The Bilbao Looking Glass Read Online Free Page B

out but still not far enough or she wouldn’t be here now, nursing a glass of the vermouth that hadn’t got put into the martinis and wondering why she hadn’t had guts enough to be rude to Pussy.
    Aunt Appie was enjoying herself, at any rate. She had one of Miffy’s awful cocktails in her hand and was sipping at it with every appearance of relish as she entertained a cluster of her chums with a groan-by-groan replay of Uncle Samuel’s final illness. She’d be regaled in turn with cozy details about how other members of the old guard had expired in agony or wasted silently away as the case might have been. She’d be showered with invitations to this, that, and the other thing; and nobody would be crushed to learn her niece Sarah was too busy to accompany her.
    Sarah only hoped Appie was bearing in mind the fact that they had no car to provide taxi service. She knew how Cousin Lionel would feel about using up costly gasoline ferrying his mother around to her routs and revels; and Sarah wasn’t about to let Max get roped into driving Appie.
    Between being a dumping-ground for the whole Kelling tribe’s problems and a seeing-eye dog for his mother, Alexander had wound up having time for everybody except his wife. That wasn’t going to happen with the next man she married. Anyway, Max didn’t show any particular inclination to become a universal father-figure. She thought about what Max wanted and blushed, since after all she’d led a sheltered life in some respects.
    “Been out in the sun, Sarah?”
    For a moment, Sarah couldn’t place this tall man with the weather-beaten face and the sun-bleached hair. Then she decided he must be a Larrington. Hadn’t somebody mentioned a while ago that one of the twins had got divorced? Would that be Fren or Don? Anyway, this ought to be Fren because Don always wore his Porcellian tie even, rumor had it, in the shower.
    “Hello, Fren,” she replied, taking a chance on getting it right. “No, I haven’t been at Ireson’s long enough for sunning. It must be windburn from all the hot air that’s blowing around in here. Why aren’t you out on your boat?”
    “She’s having her bottom scraped.”
    “Sounds painful. I hope she’s not minding too much.”
    “I am. My God, Sarah, do you know what it costs to maintain a boat these days?”
    “No, and don’t tell me. I know far too well what other things cost.”
    “Oh, right. Alex left you strapped, didn’t he? Must have been quite a jolt. Understand you’ve been running a boarding house or some damn thing to keep body and soul together. You’ll drop that, of course, now that you’ve got your hands on Walter’s money.”
    “Why should I? It’s fun and it pays the taxes.”
    “But Jesus, why a boarding house? Bunch of God-knows-whats all over the place.”
    “They’re hardly a bunch of God-knows-whats,” Sarah informed him rather snappishly. “I have Cousin Brooks and his wife, old Mrs. Gates from Chestnut Hill, an accountant who works for Cousin Percy, and one of Mrs. LaValliere’s granddaughters.”
    Fren shrugged. “Miffy got it wrong then, as usual. She told me you had a houseful of Jews from Lynn or Chelsea.”
    “Just one, and he’s from Saugus.” Sarah was not about to let Fren Larrington see how furious she was. “That’s Max Bittersohn over there by the door. The intelligent-looking one.”
    Max, in a light blazer jacket and well-pressed flannels, did make an agreeable contrast to the hairy bare legs and dirty Topsiders around him. Other women were noticing, too. Sarah was not surprised to see the expressions on their faces, though it was a bit of an eye-opener to observe who some of the women were.
    Max must be used to mass adulation by now. At any rate, he was wearing the polite, fixed smile that told Sarah he was bored already and wondering how he’d let himself get sucked into coming. So was she. While Fren maundered on about jib booms and backstays, Sarah stood wondering how soon they could