"That so?" Sue said again and turned to ask Dot if her brother was still single.
Over near the piano, conversation turned to radio.
"I wish I was brilliant enough to know something about that marvelously interesting subject," said Maude. She was piqued—these two stupid couples ignoring her!
"I'm gonna tell a smutty story," she announced. "I'm not interested in radio or Dot's brother."
It was milder than Dot had expected. She laughed a little and looked at Eddie. He was not amused.
"Mr. Collins didn't like my story," Maude giggled wickedly.
"Oh, yes, I did," Eddie returned, "the first time I heard it."
His reply drew a bigger laugh from Sue and Pat than Maude's story.
"Here's one you never heard," said Maude.
Throughout the second story, Dot focused her gaze on the rug. She lived a hundred years waiting for Maude to finish. When Maude finally did, Dot knew it only by the laugh of Pat Macy. Dot couldn't find a bit of sense in the line that had brought Pat's laugh. Again she looked at Eddie. He wasn't laughing either, but she could see that he had found sense in Maude's joke. Eddie was staring curiously at Ted. There was a middle-class oath forming in his brain. "He'd be God damned if a woman of his would ever tell a filthy story."
Dot knew he was displeased. She whispered to Maude that they had to go. But Maude was just beginning to enjoy herself. She insisted that they stay, and Dot's misgivings were routed by her hostess's purring arguments. Maude told another story. This one carried a faint whiff of stale beer and free lunch. What the girl in the Pullman said to the man who had shared her berth struck Dot like a slap across the mouth. She couldn't have believed it of
