“I can’t imagine.”
“I can only think of one reason. Of course she may—”
“Now please don’t be filthy!”
“Well, anyway— She who might have picked any number of well-bred, agreeable, intelligent chaps—and I mean intelligent, because this Arrowsmith person may know all about germs, but he doesn’t know a symphony from a savory.... I don’t think I’m too fussy, but I don’t quite see why we should go to a house where the host apparently enjoys flatly contradicting you.... Poor devil, I’m really sorry for him; probably he doesn’t even know when he’s being rude.”
“No. Perhaps. What hurts is to think of old Roger—so gay, so strong, real Skull and Bones—and to have this abrupt Outsider from the tall grass sitting in his chair, failing to appreciate his Pol Roger— What Joyce ever saw in him! Though he does have nice eyes and such funny strong hands—”
VI
Joyce’s busyness was on his nerves. Why she was so busy it was hard to ascertain; she had an excellent housekeeper, a noble butler, and two nurses for the baby. But she often said that she was never allowed to attain her one ambition: to sit and read.
Terry had once called her The Arranger, and though Martin resented it, when he heard the telephone bell he groaned, “Oh, Lord, there’s The Arranger—wants me to come to tea with some high-minded hen.”
When he sought to explain that he must be free from entanglements, she suggested, “Are you such a weak, irresolute, little man that the only way you can keep concentrated is by running away? Are you afraid of the big men who can do big work, and still stop and play?”
He was likely to turn abusive, particularly as to her definition of Big Men, and when he became hot and vulgar, she turned grande dame, so that he felt like an impertinent servant and was the more vulgar.