"Just hearing you say it like that is enough to kill Hiserean art." "Regina, I know you think I'm a prig, but that isn't the point. And if it matters to you, I'm _not_ a prig." "Do you wear boudoir slips?" Regina was biting a real smile. "No, I don't. But I'd like to." "Then why don't you?" "Because I put one on once and I thought I looked absolutely devastating and you know what my husband said?" "I won't try to guess Clay's bon mot." "He said, 'What did you put that on for?'" * * * * * Regina laughed until she popped a snap on her paper house dress. "But seriously," she said finally, "if he didn't know, why didn't you tell him?" "That's not the point. The point is I am not the boudoir-slip type. My unmentionables are unmentionable for esthetic reasons only." Regina laughed again. "Really, Verne, you're not half bad when you try." "If you honestly think I'm not half bad, could you do it just as a favor to me? Pick up Hi-nin when you have the car pool?" "The Hiserean child? No." "Please, Regina. I'd do it _for_ you except that the children would notice and it would get back to Mrs. His-tara. If there's anything I could do for you in return--" "What could you possibly do?" "I don't know. But I _can't_ go back and tell that dear creature our car pool doesn't want her." "_Stop_ looking so intense. That's what keeps you from being the boudoir-slip type. You always look as though you're going out to break up a saloon or campaign for better Public Child Protection. The boudoir slip requires a languorous expression." "Phooey to looking languorous. And phooey to boudoir slips. I'd wear diapers to nursery school if you'd change your mind about taking along Hi-nin." "Would you wear a boudoir slip?" "I--hell, yes." "And nothing else?" "Only my various means of support. And my respectability." Regina laughed her tiger-on-the-third-Christian laugh. "What I want to find out," she said, "is how you manage the respectability bit." It dawned on me while I was grinding the pepper for Clay's salad that Regina had explained herself. All of a sudden I saw straight through her and I wondered why I hadn't seen it before. Regina _envied_ me. Now on the face of it, that seemed unlikely. But it occurred to me that Regina's parents had been the poor but honest and uneducated sort that simply are never asked to chaperone school parties. And the fact is that they were not what Regina thought of as respectable, though it never occurred to anyone but her that it mattered. And since all her culture was acquired after the age of thirteen, she felt it didn't fit properly and that's why she went out of her way to be arty-arty. Whereas I took for granted all the things Regina had learned so painstakingly, and this in turn was what made me so irritatingly respectable. As Regina had suggested, perhaps it _is_ the expression on one's face that makes the difference. * * * * *