"He looked straight at me. My dear, I thought I'd die! But at least
he had sense enough not to speak. She was one of those limp, willowy
creatures with the greediest eyes that she tried to keep softened to a
baby stare, and couldn't, she was so crazy to get her hands on those
hats. I saw it all in one awful minute. You know the way I do. I
suppose some people would call her pretty. I don't. And her color.
Well! And the most expensive-looking hats. Not one of them under
seventy-five. Isn't it disgusting! At his age! Suppose Ethel had
been with me!"

The next time it was Stell who saw them. In a restaurant. She said it
spoiled her evening. And the third time it was Ethel. She was one of
the guests at a theater party given by Nicky Overton II. The North
Shore Overtons. Lake Forest. They came in late, and occupied the
entire third row at the opening performance of Believe Me! And Ethel
was Nicky's partner. She was glowing like a rose. When the lights
went up after the first act Ethel saw that her uncle Jo was seated just
ahead of her with what she afterward described as a blonde. Then her
uncle had turned around, and seeing her, had been surprised into a
smile that spread genially all over his plump and rubicund face. Then
he had turned to face forward again, quickly.

"Who's the old bird?" Nicky had asked. Ethel had pretended not to
hear, so he had asked again.

"My uncle," Ethel answered, and flushed all over her delicate face, and
down to her throat. Nicky had looked at the blonde, and his eyebrows
had gone up ever so slightly.

It spoiled Ethel's evening. More than that, as she told her mother of
it later, weeping, she declared it had spoiled her life.

Eva talked it over with her husband in that intimate hour that precedes
bedtime. She gesticulated heatedly with her hairbrush.

"It's disgusting, that's what it is. Perfectly disgusting. There's no
fool like an old fool. Imagine! A creature like that. At his time of
life."

"Well, I don't know," Ben said, and even grinned a little. "I suppose
a boy's got to sow his wild oats sometime."

"Don't be any more vulgar than you can help," Eva retorted. "And I
think you know, as well as I, what it means to have that Overton boy
interested in Ethel."

"If he's interested in her," Ben blundered, "I guess the fact that
Ethel's uncle went to the theater with someone who isn't Ethel's aunt
won't cause a shudder to run up and down his frail y