did you think of my nice Daggett boy?" Claire demanded of Eva Gilson, the moment bruncheon was over.

"Which one was---- Oh, the boy you met on the road? Why, really, I didn't notice him particularly. I'd rather fancied from the way you referred to him that he was awfully jolly and forceful, but rather crude. But I didn't notice him at all. He seemed perfectly well-bred, but slightly heavy."

"No, he isn't that---- He---- Why did you lead spades?" reflected Claire.

They were in the drawing-room, resting after the tact and tumult of the bruncheon. Claire had been here long enough now for the Gilsons to forget her comfortably, and be affectionate and quarrelsome and natural, and to admit by their worrying that even in their exalted social position there were things to fuss about.

"I do think we ought to have invited Belle Torrens," fretted Mrs.

Gilson. "We've simply got to have her here soon."

Mr. Gilson speculated intensely, "But she's the dullest soul on earth, and her husband spends all his spare time in trying to think up ways of doing me dirt in business. Oh, by the way, did you get the water tap in the blue room fixed? It's dripping all the time."

"No, I forgot it."

"Well, I _do_ wish you'd have it attended to. It simply drips all the time."

"I know. I intended to 'phone the plumber---- Can't you 'phone him tomorrow, from the office?"

"No, I haven't time to bother with it. But I do wish you would. It keeps on dripping----"

"I know, it doesn't seem to stop. Well, you remind me of it in the morning."

"I'm afraid I'll forget. You better make a note of it. If it keeps on dripping that way, it's likely to injure something. And I do wish you'd tell the j.a.p not to put so much parsley in the omelet. And I say, how would an omelet be with a b.u.t.ter sauce over it?"

"Oh, no, I don't think so. An omelet ought to be nice and dry. b.u.t.ter makes it so greasy--besides, with the price of b.u.t.ter----"

"But there's a richness to b.u.t.ter---- You'd better make a note about the tap dripping in the blue room right now, before you forget it. Oh! Why in heaven's name did we have Johnny Martin here? He's dull as ditchwater----"

"I know, but---- It is nice to go out to his place on the Point. Oh, Gene, I do wish you'd try and remember not to talk about your business so much. You and Mr. Martin were talking about the price of lumber for at least half an hour----"

"Nothing of the kind. We scarcely mentioned it. Oh! What car are you going to use this afternoon? If we get out to the Barnetts', I thought we might use the limousine---- Or no, you'll probably go out before I do, I have to read over some specifications, and I promised to give Will a lift, couldn't you take the Loco, maybe you might drive yourself, no, I forgot, the clutch is slipping a little, well, you might drive out and send the car back for me--still, there wouldn't hardly be time----"

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, _d.a.m.n_ 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-gla.s.s-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!"

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 a.s.s 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,"