cken was
delicious!"

"You bet! Fried to the Queen's taste. Best fried chicken I've tasted for
a coon's age."

"Didn't Matilda fry it beautifully! And don't you think the soup was
simply delicious?"

"It certainly was! It was corking! Best soup I've tasted since Heck was
a pup!" But his voice was seeping away. They stood in the hall, under
the electric light in its square box-like shade of red glass bound with
nickel. She stared at him.

"Why, George, you don't sound--you sound as if you hadn't really enjoyed
it."

"Sure I did! Course I did!"

"George! What is it?"

"Oh, I'm kind of tired, I guess. Been pounding pretty hard at the
office. Need to get away and rest up a little."

"Well, we're going to Maine in just a few weeks now, dear." "Yuh--" Then
he was pouring it out nakedly, robbed of reticence. "Myra: I think it'd
be a good thing for me to get up there early."

"But you have this man you have to meet in New York about business."

"What man? Oh, sure. Him. Oh, that's all off. But I want to hit Maine
early--get in a little fishing, catch me a big trout, by golly!" A
nervous, artificial laugh.

"Well, why don't we do it? Verona and Matilda can run the house between
them, and you and I can go any time, if you think we can afford it."

"But that's--I've been feeling so jumpy lately, I thought maybe it might
be a good thing if I kind of got off by myself and sweat it out of me."

"George! Don't you WANT me to go along?" She was too wretchedly in
earnest to be tragic, or gloriously insulted, or anything save dumpy and
defenseless and flushed to the red steaminess of a boiled beet.

"Of course I do! I just meant--" Remembering that Paul Riesling had
predicted this, he was as desperate as she. "I mean, sometimes it's a
good thing for an old grouch like me to go off and get it out of
his system." He tried to sound paternal. "Then when you and the kids
arrive--I figured maybe I might skip up to Maine just a few days ahead
of you--I'd be ready for a real bat, see how I mean?" He coaxed her
with large booming sounds, with affable smiles, like a popular preacher
blessing an Easter congregation, like a humorous lecturer completing his
stint of eloquence, like all perpetrators of masculine wiles.

She stared at him, the joy of festival drained from her face. "Do I
bother you when we go on vacations? Don't I add anything to your fun?"

He broke. Suddenly, dreadfully, he was hysterical, he was a yelping
baby.