He dropped in at any time from before breakfast to after midnight, expecting coffee, expecting a highball, expecting an audience, and Neil and Vestal were so annoyed by him that they were extra careful to be cordial. And they were sorry for little Nancy Pzort Havock, that poor child of nature inducted into a family of bank-robbers.

The Kingsbloods were having the Curtiss Havocks in for dinner, this mid-December evening.

Vestal looked forward to it calmly and resolutely. She went to the market for squabs, chestnuts, and mushrooms, and on the morning of the ordeal, she begged of Belfreda, in the manner of a new captain addressing an old top-sergeant, “Look, uh, honey, I’ll be away for lunch—just give Biddy her cereal. Now see if you can’t run up a dinner that’ll knock the Havocks’ eyes out tonight. You’ll have all day for it. Use the good silver and the lace tablecloth.”

Belfreda only nodded, and Vestal went off merrily. Neil would come home by bus; it was her day to have the car; and she was a gallant spectacle as she sped to the Women’s Club for bridge-luncheon.

She won.

She went with Jinny Timberlane out to the Judge’s smart house in the Country Club District. Jinny had a new moleskin winter suit that was a sight worth traveling for, and Vestal did not go home till after six. She hoped that Belfreda would have the table set as well as the squabs cleaned, and that Biddy would be lenient with a tardy mother.

She bounced into a curiously still house that smelled empty. No one answered her “Oo-hoo!” and there was no one upstairs, downstairs, in the kitchen. The squabs remained nakedly in the refrigerator, and on the kitchen table was a note in Belfreda’s writing, which was the smooth machine-made script of a business-college:

“My grandpa sick, I had to go to him, I took Biddy to Grandma Kingsblood’s, maybe back this evening, Belfreda.”

Vestal said one brief and extraordinarily unladylike word and went into action. She telephoned to Neil’s sister, Joan, to bring the baby over, she vaulted into working dress, she cleaned the squabs and mixed the dressing. When Neil came in, she said only, “The dinge has walked out on us for the evening. I knew she was a tart. Set the table. The vulgar lace cloth and all the agony.”

His long and freckled hands were deft, and he did a worthy job, calling to her, “When I get fired, we can hire out as cook and butler.”

“Yes, and don’t think we may not have to, if these Democrats and Communists keep on jacking up the income tax.”

Curtiss and Nancy Havock came in, screaming, at five minutes to seven. If they were late for everything else, they were always a little beforetime for drinks. That good-natured wench, Nancy, dipped the French-fried sweet potatoes into the kettle of fat, while Curtiss volunteered to mix the cocktails, which was unfortunate, as his favorite recipe was ninety per cent. gin, five per cent. vermouth, and five per cent. white mule. By the time they sat down, not later than twenty-five minutes past seven, Curtiss was already full of jollity and viciousness.