Banking Is an Art

16

CHARLES was always very conscious of the fact that he belonged in a different world whenever he entered the Whitakers’ apartment. When he handed the butler his hat and coat, he knew that he understood the whole place very well, academically but not practically. It was an environment in which he would move gracefully, without tipping things over, but one in which he would never live.

The hall was filled with all sorts of objects that he knew had come from the house on Fifth Avenue belonging to Mrs. Whitaker’s father, that canny Yankee from Maine. Above the small refectory table that held a silver tray for visiting cards was a portrait of Mrs. Whitaker’s father, still dominating those possessions. He had a lantern-jawed, wary look, and a sort of assurance that belonged to another generation. If the old man had been alive, Charles thought, he would never have needed the services of the Trust Department of the Stuyvesant.

It was obviously going to be another family conference because the room at the end of the hall was set for it, a large room that looked small because of the piano and the Bouguereaus and Schreyers on the wall, the Italian chairs, the overstuffed sofas, and all the gold-framed pictures on the tables. They must have been waiting for him, although a glance at his wrist watch showed him that he was there right on the dot. Mrs. Whitaker, in a dark tailored suit, was seated on a sofa in front of the fireplace, amazingly upright in spite of its yielding upholstery. She was holding a tablet on her knee with questions written on it. She always wrote down questions. Mr. Whitaker was standing near the fireplace in a suit that was too tight for him. He looked round and red and uncomfortable as he always did at those conferences. Albert, who had risen when Charles came in, looked more like his mother than his father. You could see that he had kept his figure by conscientious outdoor exercise, and he had kept his hair, too, though it was growing gray at the temples.

Albert’s wife as usual looked very bored. Though she and Charles had never exchanged more than a word of greeting, it always surprised him how clearly she could make her feelings plain by saying nothing, not even by fidgeting or frowning. She was always able to tell him what she was thinking, not that she cared whether he knew or not. She was telling him simply by sitting on the edge of one of the Italian chairs, that she was bored by having to be there, that she was too young, too pretty, too blond, to be there, that she hated the stuffy furniture and her family-in-law, and that she was bored by Albert, too. She was telling him that she wanted to get away somewhere and have a Martini, that she wanted to play a rubber of bridge or something, that it was only necessity that brought her around to that place, and that he mustn’t think that she liked it, or that she liked him either. She knew just what he was, a tiresome man from the bank, called for one of those damned family conferences that Mother Whitaker was always having. She knew just where he belonged and there was no need for any introductions.

“I hope I’m not late,” Charles said.

“Oh, no,” said Mrs. Whitaker. “I know we can count on your never being late. Sit down here beside me, Mr. Gray, so we can read things together.”

Charles sank down beside her on the sofa. He wished he could sit as straight as Mrs. Whitaker.

“Albert,” Mrs. Whitaker said, “get Mr. Gray a little table.”

“Oh, I don’t need a table,” Charles said. “There won’t be anything to sign.”

“You’ll need it to put things on,” Mrs. Whitaker said, “the things out of your brief case. It’s always so reassuring to see you with a brief case. I can’t imagine how you’d look without it.”

“That’s true,” Charles said. “I don’t believe you’ve ever seen me without it.”

“You’d look, well, almost naked without it,” Mrs. Whitaker said. “I remember what Father always used to say.”

“What did he used to say?” Albert asked.

“You were too young to remember him well, dear,” Mrs. Whitaker said. “I wish you could have seen him, Mr. Gray. Hubert, doesn’t Mr. Gray remind you of Father?”

“Well, not altogether, Elbe,” Mr. Whitaker said.

“I don’t mean altogether, Hubert. I mean partly. He has the same expression sometimes, when we’re getting down to brass tacks as Father used to say. Father always used to say when you do business with someone be sure he does business.”

“I understand what he meant,” Charles said. “Shall we get down to brass tacks?” and he reached for the catch of his brief case.

“Hubert.”

“Yes, Ellie,” Mr. Whitaker said.

“Perhaps Mr. Gray would like a Scotch and soda.”

“Oh, no thank you,” Charles said.

“Well, I’d like one,” Albert said. “Come on, Dad. How about it, Dorothy?”

“Well,” Dorothy said, and her voice was coldly sweet, “I might have one if Mother Whitaker doesn’t mind.”

“Of course I don’t mind, darling,” Mrs. Whitaker said. “Why on earth should I mind? Mr. Gray and I will have some tea when everything is over. Won’t we, Mr. Gray?”

“Why yes,” Charles said. “That would be very nice.” He saw Dorothy glance at him. She was telling him as plainly as though she had spoken, for God’s sakes to get on with it, and he hoped that he was telling her when he glanced back at her, that for God’s sakes he wanted to get on with it, that he didn’t like sitting there any more than she did, that he was only present as she was because he had to be.

“Now,” said Mrs. Whitaker, “let’s begin at the beginning. Let’s begin by having you scold us, Mr. Gray, because we all need a good scolding.”

“About what, Mrs. Whitaker?” Charles asked.

“About the ranch,” Mrs. Whitaker said. “I know how it must seem with the world the way it is, but it’s really for Albert’s sinus. Albert and Dorothy are just back from Arizona. You can tell it by looking at them, can’t you?”

Charles looked up at Dorothy and their glances met again.

“Albert,” Dorothy said sweetly, “why don’t you show him the photographs? That’s what you brought them for, wasn’t it?”

“Oh yes,” Albert said. “If you’re out there, you might as well have some sort of a place and not stay at a hotel. We saw this one fifty miles out of Tucson. These are just snapshots but they’ll give you an idea, and Dorothy’s crazy about it. She needs some sort of place.”

Curiously enough there was actually a feeling of uncertainty as Albert handed him the photographs. He could feel that uncertainty as he looked at them. For some reason that was beyond him he knew that they were anxious for his approval and it was true that the snapshots gave an idea. They were mountain and desert views with low buildings of the Spanish hacienda type, corrals, patios, galleries, a swimming pool. It was something which he had never touched upon, something they must have known was entirely beyond him, but still they wanted him to approve.

“If you really want it,” Charles said gently, “I don’t know why you shouldn’t have it. Is a hundred thousand the asking price? If you really want it, you’d better give me the agent’s name.”

“He does really want it,” Mrs. Whitaker said. “If you could call up the agent it would be sweet of you, Mr. Gray. It would sound better than having Albert do it.”

“Of course,” Charles said, “you’ll have to use a little capital, but I don’t see why you shouldn’t.”

