Roe himself seemed as feverish and ill at ease as the lady. He took little interest in the society of the other men, and seemed to submit to the company of Maida rather than court it. Maida felt that he was growing moody on her hands, and that their intimacy was not progressing. "Yet why did he stay on?" she asked herself. "There was no one else in the house for whom he seemed to care." She must learn to be more devoted and winning, she thought, and get over this constraint on his part, which she felt was growing up between them; but she did not see very clearly how she was to set about it. He detested forward women and bold women--he often said so--and was severely critical when they sat together on the galleries looking down on the young people upon the sands, who, after the manner of their kind, had a way of assorting themselves in couples as they took their evening strolls. It was arranged that on a certain day there should be a "clam-bake" on the sands at Blue Fish Creek. It was to be an affair on a gigantic scale. The keepers of half-a-dozen establishments along the coast had got it up. Bushels innumerable of clams were to be roasted around a huge bonfire; an ox was to be roasted whole; and the seaside visitors, cloyed with innkeepers' fare and indoor luxury, were for once to dine uncomfortably on the sands, upon slices of half-raw beef and platefuls of scorched shell-fish. As a slice of lemon gives savour to insipid veal, so a rough and indigestible banquet in the open air revives a relish in jaded guests for the daily superfluity of everything, which hotel dinners provide. There was to be a dance in the town hall afterwards, and the company would drive home in the dark. All Clam Beach was to go, as a matter of course; even the valetudinarian Mrs Naylor resolved to venture. Margaret took care that Walter should know, and--for why indulge in useless mystery?--they were to make their push for freedom on that return journey. The affair came off as designed. The weather was propitious, the guests hungry, in high spirits, and more numerous even than had been expected. They seated themselves in parties on the sands. The Naylors and Deanes naturally sat together, along with the Pettys and Wilkies--Ann Petty beside Peter Wilkie, and Walter Petty next Margaret; Ann feeling a little ashamed and altogether proud, at having, as she thought, taken away the other's young man; while Walter, poor lad, confronted Peter in triumph. His fortunes, he felt, were mending. The two mothers cast glances of wrathful scorn at each other between the legs of the black waiters running assiduously round within the ring. It was the only amusement open to them at their time of life, in the intervals between plying knife and fork.