So he
made up his mind to speak to his aunt about it at "dinner," and tell
her that he preferred to ask Bronson to let him put a sofa-bed, a
trunk, and a folding rubber bathtub behind a screen in the dark rear
room of the office. George felt that this would be infinitely more
tolerable; and he could eat at restaurants, especially as about all he
ever wanted nowadays was coffee.
But at "dinner" he decided to put off telling Fanny of his plan until
later: she was so nervous, and so distressed about the failure of her
efforts with sweetbreads and macaroni; and she was so eager in her
talk of how comfortable they would be "by this time to-morrow night."
She fluttered on, her nervousness increasing, saying how "nice" it
would be for him, when he came from work in the evenings, to be among
"nice people--people who know who we are," and to have a pleasant game
of bridge with "people who are really old friends of the family?"
When they stopped probing among the scorched fragments she had set
forth, George lingered downstairs, waiting for a better opportunity to
introduce his own subject, but when he heard dismaying sounds from the
kitchen he gave up.
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