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."