Page:Meanwhile (1927).pdf/16

 they're mere acquaintances they try to trap you into letting out of the bag that your mother wasn't one of the Scantleberries that produced an ambassador but one of the ones that made condensed milk. . . Which reminds me that Sophie Scantleberry is back from India and you'll have to come and call on her, too. She has a husband that smells of Scotch and has to be gone away from quite often, for months at a time. . . Whenever I cross Sophie's path, once every three years, she puts on a look which says, 'Another New England in-law; God give me strength to be sweet!' They used to live in Paris and entertain all the international riff-raff, but she gave it up suddenly and went to some sort of a Hindu convent where they teach you a fancy kind of Christian Science, only harder to learn and not so common. You see ghosts, if you're good at it, and have to breathe a special way. Then she gave up that, and I imagine she's looking around for something new."

"Truth being so elusive," Grover commented, absent-mindedly. "It's no sooner crushed to earth than—"

"Sophie'd be good for you, my boy, because what you need is to have a woman who owns up to thirty-five put some wind in your sails and take it all out again. 'And I learned about women from 'er!'—that sort of thing. I know if I were middle-aged and at a loose end I'd be crazy about the way your cheek goes from the outside corner of your eye to your