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I followed Grace, trying to change the subject. "Let’s see, you are on our north side. Who’s to our south?"

Grace held up her hands. "Oh! You haven’t met them— the Jenkinses. George," she called, "they want to know about the Jenkinses." From her voice, I gathered that our southerly neighbors were sort of lovable beachcombers.

"Now, Grace, they’re nice enough people," George said.

"Oooh, George," Grace said, "you know how the Jenkinses are. Yes, they’re nice, but ..." She laughed and shook her head.

"But what?" I said. The possibilities raced through my mind. Nudists? Heroin addicts? Anarchists? Hamster raisers?

"In 1945 they moved in," Grace said, "and right off the bat they bought two beautiful Hitchcock chairs, and ..." This time she sighed and shrugged.

"And what?" I demanded. And spilled India ink on them? And found a bundle of thousand-dollar bills rolled up in a hollow leg?

"And that’s all," Grace said. "They just stopped right there."

"How’s that?" said Anne.

"Don’t you see? They started out beautifully with those two chairs; then they just petered out."

"Oh," said Anne slowly. "I see—a flash in the pan. So that’s what’s wrong with the Jenkinses. Aha!"

"Fie on the Jenkinses," I said.

Grace didn’t hear me. She was patrolling between the living room and dining room, and I noticed that every time she entered or left the living room, she made a jog in her course, always at exactly the same place. Curious, I went over to the spot she avoided, and bounced up and down a couple of times to see if the floor was unsound at that point, or what.

In she came again, and she looked at me with surprise. "Oh!"

"Did I do something wrong?" I asked.

"I just didn’t expect to find you there."

"Sorry."

"That’s where the cobbler’s bench goes, you know."

I stepped aside, and watched uncomfortably as she bent over the phantom cobbler’s bench. I think it was then that she first alarmed me, made me feel a little less like laughing.

"With one or two little nail drawers open, and ivy growing out of them," she explained. "Cute?" She stepped around it, being careful not to bark her shins, and went up the stairs to the second floor. "Do you mind if I have a look around up here?" she asked gaily.

"Go right ahead," said Anne.

George had gotten up off the sofa. He stood looking up the stairs for a minute; then he held up his empty highball glass. "Mind if I have another?"

"Say, I’m sorry, George. We haven’t been taking very good care of you. You bet. Help yourself The bottle’s there in the dining room."

He went straight to it, and poured himself a good inch and a half of whisky in the bottom of the tumbler.

"The tile in this bathroom is all wrong for your towels, of course," Grace said from upstairs.

Anne, who had padded after her like a housemaid, agreed bleakly. "Of course."

George lifted his glass, winked, and drained it. "Don’t let her throw you," he said. "Just her way of talking. Got a damn’ nice house here. I like it, and so does she."

"Thanks, George. That’s nice of you."

Anne and Grace came downstairs again, Anne looking quite bushed. "Oh, you men!" Grace said. "You just think we’re silly, don’t you?" She smiled companionably at Anne. "They just don’t understand what interests women. What were you two talking about while we were having such a good time?"

"I was telling him he ought to wallpaper his trees and make chintz curtains for his keyholes," George said.

"Mmmmm," said Grace. "Well, time to go home, dear."

She paused outside the front door. "Nice basic lines to this door," she said. "That gingerbread will come right off, if you get a chisel under it. And you can lighten it by rubbing on white paint, then rubbing it off again right away. It’ll look more like you."

"You’ve been awfully helpful," said Anne.

"Well, it’s a dandy house the way it is," George said.

"I swear," Grace said, "I’ll never understand how so many artists are men. No man I ever met had a grain of artistic temperament in him."