He was opening the brief case, taking out the folders and spreading them on the table. There was no earthly reason why they shouldn’t. It hardly mattered as much to them as a new overcoat would have mattered to him. This was not the conventional way to look at it; he wondered what they would have thought if he had presented the matter to them in that light.

“That’s all that bothers me,” Mrs. Whitaker said. “Father always said never to touch capital. It always was his rule.”

“Things are a little different now,” Charles said, “with the tax rate the way it is in the higher brackets.”

“But don’t you think,” Albert Whitaker was asking, “that there’s going to be a 20 per cent reduction across the board?”

“They’re talking about it, but I wouldn’t count on it,” Charles said.

“If they’re going to reduce taxes,” Albert said, “the only sensible, democratic way would be to reduce them across the board.”

“I know,” Charles said, “but I’m afraid it isn’t the way a politician’s mind works. But there’s no reason why you shouldn’t sell some of these shortterm governments. They scarcely yield you any income at all after taxes.”

He was speaking quickly, easily, just as though their problems were his own. He was there dealing in millions just as though they belonged to him.

“You make everything seem so reasonable, Mr. Gray,” Mrs. Whitaker said. “I really don’t know what we’d do without you. I do hope they appreciate you at the bank as much as I do.”

“I hope they do, too,” Charles answered.

He picked up some of the papers on the little table in front of him as a hint that the interview was reaching a logical conclusion. If he could only leave in a few minutes, he could take the six-fifteen.

“Well,” Albert said, “if everything’s settled, perhaps Dorothy and I had better be pushing off.”

Charles saw Dorothy rise from the edge of her chair, gracefully, without pushing herself from it.

“It stays light so long,” she said, “that I keep forgetting what time it is.”

But Mrs. Whitaker had picked up the pad from her knee. “I thought you told me that you didn’t have any engagement until dinner, dear,” she said. “Now that Mr. Gray’s here, I did have a few other questions, but if you want to run along—”

“Oh, no,” Dorothy said. “We’re really in no hurry.”

She smiled at Charles faintly and sat down again and folded her hands carefully in her lap. She did it brightly and cheerfully, without a hint of resignation, still with the ghost of a smile that was still agreeable, but Charles was sure he knew what she was thinking. Oh, God, she was thinking, here it goes again, the same damned questions.

17

MRS. WHITAKER’S mind was always filled with long, broad-gauge thoughts that mingled confusingly with little ones. There was still that matter of how to settle a little more on Albert while she was alive and thus avoid those terrible inheritance taxes. She knew, as Charles had so often said, that these were really legal problems and she had nothing at all against Mr. Stone who handled them, but she did value Mr. Gray’s opinion and her father had always said that two minds were better than one.

It seemed to her that the government, which she had always been taught was created to protect people and the things they owned, was making a deliberate effort to discourage people who had a little something. Every time she had an idea, there was always some reason against it. No one seemed to appreciate any longer what people in her position were doing. What would charities do without people in her position, what would the government do without the taxes, what would business do without the money of people in her position? She knew that she had said all these things before, but she did wish that Charles would take a copy of Mr. Stone’s last letter to read and would consult with Mr. Stone when he had time.

And then there was the question of the place on Long Island. With wages rising the way they were, she wondered if Charles would mind sometime looking over the books that Mr. Stone was keeping, because she knew, although it was not in his sphere, that he would have some suggestion for cutting down. Then she wanted to know what Charles really thought of the Atchison, Topeka & Santa Fe Railway, and besides there were several other questions, but now tea was coming in and perhaps they had better put most of it over until another day, but while they were having tea she would like to look over the whole list of securities with Albert. It was high time that someone gave them attention besides herself because she was tired of having everyone expect her to do everything alone.

“Nothing’s been changed since last time,” Charles said.

“I know,” she said, “but I would like to look at it with Albert for a minute if you wouldn’t mind waiting, Mr. Gray. Why don’t you take your tea and talk with Dorothy?”

Charles rose and picked up his teacup. Dorothy had moved to a window with her highball glass in her hand, straight and tall and beautiful, smelling faintly of Chanel No. 5, looking at Bark Avenue, and she smiled at Charles very sweetly.

“I’m sorry it’s taken so long,” Charles said.

“Why don’t you take a drink?” she asked. “I would.”

“Oh, no,” Charles answered. “I don’t believe you would.”

“Well, maybe I wouldn’t,” she said, and she smiled again.

He saw her glance toward the sofa where Mr. Whitaker and Albert stood looking over Mrs. Whitaker’s shoulder.

“I didn’t know,” he heard Mrs. Whitaker saying, “that we had so many shares in Homestake Mine.”

Then Dorothy had turned toward him again. He was thinking, as he had often thought before at those conferences, that her beautifully molded, made-up face, the wind-blown look to her hair, had an impermeable sort of perfection. It made him nervous because there was nothing wrong about her. There was nothing wrong about her delicate hands and her pointed red fingernails, nothing wrong about her silk print dress or her diamond clip, or her straight lithe figure, or her nylon stockings, but still there was something baffling.

“What do you do,” she asked, “when you aren’t doing this?”

“I go home,” Charles said. “It looks as though I’m going to be late tonight.”

“You make me curious. You really do.”

“Why?” Charles asked.

“You make me curious because I can’t picture you as doing anything but what I see you doing.”

“Well,” Charles answered, “now you mention it, I’ve been thinking the same thing about you.”

Her lips curved in that same faint smile.

“That’s because we’re both doing what we do very well,” she said, “but it takes a lot of trouble, doesn’t it?”

“Well,” Charles answered, “sometimes — yes.”

“Do you ever wonder whether it’s worth it?”

“Yes,” Charles said, “occasionally. I suppose everyone does.”

“That’s the question,” she said. “Is it worth it? I’m glad you’re curious about me. I didn’t know you were.”

“I am,” Charles said, “academically.”

“You know,” she said, “we ought to have a long talk sometime.”

Charles squared his shoulders. He could not imagine how he could have become involved in such a conversation, and nothing would have been more undesirable than having a long talk with Dorothy Whitaker, sometime.

“It’s an interesting idea,” Charles said.

“It would be a lot of fun.” Her smile grew broader. “If we could sit in a bar some afternoon and get quietly tight and talk — ”

Charles found that he was laughing. The beauty of it was that it was so impossible, that there was nothing at all to worry about.

“You see,” she said, “I’d find out what you used to be, and how you got the way you are.”

