“Oh, all right but-- I did get so angry with Carrie. She told Minnie that I told her that Minnie was an awful tightwad, and Minnie told me Carrie had told her, and of course I told her I hadn’t said anything of the kind, and then Carrie found Minnie had told me, and she was simply furious because Minnie had told me, and of course I was just boiling because Carrie had told her I’d told her, and then we all met up at Fulton’s--his wife is away--thank heavens!--oh, there’s the dandiest floor in his house to dance on--and we were all of us simply furious at each other and-- Oh, I do hate that kind of a mix-up, don’t you? I mean--it’s so lacking in refinement, but-- And Mother wants to come and stay with me for a whole month, and of course I do love her, I suppose I do, but honestly, she’ll cramp my style something dreadful--she never can learn not to comment, and she always wants to know where I’m going when I go out evenings, and if I lie to her she always spies around and ferrets around and finds out where I’ve been, and then she looks like Patience on a Monument till I could just scream. And oh, I _must_ tell you-- You know I _never_ talk about myself; I just hate people who do, don’t you? But-- I feel so stupid to-night, and I know I must be boring you with all this but-- What would you do about Mother?” He gave her facile masculine advice. She was to put off her mother’s stay. She was to tell Carrie to go to the deuce. For these valuable revelations she thanked him, and they ambled into the familiar gossip of the Bunch. Of what a sentimental fool was Carrie. Of what a lazy brat was Pete. Of how nice Fulton Bemis could be--“course lots of people think he’s a regular old grouch when they meet him because he doesn’t give ’em the glad hand the first crack out of the box, but when they get to know him, he’s a corker.” But as they had gone conscientiously through each of these analyses before, the conversation staggered. Babbitt tried to be intellectual and deal with General Topics. He said some thoroughly sound things about Disarmament, and broad-mindedness and liberalism; but it seemed to him that General Topics interested Tanis only when she could apply them to Pete, Carrie, or themselves. He was distressingly conscious of their silence. He tried to stir her into chattering again, but silence rose like a gray presence and hovered between them. “I, uh--” he labored. “It strikes me--it strikes me that unemployment is lessening.” “Maybe Pete will get a decent job, then.” Silence. Desperately he essayed, “What’s the trouble, old honey? You seem kind of quiet to-night.” “Am I? Oh, I’m not. But--do you really care whether I am or not?” “Care? Sure! Course I do!” “Do you really?” She swooped on him, sat on the arm of his chair. He hated the emotional drain of having to appear fond of her. He stroked her hand, smiled up at her dutifully, and sank back. “George, I wonder if you really like me at all?” “Course I do, silly.”