“So what's Phyllis like? Will she be fun or intolerable?”

Jane had the crochet hook in her teeth as she rewound the yarn. She took it out and tapped her knee reflectively. "Just boring, I would guess. She's very nice. Very, very nice. She's the kind of person you absolutely cannot dislike. But it's equally impossible to be crazy about her, and that's always made me feel a little guilty. I feel I ought to like her much better than I do. She's a truly good person who deserves the kind of friendship you and I have. I feel obligated, but unwilling, to provide it. She's rather quiet. I remember her as a sort of country girl come to the city, even though she grew up in Bostonor Washington or someplace. She had that sort of wide-eyed, half-scared, half-thrilled look most of the time."

“Certainly she's outgrown that by now. I don't think I could stand dewy innocence," Shelley said. "Why is she coming without her husband? Doing a little Christmas shopping or something?"

“Probably so. She's coming by way of New York; I guess she was there for a few days. She'sprobably dropped a couple million already. But I do find this trip odd. She and Chet have always been inseparable. In her last letter there was the merest hint of trouble in paradise. I'd hate to see her marriage go bad. She doesn't deserve that kind of unhappiness and—I guess it's selfish of me, but I don't think I could stand hours of talk about a disintegrating marriage."

“And you think it is? Disintegrating?"

“I hope not."

“How long is she staying?"

“She didn't say. I imagine two or three days. Well, we can get her busy on the bazaar. She'll like that, unless she's changed a lot. She was always making some little ornamental something. She's another of those damned born knitters, and she's the only person I've ever met of our generation who knows how to do tatting."