“It wouldn’t be worth it,” Charles said. “I’ve always been about the same.”

“Oh, no,” she said, “nobody ever is. We can’t help working on ourselves.”

For an instant he had a picture of her working on herself, sitting before her mirror with her lipstick and her powder base, and brushing back her hair.

“Not on ourselves,” he said. “Everyone works on us. Everyone wears us down.”

“If you’re tough enough,” she said, “you don’t have to be worn down.”

Charles found himself laughing again.

“All right,” he said, “what did you used to be?”

She shook her head slowly, and her smile had gone.

“Nicer,” she said, “quite a good deal nicer.”

“Oh, Mr. Gray,” Mrs. Whitaker was calling, “could you come over here for a minute?”

“Good-bye,” she said. “Good luck.”

18

THE six-thirty from the upper level of the Grand Central was a good train, express to Port Chester and never crowded. Though it would get him home too late for dinner with Nancy — she’d go on to the Club without him — he welcomed the opportunity of riding in it because he could be reasonably sure of not having to talk to anyone and it gave him the chance to sort out the day, the people he had seen, and what he had done well or badly in proper order. As the train moved out of the station into the dark beneath Park Avenue, Charles laid his brief case on the vacant seat beside him and spread out the front page of the New York World Telegram, The headlines had the same disturbing quality as his personal thoughts, for it seemed that nothing was right that day with himself or with anything else.

The people he had seen and the things that he and they had said had no disturbing connotation in themselves. Taken separately, they were all elements that he had often encountered in any working day. Roger Blakesley and all the people at the bank were incontrovertible working facts, all with known reactions. The trust meeting, his words with Mr. Selig, his talk with Tony Burton, his conference with the Whitakers, and the activities of Roger Blakesley were all things that he had encountered often, in slightly different forms, yet taken all together they had some sort of significance that he could not express. Even the question of competition, of his having been outmaneuvered, though he was keenly conscious of it, was not the main part of that significance. There was something more in the sum of all of it that lay inside himself.

For some reason, Clyde kept coming into it, and for some reason he kept seeing events in terms of Clyde. All the things he had done that day were vaguely like things he had done in Clyde, on a different projection and a wholly different scale. The truth was that he was not much different from what he used to be. But nicer. He remembered the word nicer. Those few minutes while he stood near the window holding his teacup, at the end of that long day, held a part of that hidden significance. The train was out of the tunnel, moving by the lighted tenements of uptown New York, whose unshaded windows gave queer glimpses of other people’s lives.

Since he was late, he had to take a taxi. The taxi starter, who sorted the clientele, putting those who were going in the same general direction into the same cab, was standing at the far end of the platform, a lay figure silhouetted against the headlights of the cars.

“Sycamore Park,” Charles said, and the starter called out his words above the rumbling of the train that was leaving.

“Sycamore Park. Anyone else going to Sycamore Park?”

The night air was fresher and it smelled of spring, and there was a vacancy of sound after the train had left, and it seemed to have carried away everything that Charles had been thinking. Everything connected with the city — Smith Chemical, Telephone, American Tobacco B, and short-term governments — was gone with the train. He was going home again, and no one else was going to Sycamore Park. It was a great relief to be in the cab with no one but the driver. It gave him a feeling of finality, of being finished with a hard day. He was returning to the basic reason of everything for which he had been working.

Sycamore Park had been developed in 1938 on the ten-acre grounds of an old estate and the subdivision had been excellently managed by the local real estate firm of Merton and Pease. As Mr. Merton had said, it was a natural and he had never understood why someone had not dreamed it up long ago — not too far from the shopping center and the trains, and yet in the neighborhood of other larger places. Every place had its own acre, and no house was to be constructed for a cost under thirty thousand dollars. It would have been wiser, perhaps, never to have gone there but to have bought a smaller place.

It would have been wiser, easier, and much safer. He had not at that time been moved up in the trust department, and in 1939 all he had was twenty thousand dollars in savings, part of which was in life insurance. He could never analyze all the urges that made him lay everything on the line in order to live on a scale he could not immediately afford, and to discount the possibilities of illness or accident. He only remembered having had an irrational idea that time was of the essence, that he would always stay on a certain business level if he did not take some sort of action, and Nancy, too, had shared that feeling with him.

The sight of the house at Sycamore Park still gave him qualms of uneasiness. Its whitened brick, its bow window, still reminded him of what might have happened and of what he would have done if things had turned out differently. Those worries were all top secret between Nancy and himself to be shared with no one else. Yet, no matter what, that house was theirs, a tangible achievement of the past, and a sort of promissory note for the future.

Not since he had left Clyde had Charles ever felt as identified with any community as he had when he had been asked to join the Oak Knoll Country Club. He would never have thought of the idea, himself, as being possible because country clubs and that sort of thing had seemed beyond him for a long while until he and Nancy and the children had taken that step and had become homeowners in Sycamore Park. If he had not been asked, he would never have thought of it, for after paying the bills for all the extras in the house, and bills for furnishings, on top of them, he was beginning to feel that he was getting involved in all sorts of new elaborations. They were truly in a brave new world when they had moved to Sycamore Park. They seemed to need more and better food, and different clothes, because they did not want anyone to think that they were queer in Sycamore Park.

It was a time of half-noted increases all along the line, a time of broadening horizons and new ideas, a time of new friendships and new interests that all came over you before you noticed them. When they had lived in New York, and later in Larchmont, and later in a two-family house down by the station, they had never thought of being figures in a community with real responsibilities. The truth was that success expanded everything. It was a part of a chain reaction, actually, that started with one of those shake-ups in the bank. One day, it seemed to him, though of course it was not one day, he was living in a double house, that smelled of cauliflower in the evenings, stumbling over the children’s roller skates and tricycles, taking the eight-two in the morning, keeping the budget on a salary of seven thousand a year. Then in a day, though of course it was not a day, they were building at Sycamore Park, the children were going to the Academy private school, they were seeing their old friends, but not so often. They had a maid. There were dinner parties and cocktails. He was earning eleven thousand instead of six, and they were living in Sycamore Park. He was an executive with a future. New people were coming to call, all sorts of men he had hardly known were calling him Charlie. It was a great crowd in Sycamore Park and he was asked to join the Oak Knoll Country Club. They were a great crowd, in Sycamore Park.

