He waited in the drawing-room for five minutes, feeling like a bill-collector. Into the room vaulted a medium-sized, medium-looking, amiable man, Eugene Gilson, babbling, "Oh, I say, so sorry to keep you waiting, Mr. Daggett. Rotten shame, do come have a bun or something, frightfully informal these bruncheons, play auction?"
"Zallright-no," said Milt.
The host profusely led him to a dining-room where-in English fashion, or something like English fashion, or anyway a close approximation to the fictional pictures of English fashion-kidneys and sausages and omelets waited in dishes on the side-board. Mr. Gilson poured coffee, and chanted:
"Do try the kidneys. They're usually very fair. Miss Boltwood tells me that you were very good to her on the trip. Must have been jolly trip. You going to be in town some time, oh yes, Claire said you were in the university, engineering, wasn't it? have you ever seen our lumbermills, do drop around some--Try the omelet before the beastly thing gets cold, do you mind kicking that button, we'll have some more omelet in-any time at the mill and I'll be glad to have some one show you through, how did you find the roads along the Red Trail?"
"Why, pretty fair," said Milt.
Into the room precipitated Mrs. Gilson, in a smile, a super-sweater, and a sports skirt that would have been soiled by any variety of sport more violent than pinochle, and she was wailing as she came:
"We're disgraced, Gene, is this Mr. Daggett? how do you do, so good of you to come, do try the kidneys, they're usually quite decent, are the omelets warm, you might ring for some more, Gene, for heaven's sake give me some coffee, Miss Boltwood will be right down, Mr. Daggett, she told us how fortunate they were that they met you on the road, did you like the trip, how were the roads?"
"Why, they were pretty good," said Milt.
Claire arrived, fresh and serene in white taffeta, and she cried prettily, "I ought to have known that you'd be prompt even if no one else in the world is, so glad you came, have you tried the kidneys, and do have an-oh, I see you have tried the omelets, how goes the work at the university?"
"Why, fine," said Milt.
He ate stolidly, and looked pleased, and sneaked in a glance at his new (and still tight and still squeaky) tan boots to make sure that they were as well polished as they had seemed at home.
From nowhere appeared a bustling weighty woman, purring, "Hello, hello, hello, is it possible that you're all up--Mr. Daggett. Yes, do lead me to the kidneys."
And a man with the gray hair of a grandfather and the giggle of a cash-girl bounced in clamoring, "Mornin'-expected to have bruncheon alone-do we have some bridge? Oh, good morning, Mr. Daggett, how do you like Seattle? Oh, thanks so much, yes, just two."
Then Milt ceased to keep track of the conversation, which bubbled over the omelets, and stewed over the kidneys, and foamed about the coffee, and clashed above a hastily erected bridge table, and altogether sounded curiously like four cars with four quite different things the matter with them all being tried out at once in a small garage. People flocked in, and nodded as though they knew one another too well to worry about it. They bowed to him charmingly, and instantly forgot him for the kidneys and sausages. He sat looking respectable and feeling lonely, by a cup of coffee, till Claire-dropping the highly unreal smile with which she had been listening to the elderly beau's account of a fishing-trip he hadn't quite got around to taking-slipped into a chair beside him and begged, "Are they looking out for you, Milt?"
"Oh yes, thank you."
"You haven't been to see me."
"Oh no, but--Working so darn hard."
"What a strikingly original reason! But have you really?"
"Honest."
Suddenly he wanted-eternal man, forever playing confidential small boy to the beloved-to tell her about his classes and acquaintances; to get pity for his bare room and his home-cooking. But round them blared the brazen interest in kidneys, and as Claire glanced up with much brightness at another arrival, Milt lost momentum, and found that there was absolutely nothing in the world he could say to her.
He made a grateful farewell to the omelets and kidneys, and escaped.
He walked many miles that day, trying to remember how Claire looked.
CHAPTER XXVII. THE VICIOUSNESS OF NICE THINGS
"What did you think of my nice Daggett boy?" Claire demanded of Eva Gilson, the moment bruncheon was over.
"Which one was--Oh, the boy you met on the road? Why, really, I didn't notice him particularly. I'd rather fancied from the way you referred to him that he was awfully jolly and forceful, but rather crude. But I didn't notice him at all. He seemed perfectly well-bred, but slightly heavy."
"No, he isn't that--He--Why did you lead spades?" reflected Claire.
They were in the drawing-room, resting after the tact and tumult of the bruncheon. Claire had been here long enough now for the Gilsons to forget her comfortably, and be affectionate and quarrelsome and natural, and to admit by their worrying that even in their exalted social position there were things to fuss about.
"I do think we ought to have invited Belle Torrens," fretted Mrs. Gilson. "We've simply got to have her here soon."
Mr. Gilson speculated intensely, "But she's the dullest soul on earth, and her husband spends all his spare time in trying to think up ways of doing me dirt in business. Oh, by the way, did you get the water tap in the blue room fixed? It's dripping all the time."
"No, I forgot it."
"Well, I do wish you'd have it attended to. It simply drips all the time."
"I know. I intended to 'phone the plumber--Can't you 'phone him tomorrow, from the office?"
"No, I haven't time to bother with it. But I do wish you would. It keeps on dripping--"
"I know, it doesn't seem to stop. Well, you remind me of it in the morning."
"I'm afraid I'll forget. You better make a note of it. If it keeps on dripping that way, it's likely to injure something. And I do wish you'd tell the Jap not to put so much parsley in the omelet. And I say, how would an omelet be with a butter sauce over it?"
"Oh, no, I don't think so. An omelet ought to be nice and dry. Butter makes it so greasy-besides, with the price of butter--"
"But there's a richness to butter--You'd better make a note about the tap dripping in the blue room right now, before you forget it. Oh! Why in heaven's name did we have Johnny Martin here? He's dull as ditchwater--"
"I know, but--It is nice to go out to his place on the Point. Oh, Gene, I do wish you'd try and remember not to talk about your business so much. You and Mr. Martin were talking about the price of lumber for at least half an hour--"
"Nothing of the kind. We scarcely mentioned it. Oh! What car are you going to use this afternoon? If we get out to the Barnetts', I thought we might use the limousine--Or no, you'll probably go out before I do, I have to read over some specifications, and I promised to give Will a lift, couldn't you take the Loco, maybe you might drive yourself, no, I forgot, the clutch is slipping a little, well, you might drive out and send the car back for me-still, there wouldn't hardly be time--"
Listening to them as to a play, Claire suddenly desired to scream, "Oh, for heaven's sake quit fussing! I'm going up and drown myself in the blue-room tap! What does it matter! Walk! Take a surface car! Don't fuss so!"
Her wrath came from her feeling of guilt. Yes, Milt had been commonplace. Had she done this to him? Had she turned his cheerful ignorances into a careful stupor? And she felt stuffy and choking and overpacked with food. She wanted to be out on the road, clear-headed, forcing her way through, an independent human being-with Milt not too far behind.