"I'd rather have hot chocolate. I am frozen," said Nan.
They rounded the old State House.
Thompson's Spa was like an aviary, full of shrill women's chatter, bobbing hats, rows of powdered faces eating at narrow counters, smell of chocolate and sandwiches and sarsaparilla.
"Look, there's Betty Thomas!... What are you doing here, Betty? Sit here before somebody nabs the place," said Nan.
"O, just shopping. Dear, you should see the hats, straws at Filenes. Why, how do you do, Mr. Macdougan, and ... you! Why, this is a reunion!"
"Are they reasonable?"
"What, the hats?... Marvellous values, really."
Betty Thomas's nose was a little red from the cold. She held, balanced between finger and thumb, a salad sandwich that dripped mayonnaise into her plate; the three unoccupied fingers were arched airily in space. There was something about her amiable chatter to Nan, about the amiable fussy chattiness of the women all about them that rasped on Fanshaw's nerves; the sum of it was shrill and ominous.
"But Wenny, what are you going to do?... I'm fearfully worried," he said in a low voice, leaning towards Wenny's ear. Like a haze about them was Nan's and Betty Thomas's chirruping talk:
"My dear, have you heard the latest? Up at the conservatoire ..."