It would have made quite a story, if it could have been written down, how all those families had come to Sycamore Park. They had all risen from a restless sea of comparative nonentity, from that mass of individuals whom you might see in any office. They had all been clerks or salesmen or assistants, digits of what was known as the white-collar class. They had come from different parts of the country, and yet they all spoke the same intellectual language, perhaps because they had all been through the same sort of adventures, on their way to Sycamore Park. They bore the same marks of the competitive struggle, and it was still too early for most of them to look back on that struggle with the complacency that they might achieve in a few years.

They were all in the position of being a little uncertainly in Sycamore Park — high enough above the average to have gained the envy of those below them, and yet not high enough so that those above them might not easily push them down. It was still necessary to balance, and sometimes even to push a little, in Sycamore Park. There was always the possibility that something might go wrong, for exampple in the recession that everyone was saying was due to crop up in the next six or eight months. It was consoling to think that it would be only a recession and not the crash that they had witnessed in 1929. There would obviously be a cutting down of payrolls as soon as business began dropping off.

The people who would catch it first would be the ones in the small executive positions, whose work could be absorbed temporarily. The Sycamore Park crowd did not need to worry about this, for they were no longer in this group or they would not have been at Sycamore Park, but then they were not so far above it. Their own turn might come if the recession was too deep. Then no more Sycamore Park, and no more dreams of leaving it for something bigger, only memories of having been there once. It was something to think about as you went over your checkbook on clear, cold winter nights, wise or lucky to envisage failure. It was better to go to the Club on Thursday evenings and to talk about something else. And that was where Charles Gray was going.

He was frank enough to admit that the Oak Knoll Club was not so good as the older country club at Hawthorne Hill. It was all very well to say that the Hawthorne Hill Club was meant for old men and older dowagers, and that the Oak Knoll was a young man’s club. That was what the Sycamore Park crowd always said, but any one of them would have dropped Oak Knoll like a hot potato if he had been asked to join Hawthorne Hill and could afford a share of stock. Cliff Dunbarten who kept his polo ponies and hunters at the stable at Hawthorne Hill, and who had come to Charles several times at the bank to talk to him about securities, had once asked Charles and Nancy to the house for a drink when he met them walking on Sunday, and had said that any time Charles wanted to get into Hawthorne Hill to let him know.

They might, in some sections of the town, refer to Oak Knoll as the monkey cage, and now that Charles was a member of the House Committee he could see what they meant, but at the same time you could enjoy yourself at Oak Knoll, and even some of the Hawthorne Hill crowd still kept their memberships. You did not have to worry so much about the furniture at Oak Knoll. If you wanted, you could drink a little more there. You could be more relaxed, within reason, but not if you were a member of the House Committee. When Charles was hanging up his hat and coat in the men’s coatroom, the first person he saw was Cliff Dunbarten, who looked more relaxed than usual.

“Why hello,” he said, “if it isn’t Mr. Gray.”

“That’s right,” Charles said. “The name’s Gray,” and he was tempted to go a little further. He was tempted to add, “fancy seeing you here,” but he checked himself. He did not know Cliff Dunbarten well enough to be familiar. Still, they smiled at each other, and he wished very much that he could be more like Cliff Dunbarten, being happy wherever he was and not caring a damn about anything. But then Cliff Dunbarten could afford it.

“Margie’s away,” Cliff Dunbarten said, and Charles realized that he must be referring to Mrs. Dunbarten. “She never can stand this place. Margie isn’t, what you’d call democratic, but this is quite a party.”

“I wouldn’t know,” Charles said. “I just got here. But it must be if you say so.”

“I’ve always kept my membership here,” Cliff Dunbarten said, “out of community spirit. Frankly, Charlie, there are some very amusing types in this place. I’ve got to get around more, I’m having a wonderful time. How about having a drink?”

“I’d like to a little later, but not right now,” Charles said.

It was obvious that Cliff Dunbarten was quite tight or he would not have called him Charlie.

“Have you got a pencil and a piece of paper?” Cliff went on. “There’s a little number I was dancing with out there and I want to write her name down before I forget it.”

Charles took a fountain pen from his inside pocket, and tore a leaf from the back of his small black notebook. “Where does she live?” he asked.

“She’s a very nice little number,” Cliff Dunbarten said. “Her name is Wisher or Fisher or something, and I never would have met her if I hadn’t come here. She lives in that new development, what is it? Something about a tree?”

“Every new development has something about a tree,” Charles said.

“Don’t interrupt me, let me concentrate.” Cliff Dunbarten placed the notebook page against the wall and began writing slowly. “Bea Fisher. She asked me to call her Bea. I wish I knew what her husband’s name was. She lives in that new, young executive development. I remember the name now, Sycamore Park.”

“That’s right,” Charles said. “She’s Mrs. Tom Fisher.”

“How do you know?”

“Because I live there,” Charles said. “I live in Sycamore Park.”

“By God,” Dunbarten said, “that’s right, of course you do. You’re the only person I’ve even heard of who lives there.”

“Except Bea,” Charles said.

“Except Bea.” Cliff Dunbarten began to laugh. “Well, thanks for the pen, Charlie, and don’t let the sycamores fall on you.”

He was obviously quite tight.

19

WHEN Charles stepped out of the coatroom, though he felt tired he knew he ought to dance, being a member of the House Committee. His ear for music was bad, and in spite of having gone once, secretly, for a furtive course of lessons at the Arthur Murray studio, he had never developed an interesting technique, nor had he ever entirely mastered that secret Arthur Murray step.

The tables had been cleared away from the big room and Sol Blatz and His Orchestra from Stamford were playing in one corner. Everyone said that Mr. Blatz could certainly give, and that he was a marvel with a saxophone, and Mr. Blatz could croon, too. He reached down for his saxophone as Charles was watching, and now he was holding the instrument affectionately, swaying with it, and emitting a series of relaxing, syncopated sounds. For a moment Charles tried to distinguish the beat from the melody, without any particular success, but he knew he should be seen there dancing. Without knowing what the tune was, he was sure that he had heard it during the war in officers’ clubs. It made him think of other crowded rooms of men in uniform and Wacs and Waves all dancing. He could not understand why they all wanted to be there, locked, more or less impersonally, in an embrace with someone else’s wife, gyrating in a slow, middle-aged manner — but then he was not musical.

