"No, ma'am, I'm an accountant."

"Oh," she said. "Well, that sounds like interesting work." She began to set the table, putting a glass, a paper napkin and a little plate of cookies at each place, and Bobby felt that all the while she was inspecting him, noting his speech and bearing, his manner of dress and behavior, adding each item she noticed to the others, adding them up. He had never been so uncomfortable in his life.

"Of course he has every reason to love it so," she continued. "It was planted almost two hundred years ago, by his great-great-great-great-granddaddy, and it's been in his family ever since. Six generations of Bowens have grown up here Peter was the sixth-and I'm looking forward to six generations more. Did you say you were from Atlanta?"

"No, ma'am, not originally."

"Oh well, I didn't think we knew any Tuckers there. Where are you from?" Bobby named the small mill village upstate which was well known throughout the South as a place where only mill hands and their families lived.

"Oh, I see," she said. "Peter's friends are always so interesting." She stood back from the table and viewed it appraisingly. Then she moved one of the glasses a little to one side, and viewed it again. "You aren't married, are you?" "No'm."

"Oh well, there's no need to rush into it, I always say. Now I wonder what could be keeping Peter so long? We might as well sit down."

Just at the moment Peter, looking hot and cross, pushed his way into the boxwood garden, dragging a big beach umbrella behind him.

"I declare, mother," he said, "I don't see why you have to have this monstrosity out here. It doesn't go with anything."

"Well it's too hot out here without it. Now mind you don't knock over the cokes when you set it up."

At dinner Bobby hardly ate a thing. He did not say much, either. Peter was also silent, and his mother did the talking for all three. She kept up a steady stream of chatter throughout dinner, and for a moment it seemed to Bobby that she might ease Peter out of his bad humor. But in the end she was not successful. After dinner Peter drew Bobby aside.

"You find some excuse to stay inside for a few minutes when mother and I go out to the boxwood garden. I want to break the news to her."

"Peter, don't tell her," said Bobby fearfully.

"Now, for godsake, don't start that again," snapped Peter. "You know perfectly well I can't keep it from her. She's got friends in Atlanta. She comes there to visit."

"Then let her find out by herself."

"Now listen, she's my mother, not yours, and if she suspects anything, I'm the one that'll have to put up with it, not you." Peter glared at him angrily. "Besides, what if she does suspect? What can she do?"

Bobby did not know. Timid and shy, unable to shine, his principle of life was to slip through it quietly, hoping no one would notice. But he learned that when Peter had made up his mind, Bobby must obey. So when Peter and his mother went out to the boxwood garden, bearing the silver coffee service and the Wedgwood cups, Bobby stayed inside, going upstairs to the bathroom and sitting miserably on the edge of the tub. But as he sat there, trying not to think, his anxiety become so great that he got up and began wandering nervously about the house, looking anxiously into the various rooms as if they could tell him

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