"If I'm bursting, as you so impolitely suggest, it must be terribly important, and if it's terribly important you—you ought to guess it," he finished lamely.
"Now, Gregory, don't tease. Besides, I haven't an ounce of sense left. I've been struggling with a Tammany politician until I'm limp. What is it?"
Gregory took the cup she was holding to him. He felt that as long as the cup was in transit a choice was left open. But once it was beside his plate, he would be obliged to say, in the only way he had been able to frame it at all: "I've won the contest, and I have to go and live in Chicago. They want me there to talk over some slight changes by the middle of March and—I might as well stay on, because I'm going back there to live anyhow."
"Gregory, don't be silly. Please, what is it? I know it's good, because your nose is wrinkling up at the corners."
"It is good." Gregory put down the cup. "I've won the contest."
The old peacock cackled a shrill note and Gregory heard her say: "Just fancy, at her age, a deep pink, my dear, I——"
"Gregory—my dear...."
The blood rushed to Gregory's eyes so that Jean blurred to something white and shining, near but impossible to touch. He looked down.
"I shall have to go to Chicago. They've asked me to be there by the middle of March."
"Of course. Why, I'd want to take the next train and rush out, whether they'd asked me or not. Oh, Gregory! I always knew it but—I feel all wiggly inside."