The first person he saw was Bea Fisher, in the arms of Mr. Swiss. Mr. Swiss had put on weight in the last few years. His face was red, and he was talking rapidly. Then he saw Cliff Dunbarten cut in on them. Then he saw Tom Fisher, dancing with Dotty Jack, the Jacks who had bought the stucco house, the one that had been hard to sell, near the entrance to Sycamore Park. Then he saw Nancy. She was dancing with Cyril lienard, who sold life insurance downtown. Cyril had been talking to him lately about a new endowment policy, and he hoped that Cyril would not bring the subject up again that night. He edged his way carefully across the floor, and Nancy saw him and smiled. They looked as though they had been dancing for quite a while, and Cyril always wanted to change his partners quickly, for business reasons.

“Hello, Cyril,” he said. “I’m going to take Nancy off your hands.”

“Don’t put it that way,” Cyril said. “Nancy and I were talking about you and education. Where’s Bill going to college?”

It was amazing how Cyril always kept business on his mind. Charles knew that he was thinking of one of those educational policies, which would both send the children to a proper school and you to a hospital, if you needed it, and pay damages, too, if the flog bit the milkman.

“Charlie, you and I ought to have a long talk sometime,” Cyril said.

“All right,” Charles answered. “Sometime, Cyril.”

He wished that Cyril had never been taken into Oak Knoll, or at least that he would stop doing business, but then he remembered that he had done the same thing occasionally. He put his arm hastily around Nancy and began to dance.

“Thank God you’ve come. I’ve been dancing with him for ages,” Nancy said, and then she gave him a little squeeze. “Is there any news?”

“Nothing much,” Charles said. “I can’t talk about it here, Nancy.”

“There’s that Dunbarten dancing with Bea Fisher.”

“ Yes, I see. Did he dance with you?”

“ Yes, he danced with me. It was very gracious of him.”

“Oh, don’t say that,” Charles said, “Cliff’s all right.”

“ Well, as long as he doesn’t feel he has to exercise seignioral rights.”

“What?” Charles asked.

“Oh, nothing. All those horsy people are highly sexed. What have you been doing all day?”

“I was stuck in the Whitakers’ apartment.”

“Oh,”Nancy said, “the Whitakers. Did anything else happen? Did you say anything to Tony Burton?”

“No,” Charles said, “not exactly.”

“How do you mean, not exactly?”

“What I say. Not exactly.”

“Roger Blakesley’s here tonight. Have you seen him?”

“No, but I’ve seen him all day.”

“He looks exuberant.”

“Oh,” Charles said, “does he?”

“You look a little tired, darling.”

“Well,” Charles said, “I am tired. Thanks for leaving the car. Whose table did you sit at?”

“Oh, the usual crowd,” Nancy said. “They all missed you.”

“Well, what’s all this about Cliff Dunbarten?”

But there was no time to answer. Someone had clapped him on the shoulder, and they separated. It was Christopher DeMille, who lived two doors away from them and who wrote advertising copy.

“Hello, beautiful,” Christopher said. “Are you two quarreling?”

“No,” Nancy said. “We’re having a second honeymoon.”

“ You ought to see Bess and me,” Christopher said. “We always get fighting here on Thursday nights. There’s something in the atmosphere.”

Charles moved away carefully across the dance floor. He could not imagine why anyone would think that he and Nancy had been quarreling.

Then he danced with Bea Fisher. Even though he was not a good dancer, this was always something of an adventure, not that it was not expected of him and other husbands because of poor Tom Fisher. Charles could never understand why they had taken lately to referring to Bea’s husband as “poor Tom,” and it did not refer to his financial status because he was doing very well. The habit must have started with the rumor that the Fishers were not getting on, and of course this was Boa’s fault and not poor Tom’s. There were also a number of rumors about Bea. Other wives were beginning to say that Bea was beginning to be talked about. There was a story about Bea and a man, a house guest of the Kendricks’, from New York, in poor Tom’s coupe at the Labor Day dance, but no one was quite sure whether it had been Bea or that girl who had come from Old Lyme who looked like Bea. There was also the story about Bea diving into the swimming pool without a stitch on, not a stitch, but Bea herself had said that it had just been a hot summer night and she had just taken off her dress and nothing else. She was more covered than if she had worn a two-piece bathing suit. She hadn’t even taken off her nylons. Still it was always an adventure, a slight step into the unknown, to dance with Bea. She was wearing a new black, sheathlike dress, and the diamond clip that poor Tom had given her.

“Hello, darling,” Bea said. “Have you read any good books lately?”

“I’m trying to read one called Peace of Mind,” Charles said, “but I don’t seem to be getting very far with it.”

“My God,” Bea said, “you’re just like Tom. What do you need peace of mind for? You know what I’ve been thinking? I wish I were a Catholic, I wish that someone could tell me what to do.”

“That’s a great idea,” Charles said, “but then you wouldn’t do it.”

“How do you know I wouldn’t?” Bea asked, and then the music stopped, “Let’s get out of here. Let’s go outside.”

This was not desirable because everyone always noticed who Bea’s partner was whenever she left the dance floor, but then it was too cool outside on the terrace to sit down, and there were other couples out there. When Bea took his arm, he knew that everyone was looking.

“Darling, are you bored?” Bea asked.

“Why, no,” Charles said, “of course I’m not.”

“Well, I am.”

“Never mind,” Charles said, and he laughed. “In just a minute or two the music will be going around and around.”

“And it bores me to think of it,” Bea said. “Everything goes around and around, right back to the same thing. Why can’t you and I talk to each other like two sensible people. I don’t mean about sex. You don’t have that effect on me. To hell with sex.” Her voice had a rasping quality that had a way of carrying into out-of-the-way corners, and tomorrow they would be saying that he and Bea Fisher were talking about sex.

“All right, Bea,” he said, “the hell with sex. Just remember I didn’t bring it up.”

Then Bea began to laugh, and he was annoyed that she found the remark so amusing.

“I don’t have to remember. Darling, I don’t suppose you’ve noticed, I don’t suppose you’ve ever seen, the efforts I’ve made for years, to make you bring it up.”

That was why it was an adventure to dance with Bea Fisher. It was hard to tell whether or not she meant it, but at the same time it was an adventure. It made him think of Bea Fisher in the coupé on Labor Day and of Bea Fisher in the pool.

“Why, Bea,” he said, “don’t give up. Please try again sometime.”

“For years and years,” Bea said. “You’re completely unassailable, darling, but then it wouldn’t work anyway, would it? Our loving friends here surround us with chastity.”

“What?” Charles said. “How do you mean, with chastity?”

“You know what I mean,” Bea answered. Her voice carried beautifully, and he noticed that couples around them had stopped and were listening unobtrusively. “This is the chastest place I know, but that isn’t what I’m talking about.”

