The Beginning of a Story

It was the farewell to Claire and Jeff Saxton, a picnic in the Cascades,
near Snoqualmie Falls--a decent and decidedly Milt-less fiesta. Mrs.
Gilson was going to show Claire that they were just as hardy adventurers
as that horrid Daggett person. So she didn't take the limousine, but
merely the seven-passenger Locomobile with the special body.

They were ever so rough and wild. They had no maid. The chauffeur was
absolutely the only help to the Gilsons, Claire, Jeff, and the
temporarily and ejaculatorily nature-loving Mrs. Betz in the daring task
of setting out two folding camp-tables, covering them with a linen
cloth, and opening the picnic basket. Claire had to admit that she
wished that she could steal the picnic basket for Milt. There were
vacuum bottles of hot coffee. There were sandwiches of anchovy and paté
de foie gras. There were cream cakes with almonds hidden in the suave
cream, and there was a chicken salad with huge chunks of pure white meat
wallowing in a sea of mayonnaise.

When the gorging was done and the cigarettes brought out (the chauffeur
passed a spirit lamp), they stretched on rubber blankets, and groaned a
little, and spoke well of nature and the delights of roughing it.

"What is it? What's wrong? They're so--oh, so polite. They don't mean
what they say and they don't dare to say what they mean. Is that it?"
worried Claire.

She started. She discovered that she was looking at a bristle of
rope-colored hair and a grin projected from the shelter of a manzanita
bush.