When the clock said twenty of six, Ethel felt injured. She threw the pasta into the boiling water, and went into the living room and sat down with her back to the mantel to watch the clock on the opposite wall.
She would knit for nine minutes.
Then dinner would be ready. And they should remember and be considerate. She was always considerate.
At eleven minutes of six she marched to the kitchen.
She heard their feet.
'Where on earth have you been?' said Ethel heartily. 'I see you're together . . .'
'Yes,' said Mr. Gibson, 'we are together.' He was a little surprised to see the same old Ethel, standing on both feet in her accustomed way, vigorous and sure of herself.
'Dinner is exactly ready,' said Ethel .'Now, you just have time to wash. There is nothing for you to do, Rosemary. I've done it alh Now, get to the table while I drain this and mix in the sauce. Shoo!' said Ethel, indulgently.
Meekly, they crossed the kitchen. But they kissed in the hall.
'Doesn't know . . .' said Mr. Gibson wonderingly.
'No, she doesn't seem to. They aren't broadcasting your name . . .'
'Well, we must tell—'
'Yes . . .'
•TSTot easy.'
'No.' The sweet was so very sweet.
'Everybody ready?' hallooed Ethel.
Mr. Gibson let Rosemary go and he went into his own place. It already looked antique to him, a former way of life. Could he have books in a cell, he wondered? Alas, he couldn't have Rosemary. Face reality. Face wicked folly. Face love. Face it, that you are beloved.
He washed, musing, perceiving that Ethel was right. Or somewhat right. He had not seen clearly his own motives. He had rationalized. He had plastered a black philosophy in the mind over a quivering wound in the heart. Although it was not really that simple, either. Still, worms might have eaten him. . . . Well, he knew a little more now. He knew he had been too suggestible, too quick to abandon his own faiths. He ought to have trusted himself better.
Ethel made us both doubt ourselves, he mused, gave us that terrible feeling that one cannot trust oneself, no use to try. Such doubt as this, in quantity, judiciously used, might be a tonic and a medicine. But oh, too much, swallowed blindly at a bad time, had shaken him to his foundations.
It was dangerous stuff.
He met Rosemary in the hall. Their hands touched' They went across the living room to the dining alcove.
'Sit ye doon,' said Ethel with ponderous good will and forbearance. 'You naughty children.' Her eyes were wise and speculating. She'd soon 'know' where they had been.
They sat them down. Ethel spooned portions of spaghetti from the steaming mass in the wooden bowl. 'Confess,' she said. 'What have you been up to?'
'There was a little mixup,' said Mr. Gibson. He stared at the spaghetti, not feeling any appetite.
Rosemary nervously took up her fork. 'We'll tell you about it, as best we can,' she began. Dear Rosemary, brave enough to try to help him tell.
'I suppose you've had a talk?' said Ethel, giving them one of her looks. 'Now, my dears, it is not my business
and I do not pry. It is your privilege to have your little secrets—'
Rosemary put the fork down abruptly. 'Any decision that will affect me,' said Ethel kindly, 'I'm sure you will tell me about.' 'Yes,' said Rosemary steadily.
Mr. Gibson saw, in Ethel's eyes, himself, the lamb, the softhearted, the unworldly, the bom bachelor, wifeless, living on into old age with his devoted spinster sister. Doomed to this. It was not true.
'We are very much in love, Ethel,' he said quietly and firmly, 'Rosemary and I.'
Ethel's eyeballs swiveled and a blank look came down. But her mouth twitched in tiny disbelief, and the veiled eyes wondered. She did not speak.
But Rosemary spoke, 'Just what was said—' 'What . . . ?'
'Just what was said. That's what is meant, Ethel.' 'I'm so very glad,' said Ethel in a false-sounding flutter. 'But don't let dinner get cold . . .'
She didn't believe them. Her face remained blank but Mr. Gibson had an image of her thoughts, writhing and scrambling to detect some 'real' meaning behind what he had said . . . until they writhed like . . . like a bowl of spaghetti. He couldn't stomach the stuff. However, he had better eat her dinner or offend her. He turned his fork. Ethel's fork thrust into her spaghetti. Suddenly, people were shouting. Startled, they all looked toward the window.
Six people steamed off Paul's porch and came roaring across the driveway.
'Gibson! Hey! Hey!' the bus driver was shouting. Mr. Gibson skipped to the front door nimbly, limp and all. He was terribly, amazingly, glad to' see them. Life throbbed in the house suddenly when in trooped Lee Coffey with Virginia on the end of his arm. Then Theo Marsh—flippety-flop—his seamed face beaming, and yoimg Jeanie, ducking lithely under his waving limbs. And then Paul, holding the door for the looming up of Mrs. Boat-right, who came in like an ocean liner. 'We found it!' they all shouted.