It was one of those conversations to which Bea was growing addicted lately. It was interesting, but he wished that the music would start.

“Do we know each other? Or anything about each other? Does anybody around here really know anybody else? We all call each other by our first names, we’re a big happy family doing parlor tricks, but do we know each other, and I don’t mean getting into bed with someone, either.”

“Well, that would be a basis for acquaintance,” Charles said. “At least, that’s what I’ve heard.”

“Well, it isn’t,” Bea said. “I don’t know Tom. I don’t know Tom at all.”

“Listen, Bea,” he said, “ perhaps you’re expecting too much.”

“Exactly why am I expecting too much?”

“I mean,” and he wished he were not being drawn into an argument, “perhaps nobody knows anyone else so very well.”

“Don’t you know Nancy very well?”

It was not a suitable conversation for Oak Knoll, and especially at the end of a long, hard day. It made him feel very sorry for poor Tom.

Then the music started and Charles was very glad of it, and he was glad, too, that Cliff Dunbarten had seen them and was hurrying toward them.

“Have you two about finished?” Cliff asked.

“Why, yes,” Charles said. “We were talking about knowing people, and chastity.”

“Chastity hasn’t got anything to do with it,” Bea said.

“Well, let’s dance,” Cliff said, “in a chaste way.”

Charles watched them move toward the dance floor. It was true, what she said, though she had probably forgotten it already. Everybody there knew a lot about each other, what they ate and drank, how they disciplined their children, and each other’s approximate incomes, yet it was true that very few of them really knew each other. Very few of them were friends, perhaps none of them had time to be friends. Then he knew he should be dancing again, at least once more. Considering everything, it would be advisable to dance with Molly Blakesley, because Roger would hear if he hadn’t.

No matter how advisable it might be, Charles wished that he did not have to dance with Molly Blakesley. When Roger had first brought Molly from Cambridge, Massachusetts, where he had wooed and won her, while he was a student there at the Harvard School of Business Administration, Charles had thought of her only as a plump earnest girl with glasses. She was the daughter of a Harvard Business School professor, had gone to a Cambridge progressive school, and was finishing her junior year at Radcliffe, where she was specializing in social science, when Roger had met her at her father’s house on Coolidge Hill Road. She had been interested in the New Deal in those days and was writing a thesis on the Tennessee Valley Authority, which did not help her to adjust to those parties at Oak Knoll. Once Charles had made a particular effort to be kind to her, but now kindness was no longer necessary. Instead it seemed to him lately that now Molly was the one who was being kind to him.

The trouble with dancing with Molly Blakesley was that they each knew too well what the other was thinking, especially since that situation had arisen at the bank. He was thinking that Molly’s dress must have come from Bergdorf’s and must have cost at least a hundred and fifty dollars, which Roger could afford because the Blakesleys did not have children. They could afford all sorts of other little luxuries too, denied to Charles and Nancy. He wished that he did not keep putting their lives into terms of dollars and cents, but he always seemed to be going over expenses when he danced with Molly Blakesley. The thought flittered across his mind as he saw Molly dancing with Walter Crumm. He cut in.

“Well, well, Charlie,” Walter Crumm said. “Who stole Bea away from you?”

“She said she was bored,” Charles told him. “She said I was unassailable.”

“Well, well,” Walter said. “He didn’t look unassailable, did he, Molly?”

“Oh, were you out there too?” Charles asked.

“We certainly were,” Walter said, “but we won’t tell Nancy, will we, Molly?”

It was all good clean fun, a part of the spirit of Oak Knoll, and you had to take it that way. Yet at the same time, Charles knew that Roger would hear of it, and it was the sort of thing that Roger might be able to use, with Tony Burton, all in good clean fun. As Charles put his arm carefully around Molly’s waist, he was thinking of something he might say about Bea Fisher. But anything he thought of seemed inappropriate.

“Poor Tom,” Molly said, “but it was awfully funny, Charlie. You didn’t look like a banker.”

“Perhaps Roger won’t either,” Charles said, “if Bea gets him out there.”

“Roger wouldn’t let Bea get him out there. You know how Roger can side-step.” Molly smiled at him brightly.

“That must be the Harvard Business School training,” Charles said, and he smiled back.

“Charlie,” Molly said, and she stopped smiling, “seriously, do you know what Roger was saying the other night, when we were just alone in the kitchen, having a drink of beer?”

It was a time to be careful, but Charles still smiled.

“We were talking about you and Nancy, and Roger was saying how glad everyone at the bank was that you were back, Roger particularly. You know how full he is of everything at the bank. And then he said — I hope you won’t think I’m silly repeating this.”

“You never repeat anything that’s silly, Molly,” Charles said.

Molly laughed.

“I love the way you say things, that bittersweet way. Roger loves it, too. He’s very fond of you, Charlie, in case you don’t know it. Well, he was saying how wonderful it was that we were all such good friends, you and Nancy and all of us. And then he said he hoped we always would stay friends, no matter what happens at the bank. You know what I mean,”

“Of course,” Charles said. “Friendship hasn’t anything to do with business, at least it shouldn’t have.”

“I’m awfully glad you feel that way. You won’t mind if I tell Roger, will you? He has such respect for you, Charlie. It’s so embarrassing, isn’t it?”

“It needn’t be embarrassing,” Charles said. “Roger and I are grown up. We know how to handle anything that happens.”

“You know,” Molly spoke more quickly, “I think the war did you a lot of good, Charlie. You gained a lot from the experience. Roger thinks so, too.”

Charles did not answer. He was trying to think that it was kind of her to say it. He wished that he was not always reading between the lines when he talked to Molly Blakesley.

“There’s something I’ve never said to you,” she was saying, “but I’d like to say it, Charlie. I think it was pretty splendid of you, with a wife and two children, to give up everything and go to the war. Roger thinks so, too.”

He wanted to think it was kind of her to say it, but he could not bring himself to care what Roger thought.

“It was a sort of compulsion,” he said. “It wasn’t wise, and it wasn’t much use when I got there.”

“How lovely Nancy looks,” Molly said. “She always looks so lovely in the simplest dress. That’s what Roger always says. How are the children, Charlie?”

“Why, they’re pretty well,” Charles answered, “except they keep turning on the radio.”

“Do you know what Roger said the other day? He’s so sentimental, sometimes. He said he wished they’d call him Uncle Roger.”

It was annoying and it put him in an indefensible position. He wished that he did not keep reading between the lines, and balancing Molly’s kindness against certain probabilities. He was almost sure that Molly would not have made this remark if she had not heard something, which he had not heard, about the bank. And yet it was not kind to think of it. that way.

“Why, that’s quite an idea,” he said. “They have an aunt. They haven’t any uncles.”

Then Owen Martin cut in on them, the Martins who lived next door.

“I’ll see you later, Charlie,” Molly called. “Perhaps we can do something Sunday. Roger would love it, if we could.”

20

IT WAS the right psychological moment for going home, and Nancy understood it. She was waiting for him, aware it was the right time, because, as Nancy often said, she had been a working girl herself. It did not take Nancy half a minute to get her wraps on, and she knew where the key of the car was, too. She was even waiting at the steps of the Club when he drove there from the parking space, instead of allowing herself to be drawn into conversation like other people’s wives.

“Move over. I’ll drive,” Nancy said. There was no need to say never mind, that he would not mind driving. She knew him so well that she knew he was tired, and probably, too, she knew he was disturbed about something and that the combinations of his day had not turned out very well. She knew him well enough, too, not to ask him tactless questions about what was the matter, because she knew that questions did not help. She would wait for him to tell her, because she knew he would, eventually. But then, what was there to tell? There was only disturbance within himself, a sense of premonition that things had not been going exactly right.

“These parties,” he said, “sometimes they’re good and sometimes they’re bad. Did you have a good time, Nancy?”

“Well, yes, in a sort of long-term way.”

“How do you mean, a long-term way?”

“You know,” Nancy said. “It’s what I’ve told you before. I like feeling we belong somewhere. You know it’s what I’ve always wanted.”

“Well, so do I,” Charles said. “So does everyone.”

He was never worried about Nancy’s driving. She knew every turn on the road home, and she took each turn as unconsciously as a taxi driver.

“It isn’t the same for a man,” she said. “He always belongs much more than a woman, up to a certain point. A woman just has to tag along. It’s nice, when she likes tagging.”

“What did you do all day?” Charles asked.

There was a slight pause before she answered.

“You always ask that. You don’t have to. I’ve had a good day.”

“I know I don’t have to,” Charles said. “I just want to know. Why was it a good day?”

“You wouldn’t understand it,” Nancy said. “It’s partly being a woman. Well, when I left you at the train, I took the car to the Acme place and had the choke fixed. Do you notice the engine doesn’t race?”

“That’s right,” Charles said. “I notice now.”

“Then I went to the A & P and bought some corned beef. You like corned beef, don’t you?”

“How much is it a pound now?” Charles asked.

“Sixty-two cents.”

“God,” Charles said. “Sixty-two cents.”

“Then I left Bill’s shoes at that place below the drugstore, that new Italian place. Then I came back and worked on the bills.”

“How were they?” Charles asked.

“They were terrible. There were two mistakes again on the Thaxter bill, always plus mistakes. I called him up about it. I wanted him to know I could add. And then the children came home, and Evelyn and I glued the back of your old chair in the hall, and then I read to Evelyn for a while. It was a very nice day.”

“I’m glad you liked it,” Charles said, “but I don’t see why.”

“Oh, I forgot,” Nancy said. “Mrs. Mullin is coming to clean tomorrow, and I think she’s going to come regularly, three times a week. It was a damn nice day, and I’ll tell you why.”

They had passed through the gates of Sycamore Park, up the blue gravel of their own short drive, and the car had stopped.

“I’ll tell you why,” Nancy said, “because I’m married to a damn nice man. That’s the only possible reason I can think of. Now get out and open the garage door and don’t jerk at it.”

Charles opened it carefully and stood holding it so that it would not swing to while Nancy drove the car inside, close to the garden tools, and shut off the lights. Then she was beside him in the dark.

“And now you can give me a kiss,” she said.

Only the light at the top of the stairs was lighted, but the switch was just beside the door. There was a smell of fresh floor wax from the living room, and a moist smell in the dining room from Nancy’s potted plants.

“Darling,” Nancy said, “isn’t it a lovely house?”

“Yes, it’s a swell house,” Charles said, but he was not worried about the house at the moment. Nancy had taken off her evening wrap and was straightening her hair in the mirror.

“I know it’s got outs about it,” Nancy said, “but don’t forget one thing. You and I did this by ourselves, without any so-and-so to help us. I suppose you think it’s a corny thing to say, but that’s why it’s a nice house.”

Of course a house was largely a state of mind, but his state of mind was better.

“And now come in and look at the living room floor,” Nancy said. “Do you want a glass of milk before you go to bed?”

The last thing he wanted was a glass of milk, and the living room was always so neat that he had never felt at home in it. The logs in the fireplace had a little paper fan beneath them, ready for a match, but the fire was too beautifully constructed for him to want to disturb the logs by lighting them, especially so late in the evening.

“We ought to use this room more, shouldn’t we?” Nancy said. “I wonder why we don’t.”

“That’s easy,” Charles said. “Because we’re afraid of it.”

“Well, let’s not be afraid of it,” Nancy said, and she lighted a cigarette. “Charlie, take off your coat and sit down on the sofa. There’s no reason to worry about picking it up if Mrs. Mullin is coming three times a week. She never breaks anything.” Nancy kicked off her slippers. “Don’t say we’re afraid of this room. I don’t like it.”

“Why not?” Charles asked.

“Because I don’t like being afraid,” Nancy said. “I don’t mean that I’m afraid of anything. I only mean I don’t like the idea. You know what I mean.”

He knew what Nancy meant, and every word added only made a top-heavy structure, destined eventually for a clumsy fall. It was like the match game so popular before the war, that late evening pastime in which you laid a match over the mouth of the bottle and then your partner laid one beside it, and so it went until there was a structure of matches rising in the air. The loser was the one who put on the last match and tipped it over. Nancy had put on the last match. The room was uncomfortable and strange, in an entirely new way that made him seem to see it and Nancy too through a lens that had suddenly come into focus.

“Nancy,” Charles said, “we didn’t use to be afraid.”

She was sitting opposite him, very straight, on one of those small upholstered chairs.

“Oh, are you afraid, too?” he heard her ask, and though his instinct was already preparing him to answer that of course he was not, he found himself nodding slowly.

“Well, you might have told me,” Nancy said.

At least there was no need to tell what they were both afraid of because it was right there in the room. “It’s all relative, you know, Nancy.”

“What relative?” She spoke impatiently when she did not understand something clearly.

