"Of course not. You don't bore Eva with your horrid, headachy business-problems, do you?" Claire cooed, with low cunning.
"Indeed no. Don't think a chap ought to inflict his business on his wife. The home should be a place of peace."
"Yes," said Claire.
But she wasn't thinking "Yes." She was thinking, "Milt, what worries me now isn't how I can risk letting the 'nice people' meet you. It's how I can ever waste you on the 'nice people.' Oh, I'm spoiled for cut-glass-and-velvet afternoons. Eternal spiritual agony over blue-room taps is too high a price even for four-poster beds. I want to be driving! hiking! living!"
That afternoon, after having agreed that Mr. Johnny Martin was a bore, Mr. and Mrs. Gilson decided to run out to the house of Mr. Johnny Martin. They bore along the lifeless Claire.
Mr. Martin was an unentertaining bachelor who entertained. There were a dozen supercilious young married people at his bayside cottage when the Gilsons arrived. Among them were two eyebrow-arching young matrons whom Claire had not met—Mrs. Corey and Mrs. Betz.
"We've all heard of you, Miss Boltwood," said Mrs. Betz. "You come from the East, don't you?"
"Yes," fluttered Claire, trying to be cordial.
Mrs. Corey and Mrs. Betz looked at each other in a motionless wink, and Mrs. Corey prodded:
"From New York?"