But she was sorry and afraid. She resented Wallace's easy sympathy, resented the doctor's advice to rest, not to worry, his mild observation that a good deal of discomfort was inevitable.
Early in the new year she began to agitate the question of a dinner to the Drydens. Wallace, who had taken a fancy to Adele, agreed lazily to endure John's company, which he did not enjoy, for one evening. But he obstinately overruled Martie on the subject of a dinner at home.
"Nix," said Wallace flatly. "I won't have my wife cooking for anybody!"
"But Wallace—just grape-fruit and broilers and a salad! And they'll come out and help cook it. You don't know how informally we did things at Grandma's!"
"Well, you're not doing things informally now. It would be different if you had a couple of servants!"
"But it may be years before we have a couple of servants. Aren't we ever going to entertain, until then?"
"I don't know anything about that. But I tell you I won't have them thinking that we're hard up. I'll take them to a restaurant somewhere, and show that little boob a square meal!"
He finally selected an oppressively magnificent restaurant where a dollar-and-a-half table-d'hote dinner was served.
"But I'd like to blow them to a real dinner!" he regretted.
"Oh, Wallace, I'm not trying to impress them! We'll have more than enough to eat, and music, and a talk. Then we can break up at about ten, and we'll have done the decent thing!"