“The more you get, the more afraid you get. That’s all I mean,” Charles said. “Maybe fear’s what makes the world go round.”

“Not love?” Nancy said, and she tilted her head sideways. “I used to hear that it was love.”

It reminded him of the first night he had taken Nancy anywhere and when they were both probably trying to impress each other. There was the same atmosphere of suspense, the same effort of trying to be at one’s best, and the same intense consciousness of each other. It was almost like falling in love, an unfamiliar sensation, now, but they were talking about fear.

“Of course,” Charles said. “Everyone’s always afraid of something. It’s chronic. Afraid of living, afraid of dying. I saw a good many people specializing on that one a while ago. Maybe it’s better than being afraid of money. That’s what the boys are afraid of downtown, but the point is, everybody’s afraid of something. Do you know what I wish?”

“What?” Nancy asked.

“I wish we weren’t always being pushed around. I’d like for once in my life to be able to tell someone to go to hell.”

She was smiling at him, as he had seen her smile at Bill when he had asked for an impossible Christmas present.

“Darling,” she said, “you have the most expensive tastes. You’d better just tell me to go to hell, if you want to, and let it go at that.”

“All right,” Charles said, “but it isn’t the same thing, is it?”

“Maybe it isn’t,” Nancy said, “but I’m awfully glad we’re afraid of the same thing. It’s healthy to have things in common. Tell me, what did Molly have to say?”

“She said you looked lovely in the plainest frock,” Charles said, “and Roger thinks so, too, and he wants the children to call him Uncle Roger, and they want us all to do something together on Sunday. Wait a minute, that isn’t all. There’s something else I’ve got to tell you. I’m taking the plane to Boston first thing in the morning. I’m going up to Clyde for a day or two on business, for the bank.”

He saw Nancy’s lips tighten. Then he saw her grind the end of her cigarette carefully into an ash tray.

“How did Clyde get into it?” she asked.

At last he was telling her the details of the meeting in the conference room and about the collateral on the loan and the stock in that company in Clyde. Then he told about Tony Burton’s having called him later. It was a relief to go through it all again with Nancy because Nancy knew office politics as well as he did. It was a relief to go into it fully. Nancy was sitting up straight again, following every word.

“So you’ve got to go away for a day or two right now?” she asked. “At just this time?”

“Yes, it looks that way,” Charles said.

“Roger Blakesley lived it, didn’t he?”

“Yes,” Charles said again, “it looks that way.”

“Why didn’t you do anything about it? Why didn’t you ask them to send someone else?

“I thought of it,” he said, “but I think that anything I might have said would have made it worse. You’d have thought so, too.”

“If I’d been there, I’d have done something,” Nancy said. “Something. Anything.”

“No,” Charles told her, “you just think so because you’re here. If you’d been there, you’d have let it go. Besides —” He stopped and stared at the design on the Isfahan rug - no animals, nothing but symbols. “I don’t think it makes much difference. I think Tony Burton’s about made up his mind which of us he wants. It’s taken him quite a while. He hates to make decisions.”

Suddenly Nancy stood up.

“Then if he’s made up his mind, for God’s sakes why doesn’t he tell you instead of letting us — letting us —” Her voice choked on the last words and she swallowed. Charles sat looking up at her.

“Because perhaps he doesn’t like to do it,” Charles said. “Tony’s quite a nice guy, as far as anyone like him can be nice. I think we’ll get the news when we go there to dinner. He almost said so.”

Nancy stood looking straight ahead of her. She did not answer, and Charles went on.

“Besides, maybe it’s just as well for me to be away. Tony knows Roger worked it, at least I think he knows. Maybe Roger will try a little too much. Tony’s rather bright sometimes.”

Nancy still stood there and he noticed that her hands were clenched.

“If he picks out that damn fool he isn’t bright.”

“I only said,” Charles told her, “that he’s pretty bright sometimes.”

It made him impatient to be tied down by the trivialities of what Tony Burton thought or what Roger Blakesley did. Nancy was no longer staring in front of her at nothing. She was looking at him in a level, appraising way. She seemed to be trying to put herself in Tony Burton’s place, making up her mind, balancing his faults against his advantages, wondering whether he had the personality and the broad-gauge ability to occupy one of the front desks.

“Listen,” Charles said, “it doesn’t do any good trying to look like a statue on a courthouse.”

“If you’d only get mad,” Nancy said. “Haven’t you any idea at all, which one of you he’s going to take?”

Then Charles felt a slight twinge of anger, but there was nothing whatsoever he could do about it.

“Charles,” Nancy asked, “what’s the matter?”

“Nothing,” Charles said.

“Charlie,” she said, “what’ll you do if he takes Roger?”

“Nancy,” he said, “let’s not think about it now.”

But of course he was worrying about it now.

“Charlie,” Nancy said, “if you’d ever done something about investing for yourself instead of for other people.”

“Nance, you know very well, you don’t do that when you’re working for a bank.”

Nancy sighed and stood up again.

“Well,” she said, “I guess we’d better go to bed.” Charles stood up, too. “You go ahead,” he said. “I’ll be up in a few minutes. Good night, Nance.”

Then after he had kissed her, she buried her head on his shoulder. She made no sound but he knew she was crying, and it always gave him a completely helpless feeling when she cried.

“Don’t, Nance,” he said. “The show isn’t over.”

“I’m sorry, Charlie,” Nancy said. “I’m all right now. You always hated having me cry, didn’t you?”

“Yes,” Charles said. “Go on up to bed, Nance. I’ll be up in just a minute.”

“Are you sorry you married me?”

“No,” Charles said, “of course not, Nancy. It’s been swell.”

“I suppose I sort of made you marry me.” “Why, Nance,” Charles said, “I never noticed that you did.”

“Are you sorry we had the children?”

“No, of course I’m not,” Charles said.

“They were my idea more than yours. Are you sorry we bought the house?”

“Listen, Nancy,” Charles said, “it happened, like the children. Now go on up and go to sleep. I’ll be up in just a minute.”

“What are you going to do?” Nancy asked. “Are you going to sit here and worry?”

“No, I’m not,” he told her. “I’m not sleepy. I’m going to read for a little while.”

“Because if you’re going to worry, we might as well do it together.”

“I’m going to read,” Charles said. “I’m pretty well worried out tonight. Good night, Nance.’ And he kissed her again, and walked with her to the foot of the stairs. “I’ll be down in the library.”

“Don’t be long,” Nancy said. “I won’t be able to get to sleep till you come up.”