“Now tell me what you had to eat,” she would say, sociably, like a child. “What did you have for dinner, for example? Was it grand? Julie tells me they have a butler now. Well! I can’t wait till I hear Aug Hempel on the subject.”
He would tell her of the grandeurs of the Arnold ménage. She would interrupt and exclaim: “Mayonnaise! On fruit! Oh, I don’t believe I'd like that. You did! Well, I'll have it for you next week when you come home. I'll get the recipe from Julie.”
He didn’t think he’d be home next week. One of the fellows he’d met at the Arnolds’ had invited him to their place out north, on the lake. He had a boat.
“That'll be lovely!” Selina exclaimed, after an almost unnoticeable moment: of silence—silence with panic in it. “I'll try not to fuss and be worried like an old hen every minute of the time I think you're on the water. . . Now do go on, Sobig. First fruit with mayonnaise, h’m? What kind of soup?”
He was not a naturally talkative person. There was nothing surly about his silence. It was a taciturn streak inherited from his Dutch ancestry. This time, though, he was more voluble than usual. “Paula. . .” came again and again into his conversation. “Paula . . . Paula. . .” and again “. . . Paula.” He did not seem conscious of the repetition, but Selina’s quick ear caught it.
“I haven’t seen her,” Selina said, “since she went away to school the first year. She must be—let’s see
