“He says, Jan,” Martin told her eagerly, “that every once in awhile they have masquerade parties down at the Club, and everybody goes all dressed up, with masks on, you know, so nobody recognizes you, and they just have a riot of fun. Then about a dozen or fifteen of the fellows are going to get sail-boats this year. There’s a ship-yard near there, and the ship-builder has designed the neatest little sail-boat you ever saw in your life. He calls it the A-boat, and they are only going to cost ninety dollars apiece. Just think of that, Jan: ninety dollars apiece! A sail-boat,—a little yacht,—for that sum! Gee whillikens! Can you imagine the fun we’ll have? Everybody, you know, starts the same with a new boat. Gibbs was crazy to have me order one,—the Club is anxious to give the ship-builder as big an order as possible so’s to get the price down,—so I fell for it and told him to put me down. I thought maybe I’d call her the Albatross?”
“You—what?” asked Jeannette blankly.
“Sure, I told him to put me down. You know, it made a hit with him; he’d ’ve been awfully sore if I hadn’t; and it’s up to me to keep in with old Gibbsey. I can sell it if we don’t like it. Gibbs put my name up for membership in the Yacht Club.”
“He did?” Jeannette said blankly again.
“Well, darling, it’s only thirty dollars a year and I guess that’s not going to break us; the initiation fee is twenty-five,—something like that. Why the Club is just intended for young married folks like us; there’re the dances for the ladies, and the card parties and picnics, and there’re the sports for the men. Gee,—I think it will be great! And Gibbsey tells me that by special arrangement this year the Cohasset Beach Yacht Club is going to let us use its tennis courts!”
Jeannette looked into his excited eyes, and a dull exasperation came over her.
“The poor, poor simpleton,” she thought. “He thinks he’ll like it; Gibbs has filled him full. He’ll hate it as I hate it now inside of a fortnight. He never would be contented in such a place; what would he do without his theatres and the gay night life he loves? It’s hard enough for us to live as we are,—we have to struggle and struggle to make ends meet,—and here he is mad to try an even more expensive method of living, involving clubs and club dues, yachts and commutation fares! ... And in such a community with such people! The flat-headed Gibbses and their awful friends picnicking there on the sand that terrible Fourth of July! And Martin proposes I exchange them and their vulgar dreadful society, their masquerades and card parties, for my beautiful little apartment which I’ve tried to make perfect, which everyone admires, and which is my joy and delight!”
There was a dangerous, fixed smile on her face as she rose from the dinner table where they had been lingering over their black coffee, and rang the little brass bell for Hilda to clear away.
“Well, what do you think, Jan? Don’t you believe we’d both come to love the country? Don’t you think we’d have a pack of fun down there?”
She eyed him with a cold stare a moment before she answered slowly: